Thurston County ritual abuse case

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Thurston County ritual abuse case
Date1988
Location Thurston County, Washington, U.S.
AccusedPaul R. Ingram
Charges Child sexual abuse
Sentence20 years in prison

The Thurston County ritual abuse case was a 1988 case in which Paul Ingram, county Republican Party Chairman of Thurston County, Washington and the Chief Civil Deputy of the Sheriff's department, was accused by his daughters of sexual abuse, by at least one daughter of satanic ritual abuse, [1] and later accused by his son in 1996 of abusing him between the ages of 4 and 12. [2]

Contents

Ingram initially said he had no memory of such events, but said that he might have repressed memories of such an event, and investigators attempted to help him to "recover" these memories. [3] Based on memories "recovered" during his investigations, he pled guilty, and his confession subsequently grew increasingly elaborate, detailed, and fantastical, while Ingram's young daughters and their friends subsequently accused a sizable number of Ingram's fellow Sheriff's department employees of ritual abuse. [3] He now maintains he is innocent and alleges his confession was coerced. Ingram's daughters had been exposed to a church counselor who utilized methods based on recovered-memory therapy (RMT), a discredited pseudoscientific method of psychological examination that has been shown to produce false memories under suggestion. Ingram's interrogators similarly relied on RMT methods to produce his confession. Ingram tried to withdraw his plea and requested a trial or clemency, but his requests were refused. According to the appeals court, the original trial had conducted "an extensive evidentiary hearing on the coercion issue" and found that Ingram was unable to prove his claims of coercion, a situation his appeals did not change. [4] Ingram was released in 2003 after serving his sentence. [5]

The case has mistakenly been cited by proponents[ who? ] of the idea that satanic ritual abuse actually exists as proof because Ingram was found guilty; in reality, Ingram was never charged with "satanic ritual abuse" but with six counts of rape in the third degree, and was sentenced to twenty years. [6] The "satanic" aspects of the case were dropped by the prosecution [7] although the appearance of Satan was integral to Ingram's confessions. Paul Ingram's "recovered" memories, which were often incompatible with each other and universally uncorroborated by physical evidence, are today often cited as examples of false memory syndrome. The case has also been compared to the Salem witch trials. [8] [9]

Background

The accusations appeared at a time when there were tremendous questions being raised about the accuracy of recovered memories of childhood abuse and incest. Books such as the self-help tome The Courage to Heal , the discredited satanic ritual abuse autobiography Michelle Remembers , and work by memory researchers such as Elizabeth Loftus all worked to support, contradict and challenge conventional beliefs about how memory and repression worked, or if the latter even existed.[ citation needed ]

Ingram's daughters had both been in therapy, one before the initial outcry, the other while the trial was ongoing. [10] The Ingrams were also members of a local Pentecostal church that promoted the idea that Satan could control the minds of Christians, cause them to commit crimes, then remove the memories after the fact, and that God would not allow harmful false memories. While at a church retreat, a woman who claimed to possess prophetic power told Ingram's daughter that she had been sexually abused by her father. [11]

Accusations

Ingram was accused of sexually abusing both of his daughters over a period of years. Initially Ericka, his eldest daughter, claimed this abuse had stopped in 1979 but later his other daughter Julie said it had happened less than five years before. When first interviewed in 1988 by Sheriff Gary Edwards and Undersheriff Neil McClanahan about the sex abuse accusations, Ingram "basically confessed during the first five minutes" as McLanahan would later state. [12]

As the case proceeded, the accusations increased in scope and detail. Ingram was also accused of participating in hundreds of satanic rituals including the slaughter of 25 babies. Ericka claimed she had caught a sexually transmitted disease from him, and had a baby aborted when near term. [13] [14]

False memories

Sociologist Richard Ofshe concluded that Ingram, because of his long-standing and routine experiences in his church, was manipulated by authority figures who conducted his interrogation, and that the confessions were the result of false memories being implanted with suggestion. [15] Ofshe tested this hypothesis by telling Ingram that a son and daughter had accused him of forcing them to commit incest with each other. Interrogating officers had previously accused Ingram of this, but he denied it, and also denied Ofshe's accusation. Ofshe instructed Ingram to pray on the idea, and later Ingram produced a full, detailed written confession. Questioning the daughter who was supposed to have been involved, despite many other accusations against her father, she denied that such an incident had ever occurred. Upon being told that no such accusation had been made by either his son or daughter, Ingram refused to believe the incident wasn't real, maintaining "[i]t's just as real to me as anything else". [16] Ofshe was thus convinced that Ingram's confessions were solely the result of extensive interrogation sessions and questions being applied to an unusually suggestible individual. He provided a report on his theory, but the prosecution initially refused to supply it to the defense, only doing so after being forced by the judge. [17] Ofshe later reported the incident in a scientific journal. [18]

