Ted Gunderson

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Ted Gunderson
Ted Gunderson in his FBI Office.jpg
Gunderson in his FBI office
Born(1928-11-07)November 7, 1928
Colorado Springs, Colorado, U.S.
DiedJuly 31, 2011(2011-07-31) (aged 82)
Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.
Occupation(s)FBI Senior Special Agent In Charge, private investigator, speaker, author
Employer(s) Federal Bureau of Investigation, private clients
TitleSenior Special Agent in Charge, Los Angeles; Special Agent in Charge, Dallas, Memphis and Washington, D.C. offices, F.B.I.
Political party Constitution

Theodore L. Gunderson (November 7, 1928 – July 31, 2011) was a Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent In Charge and head of the Los Angeles FBI, [1] an American author, and a conspiracy theorist. Some of his FBI case work included the Death of Marilyn Monroe and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. [2] He was the author of the best-selling book How to Locate Anyone Anywhere Without Leaving Home. [3] In later life, he researched a number of topics, notably including satanic ritual abuse. [4]

Contents

Early life and FBI

Ted Gunderson was born in Colorado Springs. He graduated from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 1950.

In December 1951, Gunderson joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation under J. Edgar Hoover. He served in the Mobile, Knoxville, New York City, and Albuquerque offices. He held posts as an Assistant Special Agent in Charge in New Haven and Philadelphia. In 1973, he became the head of the Memphis FBI office, and in 1975 became head of the Dallas FBI office. [5] In 1977, Gunderson was appointed head of the Los Angeles FBI. [6] In 1979, he was one of a handful interviewed for the job of FBI director, which ultimately went to William H. Webster. [7]

Post-FBI

After retiring from the FBI, Gunderson set up a private investigation firm, Ted L. Gunderson and Associates, in Santa Monica. In 1980, he became a defense investigator for Green Beret doctor Jeffrey R. MacDonald, who had been convicted of the 1970 murders of his pregnant wife and two daughters. Gunderson obtained affidavits from Helena Stoeckley confessing to her involvement in the murders which she claimed had in actuality been perpetrated by a Satanic cult of which she was a member. [8]

Stoeckley later took and passed a polygraph, with the military examiner concluding that Stoeckley truthfully believed that she was present at MacDonald's home during the murders. But because of her drug use during and after the murders, the examiner could not conclude if she was actually present at the scene of the murders. [9] Some time afterwards, Stoeckley changed her story and denied ever having seen MacDonald, and was adamant she was not involved. [10] Under oath, Stoeckley denied any culpability in murders, and any knowledge of who may have committed the acts. [11] On her deathbed at the age of 31, Stoeckley changed her story one final time and reiterated and reaffirmed that she was present during the murder of MacDonald's family and that MacDonald himself is innocent. [12] [13]

Gunderson became a leading figure on the far-right [14] and a leading anti-government conspiracy theorist. [15]

Gunderson was involved in the McMartin preschool case, at the heart of the 1980s "satanic panic". [16] [17] He made numerous confident statements supporting the truth of the supposed abuse ring [18] and became a "recognized spokesman on the dangers of satanic ritual cults". [19]

In a 1995 conference in Dallas, Gunderson warned about the proliferation of purported secret occultist groups, and the danger posed by the New World Order, a conspiracy theory about an alleged shadow government that would be controlling the United States government. [20] He also claimed that a "slave auction" in which children were sold by Saudi Arabian agents to men had been held in Las Vegas, that four thousand ritual human sacrifices are performed in New York City every year, and that the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was carried out by the U.S. government. [20]

Gunderson also claimed that in the United States, there is a secret widespread network of groups who kidnap children and infants and subject them to ritual abuse and subsequent human sacrifice. [21] [22]

The Southern Poverty Law Center believed Gunderson "played a pivotal role in the anti-government 'patriot' movement". [23] Gunderson alleged the U.S. government was preparing for mass executions by setting up a thousand internment camps and purchasing 30,000 guillotines. [24] [25] [26] He was also an architect of conspiracy theories around the Oklahoma City bombing, promoting a narrative of an FBI coverup, and the idea that if McVeigh was one of the bombers then it was due to secret government mind control. [27]

