The Satanic Panic: How the McMartin Preschool Case Fueled 1980s Hysteria

[00:00:00] Kyle Risi: So when the news breaks that satanists were behind this, the other children start coming forward with their own satanic accounts of their abuse.

[00:00:08] Kyle Risi: And kids talk about seeing babies getting murdered, but clearly the police are like, there are no reports of missing babies or dead babies showing up anywhere.

[00:00:17] Adam Cox: I'm glad the police finally have a clue.

[00:00:19] Kyle Risi: Well do they? Oh, so people start developing this theory that Satanists are having children at home and choosing not to register them so they can then use them as human sacrifice.

[00:00:31] Kyle Risi: And everyone believes it because, nobody seems to be thinking anymore. Of course, the police ~kind of ~find no wounds on Matthew.

[00:00:39] Kyle Risi: Well, this is what

[00:00:39] Adam Cox: I was gonna say, when his ears was stapled, he'd come home. And she wouldn't, have gone, matthew, what's, yeah, what's going on with your ears today? Yeah.

[00:00:46] Kyle Risi: What honey? What's this? What's the vibe you're going for

[00:00:49] Adam Cox: today? But yeah, clearly she's born to the hysteria and she's turned absolutely crazy. [00:01:00] Welcome to the compendium and assembly of Shadows of an era gone by where panic wasn't just for the disco.

[00:01:27] Adam Cox: Panic for the disco. Are we talking about like the band?

[00:01:29] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Okay. ~Very, ~very fitting for this week's episode. I know you dunno what we're talking

[00:01:33] Adam Cox: about, but ~I have no, ~I have no idea.

[00:01:34] Adam Cox: We're talking about music this

[00:01:35] Kyle Risi: week. ~Well, ~we'll come onto to that. Okay. Should we do introductions? Let's do it. For those of you tuning in for the very first time, I'm your host, Kyle Risi. And

[00:01:42] Adam Cox: I'm your co-host

[00:01:42] Kyle Risi: Adam Cox. You are listening to the Compendium and Assembly of fascinating and intriguing things.

[00:01:47] Kyle Risi: We are a weekly variety podcast where I, Kyle Risi, tell Adam Cox all about a topic that I think you'll find both fascinating and intriguing. Before we get into that, how are you doing?

[00:01:57] Kyle Risi: I'm okay.

[00:01:58] Adam Cox: All good. We went to see,~ uh,~ Pete Tong [00:02:00] last night. Slightly sore head today, but otherwise all good.

[00:02:02] Kyle Risi: You got very drunk and very jumpy. But what was really interesting is like, it was, so it was Pete Tong in Earlham Park in the area that we live in. I was really intrigued by the demographic of the people that were there. 'cause they were all in their, late thirties and forties.

[00:02:19] Kyle Risi: Yeah, there were,

[00:02:20] Adam Cox: it was, yeah, there were us. It was a mixture. ~It was, ~it was classic iha and I think that's the songs from the nineties. Mm. 30 years ago.

[00:02:27] Kyle Risi: But why has it not attracted a younger audience?

[00:02:30] Adam Cox: Yeah. I don't know. But I think ~it was, ~it was good. It was nostalgic, but ~kind of ~a different take on it. So

[00:02:34] Kyle Risi: yeah, it was it was really good. Yeah. So the other thing that I have for you today, I was browsing Reddit. And I saw this incredible interview on the streets of New York, I think. Where this guy was talking with strangers about ~kind of ~their fashion choices. Mm-hmm. Like, sweetie, what's this, what was the inspiration behind this today? Okay. And,~ um,~ so he gets chatting to this guy, they have a conversation, and straight away the conversation just takes a really [00:03:00] somber turn.

[00:03:01] Kyle Risi: And first of all, he's like, your glasses, they're, they're screwed. Like, what happened to your glasses? And he was like, actually it was fall out from an incident last year where he died.

[00:03:12] Adam Cox: What? Yeah. Anyway. Right. I'm just gonna have to play the clip. Okay. Because it's incredible

[00:03:17] Kyle Risi: Your glasses is gone. like what? How is, how did that happen? ~Uh, ~I had a seizure. Really? Yeah. It's pretty crazy to talk about, but,~ uh,~ yeah, I had a seizure last week. And it's a fallout from like my death from last year. I died. I died. You're death. Yeah. I,~ uh,~ had what's called a cran or I had a blood clot on my brain. It grew to the size of my brain.

[00:03:38] Kyle Risi: What popped my skull open? When I was working at finale Cafe. ~Uh, ~this happened when you were at work? Yeah. And then,~ uh,~ I was in a coma for two weeks. I was pronounced dead. My vitals came back on the ambulance. I survived a six hour surgery. It's called a C Craniectomy. ~Um, ~and it was a 42% fatality rate.

[00:03:56] Kyle Risi: And ~uh, ~my doctor calls me Coin Flipper 'cause I flipped a [00:04:00] coin on my life and I had a bad coin and I still won. Whoa. So wait, so you essentially So he died. That's

[00:04:06] Adam Cox: so weird for him. Just go. Oh yeah. It was back from when I died

[00:04:09] Kyle Risi: last year. Yeah. So casual. Yeah. But now what's incredible is he describes what it was like to die.

[00:04:16] Kyle Risi: Right. Okay. Let's

[00:04:17] Adam Cox: continue

[00:04:18] Kyle Risi: how did that feel? What was the experience like? Peaceful. Peaceful. Yeah. Really. Like what did you see? Like, did you see anything? Nothing really. You don't see anything all, I mean, I'm not saying nobody sees anything. Right. Uh, I did not see anything. And I've always thought stories like that are kind of like BSS or whatever, but now that I've been through it, what I can say is true that a lot of people say is life flashes before your eyes.

[00:04:43] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. Like every, every memory I'm telling you, every single memory you've ever made in your entire life will rush past you at like light speed. And you get to a point where whatever pain you might be feeling, you don't feel anymore. And you'll [00:05:00] kind of just start to not even understand what's going on.

[00:05:03] Kyle Risi: And then either you'll be back or you won't. Wow. But it's very peaceful and honestly, one of the hardest things I've had to deal with is accepting to be back alive after I die. Wow. Wait. So it's harder for you to accept you're alive than being dead. Yes, it was Wow. Really peaceful. And it honestly is something that,~ uh,~ I struggled with for a long time.

[00:05:23] Kyle Risi: Yeah. And I'm feeling better now. Uh, geez. And I hope it always stays that way. Wow. So until then, yeah. We just ~like ~are gonna That's crazy.

[00:05:32] Adam Cox: Wow. Guy. He generally seems quite gutted, doesn't he? In a

[00:05:35] Kyle Risi: way? He, he does. Isn't that incredible? So, of course he like, he's kinda almost corroborating what we have always heard about dying without the, you see something, you're not walking into the light or anything.

[00:05:46] Kyle Risi: Yeah. All these gates or whatever. But what really disturbed me was that he was gutted. Mm-hmm. That he didn't die. There must

[00:05:54] Adam Cox: be some kind of chemical release in your brain where you, it sounds like that in terms of your, it's [00:06:00] your body, ~uh, kind of ~adjusting or getting you prepared or like calm and like comfortable with dying.

[00:06:05] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Some kind of degree of euphoria. He just comes to peace with it. Yeah. Maybe it's your body's way of keeping you calm yeah, isn't that just incredible? That is, isn't it? I've been thinking about that ever since, like we came back from holiday mm-hmm.

[00:06:18] Kyle Risi: It does give me a little bit less anxiety about the prospect of dying and this whole idea that your body almost wants it.

[00:06:28] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. Do you know what I mean? So I'm a little bit less afraid of it. I'm still petrified, but I am seeing it through a different lens now.

[00:06:36] Adam Cox: But then was he given drugs by the ambulance and stuff like

[00:06:40] Kyle Risi: that to kind of mm-hmm. Well, in the very beginning he says that in the interview he says that he died in the ambulance.

[00:06:45] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. I doubt there was anything that he could have been given at that moment in time. Maybe morphine? Why would they give you morphine though? Right? In pain? Morphine. So you kind of keep you comfortable. Yeah. But

[00:06:55] Adam Cox: if you're in a lot of pain.

[00:06:56] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Interesting. Yeah.

[00:06:58] Kyle Risi: So in today's episode of the [00:07:00] Compendium, We are going to be delving in to the biggest high profile child abuse case in US criminal history where the spotlight falls on a small family run nursery in Southern California, known as the McMartin Preschool, in Manhattan Beach, where over 300 charges of child molestation are levied against.

[00:07:21] Kyle Risi: Its 76 year old founder Virginia McMartin. That's a woman, a female right, as well as her daughter and her two grandchildren. This case became emblematic of what is now known as the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, and it ignited a huge media frenzy that shook the US and instilled fear and panic amongst parents for over 10 bloody years.

[00:07:48] Kyle Risi: As the McMartin preschool case unraveled, investigators would eventually uncover allegations of more than 1,400 children claiming that they had suffered sexual abuse. Oh wow. At [00:08:00] the hands of the McMartin staff allegedly linking to a Pedophilic Satanic cult network that supposedly spanned the entire U S A and implicated thousands of elites in sickening acts of child sacrifice, animal killings, child pornography, Satan, worship, cannibalism, and bestiality.

[00:08:23] Kyle Risi: How have we not heard

[00:08:24] Adam Cox: about this? I mean, I've heard like people talk about Satan and like worshipers and as bad, but I've never heard to this extent.

[00:08:30] Kyle Risi: Wow. This is the crazy thing though, right? So it's nearly four decades since obviously this all unraveled. Mm-hmm. And while it may have been forgotten, its impact can still be seen today.

[00:08:41] Kyle Risi: So in today's episode, I'll tell you what happened at the McMartin Preschool, how these events were even able to take place, and the major events that led up to and following the McMartin preschool case, as well as the far reaching consequences of the satanic manic of the 1980s.

[00:08:57] Kyle Risi: So normally at this point, I'd say, what do [00:09:00] you know about this? Well, clearly nothing, but you know nothing. I mean,

[00:09:03] Adam Cox: it sounds worse

[00:09:03] Kyle Risi: than Jim will fix it. So if you don't know who Jim will fix it is. Jim will fix it. Was this. Like I would describe him as a UK national treasure. He was, and actually when you look back at him now, when you think about him, he looked freaking creepy. Creepy as hell. You would,

[00:09:20] Adam Cox: you would not let him near

[00:09:22] Kyle Risi: children. But people loved him.

[00:09:24] Kyle Risi: Yeah. He was this kind of old guy, had these weird little round glasses. Really pasty skin, really old blonde hair. Smoke a cigar, smoked a cigar, wore a red track

[00:09:32] Adam Cox: suit presented like music show kids shows, things like that. Family entertainment.

