The system is protecting predators against children and this is John DeCamp’s attempt to do something about it. Why wasn’t the FBI keeping track of missing children?
But the children's enraged parents believe them. And a once-skeptical psychologist also thinks they are telling the truth.
All agree the children have been traumatized. The problem is, no one can prove how. 'In all these cases, I don't know of a single shred of credible, corroborating evidence,' Levco said.... The stories of the Evansville children reflect a recent, bizarre trend in child abuse cases across the country.
As more children are encouraged to step forward and expose adults who hurt them, police are encountering more cases of child abuse accompanied by allegations of occult rituals.
The Tribune cited Kenneth Lanning, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's expert on occult crime, on the virtual nonexistence of ritualistic abuse.
Lanning, who has publicized his opinion that “more people have been killed in the name of Jesus and Mohammed than in the name of Satan," said on this occasion, that there had “been only one criminal conviction stemming from charges of satanic ritual abuse in the U.S."
On April 28, 1991, the Omaha World-Herald carried a story along these lines, titled "Satanism... Lots of Talk, Little Proof." It said that the problem was not an epidemic of satanic abuse, but rather, "authorities say, America is witnessing an epidemic of concern over Satan and his minions, especially among adherents of fundamentalist Christianity.
So-called ritual abuse is only part of it. But are these stories of incest and human sacrifice true? Many mental health experts think not. And at least two law enforcement officers, with the FBI and the San Francisco police, say they have looked into some of the claims and found nothing."
An embattled minority of law enforcement officials disagrees with Lanning of the FBI.
Ted Gunderson, a 28-year FBI veteran, former special agent-in-charge of the Bureau's Los Angeles Field Division, speaks from his per-sonal knowledge of one of the most infamous recent cases involving ritual abuse, the McMartin pre-school case in California.
After a 33-month trial, and despite voluminous evidence against them, school operators Peggy McMartin Buckey and her son, Raymond Buckey, were exonerated in January 1990 on 52 counts of molesting the children in their care, while the jury failed to reach a verdict on thirteen other counts against Raymond Buckey.
In a May 25, 1990 interview with Executive Intelligence Review, Gunderson said, "In the McMartin case, for example, before any criminal charges were filed against anyone, 460 complaints were filed with the Manhattan Beach police.
Are we to believe that 460 families fed their children the same story of ritualistic sexual abuse, animal sacrifices, etc.?
He stressed that the crimes were reported in an affluent suburban area, where residents are typically skeptical about organized child abuse or satanic conspiracies.
Gunderson commented on the effect of Lanning's disclaimers: "In my opinion, other than [satanists active in the United States in the twentieth century] Aleister Crowley, Anton LaVey, and Michael Aquino,
Ken Lanning is probably the most effective and foremost speaker for the satanic movement in this country, today or any time in the past."
Evidence from Gunderson's investigations has convinced him that tens of thousands of children or young people disappear from their homes each year, and that many are ritually sacrificed.
A decade ago, one estimate, printed in Reader's Digest in July 1982, was that "approximately 100,000 children are unaccounted for" each year.
That number sounds too high, but nobody knows what the true figure is, because the FBI does not keep count.
Gunderson observes: "The FBI has an accurate count of the number of automobiles stolen every year. It knows the number of homicides, rapes, and robberies, but the FBI has no idea of the number of children who disappear every year.
They simply do not ask for the statistics. Every month, every major police department in the United States files its uniform crime statistics with the FBI.
It would be simple for the bureau to add one more column to the statistics and get a break-down of every reported case of missing children-not to even mention children who are kidnaped for ritualistic purposes, and, in some cases, murdered.
I am convinced that the FBI does not ask for these statistics because they do not want to see them.
They would be confronted with an instant public outcry for action, because the figures would show a major social problem. That problem would demand action."