Scott Peterson defense suggests Satanists - News and Comment

Scott Peterson, a fertilizer salesman who is accused of killing his pregnant wife Laci in December of 2002, is bringing up the spectre of Satanism in his defense. The photogenic Modesto, California, mother was found washed up on a San Francisco shore.

The legal team for Peterson reportedly plans to put forth the theory that Laci was kidnapped and killed in some sort of Satanic ritual as a sacrifice. Randy Cerny, an "expert" on ritualistic crimes, is expected to testify, in part because of his involvement with another alleged Satanic killing case, that of four people in nearby Salida, California, in 1990. Angela Ragsdale, another self-styled Satanic ritual expert, noted unconfirmed reports that Laci's unborn child's body allegedly was found with a slash on the torso and a nooselike length of tape wrapped around the neck. This detail, Ragsdale said, suggests "a satanical-type thing." Other claimed links include the time of year Peterson was killed (supposedly coinciding with an important Satanic date), and the (possibly erroneous) detail that Laci's internal organs were removed.

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, a rash of child abuse cases horrified America. Children accused adults of ritual rapes, torture, and abuse, and the news media reported the lurid stories with glee. Often the accusations included charges of Satanism. Though some media reports were carefully researched and stuck to the facts, most were heavily sensationalized. The pinnacle was perhaps Geraldo Rivera's infamous NBC special "Devil-Worship: Exposing Satan's Underground," which aired on October 28, 1988.

On the special (as well as in his syndicated talk show), Rivera mixed together a stew of self-proclaimed "Satanism experts," misleading and inaccurate statistics, crimes with only tenuous links to Satanism, and sensationalized media reports. What came out was a rancid yet irresistible two hours that garnered the largest viewership for a documentary in television history--though "documentary" is perhaps giving it too much credit. Rivera did his best to whip up emotions, paranoia, and fear, claiming that an organized, Satanic conspiracy was at work killing babies, murdering innocents, conducting ghastly rituals, and having orgies, all to appease evil incarnate, Satan. The notable lack of evidence for the Satanic crimes was seen not as a reason to question the claims, but simply as proof of how well organized and shrewd the Satanic conspiracy really had become.

Little evidence supports claims of Satanic cults. According to Jeffrey Victor, author of Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend, "There are no Satanic cults as organizations, not even as minuscule groups." In a 1992 report on ritual crime, FBI agent Kenneth Lanning concluded that the rampant rumors of ritual murders, cannibalism, and kidnapping were unfounded. Phillips Stevens, Jr., associate professor of anthropology at the State University of New York at Buffalo, said that "In 1991, after more than ten years of patiently suggesting socio-psychological explanations for the tens of thousands of allegations of horrible deeds by Satanic cults, I lost my patience and in an article in the Wayne County (New York) Times (October 8), I declared that such allegations constitute 'the greatest hoax perpetrated upon the American people in the twentieth century.'"

Twenty years after the hysteria and panic, Scott Peterson and his lawyers are trying to revive the Satanic spectre. Whether the Satanism story is found credible or not may reveal how well Americans learned their lessons.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group