Remembering Satan

Ingram's story became the basis of the book Remembering Satan by Lawrence Wright. [14] The Ingram case was also the basis for the TV-movie Forgotten Sins , in which John Shea played "Sheriff Matthew Bradshaw". Richard Ofshe, the only individual whose name was not changed for the movie, confirms that it is based on the Ingram case. [19] Lawrence Wright, the author of Remembering Satan, received a "Story by" WGA credit for the movie. [20]

PAUL: The Secret Story Of Olympia's Satanic Sheriff

Ingram's story was the subject of filmmaker Nik Nerburn's 33-minute long 2013 film PAUL: The Secret Story of Olympia's Satanic Sheriff. [21] The film was selected as the audience pick of the 2012 Olympia Film Festival and received the Award for Best Use of Archival Footage at the 2013 Seattle True Independent Film Festival.

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 sacrifices, pornography, and prostitution.

In psychology, false memory syndrome (FMS) was a proposed "pattern of beliefs and behaviors" in which a person's identity and relationships are affected by false memories of psychological trauma, recollections which are strongly believed by the individual, but contested by the accused. False memory syndrome was proposed to be the result of recovered memory therapy, a scientifically discredited form of therapy intended to recover memories. Originally conceptualized by the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, the organization sought to understand what they understood as a general pattern of behaviors that followed after a patient underwent recovered memory therapy and to come up with a term to explain the pattern. The principle that individuals can hold false memories and the role that outside influence can play in their formation is widely accepted by scientists, but there is debate over whether this effect can lead to the kinds of detailed memories of repeated sexual abuse and significant personality changes typical of cases that FMS has historically been applied to. FMS is not listed as a psychiatric illness in any medical manuals including the ICD-11, or the DSM-5. The most influential figure in the genesis of the theory is psychologist Elizabeth Loftus.

<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.

<i>The Courage to Heal</i> 1988 book by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis

The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse is a self-help book by poet Ellen Bass and Laura Davis that focuses on recovery from child sexual abuse and has been called "controversial and polarizing".

Day-care sex-abuse hysteria was a moral panic that occurred primarily during the 1980s and early 1990s, and featured charges against day-care providers accused of committing several forms of child abuse, including Satanic ritual abuse. The collective cases are often considered a part of the Satanic panic. A 1982 case in Kern County, California, United States, first publicized the issue of day-care sexual abuse, 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.

Recovered-memory therapy (RMT) is a catch-all term for a controversial and scientifically discredited form of psychotherapy that critics say utilizes one or more unproven therapeutic techniques to purportedly help patients recall previously forgotten memories. Proponents of recovered memory therapy claim, contrary to evidence, that traumatic memories can be buried in the subconscious and thereby affect current behavior, and that these memories can be recovered through the use of RMT techniques. RMT is not recommended by professional mental health associations. RMT can result in patients developing false memories of sexual abuse from their childhood and events such as alien abduction which had not actually occurred.

The False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF) was a nonprofit organization founded in 1992 and dissolved in late 2019.

The National Center for Reason and Justice is a United States national non-profit organization disseminating information to the public about claims of injustice in the current criminal justice system and facilitating financial and legal assistance for people the organization considers likely to have been falsely accused or wrongfully convicted.

Richard Jason Ofshe is an American sociologist and professor emeritus of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is known for his expert testimony relating to coercion in small groups, confessions, and interrogations.

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.

Ralph Charles Underwager was an American minister and psychologist who rose to prominence as a defense witness for adults accused of child sexual abuse in the 1980s and 1990s. Until his death in 2003, he was the director of the Institute for Psychological Therapies, which he founded in 1974. He was also a founder of Victims of Child Abuse Laws (VOCAL), a lobby group which represented the interests of parents whose children had been removed from their care by social services following abuse allegations. He was a founding member of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation. He was also accused of being a supporter of pedophilia because of controversial statements he made, including those in an interview to Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia.

The Oak Hill satanic ritual abuse trial occurred in Oak Hill, Austin, Texas, in 1991 when Fran Keller and her husband Dan, proprietors of a small day care, were accused of repeatedly and sadistically abusing several children.

The Country Walk case is a Florida 1985 "Multi-Victim, Multi-Offender" child sex abuse case that occurred during the day-care sex-abuse hysteria. Frank Fuster remains imprisoned. His wife Ileana Flores Fuster initially denied any wrongdoing, but following months of interrogations, she testified against Frank and confessed to the alleged crimes, later recanting her confession, then recanting her recantation, and finally recanting that. This case became known because it seemed to have better evidence than other ritual abuse cases, but scientific findings since Fuster's conviction have challenged the evidence. The case, prosecuted by Janet Reno, was profiled in the 2002 Frontline episode "Did Daddy Do It?"