Gunderson had an association with former music producer and conspiracy film maker Anthony J. Hilder. Hilder had interviewed him regarding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. [28] He also appeared in Hilder's Reichstag '95 and Illuminazi 911 documentaries. [29] [30]

Gunderson did not believe that Sonny Bono died in a skiing accident. Instead, Gunderson alleged that top officials linked to an international drug and weapons ring feared the singer-turned-politician was about to expose their crimes, so they had Bono murdered on the ski slopes and staged the accident. [31] [32]

Death

On July 31, 2011 Gunderson's son reported that his father had died from bladder cancer. [33]

Publications

Related Research Articles

The Satanic panic is a moral panic consisting of over 12,000 unsubstantiated cases of Satanic ritual abuse starting in the United States in the 1980s, spreading throughout many parts of the world by the late 1990s, and persisting today. The panic originated in 1980 with the publication of Michelle Remembers, a book co-written by Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his patient, Michelle Smith, which used the controversial and now discredited practice of recovered-memory therapy to make claims about satanic ritual abuse involving Smith. The allegations, which arose afterward throughout much of the United States, involved reports of physical and sexual abuse of people in the context of occult or Satanic rituals. Some allegations involve a conspiracy of a global Satanic cult that includes the wealthy and elite in which children are abducted or bred for human sacrifice, pornography, and prostitution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moral panic</span> Fear that some evil threatens society

A moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society. It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue", usually perpetuated by moral entrepreneurs and mass media coverage, and exacerbated by politicians and lawmakers. Moral panic can give rise to new laws aimed at controlling the community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terry Nichols</span> American domestic terrorist (born 1955)

Terry Lynn Nichols is an American domestic terrorist who was convicted for conspiring with Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing plot. Prior to his incarceration, he held a variety of short-term jobs, working as a farmer, grain elevator manager, real estate salesman, and ranch hand. He met Timothy McVeigh during a brief stint in the U.S. Army, which ended in 1989 when he requested a hardship discharge after less than one year of service. In 1994 and 1995, he conspired with McVeigh in the planning and preparation of the truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on April 19, 1995. The bombing killed 168 people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lawrence Pazder</span> Canadian psychiatrist and author

Lawrence Pazder was a Canadian psychiatrist and author. Pazder wrote the discredited biography, Michelle Remembers, published in 1980, with his patient Michelle Smith, which claimed to detail satanic ritual abuse.

<i>Michelle Remembers</i> Discredited book about recovered memory psychotherapy

Michelle Remembers is a discredited 1980 book co-written by Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his psychiatric patient Michelle Smith. A best-seller, Michelle Remembers relied on the discredited practice of recovered-memory therapy to make sweeping, lurid claims about Satanic ritual abuse involving Smith, which contributed to the rise of the Satanic panic in the 1980s. While the book presents its claims as fact, and was extensively marketed on that basis at the time, no evidence was provided; all investigations into the book failed to corroborate any of its claims, with investigators describing its content as being primarily based on elements of popular culture and fiction that were popular at the time when it was written.

Cathy O'Brien is an American conspiracy theorist and author who claims to have been a victim of a government mind control program called "Project Monarch", which she alleges was part of the CIA's Project MKUltra. O'Brien made these assertions in Trance Formation of America (1995) and Access Denied: For Reasons of National Security (2004), both of which she co-authored and self-published with her husband, Mark Phillips. According to scholars, there is no credible evidence for O'Brien's claims and there are numerous inconsistencies in her story.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theistic Satanism</span> Umbrella term for religious groups

Theistic Satanism, otherwise referred to as traditional Satanism, religious Satanism, or spiritual Satanism, is an umbrella term for religious groups that consider Satan, the Devil, to objectively exist as a deity, supernatural entity, or spiritual being worthy of worship or reverence, whom individuals may believe in, contact, and convene with, in contrast to the atheistic archetype, metaphor, or symbol found in LaVeyan Satanism.


