Day care sex abuse hysteria was a panic that occurred primarily in the 1980s and early 1990s feauring claims of satanic ritual abuse and several forms child abuse against daycare providers. A prominent case in Kern County, California, first brought the issue of day care sexual abuse to the forefront of the public awareness, and the issue figured prominently in news coverage for almost a decade. The Kern County case was followed by cases elsewhere in the United States as well as Canada, New Zealand, Brazil, and various European countries.
Significant cases
Kern County child abuse cases
Main article: Kern County child abuse casesThe Kern County child abuse case was the first prominent instance of accusations of ritualized sex abuse of children. In 1982 in Kern County, California, Debbie and Alvin McCuan were accused of abusing their own children. The initial charges were made by Mary Ann Barbour, the children's step-grandmother, who had a history of mental illness. Coercive interviewing techniques were used by the authorities to ellicit disclosures of parental sexual abuse from the children. In 1982, the girls further accused McCuan's defense witnesses: Scott Kniffen, his wife Brenda, and his mother. Mary Ann Barbour reported that the children had been used for prostitution, used in child pornography, tortured, and made to watch snuff films. In 1985, each of the McCuans and the Kniffens was sentenced to over 240 years in prison. Their convictions were overturned in 1996.
McMartin preschool trial
Main article: McMartin preschool trialThe case started in August 1983 when Judy Johnson, the mother of a 2½ year-old boy reported to the police that her son was abused by Raymond Buckey at the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California. After seven years of criminal trials, no convictions were obtained, and all charges were dropped in 1990. As of 2006, it is the longest and most expensive criminal trial in the history of the United States. The accusations involved hidden tunnels, killing animals, Satan worship, and orgies. Judy Johnson was diagnosed with acute schizophrenia and in 1986 was found dead in her home from complications of chronic alcoholism. Buckey and his mother Peggy McMartin were eventually released without any charges. In 2005 one of the testifying children retracted his testimony and said he lied, to protect his younger siblings and to please his parents.
In The Devil in The Nursery in 2001, Margaret Talbot for the New York Times summarized the case:
"When you once believed something that now strikes you as absurd, even unhinged, it can be almost impossible to summon that feeling of credulity again. Maybe that is why it is easier for most of us to forget, rather than to try and explain, the Satanic-abuse scare that gripped this country in the early 80's — the myth that Devil-worshipers had set up shop in our day-care centers, where their clever adepts were raping and sodomizing children, practicing ritual sacrifice, shedding their clothes, drinking blood and eating feces, all unnoticed by parents, neighbors and the authorities."
Country Walk
Frank Fuster, the owner of the Country Walk Babysitting Service, was found guilty of 14 counts of abuse. He was sentenced to a prison sentence with a minimum of 165 years. Fuster's victims testified that his "unspeakable acts" included leading them in Satanic rituals and terrorizing them by forcing them to watch him mutilate birds, a lesson to children who might reveal the abuse. Fuster had been previously convicted for manslaughter and for fondling a 9 year old child. Over 50 children accused Fuster and Iliana (his wife) of child abuse and Fuster's own son was treated for gonorrhea of his throat, though evidence of infection was quickly lost. ("After Fuster's trial, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control concluded that the test is notorious for giving false positives.") Iliana testified against her husband and confessed to her role in the crimes and received a ten-year sentence, later recanting her confession, then recanting her recantation, and finally recanting that.
Starting in 1984, Janet Reno used Joseph and Laurie Braga, two self-styled experts at interviewing children, to gain most of the "confessions" from the children. The Bragas coerced numerous children into confessions that were thrown out on appeal in both state and federal courts years later. One federal judge described the confessions as "fundamentally unfair." Some of the kids later admitted that they confessed only because they were told other children claimed abuse, and that they were tired of being told "I don't believe you," and "because I was getting tired ... I told a lie."