[00:09:37] Kyle Risi: Yeah. And the gym will fix it. Reference comes in where like he, a kid would ~like ~send in a wish and he would make it happen.

[00:09:43] Kyle Risi: Is that right? Yeah. I think America has a very similar thing, but it was all run by this guy. Yeah. Who ended up being one of the most prolific. I can't even, we can't even call him a pedophile 'cause he just didn't discriminate. ~He, ~he fiddled with old grannies. He fiddled with men, he fiddled with everyone.

[00:09:58] Kyle Risi: Yeah. It's kind of, he was

[00:09:59] Adam Cox: just [00:10:00] prolific. Yeah, he was a

[00:10:01] Kyle Risi: proper pest. And what makes it crazy is that he was deeply affiliated and celebrated and liked and like in the same circles as people like Prince Charles. Mm. So maybe he deserves his own episode. Maybe. God, maybe.

[00:10:17] Adam Cox: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. ~Well ~I'm intrigued to see what this is gonna

[00:10:19] Kyle Risi: be about.


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[00:10:20] Kyle Risi: So, Adam, let's begin. Our story is gonna start with a woman named Judy Johnson. She's a young mother who had been navigating a turbulent marriage while also grappling with the heart-wrenching reality that her young eight year old son had an inoperable ~brain, ~brain tumor. Mm-hmm. Now amongst having another young child to care for, Judy's mental health was ailing and she was struggling to navigate the many difficult and different medical procedures that her son needed to undergo just to keep him alive.

[00:10:49] Kyle Risi: Now, as a result, she develops this deep resentment towards doctors, which develops like into ~like ~an irrational fear and suspicion of them. And Judy is [00:11:00] also a Christian religious fundamentalist. So all the science and the medical procedures and all that advice and stuff, it just puts her at odds with the kind of the doctors at the time.

[00:11:12] Kyle Risi: Overall, with everything that Judy is going through, you can imagine this is a very stressful situation for her. Mm-hmm. Now, amongst all of this, Judy mistakenly fails to enroll her youngest son Matthew, into a preschool, and now time has run out. Preschool year is about to start, and there are no openings for him at all in any of the schools in the district or in the area or anything.

[00:11:36] Kyle Risi: So Judy decides that on the first day of school, she's simply just gonna leave Matthew outside of school really with a note, essentially saying you have to take him. Sorry, not sorry. Wow.

[00:11:47] Adam Cox: Yeah. Brazen. ~That's, ~that's bold.

[00:11:49] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Yeah. So that school is the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach in California. Now, the nursery school was a family run school founded by a woman [00:12:00] called Virginia McMartin and employed several of her family members, including her daughter, Peggy McMartin, and Peggy's son, Ray Bucky.

[00:12:08] Kyle Risi: Okay. Now initially, Virginia wants to reject Matthew 'cause he's not playing by the rules, right? Mm-hmm. That's, you don't just leave your kid outside of preschool. Maybe in the eighties you did, but. That's just not the thing to do, especially when it seems that way. Yeah. Like you have a set number of teachers per student ratio kind of thing.

[00:12:26] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Moms, if there's no room

[00:12:27] Adam Cox: in the class, there's not

[00:12:28] Kyle Risi: any spare pencils. What if there's no little hook for him? Yeah. To hang up his little coat,

[00:12:32] Kyle Risi: however, so what happens is, Peggy, that Virginia's daughter, she manages to persuade her mother to show compassion towards Judy's situation and make an exception for Matthew, which,~ um,~ is a decision that will soon take an unexpected turn.

[00:12:45] Adam Cox: Yeah. I have a feeling that she perhaps should have dropped him off at a different school.

[00:12:48] Kyle Risi: I think so, but again, who knows? Okay. Who knows? So a short while later in June, Matthew says something that catches Judy's attention and he mentions that it's really painful when he makes a bowel [00:13:00] movement. And it's also really difficult for him to sit down.

[00:13:03] Kyle Risi: So concern Judy investigates the, ~you know, ~impacted area ~Right. ~And decides that she's gonna keep an eye on it,~ um,~ over the next few days. Okay. But by July, Matthew is still having difficulty pooping and his anus is now irritated and swollen, and he's now complaining that is really itchy. Okay. So Judy takes Matthew to the hospital, where after evaluating him, the doctor suspects that Judy's frequently examinations poking around his little bum hole.

[00:13:29] Kyle Risi: Yeah, I was gonna say has likely caused her to pass on her own vaginal fungal infection onto him. Oh, I, no, poor thing. So, during this visit, the doctor carries out a series of rudimentary checks and mentions that he wants to take Matthew's temperature, but he's gonna do it rectally. Okay. Do you remember, do you ever have your temperature taken rectally?

[00:13:46] Kyle Risi: I don't think I ever had. I think I have. I don't, it's not unpleasant.

[00:13:51] Kyle Risi: Okay.

[00:13:52] Adam Cox: I wouldn't choose to have it done. No.

[00:13:54] Kyle Risi: So, In this moment, Matthew comments that this is what Ray does to him and of [00:14:00] course he's referring to taking the temperature, not the method.

[00:14:02] Adam Cox: Okay. ~Right. ~Otherwise, like who's Ray? What's Ray been doing

[00:14:05] Kyle Risi: exactly.

[00:14:05] Kyle Risi: Ray is obviously Matthew's preschool teacher, and so this grabs Judy's attention. So she quizzes the doctor on whether or not it's possible that Matthew's discomfort was a result of Ray abusing her son. But the doctor emphasizes that ~like, ~if this was the case, like Matthew would show severe signs of trauma, like no shit, like he's two years old.

[00:14:26] Adam Cox: Yeah. ~I mean, ~but not to go into too much detail, but I imagine, ~you know, ~just a thermometer

[00:14:30] Kyle Risi: isn't gonna No. And from what he can see is that Matthew just has like minor irritation. Mm-hmm. But this deeply frustrates Judy.

[00:14:38] Kyle Risi: So let's talk about Ray for a second. So Ray Bucky is the grandson of 76 year old Virginia McMartin, who he is of course, the founder of the McMartin preschool.

[00:14:47] Kyle Risi: And he's also the son of Peggy McMartin. ~Right. ~That's the other member of staff. Okay. So Peggy is the daughter of Virginia. Yes. So it's like several generations that are working at the school and the McMartin preschool ~as, ~as I said already is a [00:15:00] family run business, so it's not unusual for Ray to be working there.

[00:15:03] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. Right. So before the allegations, Ray Bucky had no criminal record and doesn't seem the kind of, the type to molest kids at all. He's quite gentle when you see kind of videos of him in the, in, in the court case and stuff, but people do see him as just a little bit. Kind of non-conventional. And there's no doubt in my mind that these assertions about him comes out after he's arrested.

[00:15:26] Kyle Risi: Right. Because I think before then he'd just be completely normal. ~Right? Right. ~Okay. So basically what I'm trying to say here is that people describe him as a bit of a beach bum hinting at ~kind of ~like his laid back Southern California beach lifestyle.

[00:15:36] Kyle Risi: And the only thing that's notable here is that Ray would often not wear underwear. So when he would sit down, you would get a glimpse of his good through his kind of like rich legs at school. Probably not at school. I think they're talking about like just in his general lifestyle. I'm sure he's very professional at school.

[00:15:50] Adam Cox: Yeah. Put the mouse back

[00:15:51] Kyle Risi: in the house, please put the mouse back in the house. How many more friends references can we fit into this podcast? 24 episodes here. I [00:16:00] dunno. So by this time in the 1980s, The perception of male preschool teachers was ~kind of ~a complex subject. So it's ~kind of ~similar to what it is today, but there was a time where that wasn't the case.

[00:16:13] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. Now typically preschool teachers were predominantly female. ~Right. ~And as we know, this is still the case today. And this is largely a result of the changing attitudes towards men in close proximity to children in the preceding decades leading up to the 1980s. 'cause there was a time when this was completely normal mm-hmm.

[00:16:30] Kyle Risi: For men to be working as preschool teachers. ~Right. Um, ~and also society was starting to ~kind of ~view male educators with a little bit of skepticism and kind of suspicion. So I wanna stop there. Okay. 'cause I want us to take a little step back and I want to tell you a bit about the two decades ~that ~that led up to this precise moment.

[00:16:48] Kyle Risi: Because it will give us an understanding of how these attitudes towards men in close proximity to children came about. And the shit show that is about to unfold, which is the [00:17:00] McMartin preschool case.

[00:17:01] Kyle Risi: And how this is even allowed to happen in the first place. Because the 1980s Satanic panic, i e what Judy Johnson is about to kick off after her doctor's visit doesn't just erupt out of nowhere. Alright? Okay. Instead, it grows from the seeds that was sown in the previous 20 years.

[00:17:18] Kyle Risi: And with increased mounting, cultural, social, and political tensions, it's then allowed to erupt. It's political. It's political baby, right?

[00:17:29] Kyle Risi: So during the time between the 1960s and the 1970s, several high profile events centered around the occult started grabbing the media's attention and breaking into the mainstream. For instance, the Charles Manson, the family kind of deal.

[00:17:45] Kyle Risi: Have you ever heard of Charles Manson? Yep. Yep. So, real high level, Charles Manson led,~ uh,~ a cult called the Family in the 1960s who believed in the apparent prophesized kinda race war called the Helter Skelter at. The [00:18:00] time. Satan worship was not a core aspect of the family, but the brutal nature of their crimes and Charles's kind of manipulative personality led to associating the group with Satanic practices.

[00:18:11] Kyle Risi: ~Uh, ~in 1969, however, Charles ordered his followers to commit a bunch of murders, including the famous case of the Sharon Tate murder. Mm-hmm. And that's what he is known for. So this grabbed the media's attention ~kind of ~throughout the 1960s.

[00:18:26] Kyle Risi: And then at this time we also have the infamous Zodiac Killer, who was active in the Northern California region during the 1960s and the early 1970s. And he was known for sending kind of cryptic letters to the media and to the police. Yep. And again, This wasn't directly linked with satanism in any way, but the eerie nature of the crimes led loads of people to speculate and ~kind of ~develop these myths that would suggest ~kind of ~the, this kind of occult connection.

[00:18:52] Kyle Risi: So additionally, the Church of Satan was also established in the 1960s as well, and had grown to around 5,000 [00:19:00] members by the like of the 1980s. Now again, misconceptions. Misconceptions. Misconceptions. Okay. Because followers of the Church of Satan don't actually worship Satan at all. Did you know this?

[00:19:11] Kyle Risi: No, I was

[00:19:12] Adam Cox: just about to say, how did this come about? How do you start a church?

