Day-care sex-abuse hysteria

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, many more mothers were working outside of the home, resulting in the opening of large numbers of day-care centers. Anxiety and guilt over leaving young children with strangers may have created a climate of fear and readiness to believe false accusations.[3][4]

Children are vulnerable to outside influences that lead to fabrication of testimony.[5] Their testimony can be influenced in a variety of ways. Maggie Bruck in her article published by the American Psychological Association wrote that children incorporate aspects of the interviewer's questions into their answers in an attempt to tell the interviewer what the child believes is being sought.[6] Studies also show that when adults ask children questions that do not make sense (such as "is milk bigger than water?" or "is red heavier than yellow?"), most children will offer an answer, believing that there is an answer to be given, rather than understand the absurdity of the question.[7] Furthermore, repeated questioning of children causes them to change their answers. This is because the children perceive the repeated questioning as a sign that they did not give the "correct" answer previously.[8] Children are also especially susceptible to leading and suggestive questions.[9] Some studies have shown that only a small percentage of children produce fictitious reports of sexual abuse on their own.[10][11][12][13] Other studies have shown that children understate occurrences of abuse.[14][15][16]

Interviewer bias also plays a role in shaping child testimony. When an interviewer has a preconceived notion as to the truth of the matter being investigated, the questioning is conducted in a manner to extract statements that support these beliefs.[8] As a result, evidence that could disprove the belief is never sought by the interviewer. Additionally, positive reinforcement by the interviewer can taint child testimony. Often such reinforcement is given to encourage a spirit of cooperation by the child, but the impartial tone can quickly disappear as the interviewer nods, smiles, or offers verbal encouragement to "helpful" statements.[8] Some studies show that when interviewers make reassuring statements to child witnesses, the children are more likely to fabricate stories of past events that never occurred.[17]

Peer pressure also influences children to fabricate stories. Studies show that when a child witness is told that his or her friends have already testified that certain events occurred, the child witness was more likely to create a matching story.[18] The status of the interviewer can also influence a child's testimony, because the more authority an interviewer has such as a police officer, the more likely a child is to comply with that person's agenda.[19]

Finally, while there are supporters of the use of anatomically correct dolls in questioning victims of sexual abuse/molestation, there are also critics of this practice.[20] These critics say that because of the novelty of the dolls, children will act out sexually explicit acts with the dolls even if the child has not been sexually abused.[20] Another criticism is that because the studies that compare the differences between how abused and non-abused children play with these dolls are conflicting (some studies suggest that sexually abused children play with anatomically correct dolls in a more sexually explicit manner than non-abused children, while other studies suggest that there is no correlation), it is impossible to interpret what is meant by how a child plays with these dolls.[20]

The McMartin Preschool case was the first daycare abuse case to receive major media attention in the United States.[27] The case centered upon the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, where seven teachers were accused of kidnapping children, flying them in a plane to another location, and forcing them to engage in group sex as well as forcing them to watch animals be tortured and killed.[27] The case also involved accusations that children had been forced to participate in bizarre religious rituals and used to make child pornography.[28] The case began with a single accusation, made by the mother – who was later found to be a paranoid schizophrenic[3] – of one of the students, but grew rapidly when investigators informed parents of the accusation and began interviewing other students.[28] The case made headlines nationwide in 1984, and seven teachers were arrested and charged that year.[28] When a new district attorney took over the case in 1986, however, his office re-examined the evidence and dropped charges against all but two of the original defendants. Their trials became one of the longest and most expensive criminal trials in the history of the United States,[28][1] but in 1990 all of these charges were also dropped.[27] Both jurors at the trial and academic researchers later criticized the interviewing techniques that investigators had used in their investigations of the school, alleging that interviewers had "coaxed" children into making unfounded accusations, repeatedly asking children the same questions and offering various incentives until the children reported having been abused.[27] Most scholars now agree that the accusations these interviews elicited from children were false.[29][30] Sociologist Mary de Young and historian Philip Jenkins have both cited the McMartin case as the prototype for a wave of similar accusations and investigations between 1983 and 1995, which constituted a moral panic.[31][28]