Fells Acres Day Care Center
Main article: Fells Acres Day Care Center preschool trialThe incident began in 1984, when a 5-year-old boy told a family member that Gerald Amirault, administrator and handyman at the Fells Acres day care center, had touched his penis. The boy's mother notified the authorities, and Gerald was arrested. The children told stories which included being abused by a clown and a robot in a secret room at the day care center. They told of watching animals being sacrificed, and one girl claimed Gerald had penetrated her anus with the twelve-inch (30 cm) blade of a knife (which left no injuries).
In the 1986 trial, Gerald was convicted and sentenced to thirty to forty years in state prison. He was released in 2004. In 1995 the chief prosecutor of both of the Amirault cases responded to a critical series of articles in the Wall Street Journal by Dorothy Rabinowitz. He stated that "the children testified to being photographed and molested by acts that included penetration by objects" and "the implication ... that the children's allegations of abuse were tainted by improper interviewing is groundless and not true."
The Bronx Five
In The Bronx, prosecutor Mario Merola convicted five men, including Nathaniel Grady, a 47 year-old Methodist minister, of sexually abusing children in day care centers throughout the Bronx. Rev. Grady spent ten years in prison before being released without any apology in 1996.
Praca Day Care
Three employees of a Bronx day-care center were arrested in August, 1984 on the charges of abusing at least ten children in their care. Federal and city investigators then questioned dozens of children at the day care. They used 'dolls, gentle words and a quiet approach.' More children reported being sexually abused, raising the total to 30. “Three more city-financed day care centers” also were investigated for sexual abuse. On August 11, 1984, it was reported that federal funds had been cut off to the Head Start preschool program at the Praca Day Care Center and now four employees had been arrested. In June, 1985 the day care center was reopened with new sponsorship. In January 1986, Albert Algarin, employed at the Praca Day Care center, was sentenced to 50 years in prison for 'raping and sexually abusing five children.' It was reported in May 1986 that Jesus Torres, a former teacher’s aide at the Praca Day Care “was sentenced to 40 years in prison yesterday for sexually assaulting two boys at the center.' ”Franklin Beauchamp who had been 'convicted of nine counts of rape, sexual abuse and sodomy involving three children at Praca,' had his case overturned in New York state’s highest state court in May 1989. 'The State Court of Appeals ruled that the indictment used to obtain his 1986 conviction was duplicitous, or not specific enough.' On a web page from Frontline Innocence Lost Other Well-Known Cases PBS, it is stated that the "remaining defendants eventually had their convictions overturned as well."
Wee Care Nursery School
Main article: Wee Care Nursery SchoolIn Maplewood, New Jersey in April 1985, Margaret Kelly Michaels was indicted for 299 offenses in connection with the sexual assault of 33 children. Michaels denied the charges. "The prosecution produced expert witnesses who said that almost all the children displayed symptoms of sexual abuse." Prosecution witnesses testified that the children "had regressed into such behavior as bed-wetting and defecating in their clothing. The witnesses said the children became afraid to be left alone or to stay in the dark." Some of the other teachers testified against her. "The defense argued that Miss Michaels did not have the time or opportunity to go to a location where all the activities could have taken place without someone seeing her." Michaels was sentenced to 47 years in the "sex case." Michaels "told the judge that she was confident her conviction would be overturned on appeal." After five years in prison her appeal was successful and sentence was overturned by a New Jersey appeals court. The New Jersey Supreme Court upheld the lower court's decision and declared "the interviews of the children were highly improper and utilized coercive and unduly suggestive methods." A three judge panel ruled she had been denied a fair trial, because "the prosecution of the case had relied on testimony that should have been excluded because it improperly used an expert's theory, called the child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome, to establish guilt." The original judge was also criticized "for the way in which he allowed the children to give televised testimony from his chambers."
Glendale Montessori
In 1989, James Toward, owner of Glendale Montessori School in Stuart, Florida, entered an Alford plea to child s
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