[00:19:15] Kyle Risi: ~Well, ~okay. Is there a register? ~Well, ~this was during a time, like in the 1940s that led into the 1950s and then the 1960s and then the seventies where you have ~like, ~Churches like Scientology. ~Mm-hmm. ~They ~kind of like ~come about,~ uh,~ all the different cults that come about.

[00:19:28] Kyle Risi: People are just exploring and experimenting with faith and kind of ~like ~these different movements. So it all ~kind of ~comes out of this hotbed of these things that are happening at the time. My point is, They don't actually worship fucking Satan.

[00:19:41] Kyle Risi: Instead, the church sees Satan as the symbol of ~kind of ~like personal freedom, indulgence, and individualism, and not as like a physical being. ~Right. ~It's ~kind of ~like ~a, ~a way ~it's, ~it's ~kind of like, ~it's ~kind of ~like an anti kind of thing. Like it's, oh, we want to go for everything. That's the opposite of [00:20:00] what theology kind of states.

[00:20:02] Kyle Risi: ~Right. ~Okay. But

[00:20:02] Adam Cox: they're not actually worshiping a guy

[00:20:04] Kyle Risi: with horns? ~No, ~no, they're not. Not at all. ~Right. ~But he is their symbol, if you will, but I think it's about what he stands for. So the church is actually rooted in an atheistic and a materialistic philosophy which places a focus on the tangible here and now, rather than any afterlife.

[00:20:19] Kyle Risi: So it's the complete rejection. Of theology, they do have a Bible though, and it is called the Satanic Bible, but it's all about this idea of promoting kinda rational self-interest, personal responsibility, individualism and critical thinking and things like that.

[00:20:34] Kyle Risi: This feels

[00:20:35] Adam Cox: ~like, uh, ~what you have on like Instagram now when people like start your own business and follow these guides and more of a, like ~a, ~a help or a way approach it,~ but,~

[00:20:42] Kyle Risi: but all while rejecting the old kind of ~like, ~oh, you don't wanna work ~in a, ~in a cubicle. Like why would you do that? ~Like, ~you wanna come to work in like slacks and jeans and flip flops, ~you know?~

[00:20:51] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Or start your own

[00:20:52] Adam Cox: business. Don't do nine to five. That kind of,

[00:20:54] Kyle Risi: I'm loving the pra the parallels that we're drawing ~between, ~between the two. And also the thing to remember is that [00:21:00] 5,000 members is not a huge amount to ultimately fuel public concern. So naturally the catalyst that is obviously bringing all this kind of satanism kind of claims and fears to the mainstream.

[00:21:12] Kyle Risi: Is of course the media. Of course the media surprise, surprise. And why? Because preying on the unfounded fears and anxieties of a society is a super solid way of selling more papers. Which is of course a running bloody theme in all of our podcasts. Pretty much. Yep.

[00:21:29] Kyle Risi: So simultaneously movies like the Exodus,~ uh,~ were dramatizing kind of fears of satanism and kind of possession and rituals. And all of this was all being noticed by ~kind of ~Christian religious movements who had started loading their sermons with fears about satanism being on the rise across America.

[00:21:49] Kyle Risi: And so this fear begins to instill itself into the psyche of like just the ordinary American. And this fear is also what helps the church [00:22:00] because before this time, they weren't big political players, ~right. It was, ~it was this that helped them establish itself as its own political block within kind of the American political system.

[00:22:11] Kyle Risi: So it's worth remembering that this time the church had a lot of power, which politicians could not afford to ignore. So their voice was now being heard for kind of one of the very first times in American political history. And politicians were reacting to it because they know if they do, then they get the votes, et cetera. Yeah. And that just ~kind of ~makes, essentially America at this time more conservative in terms of some of their policies and stuff so they can win more votes. Okay. So also around about this time, a book called The Satan Seller by a guy called Mike Wonky.

[00:22:44] Kyle Risi: Wonky, ~wonky, wonky, ~wonky. It's ~like ~worn, but with a K and an E at the end. Worn Key. Anyway. This book Takes America by Storm and Warnke claims that he is a former Satanic high priest who believes that he was saved by [00:23:00] Jesus Christ himself when he was called to serve in the Vietnam War. So after the war, Warnke uses his past to launch a career as a Christian standup comedian, where he's literally blending humor with quite literally horrifying tales of satanic rituals and body mutilations in his acts is really great thing to watch.

[00:23:22] Kyle Risi: What in one breath, he's literally telling everyone a joke, and then he transitions into talking about sacrificing a literal baby. And there's actual kids in the audience when you watch some of these shows and it's horrific. And the audience, and everyone's just ~kind of ~switched from this lighthearted ~kind of.~

[00:23:40] Kyle Risi: Tone and atmosphere to be just being silent and listening and taking everything he says seriously. And this ends up building up ~kind of ~this collective societal fear against satanists and satanism and the occult being on the rise across America. All these things are working [00:24:00] together to fuel this kind of ~like ~this fear.

[00:24:02] Kyle Risi: So why was he,

[00:24:03] Adam Cox: I'm a bit confused. So why was he

[00:24:04] Kyle Risi: doing this? He wants to just capitalize probably on the rise of kind of this idea, this fear of satanism throughout America. Right, right. Okay. And he's claiming that he used to be a Satanic high priest. Oh, he claims to be, but he was a fine. Oh my God, yes.

[00:24:19] Kyle Risi: Obviously his accounts are all bullshit. The police do investigate and they find literally nothing. He makes claims like he had a. Some kind of weird ritual kind of feast dinner that he invited,~ um,~ Charles Manson to, but Charles Manson couldn't have been there because I think he was tied up in some kind of legal stuff.

[00:24:38] Kyle Risi: So it sounds a bit deluded. It is. But he's capitalizing on these fears in America. ~Right? ~And that's the important bit, right? Mm-hmm. So while all this is unfolding, societal attitudes towards child sexual abuse are also starting to evolve for the very first time, because before this point, people didn't give a shit about kids.

[00:24:57] Kyle Risi: And so for the very first time, Americans are beginning to [00:25:00] accept their child. Sexual abuse was way more widespread than previously believed. Before this, it was just like a simple kind of family matter that needed to be kept private so they would ~kind of ~brushed under the rug. ~Right. ~And ~you, ~you've seen kind of old school TV shows where people ~kind of like ~say mom, like Uncle Freddy was molesting me.

[00:25:16] Kyle Risi: And they're like, oh no he didn't. And like ~they just, ~they just, they're just denied 'cause they don't want to bring shame to the family name.

[00:25:22] Kyle Risi: Cast your mind back to when we did the Turin family mm-hmm.~ Um, ~abuse case where Louise was being abused by her family friend. Right. And the mom just walked in on this guy essentially raping her in their living room and she did nothing. She was just like a family matter. Don't tell anyone.

[00:25:40] Kyle Risi: We'll brush under the carpet. And why? Because they wanna wanna bring shame to the family name. Yeah. Yeah. And it just seems like that was the attitude back then, but this was now changing. ~Right. ~Okay, good.

[00:25:49] Kyle Risi: So before this, it was just a simply family matter, and it was meant to be kept private, but fear instilled by the media called for greater demands for this to come out of now be [00:26:00] addressed.

[00:26:00] Kyle Risi: So America introduces the Child Abuse Prevention Treatment Act or CAPTA in 1974. And this act mandates the reporting of any suspected or known child abuse allegation. Whatsoever anything, which leads to a huge surge in reports of child molestation, which is driven by this media's desire to sell more papers as well.

[00:26:23] Kyle Risi: So these cases have been reported by teachers and people in care, like in like youth groups and things like that. The reporting them, the media's getting hold of them and it's now just big news because people are interested. ~Right? ~What,

[00:26:34] Adam Cox: so teachers are reporting that family members of a child

[00:26:38] Kyle Risi: are abusing.

[00:26:38] Kyle Risi: Yeah, it's mandated. If you suspect it, you can't ignore it anymore. You have to report it. Mm-hmm. And that's what this captor act of 1974 did is essentially doing. But the problem is this inevitably results in an increase in government spending through having to deal with all of these new abuse allegations, which is now obviously compulsory to report.

[00:26:57] Kyle Risi: And this sees a huge increase in spending. 'cause [00:27:00] police departments are now being overrun, having to investigate more and more allegations and prisons are literally reaching their capacity. ~Right. ~There's child sex molesters everywhere. ~Mm-hmm. ~But the biggest concern here is that with all this increased incarceration, the government is now losing middle class taxpayers.

[00:27:18] Adam Cox: Right? So they're actually quite wealthy people that are going inside, well, they're

[00:27:22] Kyle Risi: just regular people. Mm-hmm. I would say. But yes, they're losing all ~these, ~these taxpayers. So the government decides that instead of sending these men to prison, they're instead gonna mandate therapy for these men, which often would involve family members and also their victims.

[00:27:37] Kyle Risi: What to attend. I know. So now

[00:27:40] Adam Cox: of course you've ~gotta ~gotta attend with the person that's abused you. You've gotta attend. A session to help them rehabilitate into society. Yeah. '

[00:27:48] Kyle Risi: cause I think, ~well ~they want, they have this desire to also keep the family together as well. So it's ~kind of ~like mediation almost.

[00:27:54] Kyle Risi: It's so ~like, ~it's so backwards. Yeah. So of course all of [00:28:00] this sounds horrific and it would often lead to the retraumatization of victims, but it does mark a very important step in the way that child sex abuse claims were being treated because it forced police to deal more sensitively with victims. And it removed for the first time that stigma against these victims as well, while still striving to ~kind of ~keep families together through the therapy and the rehabilitation, which was a massive concern for the governments and a particular kind of concern for the church as well, who they really valued.

[00:28:33] Kyle Risi: Kind of like family, unity, keeping the family together, which is really important. So it's not great. But it's a step in the right direction. ~Right. ~Is it? ~I mean, ~I see. Yeah. ~It's, ~it's a first step, right? ~Right. ~There's loads more that needs to be done. But still the important thing is that we now believe you.

[00:28:49] Kyle Risi: If you tell us that Uncle Joe has touched you,

[00:28:52] Adam Cox: ~I, ~I'm still shocked by the fact and yeah. I'm just

[00:28:55] Kyle Risi: shocked by that fact. I know it's shocking, but just, you just [00:29:00] need to not let it be a problem for you. Okay, fine. Okay. So the thing to remember is that at this time, the police are not trained in providing therapy or dealing with victims sensitively, ~right.~

[00:29:15] Kyle Risi: They're supposed to, but they just don't have the training.

[00:29:17] Kyle Risi: So the police start handing over the therapy and rehabilitation and a bunch of the investigating over to social workers who are notorious for asking leading questions, which ends up wildly misrepresenting the truth and often leads to inaccurate claims of sexual molestation, which then obviously leads to more issues, more spending.

