After the shocking decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) 18 Aug 1999 to railroad Cheryl Amirault LeFave back to prison, the only realistic hope to preserve her freedom was political, either through the Governor, or a plea bargain with the Middlesex DA Martha Coakley. Petitions on her behalf set off the following debate on Usenet newsgroup ne.politics.
Parts have been edited for economy or for clarity, but arguments of Cheryl's opponents (Dan Kennedy and "Chessie") have not been distorted.
Space-saving note:
Except for the first message, the "newgroups" and "subject" lines will be deleted, since they are all identical:
Newsgroups: ne.politics,ne.general
Subject: Re: Fells Acres: Short-deadline petitions for Cheryl Amirault LeFave
pciszek@otherworld.std.com (Paul Ciszek) wrote:
[...]
>So, what did she do
She, her mother, and her brother made the mistake of continuing to run a day-care center in the mid 1980s, when the whole country was swept with hysteria about "Satanic cults" taking over day-care centers and torturing small children (magic torture that left no physical evidence, and which was never witnessed by the steady stream of parents and tradesmen who made unannounced visits to day-care centers throughout the day).
[For similar incidents around the country, run a web search against "McMartin Preschool" (CA), "Little Rascals" (Edenton NC), "Grant Snowden (FL), or "Wenatchee" (WA).]
An FBI research team tried to track down all the accusations against criminal "Satanic cults," and couldn't authenticate a single one. Perhaps the best single source on the whole phenomenon is
Debbie Nathan and Michael Snedeker, Satan's Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern American Witch Hunt, Basic Books (Harper Collins), 1995. It is both highly readable and excellently referenced
for further research.
>and what are the reasons she shouldn't serve her sentence for it?
Because the crime never happened, and the "investigation" and trial that secured her family's conviction were a disgrace, bearing the same relation to the Salem Witch trials as the urbane and modern Herr
Doktor Goebbels would to the medieval Torquemada. You can read Judge Isaac Borenstein's closely reasoned dissection of the whole travesty at
http://www.tiac.net/users/hcunn/witch/bd-cont.html
Another, equally destructive, crime did happen, however: the permanent brainwashing of 17 reasonably-healthy 3-4 year olds with toxic garbage. The perpetrators hope that by burying the Amiraults, they will be able to maim the minds of other small children (eg in bitter child-custody disputes) without being called to account.
No Amirault defender would deny that small child are sometimes abused. It is, however, a stealthy crime of *individuals*, generally with records suggestive to experienced police investigators (eg unexplained moves and job changes), not of bizarre cults. When a real serial abuser is brought to justice (eg Father James Porter), his appearance on TV is likely to bring forth new accusations from those who had earlier decided to let him slide, or had even forgotten about abuse many years earlier. In the Fells Acres case, however, no accusers came forward from the previous 20 years of the day-care center.
I have collected some articles about Fells Acres at URL
http://www.tiac.net/users/hcunn/witch/fa-new-art.html
[Editor's note:
URL has since changed to
http://www.cyberussr.com/hcunn/witch/fells.html]
--Hugo S. Cunningham
========
"Hugo S. Cunningham" wrote:
> pciszek@otherworld.std.com (Paul Ciszek) wrote:
[...]
> >So, what did she do
> She, her mother, and her brother made the mistake of continuing to run
> a day-care center in the mid 1980s, when the whole country was swept
> with hysteria about "Satanic cults" taking over day-care centers and
> torturing small children (magic torture that left no physical
> evidence, and which was never witnessed by the steady stream of
> parents and tradesmen who made unannounced visits to day-care centers
> throughout the day).
So, why was this one center chosen for martyrdom? None of the other day care centers in the area had these accusations leveled against it. Was this a plot against the Amiraults? Maybe the CIA, delivered to the court every day in black helicopters? Or, just perhaps, were the jurors and the trial judge and the appeals judges right, and these people did abuse many of the children in their care? Any chance of that?
> >and what are the reasons she shouldn't serve her sentence for it?
