Satanic Daycare Panic: LADIES, STAY SAFE pt. 4
Why were daycare centers the prime targets of the 1980s Satanic Panic, and how did it blow up into America's longest and most expensive criminal trial? Cristen unravels the anti-cult anxieties, paranoid cowboys and "communist" childcare seeded wild conspiracy theories about devil-worshipping predators invading the suburbs. But when law enforcement (aka "police Satan hunters"), social workers, and an opportunistic district attorney got involved, the hysteria intensified, landed innocent people in prison and punished a rising generation of working mothers in the process.
This is part 4 of 5 in the LADIES, STAY SAFE! miniseries.
sources:
Alderton, Zoe. The Momo Challenge: Exploring the Emergence of a Major Online Demonic Hoax. Journal for the Academic Study of Religion. Oct 2021.
Beck, Richard. We Believe the Children: A Moral Panic in the 1980s. Public Affairs. Aug 2015.
Chambers, Marcia. Sex Case Accuser Is Discovered Dead. The New York Times. Dec 21, 1986.
Frontline. Other Well-Known Cases Involving Child Sexual Abuse in Day Care Settings. PBS.
Gerson, Jen. The Destructive Conspiracy Theory That Victoria Unleashed Upon the World. Capital Daily. Aug 29, 2021.
Hughes, Sarah A. American Monsters: Tabloid Media and the Satanic Panic, 1970 - 2000. Dissertation. May 2015.
Institute for Psychological Therapies. Bob Currie. 1995.
Linder, Douglas O. The McMartin Preschool Abuse Trial: An Account. Famous Trials.
Romano, Aja. Why Satanic Panic never really ended. Vox. Mar 2021.
Root, Chris. Livestock and the beginnings of the Satanic Panic. Denver Public Library Special Collections and Archives. Oct 2020.
Pendergrast, Mark. The Repressed Memory Epidemic: How It Happened and What We Need to Learn from It. Springer International Publishing. 2017.
Possley, Maurice. Margaret Kelly Michaels. National Registry of Exonerations. Updated Dec 2023.
Pulling, Patricia. The Devil’s Web: Who Is Stalking Your Children for Satan?.1989.
Victor, Jeffrey S. Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend. Open Court Press. 1993.