[00:29:36] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. It's just, it's just everywhere, right? Sexual abuse is everywhere at this point. But the point is that loads of people support captor and because who doesn't wanna protect kids? Right? Yeah. Okay. Yep. It's not great, but it's a step in the right direction. ~Right. ~Okay. Sure. So at this time, family income was also down and living costs was also increasing as well.

[00:29:59] Kyle Risi: And more and [00:30:00] more American women are feeling the pressure to begin entering the workforce. And as a result, family starts sending their kids to daycares. Right. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Now, the church at this time doesn't like this. They believe obviously in family unity and that mothers should be staying at home to look after their kids.

[00:30:18] Kyle Risi: And of course there is a big body of experts who also reinforce this message. For instance, there's a popular psychologist called Dr. Rowan Summit. He's also a huge asshole, and he is an incest expert of all things. An incest expert. Yeah. Yeah. He specialized. Now he's an incest expert.

[00:30:36] Adam Cox: I don't feel like you should be a, you

[00:30:39] Kyle Risi: should be an expert in that.

[00:30:40] Kyle Risi: No, it's gross. So he says that child molestation is always the fault. Of the wife, because he says that all men have this inherent desire to have sex with their daughters, but they don't. What I know they don't. If they have healthy marriages, if men, oh my God, do molest their [00:31:00] kids, it's because their wife has been absorbing herself in her job rather than attending to a husband.

[00:31:06] Adam Cox: The fact he claims to be an expert, I hope people don't

[00:31:08] Kyle Risi: listen to him, Adam. This is mainstream stuff at the time. ~Right. ~So as a result, many working mothers are now feeling extremely conflicted. So if you couple this with child sex abuse allegations seemingly being on the rise, you can see how mothers are now starting to feel guilty about going off to work.

[00:31:27] Kyle Risi: Right? Right. So parents are being forced to just drop their babies off at daycare and just hope it goes well.

[00:31:32] Kyle Risi: This is stupid. It is stupid. Oh, so by the 1980s child sex abuse is no longer just a fringe issue. It's now literally part of the American conversation. And we can blame mums for that. Yeah, of course. It's always the mums fault, right? And so all of this combined creates this infrastructure that would end up amplifying wild and fantastical claims that will later become known as the Satanic Panic of the 1980s.

[00:31:59] Kyle Risi: ~Right. ~[00:32:00] So before we get back into the McMartin case, I want to tell you about one more thing that many say ignited the Satanic panic as what we know today. 'cause it's really important part of the story. And that was with the release of a book in 1980 titled Michelle Remembers. So this was three years before Little Matthew gets dropped off at the McMartin Day School, and this book gets released.

[00:32:25] Kyle Risi: And now it was co-written by Canadian psychiatrist, Lawrence Pastor, and his patient and eventual. So that's. Problematic straightaway. He's eventual wife, Michelle Smith. Right. Okay. So in the book, Lawrence uses a technique called recovered memory therapy. Right. Which he uses to uncover wild claims of satanic ritual abuse that Michelle had undergone as a child. Now the book is popular because it talks about recovered memory therapy as a technique and how it can be used to uncover repressed [00:33:00] abuse. So basically what this technique is, is that a psychiatrist or psychologist will hypnotize a patient.

[00:33:07] Kyle Risi: Sometimes he'll drug them into a state where they're extremely suggestible and people think, and often, yeah, people think that like hypnotism, ~like ~brings you into an alter state. But really what it's doing is just making you super suggestible. Mm-hmm. And then through suggestion, they will then create these hidden memories that of course never happened.

[00:33:27] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. So to the patient, of course, they're very real, so Michelle's repressed memories involve reports of extremely explicit like physical and sexual abuse by various people during what Michelle says is Satanic rituals. So Michelle recovers that she was forced to drink urine, eat cannibalize human flesh, bathe in the blood of dismembered babies, participate in ritual murders, and endure a cage full of snakes and spiders.

[00:33:55] Kyle Risi: And she even encountered Satan himself in what Michelle recalls [00:34:00] as the Feast of the Beast. Ultimately though, Michelle says that she's saved by the direct intervention of the Virgin Mary herself. Hang on. So

[00:34:10] Adam Cox: how old was this supposed to have happened to Michelle? So she was like a

[00:34:14] Kyle Risi: young child, like, right, like toddler maybe I would say maybe younger than eight.

[00:34:19] Kyle Risi: And

[00:34:20] Adam Cox: she's,~ uh,~ bathing and

[00:34:21] Kyle Risi: baby blood or whatever. Yeah. And she's repress, repressed all of this up until this moment in time. So,

[00:34:27] Adam Cox: but did she give an inkling at any point before she met this person that, Hmm, I wonder if I had some, I have some repressed

[00:34:34] Kyle Risi: memories about Satan? No, that was what the whole point of ~the, ~the therapy was to uncover those.

[00:34:38] Kyle Risi: ~Right. ~But remember she's all like in a suggestible state, right? Okay. Yeah, Adam, it's total garbage. But because the story is presented by a noted psychologist and a very traumatized Michelle herself, this book is taken very seriously and literally overnight it becomes, A national sensation.

[00:34:58] Kyle Risi: So this,

[00:34:58] Adam Cox: there's other [00:35:00] expert, if we can class him as that. Mm-hmm.~ ~

[00:35:02] Kyle Risi: ~Well, ~he is a psychologist. Yeah. But where, why does,

[00:35:04] Adam Cox: where does this inspiration come from for him to

[00:35:07] Kyle Risi: plant this legacy? Probably he will want to ~like ~be ~notable, ~notable for something, I don't know. ~Mm-hmm. ~It's ~kind of ~fringe science at the time that then breaks into the mainstream.

[00:35:15] Kyle Risi: ~I mean, ~it's completely debunked now. It's, people don't use it anymore. ~Yeah, ~yeah. But at the time it was pioneering in its field. Right, right. Okay. So they end up going on shows like Oprah, ~uh, ~a show called 2020, which is, do you remember when we did ~the, ~the Turin Family Murder? And we watched some of those clips.

[00:35:30] Kyle Risi: That was the 2020 show. Okay. Really popular in America. ~Um, ~and literally every other popular TV show that you can imagine, they had them on as guests. They speak at conferences, they work with law enforcement and social workers. It's a huge deal. This book. Mm-hmm. Michelle remembers is even used as training material.

[00:35:49] Kyle Risi: Social workers who are dealing with sexual abuse claims. And these are the same people that are now handling a lot of the investigation. I can see where this is

[00:35:58] Adam Cox: going from the police. Yes. Right.

[00:35:59] Kyle Risi: [00:36:00] Okay. So, because at this time it was believed that lots of sexual abuse allegations had roots in Satanic rituals.

[00:36:07] Kyle Risi: And people really thought that the Church of Satan housed these kind of huge conspiracies of global satanic cults, including ~kind of ~wealthy and powerful world elites in which children were being abducted, bred for human sacrifice, pornography and prostitution, and also cannibalism as well.

[00:36:23] Kyle Risi: So add all of these things together and you can see how an entire generation are very scared, very guilty parents handing their kids over to people who they barely know.

[00:36:33] Kyle Risi: And then these same parents read in the newspapers that there are a lot of adults in this country that are very close to children that are raping them and have been secretly doing this for decades. And nobody knew this whole time. That's terrible. And this is. The exact type of parent that Judy Johnson is in this moment in time.

[00:36:53] Kyle Risi: She

[00:36:54] Adam Cox: kinda reminds me of The Simpsons? I think she's the reverend's wife who always goes on about, well, [00:37:00] somebody think of the children, or that kind of, that buys into this

[00:37:03] Kyle Risi: hysteria. Yeah. I mean, and the Simpsons is very close to kind of our cultural reality, right?

[00:37:08] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. So yeah, a lot of these characters that we see in the Simpsons are portrayed from these just generational kind of Yeah. Thinking and things like that. So, back to the Mac Martin story. Mm-hmm.

[00:37:19] Kyle Risi: So after being fobbed off by Matthew's doctor, Judy is convinced that Ray Bucky has been sodomizing her two year old son.

[00:37:26] Kyle Risi: Now, Judy decides that she's gonna take matters into her own hands and she contacts the police. Now, given the prevalent climate surrounding everything that we've just talked about, they obviously take this very seriously. Mm-hmm. They immediately open up a case and together Judy and the police consult various doctors and they eventually find an intern doctor who has never in his life diagnosed a child sex abuse claim before and he corroborates the entire fantasy that Matthew has been abused.

[00:37:55] Kyle Risi: An

[00:37:55] Adam Cox: intern. An intern. He is never, oh my word. This just gets [00:38:00] ridiculous. It ~kind of ~takes away from actual abuse and everything and the like, the serious situations that were going on. ~Mm-hmm. ~'cause they could be wasting their time on all this nonsense.

[00:38:09] Kyle Risi: Yeah. It's mental. Adam Spa gets so much worse. ~Right.~

[00:38:12] Kyle Risi: It's about to get crazy. So now armed with this seemingly. Credible expert opinion. The police launched their investigation and they file charges against Ray who is arrested. And after this, the police decide that they are going to immediately send out a letter to all the parents of all current and past students of the McMartin preschool, ~telling them, ~telling them that their kids may have been molested by Ray Bucky himself.

[00:38:39] Kyle Risi: What? And here is that letter.

[00:38:41] Adam Cox: So ~they're sent, ~they're sent it to all the,~ um,~ parents of this school ~mm-hmm. ~That they may or may not have been. That's a terrible What happened to like,

[00:38:49] Kyle Risi: wait till you hear this letter. It's off the wall, right. September 8th, 1983. Dear parent,

[00:38:57] Kyle Risi: this department is conducting a criminal investigation [00:39:00] involving child molestation. Ray Bucky, an employee of Virginia McMartin Preschool, was arrested September 7th, 1983 by this department. The following procedure is obviously an unpleasant one, but to protect the rights of your children as well as the rights of the accused.

[00:39:18] Kyle Risi: This inquiry is necessary for a complete investigation. Records indicate that your child has been or is currently a student at the preschool. We are asking your assistance in this continuing investigation. Please question your child to see if he or she has been a witness to any crime or if he or she has been a victim.

[00:39:40] Kyle Risi: Our investigation indicates that possible criminal acts including oral sex, fond of genitals, buttocks, or chest area, and sodomy possibly committed under the pretense of taking a child's temperature. Also, photos may have been taken of children without their clothing. Any information from [00:40:00] your child regarding having ever observed Ray Bucky to leave a classroom alone with a child during any nap period, or if they've ever observed Ray Bucky tie up a child is important.

