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Elizabeth Ramirez

Elizabeth Ramirez

Three women convicted in 1998 of a 1994 sexual assault were released from a Texas prison yesterday, but not yet exonerated. Along with a fourth woman who was paroled last year, they plan to seek that exoneration from the Texas Court of Appeals. A trial judge recommended that that court vacate the conviction, and if it does, Baxter county prosecutors say they will not retry the case.

Behind those dry facts lies a mountain of drama, passion and disturbing rush to judgment. Once again, as we have reported many times now, the story managed to get way out in front of the evidence.

The charge was sexual assault on two minors. The motive was Satanism.

Sound familiar?

According to the prosecution, Elizabeth Ramirez, Anna Vasquez, Cassandra Rivera and Kristie Mayhugh – all in their late teens or early twenties at the time – sexually assaulted Ramirez’s seven and nine-year-old nieces over two days during a weeklong visit to their aunt. They were convicted on the testimony of the two girls and Dr, Nancy Kellogg, the board-certified pediatrician who examined them. Dr, Kellogg testified that she noted evidence on the girls consistent with “satanic-related sexual abuse.”

The defendants became known as both The San Antonio Four and The Texas Four. The prosecution suggested that their lesbianism predisposed them to this type of crime.

What was not brought out at the trial was an allegation that the two girls had a history of making claims of sexual abuse and that their father had an unfulfilled infatuation with Ms. Ramirez, which she said was borne out by a series of love letters.

A number of reputable medical experts have challenged Dr. Kellogg’s findings as not scientifically reputable. And as was reported last year by theĀ San Antonio Express-News, one of the two girls, now an adult, has recanted her testimony and desperately wanted her aunt and the other women out of prison and cleared.

It is noteworthy that this case took place at the height of the national satanic panic scare. Earlier that year, the West Memphis Three had been convicted of the satanic murder of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. Television talk shows were focussing on how you could protect your children from these monstrous predators and police departments were engaging “expert” consultants to instruct them on how to recognize and investigate satanic cult crimes.

Only they didn’t exist. Kenneth Lanning, the FBI’s leading expert on crimes against children, examined every claim and could not find one legitimate case of satanic ritual crime. Also, we have rarely if ever seen an actual case of multi-perpetrator sexual abuse by women. It just doesn’t happen.

But here again we have a narrative so powerful that those involved with investigating and prosecuting the case could not be objective, and actual evidence and logic became irrelevant.

Every time we uncover a case like this, we hope it will be a cautionary tale.

And we keep hoping.

11 Responses to Satanic Panic Revisited

  1. corpus_vile says:

    Hi,
    That’s not actually what Lanning said, he said he could find no evidence of Satanic Ritual Abuse occurring on the massive scale that some were claiming. He never actually said that there was no evidence of Satanic Ritual Abuse itself.
    However, the existence of a form of child abuse, variously described as either “Satanic Ritual Abuse”, “Sadistic Ritual Abuse” or “Ritual Abuse”, is a matter of multiple court record, with several convictions to prove it, such as the Frank Fuster, Colin Blatley, Charlotte Thrailkill and Louis Lamonica convictions, all of whom are still incarcerated today.

    The West Memphis Three are guilty imo, after viewing the evidence.

  2. mdricex says:

    Anyone who knows anything about psychology and physiology and how trauma works knows that the problem with trauma is not that it is repressed, but that it CAN’T BE FORGOTTEN. This is what causes PTSD and is why so many abused persons become substance abusers, to try to forget. How any practicing psychiatrist or psychologist can just ignore this and somehow justify this repressed memory recovery nonsense is just baffling to me, and should be to anyone who has half a brain.