Memory implantation is a technique used in cognitive psychology to investigate human memory. In memory implantation studies researchers make people believe that they remember an event that actually never happened. The false memories that have been successfully implanted in people's memories include remembering being lost in a mall as a child, taking a hot air balloon ride, and putting slime in a teacher's desk in primary school.

Imagination inflation is a type of memory distortion that occurs when imagining an event that never happened increases confidence in the memory of the event.

The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse is a 1994 book by Elizabeth Loftus and Katherine Ketcham, published by St. Martin's Press.

Making Monsters: False Memories, Psychotherapy, and Sexual Hysteria is a 1994 book by Richard Ofshe and Ethan Watters, published by Scribner's. It is critical of recovered memory movements, allegations of abuse by Satanic cults, and multiple-personality disorder diagnoses. Ofshe, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his news reporting, is a University of California, Berkeley professor of social psychology. Watters is a freelance writer.

Barbara W. Snow is a practicing therapist based out of Salt Lake City, Utah. She was a central figure in the Satanic ritual abuse moral panic in Utah in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Bennett G. Braun was an American psychiatrist known for his promotion of the concept of multiple personality disorder and involvement in promoting the "Satanic Panic", a moral panic around a conspiracy theory that led to thousands of people being wrongfully medically treated or investigated for nonexistent crimes.

References

  1. ↑ Ofshe, R. "Ofshe Report on the Ingram Case". Archived from the original on 2004-03-21. Retrieved 2008-11-03.
  2. ↑ Zimmerman, Rachel (1996-06-08). "Son of Deputy Says He Was Sexually Abused; Dramatic Report in Testimony to Clemency Panel". Seattle Post-Intelligencer . pp. B1.
  3. 1 2 Wright, 1994.
  4. ↑ Burgess, Justice F. D. (1994). Order granting summary judgment in Paul R. Ingram v. Chase Riverland et al., No. C93-5399FDB, U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington at Tacoma, May 5, 1994
  5. ↑ "Ingram Organization". 2003-04-08. Archived from the original on 2004-11-30. Retrieved 2010-02-01.
  6. ↑ Wright, 1994, p. 188.
  7. ↑ Lewis, James P. (2001). Satanism today: an encyclopedia of religion, folklore, and popular culture. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO. pp. 126–8. ISBN   1-57607-292-4.
  8. ↑ Kearney, Richard (2004). On stories. New York: Routledge. p. 35. ISBN   0-415-24797-7.
  9. ↑ Edmundson, Mark (1997). Nightmare on Main Street: angels, sadomasochism, and the culture of Gothic. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. p. 39. ISBN   0-674-62463-7.
  10. ↑ Wright, 1994, p. 147-175.
  11. ↑ Lewis JP (2001). Satanism today: an encyclopedia of religion, folklore, and popular culture. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO. pp.  125–6. ISBN   1-57607-292-4.
  12. ↑ Gates, D. (1996, August 28). Doubtful justice. Seattle Weekly, 20-27.
  13. ↑ Wrightsman, Lawrence S.; Solomon M. Fulero (2009). Forensic psychology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. pp.  246–248. ISBN   978-0-495-50649-2.
  14. 1 2 "Katie Couric on the Paul Ingram Satanic Ritual Abuse case, with Lawrence Wright - YouTube". www.youtube.com. Archived from the original on 2021-12-19.
  15. ↑ Robinson, BA (2003-04-29). "The "Paul Ingram" ritual abuse case, in Olympia, WA". Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance . Retrieved 2009-02-03.
  16. ↑ Wright, 1994, p. 134-146.
  17. ↑ Wright, 1994, p. 177.
  18. ↑ Ofshe RJ (July 1992). "Inadvertent hypnosis during interrogation: false confession due to dissociative state; mis-identified multiple personality and the Satanic cult hypothesis". Int J Clin Exp Hypn. 40 (3): 125–56. doi:10.1080/00207149208409653. PMID   1399152.
  19. ↑ "Sociology Professor Featured In TV Movie 'Forgotten Sins'". The Berkleyan. Office of Public Affairs at UC Berkeley. 1996-03-06. Retrieved 2007-04-24.
  20. ↑ "LMN.tv Movie Credits". LMN. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-04-24.
  21. ↑ Nerburn, Nik (August 30, 2012). "PAUL: The Secret Story of Olympia's Satanic Sheriff" – via Vimeo.

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