[00:40:12] Kyle Risi: Tie up a child. No, it's off the wall. ~I mean, ~

[00:40:14] Adam Cox: that's just gonna send parents Absolutely. Like insane. Yeah. ~They're ~they're gonna think the worst. Yeah.

[00:40:21] Kyle Risi: And how do you even investigate this? You've just told all the parents exactly what to look out for, so if anything is false, they're gonna be like, yeah, he sodomized my child.

[00:40:30] Kyle Risi: Oh, that's the exact thing that we put in the letter. Yeah. You don't put that in there. You say, what did he do? Oh yeah. Like he hit him with the ruler. Okay. That's not one of our listed items. Yeah. You've literally given them the things that he would've done. Yeah. Or supposedly have done like abuse. Bingo, God, Adam, that's not, use that word

[00:40:47] Adam Cox: abuse.

[00:40:48] Adam Cox: Bingo. Well, that's kind

[00:40:49] Kyle Risi: of anyway. Yeah. Oh, oh yeah. Tap this one. Oh, what have you got? Oh, I got sodomy. Oh, me too. Tap. So we ask that you please keep this investigation [00:41:00] strictly confidential because of the nature of the charges and the highly emotional effect it could have on our community.

[00:41:06] Kyle Risi: Really? You are gonna keep this private. You're going to keep this just within your house. No. Good thing

[00:41:11] Adam Cox: they don't have Facebook back

[00:41:12] Kyle Risi: there. Can you imagine? My God. Yeah. This information still gets about. So please do not discuss this investigation with anyone outside of your immediate family. Sure. Do not contact or discuss the investigation with Raymond Bucky and any member of the accused defendant's family or employees.

[00:41:29] Kyle Risi: Connected with the McMartin preschool caps locked. There is no evidence to indicate that the management of Virginia McMartin's preschool had any knowledge of this situation. And no detrimental information concerning the operation of the school has been discovered during this investigation. Also, no other employee in the school is under investigation for any Criminal Act caps off.

[00:41:52] Kyle Risi: Your prompt attention to this matter and reply no later than September 16th, 1983 will be appreciated. [00:42:00] Harry, whatever that name is, Kool Meyer Jr. Chief of Police. John Wiener, the captain. What name? Wier. John Wiener. Yeah. W e h n e R. John Wiener.

[00:42:12] Kyle Risi: So yeah, that's the letter that they bloody send out to all these parents. Past and present, I think like 400 kids. 400 parents. Wow. Yeah. So place yourself in the parents' shoes just for a moment. You receive this letter in the post. What are your thoughts and what do you immediately do? ~Um, ~

[00:42:26] Adam Cox: I imagine they're gonna call the school.

[00:42:29] Adam Cox: They're gonna run outside their house, they're gonna speak to the children, they're gonna speak to other parents. Mm-hmm. They can do everything that they told them not to do. Yeah.

[00:42:36] Kyle Risi: They go, there's going to cause wide hysteria. Mm-hmm and wide panic.

[00:42:41] Adam Cox: ~Right. There's, ~there's gonna be like a meeting at a community center,

[00:42:43] Kyle Risi: isn't there For sure.

[00:42:44] Kyle Risi: This letter quite literally is an example of what you do not do in an investigation like this or what happens. Though is the parents obviously start talking to their kids and then they obviously start talking to each other and then they obviously start comparing notes [00:43:00] and pretty soon emotionally involved parents are engaging in leading and suggestive questioning of their children, which result in hundreds and hundreds of claims of child abuse, which causes all the parents in the area and the surrounding areas and the entire country to lose their absolute bloody minds.

[00:43:21] Kyle Risi: Just crazy. Why would you do that? I'd,

[00:43:25] Adam Cox: wow,~ I,~ I would love to see some of the news reports for this

[00:43:28] Kyle Risi: mate. Like some of the news reports are like harrowing, like it seems all legit and stuff, but like when you actually ~like ~take a step back and you just look at some of the details, you go, hang on a minute, this is not right.

[00:43:40] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:43:41] Adam Cox: But yeah, I imagine, I can imagine completely getting swept up in that if that's what you're led to believe by the police.

[00:43:47] Kyle Risi: Yeah. And the thing Adam, about young kids is that they are so eager to please, right? So you can imagine how quickly these kind of previous repressed memories made, obviously mainstream by [00:44:00] Michelle remembers, starts bubbling to the surface, right?

[00:44:02] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. And as time goes on, they become more and more outlandish. 'cause at this moment in time, there's no connection to satanism whatsoever, right? Mm-hmm. This is just run of the mill sexual abuse, ~you know, ~the classic, conventional kind, no rituals or anything like that. So it just gets even worse.

[00:44:19] Kyle Risi: Now, if you've ever seen a little kid tell a story, you instantly recognize it as a story, right? You're listening to your kid yabber on about something odd that they're doing, and you're like, really? Fifi? Is that true? You making that up? Mm-hmm. Like you recognize it straight away. Yeah. But at the time, considering what's just happened, This isn't what happens.

[00:44:40] Kyle Risi: Right. Because parents have just been told that their kids may have been molested. So parents are like leaning into whatever the kid says and they're taking everything they say as gospel, right? Rather than going, hang on a minute. That sounds a bit odd. That sounds a bit outlandish, right? Yeah. They're just believing everything, which is then just reinforced with more positive feedback [00:45:00] and encouragement to just keep talking.

[00:45:02] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. So these kids just go off the wall as mental? Right. Okay. So the letter ~obviously, ~obviously finds his way into the news. Mm-hmm. And Judy starts spinning more stories one day. She says that Matthew apparently walks in on duty changing and Matthew says Matthew wear bra. And so after more lines of suggestive, inquiring, Judy asserts that Ray apparently made her son wear a bra and tied him up with a rope.

[00:45:31] Adam Cox: Oh God. God. Good thing like drag race wasn't a thing about this

[00:45:34] Kyle Risi: time. God, can you imagine the panic that would've been ensued from that? So as the days progress, more and more parents are coming forward with allegations about misconduct, which of course is just rooted in nothing, right?

[00:45:47] Kyle Risi: For instance, one woman, Donna McGill, says that her daughter was overly interested in her mother's kind of genitals. And so puts this down to her being abused rather than just

[00:45:58] Adam Cox: curious about what the human body [00:46:00] is. Exactly

[00:46:00] Kyle Risi: right. And what screwed up to me is that like children being convinced into believing that they've been abused by an innocent man. That's really disturbing. That is. Yeah. It's mental. So the police are like, what the hell?

[00:46:15] Kyle Risi: And they're just not equipped to deal with any of this. So the handover. ~Kind of ~a large portion of the investigation to the so-called experts, which are social workers. Mm-hmm. And these people are trained that children never lie about these matters. But also they don't know how to question these kids as part of an investigation.

[00:46:35] Kyle Risi: And on top of this, they're using material that references Michelle remembers. Right. Okay. It's just messed up. This is where we have a new character enter her name is Keen McFarland. Mm-hmm. Now she's a social worker and she's deeply embedded in kind of the child protection movement.

[00:46:52] Kyle Risi: Now she plays a pivotal role. And let's just say her involvement does more harm than good. So Keen is in charge of interviewing [00:47:00] and questioning the influx of accusations that are coming forward from parents and the kids.

[00:47:04] Kyle Risi: Right. So keen invites each child in using a combination of kind of puppets and ~kind of ~atomically ~kind of ~accurate dolls. Right? Imagine like kind of the courthouse doll that you would see. Yeah. They are kind of used as tools for children to describe ~kind of ~forms of abuse that they might have faced in court, et cetera. Yeah. So McFarland transforms these dolls into play things, which only serves to encourage the children's wild imaginations.

[00:47:28] Kyle Risi: Now Keen puts on a puppet show to ~kind of ~make the kids feel a bit more comfortable to break down the barriers and just to make them feel like they're in playtime.

[00:47:36] Kyle Risi: Right. Right. And then she would tell stories about the abuse that she thinks that the children had undergone, and then these kids start talking about it basically. Right. So, Keen would then continue to press their stories, which ends up becoming super elaborate. ~I mean, ~it's a no-brainer. Kids inherently want to please the adults, right?

[00:47:58] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. So when you've [00:48:00] set out on this path of play, right, and you are engaged in their imaginations, like they're going to blur the lines between what's real and what's not, right? Mm-hmm. It's just natural. So what's happening here is well-intentioned adults led by Keen are inadvertently planting false memories into these kind of innocent children's minds.

[00:48:18] Kyle Risi: And before you know it, these kids haven't got a clue about what's real and what's not. And Keen McFarland does this to 400 kids leading them into false accusations of child abuse. Like none of it happened.

[00:48:32] Adam Cox: None of,~ well, I hope, ~I hope it didn't. That's the thing. Like this. It just feels ~like, ~I feel sorry if there were any people that did actually experience any kind of abuse or because it just feels like this is just.

[00:48:42] Adam Cox: Not

[00:48:42] Kyle Risi: the right way to go. It's not, and you don't have to go too far with this in terms of the investigation to look at the evidence to realize that a lot of it is just bullshit. Mm-hmm. So one particular instance with a five-year-old called Tanya. So Keen spends several minutes engaging her in fantasy play [00:49:00] using various puppets and like a toy doctor's kit.

[00:49:03] Kyle Risi: Right? She's like, I think you have a little temperature there, they play with,~ uh,~ a banana puppet, they play with,~ uh,~ big Bird, Mr. Doggy, Mr.

[00:49:10] Kyle Risi: Dragon Cookie, monster. Bugs Bunny. An alligator puppet,~ uh,~ PAC-Man and Mr. Snake. ~Right. ~And then when Tanya is deeply absorbed in play, keen then presents Tanya with that collection of. An anatomical kind of correct dolls and basically they look like real people underneath their clothes. Mm-hmm. So if you take them off and Keen is ~like, ~look, we can take off their clothes.

[00:49:33] Kyle Risi: And Tanya then identifies ~kind of ~the dolls, wee wees and their chee cheese, which she calls breasts. Right. Um, but, but the NGAs hole, which is obviously the,~ um,~ the vagina. And so Keen then asks Tanya if she's ever seen a man's Wee Wee. And she's like, yeah, daddy's, I've seen Daddy's Wee Wee and Keen's obviously not satisfied with this answer.

[00:49:53] Kyle Risi: So she says like, what about anyone else's? And Tanya insists that she's only ever seen her dad's Wee wee. [00:50:00] Right. Essentially.

[00:50:01] Adam Cox: So this is a weird conversation

[00:50:02] Kyle Risi: to have with a child. It is really strange, isn't it? Yeah, it's really disturbing. So Keen says, well, I know some secrets and I know that you know about these secrets too.