Frank and Ileana Fuster owned the Country Walk Babysitting Service in the Country Walk suburb of Miami, Florida. In 1985, Frank was found guilty of 14 counts of abuse.[32][33] He was sentenced to prison with a minimum length of 165 years. Fuster's alleged victims testified that he led them in Satanic rituals and terrorized them by forcing them to watch him mutilate birds, a lesson to children who might reveal the abuse.[32] Fuster had been previously convicted for manslaughter and for molesting a 9-year-old child.[1] Testimony from children in the case was elicited by University of Miami child psychologists Laurie and Joseph Braga, who resorted to coercive questioning of the alleged victims when the desired answers were not forthcoming.[34][35] Fuster's wife Ileana recanted her court testimony in an interview with Frontline, saying that she had been kept naked in solitary confinement and subjected to other forms of physical and psychological duress until she had agreed to testify against her husband.[36]

The case was prosecuted by Dade County state's attorney Janet Reno,[37] who also prosecuted day-care sex-abuse cases against Grant Snowden and Bobby Fijnje.[38] Ileana said Reno visited her in jail and pressured her to confess.[36][33] The incident also inspired a 1986 book[32] and a 1990 made-for-TV movie called Unspeakable Acts.[39] As of 2019, Fuster continues to serve a 165-year prison sentence, allegedly making him the last person imprisoned in this hysteria.[37][40][24]

In April 1984, Gerald Amirault was arrested and charged with abusing children in his care at the Fells Acres Day Care Center in Malden, Massachusetts.[41][42] After Amirault changed the pants on a young boy who had wet himself, the boy's mother, uncle and therapist questioned him over a period of months, until the boy alleged that Amirault had been sexually abusing him. The boy's mother then called a child abuse hotline to report that her son had been sexually abused, and Amirault was arrested shortly thereafter.[43][44][42] In the 1986 trial, Amirault was convicted of assaulting and raping nine children and sentenced to thirty to forty years in state prison. In a separate trial, his mother, Violet Amirault, and sister, Cheryl Amirault LeFave, were also convicted of similar charges and sentenced to jail for eight to 20 years.[45] According to Richard Beck, the case developed "in the usual way" compared to other moral panic cases, with more and more children leveling increasingly bizarre allegations against the accused during the course of the investigation.[41] The allegations included reports of "bad clowns," robots, "magic rooms," and tortured animals.[46] According to Beck, one of the prosecutors responsible for the case commented that coaxing allegations out of the children had been like "getting blood from a stone."[41]

In 1995, The Wall Street Journal journalist Dorothy Rabinowitz questioned testimony from the children that had been elicited with dubious interrogation techniques, writing, "no sane person reading the transcripts of these interrogations can doubt the wholesale fabrications of evidence on which this case was built."[47][48] Rabinowitz was a finalist in 1996, and winner in 2001, of the commentary Pulitzer Prize for her newspaper columns on the issue,[49] and made the Amirault's case a centerpiece of her book No Crueler Tyrannies: Accusation, False Witness, and Other Terrors of Our Times.[43] Violet and Cheryl were granted a new trial in 1997, on the basis that they had been denied the right to face their accusers and had been inadequately represented at trial, but Violet died and a judge reduced Cheryl's sentence to time served before the new trial could proceed.[50] In 2001, the Massachusetts Board of Pardons recommended that Gerald's sentence be commuted, citing "substantial doubt" about his guilt. He was granted parole in 2003.[51] Writing about the case at the time of Gerald's release, The Economist suggested in an editorial that while the Amiraults had long maintained their innocence and had attracted a "string of prominent supporters" who believed that they had been wrongly convicted, "many others continue to believe that Mr. Amirault committed the crimes."[52]

On October 4, 1984, a drug addicted couple acting as police informants[53][54] called their contact in the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, police department to accuse Bernard Baran of molesting their son. The child had been attending the government operated Early Childhood Development Center (ECDC) where Baran, an openly gay 19-year-old, worked as a teacher's aide. The accusers had previously complained to the board of directors that they "didn't want no homo" around their son.[55][56]

Within days of the first allegation, ECDC hosted a puppet show and delivered letters to parents notifying them about a child at the day care with gonorrhea. Five other allegations emerged. Baran was tried in the Berkshire County courthouse 105 days after the first allegation, a swiftness noted in the later court rulings. The courtroom was closed during the children's testimony, which Baran claimed violated his right to a public trial. Baran's defense attorney was later ruled ineffective. Baran was convicted on January 30, 1985, on three counts of rape of a child and five counts of indecent assault and battery. He was sentenced to three life terms plus 8 to 20 years on each charge. He maintained his innocence throughout his case.[57] In 1999 a new legal team took up his case. In 2004 hearings began in a motion for a new trial. In 2006, Baran was granted a new trial and released on $50,000 bail. In May 2009, the Massachusetts Appeals Court affirmed the new trial ruling, setting aside the 1985 convictions. The Berkshire County District Attorney's office dismissed the original charges and Baran's record was cleared.[58]

Prosecutor Mario Merola brought prosecutions leading to the conviction of five men, including Nathaniel Grady, a 47-year-old Methodist minister, of sexually abusing children in day care centers throughout the Bronx.[1][59] Grady spent ten years in prison before being released in 1996.