The Faith Chapel Church ritual abuse case was a case of a developmentally disabled individual charged with child sexual abuse in 1991 as part of the satanic ritual abuse moral panic. After a 9-month trial, the accused was found not guilty by the jury.

The Satanic panic in Utah is part of a broader moral panic that began in the 1980s as children in the United States, subjected to coercive interviewing techniques at the hands of zealous social workers, made unsubstantiated allegations of bizarre Satanic rituals and horrific sexual and physical abuse at the hands of day care workers. As the decade unfolded, clients of believing therapists began to make similar allegations, which are now generally seen as confabulations caused by iatrogenic therapeutic techniques such as hypnosis and automatic writing rather than the discovery of repressed memories. Despite the similarities between the allegations of adults and children, investigations produced only circumstantial, and in many cases contradictory evidence of the patients' disclosures. The court cases surrounding satanic ritual abuse (SRA) allegations were among the most expensive and lengthy in history and produced no convictions or convictions based solely on the testimony of children that were frequently overturned or dismissed upon appeal.

Kathleen 'Kee' MacFarlane is an American social worker known for involvement in the high-profile McMartin preschool trial in the 1980s. She was the Director of Children's Institute International. She developed the concept of the anatomically correct doll for children to use during interviews concerning abuse and played a significant role in the McMartin trial. MacFarlane has been criticized for her methods of interrogating small children. Charges against the defendants were eventually dropped.

<i>Cult and Ritual Abuse</i> Book by James Randall Noblitt and Pamela Sue Perskin

Cult and Ritual Abuse: Its History, Anthropology, and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America is a book written by James Randall Noblitt and Pamela Sue Perskin exploring the phenomenon of satanic ritual abuse (SRA). The authors argue that some allegations of intergenerational, ritualized abuse cults are supported by evidence, contrary to most scholars of the subject who regard satanic ritual abuse as a moral panic with no factual basis. Noblitt, a clinical psychologist, is Director of the Center for Counseling and Psychological Services in Dallas, Texas. Perskin is the executive director of the International Council on Cultism and Ritual Trauma and a lecturer on child abuse.

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Believe the Children was an advocacy organization formed by the parents involved in the McMartin preschool trial to promote the idea that allegations of Satanic ritual abuse were factual and not a moral panic. The organization's name was based on the slogan that the children, who were the primary sources of information about the alleged abuse, should be believed without question. The organization became a clearinghouse for information about ritual abuse from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s. Few, if any, of the claims of ritual satanic abuse promoted by Believe the Children have been substantiated.