[00:50:12] Kyle Risi: I know some secrets about your old school Butan ~like ~doesn't respond at all. Like she's really steadfast. She's like,~ what the, ~what the hell are we talking about? Yeah, so keen as that. She has seen Tanya's friends from the McMartin school and they told her or about the bad secrets. So how about we have a good time with adults and we can talk about some of those bad secrets and that will help all those bad secrets go away.

[00:50:37] Kyle Risi: Wouldn't that be a good idea? Says keen. Oh God. Then Tanya is like to the big bird, she like grabs it. She says, I hate those secrets Ray. Ray did bad things and I don't even like it. And so what's happening here? These kids are like being completely led and the problem here isn't that you shouldn't believe children when they report abuse.

[00:50:57] Kyle Risi: It's that you shouldn't badger children [00:51:00] who insist that they haven't been abused into recalling false memories. Yeah.

[00:51:04] Adam Cox: And so, so is she referring to the teacher there? Ray. Ray, yeah. She's talking about Ray. Ray. So she obviously knows what's going on and stuff like that.

[00:51:11] Kyle Risi: But it's also ~like, ~it's not, she doesn't know what's going on.

[00:51:14] Kyle Risi: I think she's coerced. She said like, I've spoken to your friends and they've told me that they're secrets. Right, right. Do you know what I mean? Nothing's happened here. Yeah. There's no evidence of anything. Do you know what I

[00:51:23] Adam Cox: was just thinking like, do you remember we used to watch Punch and Judy, did you watch

[00:51:26] Kyle Risi: Punch?

[00:51:27] Kyle Risi: And Judy Yeah, I get that sense. I got that sense when I was retelling this. Yes. I just,~ uh,~ because of

[00:51:32] Adam Cox: just, 'cause obviously that's actually quite a violent show when you is I remember watching a back as an adult going, this is awful. Yeah. 'cause he is like ~the, ~the baby gets thrown out. Yeah. And then you've got like the crocodile eating him and all that sort

[00:51:44] Kyle Risi: of stuff and the policemen beating on them and Yeah.

[00:51:46] Kyle Risi: So I

[00:51:46] Adam Cox: just imagine with these puppets and ~like, ~oh, can you reenact stuff? And they're probably doing things like this. Yeah, they are.

[00:51:51] Kyle Risi: And kids love it. Yeah. So, Again, it's worth noting that at this point the McMartin case didn't kick off as a satanic ritual story. [00:52:00] Right. Which is a classic run of the mill abuse story. Like we haven't talked about anything satanic mm-hmm. At all yet that comes after more interviews with Judy Johnson, who then ~the, ~the media get hold of, and a cocktail of TV sensationalist news reports ~kind of ~happen, and then whispers start ~kind of ~spreading,~ uh,~ amongst the adults who the kids then overhear.

[00:52:20] Kyle Risi: And then these stories then start to ~like, ~they're

[00:52:22] Adam Cox: like sharing around school or whatever. Exactly. And it around.

[00:52:24] Kyle Risi: Yeah. so Judy Johnson's son, Matthew mm-hmm. Is coaxed into now roping in a 64 year old Betty Rayer, who is another employee at the actual school right now. As Matthew Tail grows, he starts spinning wild tails about he molested at a ranch.

[00:52:44] Kyle Risi: Now, before long, Judy is convinced that the McMartin School is ground zero for a vast pedophile network that's rooted in ta. Now, keep in mind, parents at this moment in time because of capita, they can enter [00:53:00] statements into the record on their children's behalf. So they can say, oh, my son said this Right?

[00:53:05] Kyle Risi: And that will be treated as gospel as evidence, right? Oh, okay. That's under Capto.

[00:53:09] Adam Cox: So they don't verify it with the child first. They just take it. No.

[00:53:13] Kyle Risi: Okay. No, no.

[00:53:13] Kyle Risi: So this is the statement that Judy Johnson, coaxes out of Matthew, right? Okay. So Matthew feels that he left LA International Airport in an airplane and flew to Palm Springs. Matthew went to an armory, the goat man was there. It was a ritual type of atmosphere at the church. Peggy drilled.

[00:53:33] Kyle Risi: Matthew under the armpits with a drill. The atmosphere was of magic Arts. Ray flew through the air. Peggy Babs and Betty were all dressed as witches. The person who had buried Matthew is Miss Betty. There were no holes in the coffin. Babs went with him on a train where they were hurt by men in suits.

[00:53:53] Kyle Risi: Ray waved goodbye. Betty gave Matthew and enema. Staples were put into Matthew's ears, [00:54:00] nipples, and tongue. Babs put scissors in his eyes and chopped up animals. Matthew was hurt by a lion. Oh my word. And an elephant played. This is a torture. This is, he's been tortured. Yeah. ~Um, ~a goat climbed ~higher and ~higher and a bad man threw it down the stairs. There were lots of candles. They were black. Ray pricked his pointer finger and put it in a goat's anus. Old god old grandma played a piano, A baby's head was chopped off and the brains were burned

[00:54:28] Adam Cox: because you wanna listen to music whilst all this is going on.

[00:54:31] Adam Cox: I know.

[00:54:31] Kyle Risi: It's just nice little tune. Becky?

[00:54:34] Adam Cox: Yes. Go on, granny. Play another

[00:54:36] Kyle Risi: one. So Peggy had scissors in the church and she cut Matthew's hair. Matthew drank baby's blood. Mm-hmm. Ray wanted Matthew spit. Oh God. Okay. So all of this is put into the record.

[00:54:49] Adam Cox: So ~this is, ~this is everything that Matthew said that happened.

[00:54:51] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm. One time. Mm-hmm. Because he remembers going to L Lax and they palm. Yeah. During,

[00:54:55] Kyle Risi: during school. During school. Like eight hour school day.

[00:54:58] Adam Cox: So she, but then like he [00:55:00] would've come back and surely hit holes. I think. Bingo. But are they saying all satanism or whatever can ~like ~

[00:55:05] Kyle Risi: disguise those? Yeah. None of it matters.

[00:55:08] Kyle Risi: End injuries. Yeah. It's crazy Adam. Oh my God. Now on another occasion, Judy claims that Peggy Bucky forced Matthew to watch a baby bean beheaded and to drink his blood. Ray apparently sodomized Matthew while he had his head in the toilet and was taken to a car wash and he locked him in a trunk. Matthew also claimed that Ray p Pranced around in a cape and a Santa outfit and the other teachers chopped up rabbits and they play some weird star on Matthew's bum.

[00:55:39] Adam Cox: To be honest, these are, even if he did say these things mm-hmm. He must've been coaxed because these are quite graphic, some of these things. Mm-hmm. Like as a kid, I don't think, yeah, you might say some weird stuff and whatever, but it's not like there was YouTube or things that you could get hold of.

[00:55:55] Adam Cox: Where you'd be able to see this

[00:55:57] Kyle Risi: kind of behavior. Yeah. I think the biggest telltale sign is [00:56:00] that ~the, ~the theme is so consistent. Mm-hmm. Right. They're all satanic in reference rather than like, oh, I mean, the Santa stuff. ~That's, ~that's ~like, ~that's what a kid would say, right? Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Like he pr around in a cape and a Santa outfit.

[00:56:13] Kyle Risi: Yeah. He grew and then

[00:56:14] Adam Cox: felt all that,

[00:56:14] Kyle Risi: all those things. Yeah. Everything else is so consistent with the satanism. So, and again, this is all Judy, right? So You are exactly right. Clearly, Matthew's been coaxed into coming up with these fantasies, and this isn't what happens in child kind of sex abuse claims today, right? Mm-hmm. Like it's dealt with in a very different way, rather than just being, oh, okay. Yeah. We'll take your testimony. We'll stick that in the record. ~Mm-hmm. ~So when the news breaks that satanists were behind this, the other children start coming forward with their own satanic accounts of their abuse.

[00:56:43] Kyle Risi: And kids talk about seeing babies getting murdered. Uh, but clearly, clearly the police are like, there are no reports of missing babies or dead babies showing up anywhere.

[00:56:54] Adam Cox: I'm

[00:56:54] Adam Cox: glad the police finally have a clue.

[00:56:56] Kyle Risi: Well do they? Oh, so people start [00:57:00] developing this theory that Satanists are literally having children at home and choosing not to register them so they can then use them as human sacrifice.

[00:57:09] Kyle Risi: And again, there's no evidence of this in any way, but everyone believes it because, We're in a full blown mania and nobody seems to be thinking anymore. There's no lo logic's gone out the window gone, literally out of the window buried. Of course, the police ~kind of ~find no wounds on Matthew. I'm shocked that you never brought that up.

[00:57:29] Kyle Risi: Well, this is what

[00:57:29] Adam Cox: I was gonna say, like the whole, when his ears was stapled, he'd come home. Yeah. And she wouldn't, like the mama wouldn't have picked this up. Cut his hair. Yeah. And gone. Matthew, what's, yeah, what's going on with your ears today? Yeah.

[00:57:40] Kyle Risi: What honey? What's this? Yeah, what's,~ well,~ what's going on here?

[00:57:42] Kyle Risi: You cut your hair. What's the vibe you're going for

[00:57:44] Adam Cox: today? This is what, but yeah, clearly she's born to the hysteria and she's turned absolutely crazy.

[00:57:49] Kyle Risi: Of course, the police might no wounds. There's no evidence that any of this ever took place, but quite literally, none of this seems to matter. The closest thing investigators find in regards to [00:58:00] any evidence is just some soft core pornography magazines in Ray's apartment.

[00:58:04] Kyle Risi: And later authorities would later begin to realize that Judy's claims were just. Delusions of a paranoid schizophrenic. Oh, they do actually come to, oh, yeah. ~Oh, ~oh, she, she's diagnosed as schizophrenic, right? Yeah. That explains it. Perhaps, but the snowball of suspicion is obviously now started rolling and ~it's, it's, ~it's too late.

[00:58:24] Kyle Risi: Right. Okay. It's, we are literally in full blown mania now. Yeah. Okay. So Kenneth Lanning, who worked with the F B I as a behavioral scientist, says that once these cases are contaminated, which is what that letter did.

[00:58:38] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. Right. It's literally impossible to question the kids properly because you have no degree of certainty what actually happened because all these allegations are now all suggestively led because you've told them what. The things that Ray has supposedly have done. Right.~ ~

[00:58:57] Adam Cox: ~This is, ~this is crazy.

[00:58:58] Adam Cox: I just think of, [00:59:00] I, I'll go back to it again. The fa like our Facebook local group of the housing estate that we live on, and the overreaction to certain incidents are that happened on the estate. Yeah. Which are just really nothing. I couldn't, I can't even imagine like what parents must have been going through at this point in time.