Three employees of another Bronx day-care center were arrested in August 1984 on the charges of abusing at least ten children in their care.[60] Federal and city investigators then questioned dozens of children at the day care. They used 'dolls, gentle words and a quiet approach.'[61] More children reported being sexually abused, raising the total to 30.[62] Three more day care centers also were investigated for sexual abuse.[63] On August 11, 1984, federal funds were cut off to the Head Start preschool program at the Praca Day Care Center and three employees had been arrested.[64] In June 1985, the day care center was reopened with new sponsorship.[65]

In January 1986, Albert Algerin, employed at the Praca Day Care center, was sentenced to 50 years for rape and sexual abuse.[66] In May, Praca employee Jesus Torres, a former teacher's aide was sentenced to 40 years.[67] Praca employee Franklin Beauchamp had his case overturned by the New York Court of Appeals in May 1989.[68]

All five convictions were ultimately overturned.[1]

In Maplewood, New Jersey, in April 1985,[1] Margaret Kelly Michaels was indicted for 299 offenses in connection with the sexual assault of 33 children.[69] Michaels denied the charges.[70] "The prosecution produced expert witnesses who said that almost all the children displayed symptoms of sexual abuse."[71] 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."[71] Some of the other teachers testified against her.[71] "The defense argued that 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."[71]

Michaels was sentenced to 47 years in the "sex case."[72] Michaels "told the judge that she was confident her conviction would be overturned on appeal."[72] 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 appellate court's decision and declared "the interviews of the children were highly improper and utilized coercive and unduly suggestive methods."[73] 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."[74] The original judge was also criticized "for the way in which he allowed the children to give televised testimony from his chambers."[74]

James Toward and Brenda Williams were accused of kidnapping and sexually abusing six boys who attended Glendale Montessori in Stuart, Florida, as preschoolers in 1986 and 1987. Investigators claimed to know up to 60 victims, mostly from the ages 2 to 5.[75]

In 1988, Williams, an office manager, was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison. She pleaded no contest to sex and attempted kidnapping charges involving five boys and she was released from prison in 1993 after serving five years. In 1989, Toward, owner of Glendale Montessori School, pleaded guilty to child sexual abuse charges and received a 27-year sentence. While technically maintaining his innocence, he allowed a guilty plea to be entered against him, convicting him of molesting or kidnapping six boys. Toward was placed in involuntary commitment due to the Jimmy Ryce Act. Although he maintained his innocence, Toward said he plea-bargained to avoid an almost certain life sentence.[75]

In Edenton, North Carolina, in January 1989, a parent accused Bob Kelly of sexual abuse. Over the next several months, investigations and therapy led to allegations against dozens of other adults in the town, culminating in the arrest of seven adults.[76]

Despite the severity of some of the alleged acts, parents noticed no abnormal behaviour in their children until after initial accusations were made. Bob Kelly's trial lasted eight months and on April 22, 1992, he was convicted of 99 out of 100 counts against him. In 1995, the North Carolina Court of Appeals granted new trials to two defendants, including Kelly. Charges were ultimately dropped for both.[77]

The remainder of the defendants received a variety of sentences.[78]

Dale Akiki, a developmentally-delayed man with Noonan syndrome, was accused of satanic ritual abuse in 1991. Akiki and his wife were volunteer babysitters at Faith Chapel in Spring Valley, California. The accusations started when a young girl told her mother that "[Akiki] showed me his penis," after which the mother contacted the police. After interviews, nine other children accused Akiki of killing animals, such as a giraffe and an elephant, and drinking their blood in front of the children. He was found not guilty of the 35 counts of child abuse and kidnapping in his 1993 trial.[1]

In 1994, the San Diego County Grand Jury reviewed the Akiki cases and concluded there was no reason to pursue the theory of ritual abuse.[79] On August 25, 1994, he filed a suit against the County of San Diego, Faith Chapel Church, and many others, which was settled for $2 million. Akiki's public defenders received the Public Defender of the Year award for their work defending Akiki.

