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Satanic Panic


Whenever I mention at social mixers that I used to be a cop, someone asks for a story. I usually tell one; I pick something funny, or something exciting. I stay away from the grisly and the miserable. No one wants to hear about little girls involved in traffic collisions, or going to the same house three days a week for domestic disputes. Those stories ruin the mood, so I save them for my therapist.

This story is one of the ones I don't tell.

It was Halloween 1974, and the great Satanic Panic was just gaining traction among the evangelicals that make up my district. Allegations and rumors of abuse and dark magic spread like wildfire, coming hand in hand with the anxiety following the Saudi oil embargo of 1973.

We on the police force heard all about it. Children being abducted and tortured in dark red pentagrams, poisoned candy, teenagers opening themselves up to demonic possession through drug abuse and rock and roll. We heard it first from the pulpit on Sunday mornings, then from frantic 911 calls from terrified housewives that invariably led nowhere.

That is, until Halloween 1974.

We were out in force that night, on hand to protect trick or treaters and keep the peace. Halloween that year coincided with a full moon- I remember that distinctly. That blazing white light bathed the town almost as good as the street lamps did.

We got a call from the pastor's wife, whispering about satanic rituals going on in the woods outside her home. The police chief didn't become chief by ignoring influential citizens so we went out to investigate. I thought at the time it was a waste or time- probably teenagers listening to music too loudly.

We beat through the brush, the moons light guiding us. We found the clearing where she said the Satanists were. And... well, I'm not sure what all was there.

My therapist says trauma affects the memory. I suppose that's possible. I remember bits and pieces, usually after I awake from a nightmare.

There was a pentagram drawn in scorch marks in the dirt; the trees were carved with something, maybe graffiti. But I can't see it in my head anymore, I break out in sweat just trying. The symbols seemed to shift around if you stared at them too long. I remember the photographer throwing up trying to snap photos of them- and I remember refusing to look at the pictures years later.

We found the body, a little boy who went missing earlier that night. The crime scene reports are clear that he was skinned alive. I wondered later why I hadn't seen the child that night, hadn't even known there had been a murder at all until I saw it in the newspaper.

How could I have seen the pentagram and not the child inside it? We never got a suspect. Just left the case open and moved on.

That's the kind of story that ruins parties.

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Credits

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