[00:59:18] Adam Cox: That's

[00:59:18] Kyle Risi: it. And the thing is though,~ like,~ this is all mad and we can all see the seeds of something mad happening even on our Facebook groups. Mm-hmm. And they don't go anywhere too far. They don't roll too far because they're barricaded by logic and critical thinking and reason and things like that. Ever so often there's a perfect storm.

[00:59:36] Kyle Risi: Hence why we went back 20 years to discuss everything that happened in the lead up to this. Mm-hmm. To understand how was it able to keep on ~going and ~going and going snowballing. Yeah, that's exactly it. And every once in a while that happens. And it's happened recently in recent history as well. Think about Pizzagate as an example, or the Q Anon kind of stuff.

[00:59:58] Kyle Risi: Hysteria [01:00:00] and Trump and things like that. And the belief around ~kind of ~like how he is this kind of, yeah. This weird Messiah kind. He calls that bit.

[01:00:07] Adam Cox: ~Well, ~the insurrection. Yeah. And the whole sort of taking sort of Washington.

[01:00:11] Kyle Risi: Yeah. It's just mental. Hmm. So this letter leads to an overwhelming demand from parents for a full investigation into the McMartin School.

[01:00:22] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. So the district attorney, Roberts Philia. A weird name. ~Americas have, ~Americas have quite strange names, don't they? Mm. Anyway, Phil Boza, um, who thought that putting away some Satanists would be pivotal to his reelection. So he decides that he's gonna bring the case to trial in 1984.

[01:00:40] Kyle Risi: So a year later, Ray, Bucky, Peggy, Bucky, Peggy, Ann, Bucky, Virginia, McMartin, and three other McMartin teachers known as the McMartin seven we're all indicted on over 193 counts of child abuse. So

[01:00:55] Adam Cox: are they accused of abuse now or just somehow being [01:01:00] involved?

[01:01:00] Adam Cox: Coverup.

[01:01:00] Kyle Risi: They're all being accused. Accused of it. Okay. Wow. Yeah. So Ray is held for five years in jail. As a child molester and as a result of this entire shit show, like the homes of the man martini were all searched.

[01:01:14] Kyle Risi: No evidence was found whatsoever. Oh, by the way, yeah. ~They, ~they find a black cape in one of the teacher's houses, which is evidence of course of witchcraft. Turns out it's a graduation gown,~ but,~ but it doesn't matter.

[01:01:25] Adam Cox: Matthew's story, he did see someone on a

[01:01:27] Kyle Risi: cape, didn't. He did,~ yeah, yeah, ~yeah. Claims start emerging that there are secret tunnels under the school, and children allegedly witness a baby being murdered.

[01:01:35] Kyle Risi: However, with no concrete evidence found by any of the police parents become suspicious of the police's involvement in this because they're not finding any evidence. Mm-hmm. So as a result in 1985, a bunch of parents start excavating in the school's car park in search for these tunnels, and the district attorney who's looking to be reelected, hires an archeological firm [01:02:00] to help them, but of course they find nothing.

[01:02:02] Adam Cox: They must have been like, ~well they, ~they must have ~like ~filled in the holes or something or whatever. Can you imagine what they were going through?

[01:02:08] Kyle Risi: So probably ~like, ~oh, we can't be here. We must be over there somewhere. Yeah. Like they'll probably never concede ~that there, ~that there isn't there.

[01:02:14] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. They would never accept that. They wouldn't accept that they're wrong. Yeah, exactly.

[01:02:19] Kyle Risi: So the court case starts and does have some degree of rationality to it because obviously there's no evidence that anyone was harmed in any shape or form.

[01:02:30] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. Right. The trial actually takes 28 months, and the district attorney announces that the primary purpose of the preschool was to solicit young children to conduct lewd acts on the teachers and to recruit children for child pornography purposes. ~Right. ~His office then suggests that there are millions, like those are the words he uses.

[01:02:52] Kyle Risi: Millions of child porn films that exist of the kids, and of course the media d Lee report on [01:03:00] all of this day in, day out. But again, Mr. Da, where's the evidence? Yeah. Where are you getting

[01:03:06] Adam Cox: that? There must

[01:03:07] Kyle Risi: be millions. Must be. Got to be, has to be. Where is it? Yeah. Where you keeping it, but not a single be shred of evidence comes to light.

[01:03:16] Kyle Risi: It's because darker forces are working here. Adam Satanists, we're dealing with Satanists. Yeah. Okay. So people magazine dubs, the McMartin preschool as California's Nightmare Nursery. Nice and sensationalist. Nice. The Times releases an article with the one word title. Brutalized. Brutalized.

[01:03:35] Kyle Risi: Wow. Remember also Adam. These are credible sources that are reporting on all of this, right? Mm-hmm. From the DA's office to the Times newspaper, so it's not just the tabloids. And so the media continue to ~kind of ~instill this fear and panic across America. So much so that the McMartin School is vandalized with like messages like Ray must die.

[01:03:57] Kyle Risi: And also eventually they set the school on fire [01:04:00] also. Peggy's car, Peggy met Martin. ~Like ~someone attempts to bomb her car, bomb her car. Adam, Peggy herself is attacked and stabbed in the crotch. People have lost their minds. How old is Peggy again? So Peggy is Virginia's. So Ray's mother, Ray's mother, she's, I thought you said she was like 70.

[01:04:18] Kyle Risi: That's Virginia Mcma. Oh, sorry. Right? Yeah.

[01:04:21] Adam Cox: Yeah. That's so what, regardless of age, someone's got stabbed over this In the crotch, in the

[01:04:26] Kyle Risi: awful, horrible. So parents start to form investigative teams taking their children around the area to identify supposed molestation sites. These are all places that spring from kind of the children's imaginations when they're ~kind of ~precedent from details.

[01:04:41] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. And as children identify the homes and businesses, parents start recording kind of the addresses and relay these to the DA's office, who then goes off and shares these addresses. Oh God. With the other parents. Right. Another guy apparently camped out near an airport and [01:05:00] noted down kind of aircraft registration numbers.

[01:05:02] Kyle Risi: Because if you recall, Matthew said that he was flown from the LA kind of airport to Palm Springs. Mm-hmm. So he's reporting any suspicious activity, he does find something, he finds a female pilot suspected of being a lesbian

[01:05:17] Kyle Risi: alert. The church elders. Oh God. Can you imagine? How funny is that? Oh god. He's so, he

is

[01:05:23] Adam Cox: like spying. He's like hunting down planes.

[01:05:26] Kyle Risi: He's just camping outside the airport watching pains take off and ~he, ~he has a pilot

[01:05:30] Adam Cox: that gives what a woman a kiss or something goes.

[01:05:32] Kyle Risi: Hmm. God knows. I think she just was a handsome

[01:05:34] Adam Cox: woman.

[01:05:35] Adam Cox: Gets a notebook out. Lesbian question mark.

[01:05:37] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So funny. So a woman, Jackie McKay. Her daughter briefly attended Mac Martin, but after the investigation began, right, so she wouldn't have been abused. Mm-hmm. But she becomes convinced that Ray Bucky had molested her child, despite obviously him being under constant surveillance at this time.

[01:05:57] Kyle Risi: So she grows increasingly [01:06:00] suspicious, accusing several other people, including her former boyfriend who was a therapist of molesting her own child. Also, rumors starts circulating that the mayor's wife is transporting dead bodies in her car. What is wrong with these people? I think that's just a recurring theme.

[01:06:15] Kyle Risi: Let's, but something from now on. Just assume that throughout all this, people are mental. Yeah. It's something in the, don't need to say it anymore.

[01:06:23] Adam Cox: It's something in the water

[01:06:23] Kyle Risi: supply, possibly. Hysteria. Yeah. It's hilarious. So it reaches a point where those that are spreading these rumors begin to accuse one another.

[01:06:34] Kyle Risi: For example, a couple who hosted a celebratory party. For the Meg Martin parents on the day that the teachers are arrested are now becoming the subject of rumors themselves. Oh, time on them and Exactly. And these are spurred from the fact that their business was near an athletic club where one of the children pointed out was one of the molestation sites.

[01:06:55] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So the trial just continues. Judy [01:07:00] Johnson's condition worsens and her husband ends up leaving her and she then accuses him of now being part of the Satanic conspiracy. So round about this time, she has a bit of an episode and she barricades herself in the house. She's armed with literally a pile of guns that she's been storing under her cancer ridden son's bed.

[01:07:19] Kyle Risi: Oh my word. ~Um, ~and the little kid,~ like,~ he's ~like ~eight or nine at the time, he says like he will do anything to protect his mother, including kill anyone who tries to come into the house. So Judy is later admitted to a psychiatric unit where she's diagnosed with schizophrenia. Tragically, both Judy and her eldest son, they pass away shortly afterwards.

[01:07:40] Kyle Risi: Really? Oh yeah, it's tragic. What did she pass away from Alcoholism. So her son, obviously from the tumor, and Judy from alcohol related liver failure. So she was self-medicating. Mm-hmm. Like having to deal with all the depression, the fact that her son was ill and stuff. But Adam, none of this mattered like this came up in court, but no one was like, [01:08:00] let's put the brakes on this.

[01:08:00] Kyle Risi: Right? Mm-hmm. Like the woman who initially raised these concerns and caused this hysteria through all these other unfortunate events is, has been diagnosed as schizophrenic. She's not Well, yeah. Why don't she help? Why Just take a chill pill? Yeah. Well,

[01:08:15] Adam Cox: yeah. ~It's, ~it's a shame no one ~looked, ~looked after

[01:08:18] Kyle Risi: to her.

[01:08:18] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Yeah. It is. It is. Like she's gone through the mill. Mm-hmm. So on November 2nd, 1989, the McMartin case is prepared. Now remember, this is 1989 Now this has been going on for quite some time. It's been going on a while. The case is now presented to a jury who deliberate for two and a half months now, Peggy Bucky is acquitted on all charges while the jury just can't make up their mind about Ray at the time.

[01:08:43] Kyle Risi: The judge expresses his lack of surprise at the verdicts. He's like, okay, yeah, sure. You can't come to an agreement because he's just fed up of just like the absolute chaos that this trial has caused. And yeah, at this point he is like, I'm so fucking that is [01:09:00] over. Like I need to be done with this.

[01:09:02] Kyle Risi: Yeah,

[01:09:02] Adam Cox: it's gone on for like 28 months,

[01:09:04] Kyle Risi: you say? Yeah, a long time. So child protection groups, they are completely outraged, leading to protests in Manhattan Beach with people waving signs like we believe the children. TV poll at the time indicated that 80% of viewers believed that the Buckys were guilty.