Frances Keller and her husband, Dan Keller, both of Austin, Texas, were convicted of sexually abusing a 3-year-old girl in their care, and they spent 21 years in prison until their release in 2013.[80]

The case began on August 15, 1991, when a 3-year-old girl told her mother that Dan Keller had hurt her. The mother and daughter were on their way to a scheduled appointment with the girl's therapist, who drew out details that included Keller defecating on her head and sexually assaulting her with a pen. During the time leading up to the trial, two other children from the day care offered similar accusations. According to the children, the couple served blood-laced Kool-Aid and forced them to have videotaped sex with adults and other children. The Kellers, they said, sometimes wore white robes and lit candles before hurting them. The children also accused the Kellers of forcing them to watch or participate in the killing and dismemberment of cats, dogs and a crying baby. Bodies were unearthed in cemeteries and new holes dug to hide freshly killed animals and, once, an adult passer-by was shot and dismembered with a chain saw. The children recalled several plane trips, including one to Mexico, where they were sexually abused by soldiers before returning to Austin in time to meet their parents at the day care.[81]

The only physical evidence of abuse in the case was presented by Michael Mouw, an emergency room physician at Brackenridge Hospital who examined the 3-year-old girl in 1991 on the night she first accused Dan Keller of abuse. Mouw testified at the Kellers' trial that he found two tears in the girl's hymen consistent with sexual abuse and determined that the injuries were less than 24 hours old. Three years after the trial, while attending a medical seminar, Mouw said a slide presentation on "normal" pediatric hymens included a photo that was identical to what he had observed in the girl.[81][82]

On November 26, 2013, the Travis County district attorney's office announced that Fran Keller, now 63, was being released on bond and her husband, Dan Keller, who was convicted at the same time, would be released within a week in a deal reached with lawyers. "There is a reasonable likelihood that (the medical expert's) false testimony affected the judgment of the jury and violated Frances Keller's right to a fair trial," said the district attorney.[80]

On June 20, 2017, the Travis County district attorney's office announced that the case against the Kellers had been dismissed, citing actual innocence. They were awarded $3.4 million in compensation from the state of Texas for the 21 years they spent in prison.[83]

In Wenatchee, Washington, in 1994 and 1995, police and state social workers undertook what was then called the nation's most extensive child sex-abuse investigation.[1] Forty-three adults were arrested on 29,726 charges of child sex abuse involving 60 children. Parents, Sunday school teachers and a pastor were charged, and many were convicted of abusing their own children or the children of others in the community. However, prosecutors were unable to provide any physical evidence to support the charges. The main witness was the 13-year-old foster daughter of police officer Robert Perez, who had investigated the cases.[84] A jury found the city of Wenatchee and Douglas County, Washington, negligent in the 1994–1995 investigations. In 2001, $3 million was awarded to a couple who had been wrongly accused in the inquiry.[85]

Peter Ellis, a child-care worker at the Christchurch Civic Crèche in New Zealand, was found guilty on 16 counts of sexual abuse against children in 1992 and served seven years in jail. Four female co-workers were also arrested on 15 charges of abuse, but were released after these charges were dropped. Peter Ellis has consistently denied any abuse, and the case is still considered controversial by many New Zealanders.[86]

In 1992 a mother in the central Saskatchewan city of Martensville alleged that a local woman who ran a babysitting service and day care center in her home had sexually abused her child. Police began an investigation, leading to a sharp increase in allegations. More than a dozen persons, including five police officers from two different forces, ultimately faced over 100 charges connected with running a Satanic cult called The Brotherhood of The Ram, which allegedly practiced ritualized sexual abuse of numerous children at a "Devil Church".[87]

The son of the day care owner was tried and found guilty, then a Royal Canadian Mounted Police task force took over the investigation. It concluded the original investigation was motivated by "emotional hysteria."[88] In 2003, defendants sued for wrongful prosecution.[89] In 2004, Richard and Kari Klassen received $100,000 each, out of the $1.5 million compensation package awarded for the malicious prosecution.[90]

• Indictment: The McMartin Trial, 1995 HBO docudrama
• Capturing the Friedmans, controversial 2003 documentary
• Witch Hunt, 2008 documentary produced and narrated by Sean Penn, about the Kern County child abuse cases
• Freeing Bernie Baran, 2010 documentary on one of the earliest cases

• Ceci, SJ; Bruck M (1996). Jeopardy in the courtroom. American Psychological Association. ISBN 978-1-55798-282-7.