> Because the crime never happened, and the "investigation" and trial
> that secured her family's conviction were a disgrace, bearing the same
> relation to the Salem Witch trials as the urbane and modern Herr
> Doktor Goebbels would to the medieval Torquemada.
Remind me, did the Witch Trial defendants have counsel, discovery, cross examination of witnesses, impartial judge presiding, multiple levels of appeal? I missed those in my history books.
> Another, equally destructive, crime did happen, however: the
> permanent brainwashing of 17 reasonably-healthy 3-4 year olds with
> toxic garbage. The perpetrators hope that by burying the Amiraults,
> they will be able to maim the minds of other small children (eg in
> bitter child-custody disputes) without being called to account.
Your evidence for this is? You have testimony from how many of the children? How many of the interviewers? What physical evidence? You have studies from other states, proving that children 'can be brainwashed.' You have the testimony of three convicted felons, which
testimony was specifically not believed by a jury. You have nothing else, do you? Direct evidence, circumstantial evidence, errors of law by the judge --
any of these would have caused the convictions to be overturned.
> No Amirault defender would deny that small child are sometimes abused.
> It is, however, a stealthy crime of *individuals*, generally with
> records suggestive to experienced police investigators (eg unexplained
> moves and job changes), not of bizarre cults.
There are no cases where a group of people engaged in abuse? Never. Is that
your claim? If not, then this is meaningless.
> When a real serial
> abuser is brought to justice (eg Father James Porter), his appearance
> on TV is likely to bring forth new accusations from those who had
> earlier decided to let him slide, or had even forgotten about abuse
> many years earlier. In the Fells Acres case, however, no accusers
> came forward from the previous 20 years of the day-care center.
Likely to. How many abusers have been arrested and have not had other victims come forward. This is meaningless.
========
chessie chessie@tiac.net wrote:
>"Hugo S. Cunningham" wrote:
[...]
>> She, her mother, and her brother made the mistake of continuing to run
>> a day-care center in the mid 1980s, when the whole country was swept
>> with hysteria about "Satanic cults" taking over day-care centers and
>> torturing small children (magic torture that left no physical
>> evidence, and which was never witnessed by the steady stream of
>> parents and tradesmen who made unannounced visits to day-care centers
>> throughout the day).
>So, why was this one center chosen for martyrdom?
Why didn't such cases turn up at *any* daycare centers before the 1980s? Why don't we see them nowadays?
>None of the other day care
>centers in the area had these accusations leveled against it.
I do not accept your word on this; many accusations could have been resolved at a lower level. Presumably, however, Harshbarger's office had their hands full with Fells Acres.
>Was this a
>plot against the Amiraults?
It was a plot *for* Scott Harshbarger, a Middlesex County DA who already wanted publicity for statewide ambitions. The Amiraults just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It also opened up career opportunities for quack psychotherapists, a major industry in Massachusetts.
> Maybe the CIA, delivered to the court every day
>in black helicopters? Or, just perhaps, were the jurors and the trial judge
>and the appeals judges right, and these people did abuse many of the
>children in their care? Any chance of that?
And maybe the Russian government was right in 1912 that Menahem Beilis
really did murder a Christian boy and drain his blood in an gruesome Jewish ritual? How can I be so sure that just because all the other "ritual murder" cases throughout the centuries stank of panic, hysteria, bigotry, and villainy, that maybe this one case did not
actually have substance to it?
[...]
>> The "investigation" and trial
>> that secured her family's conviction were a disgrace, bearing the same
>> relation to the Salem Witch trials as the urbane and modern Herr
>> Doktor Goebbels would to the medieval Torquemada.
>Remind me, did the Witch Trial defendants have counsel, discovery, cross
>examination of witnesses, impartial judge presiding, multiple levels of
>appeal? I missed those in my history books.
They did have proper trials according to the law at the time. The royal governor, the "General Court" (Legislature), and the leading Puritan theologians all took pains to ensure the best procedure was followed. The witches were not taken out and lynched.