[01:09:21] Kyle Risi: Right? Wow. So that's how Deep Hyster is. Yeah. In the end, no one is convicted in the McMartin case, but yet Ray spends five years in jail and the McMartin case alone costs $15 million. It's the longest running criminal case in US History at 28 months and did not produce a single bit of concrete evidence.

[01:09:44] Kyle Risi: Oh my God. Think of what they

[01:09:45] Adam Cox: could have been doing. Like, it's not to say that you should be taking these things seriously, but think about what they could have

[01:09:51] Kyle Risi: been doing. Yeah, just think about it mental. So following the trial, like many similar cases also [01:10:00] emerge, but all of them are largely unfounded. And again, amongst all this chaos, like investigators and even judges are accused of involvement in kind of the kind of pedophilic ring

[01:10:12] Adam Cox: if you'll, it's ~like, ~yeah, the whole community's been infiltrated by this weird underground ring.

[01:10:18] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So across the country, hundreds are charged, numerous individuals spend time in jail.

[01:10:23] Kyle Risi: Families are literally shattered and lies are literally ruined. For an example, ~uh, ~of just how destructive this period of history is. In 1985, a woman called Carol Falted. Now this woman is actually from the uk Okay? So it's far reaching. It did make it over here to a degree, like the panic and ~the, ~the hysteria around satanism and these repressed memories, right?

[01:10:46] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.~ Like ~Michelle remembers was huge. I. So Carol Falted, she went looking for medical advice for a headache, and instead of receiving kind of medication, she was given therapy, which included hypnosis to recover [01:11:00] repressed memories of Satanic abuse. So under the influence, she ended up recovering false memories that her parents were leading a Satanic cult and that her mother had murdered one of her siblings.

[01:11:12] Kyle Risi: Really like when she was a kid. In reality, her parents had just lost a child due to ~kind of like ~a heart defect before Carol was born. Oh God. So she's probably been told that throughout her life. Yeah, they probably visited the grave and things like that. But no, this manifests into something way more sinister.

[01:11:26] Kyle Risi: And Carol then made these weird claims like that she had birthed six children during, say, various Satanic rituals. And they're all been taken away from her. Yes, all been taken away right from her. Yeah. But of course, medical records show that she was never pregnant, ever. Oh God. This resulted in Carol cutting all ties with the family and assuming a whole new identity. Wow, that's,

[01:11:46] Adam Cox: that's powerful. Like how disruptive this has been. Mm-hmm.

[01:11:50] Kyle Risi: These lies so sad. And then in 2005, like Carol, like mysteriously dies. No one really understands how either. [01:12:00] Right. Okay. I'm wondering whether or not it was a bit like Judy, I dunno, something kinda psychological, mental, who knows?

[01:12:08] Kyle Risi: But yeah, mysterious, mysterious circumstances. And her story highlights just how destructive this stage in history was. Mm-hmm. In 19 85, 60 Minutes Ed an episode linking Dungeons and Dragons to Satanic rituals and suicide.

[01:12:21] Kyle Risi: And by 19 87, 2 Christian activists did published like ~kind of ~a controversial pamphlet, claiming that Dungeons and Dragons get this promoted critical thinking in children, leading them towards heresy and devil worship.

[01:12:33] Kyle Risi: God forbid people are thinking out there. Yeah. I mean, at least they're smart. Goddammit, you made my kid think

[01:12:38] Adam Cox: worshiping Satan, but he's smart.

[01:12:40] Kyle Risi: Yeah, hilarious. So during this period, heavy metal music was also vilified. And the reason was because like metal bands began to recognize that if they integrated Satanic themes into their content, it would cause adults to ban [01:13:00] their kids from listening to the music and inadvertently.

[01:13:03] Kyle Risi: Cause their children to want to listen to their music even more. It's like free PR almost a little bit. It's a free pr. This is what's known as the Barbara Streisand effect. You ever heard of that? Mm. So when attempting to kind of like suppress information ends up actually over amplifying it instead Yeah.

[01:13:19] Kyle Risi: Causing more exposure. So young metal fans are starting to ~kind of ~embrace this defiant stance, which is very smart. Yeah, very

smart.

[01:13:26] Adam Cox: I remember actually, I'm sure growing up, like I, I think this was before my time, but loosely remember like yeah, songs like on M T V and stuff like that wouldn't be shown because ~you know, ~it'd be some rituals and

[01:13:38] Kyle Risi: stuff in these videos and stuff.

[01:13:40] Kyle Risi: And out of this whole movement as well, this is also where you get ~kind of ~like the labels against music, where kind of parental advisory is like what listed?

[01:13:48] Adam Cox: Yeah. Yeah. The black and white

[01:13:49] Kyle Risi: logo. Yeah, that's it.

[01:13:50] Kyle Risi: So the Satanic panic of the 1980s and the 1990s ended up leaving this huge mark on American society, which reveals ~kind of ~that [01:14:00] danger that mass hysteria can ~kind of ~have ~on ~on a community. And once again the profound influence of kind of the media in shaping ~kind of ~that public opinion as well.

[01:14:11] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. It's always the media, the crux of it. Like we saw that with Amanda Knox. Which this period saw countless innocent individuals being wrongly accused. Their families were torn apart. Huge amounts of money and resources were just wasted based on just baseless investigations.

[01:14:26] Kyle Risi: Right. And reflecting on this era, like society learned the importance of skepticism. Mm-hmm. And the need for rigorous, unbiased investigations. Stop giving huge parts of this investigation over too, like. People are not qualified. Untrained, exactly. Untrained kind of social workers who are using Michelle remembers as a resource guide and train the police on how to sensitively do their job rather than harming it off to people that aren't qualified.

[01:14:55] Adam Cox: So, um, you mentioned that about Yeah, the whole Michelle remembers, and I [01:15:00] think you said that stopped using that. Now it's not used. Oh yeah. When did they

[01:15:03] Kyle Risi: stop using it? Oh God, I don't know. Oh yeah. But they don't use it anymore because I guess from the fallout of this, they realize that, well, that was a probably a mistake.

[01:15:11] Kyle Risi: Yeah, ~I guess. ~Yeah. Live and learn. So I think it's safe to say that the Satanic panic serves as a cautionary tale about the consequences of misinformation and the responsibility to ensure that due process and critical thinking is undertaking at all times. Otherwise, you end up ~like, ~with shit like this, it's just wild.

[01:15:31] Kyle Risi: So yeah, that's the story of the Satanic panic of the 1980s. God, there wasn't even any Satan in it. No, that's it. No, at all. It's crazy.

[01:15:38] Adam Cox: Was there wasn't anyone actually doing anything. No. There wasn't closely related to satanism. Yeah. Wow.

[01:15:45] Kyle Risi: Mental, Hey,

[01:15:46] Adam Cox: I wonder if the kids that have come out now, ~I mean, ~they probably didn't really know what they were ~kind of ~describing and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. But I wonder who now, if you like, asked them what they thought about

[01:15:57] Kyle Risi: it all. Oh my God. So there were, there are some accounts, [01:16:00] one of the, the little kids that had been interviewed, he was like years later, wasn't even that long, ~like ~five years later.

[01:16:05] Kyle Risi: He was like, I wasn't gonna get out of that room unless I told them what they wanted to hear. Really? Yeah. So they knew. They knew God just unfounded

[01:16:15] Adam Cox: and I just can't believe this went on for years and just, Yeah, that just what a strange mm place in time. It's not even that long ago.

[01:16:23] Kyle Risi: No, it's not, is it? Or 30, 40 years.

[01:16:25] Kyle Risi: And when Ray Bucky was finally acquitted, like he was on Harry King, and they were like, so what are you gonna do now? And he was like, I just wanna be left alone. ~Like, ~did he get

[01:16:33] Adam Cox: compensation? I would've thought he would've done right.

[01:16:35] Kyle Risi: I don't think so. Usually if you're wrong, you do. Maybe that's more of a modern thing.

[01:16:40] Kyle Risi: I don't know. But he definitely deserves

[01:16:42] Adam Cox: it. What about the family? Did they like reopen the school or do they just all ~like, ~no, let's shut this down?

[01:16:47] Kyle Risi: They shut it down and it's now a, I think a laundry service or a dry cleaners. That's

[01:16:53] Adam Cox: quite a big laundry service.

[01:16:55] Kyle Risi: Well, for a school. Yeah. Oh, it's a really small school.

[01:16:58] Kyle Risi: So when you actually look at 9 [01:17:00] 2 7 something Manhattan Boulevard in Manhattan Beach in California. It's like on the corner, right? It's a little small plot, so, okay. ~It's, it's, ~it's quite a big sizable dry cleaners now, but it's not like a massive, it's not like a massive school. Mm-hmm. It's just a daycare center maybe for ~like ~30 kids maybe.

[01:17:15] Kyle Risi: Oh, okay. Fine. Really small. And when you look at the old pictures of it, it's like kind of the little chain that all chain link fence. Yeah. And got like little hand painted kind of sign at the top that says Mac Martin kind of preschool. Wow. And it's really cute. ~Kind of ~like little communion little school where you would just drop your kids off and Yeah.

[01:17:30] Kyle Risi: The show the family

[01:17:31] Adam Cox: that their livelihoods kind of ruined when, and then you've got actual convicted pedophiles out,~ uh,~ that deserved to be locked up. And then these poor people. Yeah.

[01:17:40] Kyle Risi: Remember they weren't even locking up pedophiles at this point, right? ~Mm-hmm. ~They were just giving them rehabilitation and therapy.

[01:17:45] Kyle Risi: And

[01:17:45] Adam Cox: it's only now actually that we're uncovering some of these things that happened, ~you know, ~all the story and sensationalism that was around. Yeah. Yeah. Jim will fix it and all that sort of stuff. That's only the last 10 years, isn't it? Mm-hmm.

[01:17:57] Kyle Risi: So that's it. Cool. Well, ready for the outro? [01:18:00] Good story. Good.

[01:18:01] Kyle Risi: I'm glad you enjoyed it. So any final words? No. Nope. Okay. Well that's another episode of the Compendium and Assembly of fascinating and intriguing things. If you've enjoyed today's episode, subscribe and leave us a cheeky five. So review and engage with us on Instagram or visit us on our new home on the web, which is adam the compendium.com.

[01:18:22] Kyle Risi: Oh, I thought it was the comp. It's the Compendium Podcast. God, you're bad at this. Sorry. It's the compendium podcast.com. And remember, we release every Tuesday, so join us next week as we unravel yet another intriguing story from the world or the Fascinating.

[01:18:35] Kyle Risi: Until then, don't leave your kids outside a nursery with a note. Nothing good can come from that. See you next week. Bye. [01:19:00]