  3. joe5348 says:

    Before getting to the evidence, it seems to me that a prosecution should pass the smell test. The Knox case, the West Memphis Three, the Cruz and Nicarico case in Illinois, all fail to pass the smell test. Those cases just not only don’t make sense, they are counter factual and go against both expert and layman common sense. Which leads me to the crime of the century, the JFK assassination. The idea that the CIA, KGB, Mossad, RCMP or the Mafia engaged in a massive conspiracy is just nuts, it doesn’t pass the smell test. But there is an analysis that I wish Dr. Douglas would engage in. Of the thirteen domestic assassination attempts on presidents or presidential candidates, only Booth, the Puerto Rican nationalists and Oswald left the scene. What does that mean, if anything? I took my son to the sixth floor of the School Book Depository. One of the things that I noticed was that Oswald had a much easier shot when Kennedy was coming down Houston Street as he was coming towards Oswald as opposed to the shot he took when Kennedy was going away from him on Elm. The docent there said that was a question that was frequently asked. The only thing I can think of is that shooting Kennedy in the face would be personal but shooing him in the back is impersonal. But I’m no profile expert an would appreciate the opinion of somebody who is.

    • Experts have told me that the shot once the limousine turned the corner was actually the easier one and that it is easier to be accurate with a receding target than an approaching one. I am probably oversimplifying this, but our experts have been pretty consistent.
      As far as leaving the scene, I think there are varying reasons, but certainly at least two of the three examples you mentioned – Booth and Oswald – did expect to get away with it. Booth was definitely a confirmed Lincoln hater and expected to be lauded as a hero. Oswald was an inadequate nobody and we don’t believe John Kennedy was as important to him as an individual as was the President of the United States. In fact, most assassins are compensating for inadequate personalities. John Hinckley certainly would have tried to get away if he were smart and resourceful enough to figure it out.

    • I agree with you completely about the “smell test.” Another way to state it is: Is there any evidence? In the cases you mentioned, the answers should have been obvious.

    • corpus_vile says:

      Amanda Knox was convicted on more evidence than Scott Peterson, serial killer Rose West, serial killer Mark Nash and serial killer Craig Price. She’s truly guilty as sin and her supporters have engaged in repugnant, obscene attacks on the Kercher family, which they continue to this day.

      West Memphis three were convicted by two separate courts and defence exhibit 500 clearly shows that Damien Echols is a deeply disturbed psychopath. Today they’re still regarded as legally guilty.

  4. Cornerstone says:

    I guess until religious hysteria/delusion is specifically recognized in the DSM and treated and acknowledged by law enforcement, these sort of witch hunts will continue into the next millenium.

  5. whosear says:

    I befriended a woman who was diagnosed with MPD, now DID. She told me of memories. We had a mutual friend who had some information about sexual abuse within the church in the 70’s, so as a favor to her therapist and friend, I interviewed the women. My friends memories go back to the 60’s..

    I did find out that this woman was told by a 13 year old girl that the youth pastor, the son of the pastor, was having sex with her. It turned out he was having sex with many girls in this age-group, according to this woman’s account. She did not tell anyone, but then became involved and protected many of the girls.

    The youth minister left, was a middle school teacher, left under suspicious circumstances and then became a lawyer. I met several of the women who claimed to have been molested by him. I obtained a photocopy of his school personnel file for their attorneys’ which had allegations of sexual contact with similar aged students. Their was a 3 year statute of limitations starting at age 18 of the victim at the time.

    I checked a decade or so ago, he was still practicing law. I don’t know what happened with the case.

    What I learned from the lesson, that unless you can verify details of a recovered memory, it is too easy for them to be false ones. I agree about the Satanic ritualistic abuse,

  6. joe5348 says:

    Doesn’t all this remind you of the McMartin hysteria of the 1980s?

    • corpus_vile says:

      McMartin resulted in a mistrial and two hung juries, with seven out of nine jurors saying that they felt the children were abused, but that the prosecution didn’t adequately make a case for who abused whom, bard.
      Defence attorney Danny Davis allowed that medical evidence for one of the victims was “serious and convincing”.
      Peggy Buckey claimed in court that she had only worked at the preschool for a few weeks. Payroll records show she worked there for several years.
      Peggy Buckey also admitted in court that she would often check to see if Ray Buckey- who she called “a troubled young man, trying to find his way in life”- was physically aroused after having the children sit on his lap, while wearing “short shorts” without underwear.

      The McMarting case was undeniably flawed and I understand the acquittals, but that case is not as clear cut as is made out.

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