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References

  1. ↑ Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI. Turner Publishing Co. 1999. pp. 150–151. ISBN   9781563114731.
  2. ↑ "Former Memphis FBI chief Gunderson dies". San Diego Union-Tribune. 2011-08-19. Retrieved 2021-04-30.
  3. ↑ Gunderson, Ted L.; McGovern, Roger (1989). How to Locate Anyone Anywhere Without Leaving Home. Dutton. ISBN   0-525-24746-7.
  4. ↑ Gunderson, Ted L (1994). Corruption: the Satanic drug cult network and missing children. OCLC   893568977.
  5. ↑ "The Dallas Division, Office Locations and Special Agents in Charge".
  6. ↑ Daniel Schorn (November 6, 2005). "Jeffrey MacDonald: Time For Truth". CBS News, 48 Hours. Retrieved 2010-06-07.
  7. ↑ January 2, 1983, The Dallas Morning News
  8. ↑ "Around the Nation; Investigation Reopened In Doctor's Murder Case". Associated Press International. 1982-04-17. Retrieved 2008-08-21.
  9. ↑ "Helena Stoeckley polygraph by Robert Brisentine | Jeffrey MacDonald Case". www.crimearchives.net. Retrieved 2021-08-18.
  10. ↑ The Murder Almanac, p. 112. ISBN   978-1897784044.
  11. ↑ McGinniss, Joe (1983). Fatal Vision. New York: G.P. Putnam Sons. ISBN   978-0399128165. OCLC   9111302.
  12. ↑ "Jeffrey MacDonald's Wife Says He Is 'At Peace' As Judge Considers New Evidence". ABC News . Retrieved 2021-08-18.
  13. ↑ Morris, Errol (2012). A Wilderness of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald. New York: Penguin Press. ISBN   978-1594203435. OCLC   760974114.
  14. ↑ SERRANO, RICHARD A. (11 December 1999). "Keeping an Eye on Would-Be Y2K Terrorists - Los Angeles Times". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 2021-04-26.
  15. ↑ "Anti-Government Rally Set for Washington". Associated Press. 29 August 1996. Retrieved 2021-04-26– via The Oklahoman.
  16. ↑ Wyatt, W. Joseph (2002-05-01). "What was Under the McMartin Preschool? A Review and Behavioral Analysis of the "Tunnels" Find". Behavior and Social Issues. 12 (1): 29–39. doi: 10.5210/bsi.v12i1.77 . ISSN   2376-6786. S2CID   143610786.
  17. ↑ Beck, Richard (2015). We Believe the Children: a Moral Panic in the 1980s (1 ed.). New York. ISBN   978-1610392877. OCLC   884814316.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  18. ↑ De Young, Mary (2004). The Day Care Ritual Abuse Moral Panic. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. ISBN   0-7864-1830-3. OCLC   53900894.
  19. ↑ Jenkins, Philip (1998). Moral panic : changing concepts of the child molester in modern America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN   0300073879. OCLC   38566093.
  20. 1 2 Evan Harrington (September 1996). "Conspiracy Theories and Paranoia: Notes From a Mind-Control Conference". Skeptical Inquirer . Retrieved 2012-04-29.
  21. ↑ Philip Jenkins (July 2008), "Chapter 10: Satanism and Ritual Abuse", in James R. Lewis (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements, Oxford University Press, pp. 222, 241, doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195369649.001.0001, ISBN   978-0195369649 [ permanent dead link ]
  22. ↑ Philip Jenkins and Daniel Maier-Katkin (2006), "Satanism: myth and reality in a contemporary moral panic", in Chas Critcher (ed.), Critical Readings: Moral Panics and the Media, Open University Press, pp. 90–91, 93, ISBN   978-0335218073
  23. ↑ "False Patriots". Southern Poverty Law Center. 8 May 2001. Retrieved 2021-04-26.
  24. ↑ Ingram, Hunter. "Fact check: Fake claim about US purchase of 30,000 guillotines has circulated for years" . Retrieved 2021-04-26.
  25. ↑ "Secret camps and guillotines? Groups make 'birthers' look sane". 2009-08-29. Retrieved 2021-04-26.
  26. ↑ Keller, Larry (30 August 2009). "Evidence Grows of Far-Right Militia Resurgence". Southern Poverty Law Center . Retrieved 2021-04-26.
  27. ↑ Witt, Howard (9 May 1995). "AMID OKLAHOMA MYSTERIES, CONSPIRACY IDEAS WIN HEARING". Chicago Tribune . Retrieved 2021-04-26.
  28. ↑ 9/11 Decoded: Journey to Polynesia by Jim Garrity · 2015 - THE WTC EXPERIMENTAL BOMB
  29. ↑ Something in This Book Is True, Second Edition by Bob Frissell - Page 75 Notes
  30. ↑ The Free American!, vol. 10 (2003), pp. 3, 11, 19. Published by Clayton R. Douglas. Digitized by the University of Wisconsin.
  31. ↑ "Sonny Bono 'assassinated' by hitmen: former FBI agent". NewsComAu. 2008-04-03. Archived from the original on 2021-08-20. Retrieved 2021-08-20.
  32. ↑ "FBI agent claims Sonny Bono was murdered". NME . 9 April 2008. Retrieved 2021-04-26.
  33. ↑ Former Memphis FBI Chief Dies Archived 2013-06-24 at the Wayback Machine
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