The problem with their fate was not the less elaborate legal system of 1692, but rather the reliance on "spectral evidence": testimony of the children that the accused witches had appeared to them in dreams. As one troubled member of a court noted, "were such evidence barred, Bridget Bishop had been convicted for little more than wearing scarlet, countenancing 'shovelboard,' and getting herself talked about, all offenses, perhaps, but hardly capital offenses." [Bishop was hanged.]
Similarly today, the problem is not with legal procedure, but rather with defective evidence: the brainwashing of 3-4-year-old children, a brainwashing which itself is a devastating form of child abuse.
>> Another, equally destructive, crime did happen, however: the
>> permanent brainwashing of 17 reasonably-healthy 3-4 year olds with
>> toxic garbage. The perpetrators hope that by burying the Amiraults,
>> they will be able to maim the minds of other small children (eg in
>> bitter child-custody disputes) without being called to account.
>Your evidence for this is? You have testimony from how many of the children?
>How many of the interviewers? What physical evidence?
>You have studies from other states, proving that children 'can be
>brainwashed.'
So Massachusetts children are different from children everywhere else? When they testify that witches appeared to them in dreams, they must be believed? When they describe attacks by clowns, robots, and a lobster, they must be believed? When they testify that Miss Vi fed a child a frog that quacked like a duck; Miss Cheryl killed animals and buried their blood in the sandbox, leaving not a trace of evidence; and someone tied a naked boy to a tree in front of all the teachers and pupils, they must be believed?
>You have the testimony of three convicted felons,
An interesting point. They had clean records before the 1984 hysteria at Fells Acres. Real molesters of young children don't suddenly drop the habit; police investigators, once alerted to them, usually have
little trouble finding suggestive facts from the past.
>which
>testimony was specifically not believed by a jury.
A jury that was told by a quack psychotherapist that they had to disregard their own common sense, and accept implausible testimony by child witnesses as evidence of some deeper truth. A jury that did not have access to the 1991 research of Ceci and Bruck, proving that young children can be brainwashed. A jury that was prejudiced by lurid testimony about child pornography, even though no pornography associated with Fells Acres has ever been
found.
>You have nothing else, do
>you? Direct evidence, circumstantial evidence, errors of law by the judge --
>any of these would have caused the convictions to be overturned.
And have in other states. The Massachusetts SJC has uniquely disgraced itself.
>> No Amirault defender would deny that small child are sometimes abused.
>> It is, however, a stealthy crime of *individuals*, generally with
>> records suggestive to experienced police investigators (eg unexplained
>> moves and job changes), not of bizarre cults.
>There are no cases where a group of people engaged in abuse?
Please name some, with enough identifying detail so we can look them up.
>Never. Is that
>your claim? If not, then this is meaningless.
In other words, it is up to the defendant to prove his *innocence* beyond a shadow of a doubt? Again, this is a curious reversal of the norm for civilized democracies.
>> When a real serial
>> abuser is brought to justice (eg Father James Porter), his appearance
>> on TV is likely to bring forth new accusations from those who had
>> earlier decided to let him slide, or had even forgotten about abuse
>> many years earlier. In the Fells Acres case, however, no accusers
>> came forward from the previous 20 years of the day-care center.
>Likely to.
Are you still waiting for some? It's been 15 years now.
>How many abusers have been arrested and have not had other
>victims come forward. This is meaningless.
How many serial abusers have been spread all over the TV like Porter and the Amiraults have? Again, major abusers don't suddenly drop their habits.
--Hugo S. Cunningham
Scroll ahead to Part 4 of this debate
From: chessie chessie@tiac.net
Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 17:36:02 -0400
From: hcunn@removethis.tiac.net (Hugo S. Cunningham)
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 03:48:32 GMT
--Marion L. Starkey, The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry Into the Salem Witch Trials, Dolphin Books (Doubleday & Co., Inc.), Garden City NY, 1969; p. 156.
Return to index of Fells Acres articles.