Fallen Angels
FALLEN ANGELS
Who is stalking the children for Satan?
By Kathy Cawthon
This article is from “PortFolio” weekly (Hampton Roads VA.)
Very early on a cold Sunday morning in January 1986, a Williamsburg minister entered his church to find a grisly scene of desecration. A cross had been rehung up-side down, and a black flag depicting a raven lay draped across an alter table. Blood-smeared candles marked the five points of an inverted pentagram which had a larger white candle at its center. An 18-year old James City man slept soundly in the midst of what appeared to be remnants of a private ritual. The minister sommond police officers, and, according to one investigator, there was “blood all over the place”. The young man was arrested and later told officers that he was a satanist. He had used a syringe to draw his own blood which he had then emptied into a goblet and drank.
Similarly gruesome incidents are being reported with increasing frequency around Hampton Roads. Residents of a Newport News apartment complex awoke one morning in 1987 to discover a puddle and splattered blood in a stairwell and on a walkway. Police officers followed the trail to an apartment where they found parts of human organs on the living room floor. A suspect, arrested later, told a bizarre story to justify his claim of self-defense. According to the alleged killer (who was subsequently convicted), the victem had insisted he was a vampire.
Last summer, a group of sinister recruiters were reportedly hanging around the oceanfront in Virginia Beach, inviting area teenagers to a meeting where they would learn “the true power”. Beach police later confirmed the group’s link to satanic cult activity.
Still more reports of strange activity. Satanic symbols were found spray-painted on the Lion’s Bridge in Newport News and etched into the lawn of a home that was set on fire in that city. A valuable ram owned by Colonial Williamsburg bled to death lasst year after its throat was cut. The charred remains of a dog were found in a plastic garbage bag beneath the Chesepeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel last summer, the second finding in the same spot of evidence of what police believe are occult-related animal killings. Two vaults in Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery were vandalized in July, and part of a body was removed from one of the tombs – evidence, say Richmond investigators, of preparations for a satanic ritual. A Hampton police officer concedes that “every now and then you see things that look weird,” and “we have had some cemetery vandalism,” but declines to say more. Law enforcement officials are sharply devided on the issue of occult activity in Hampton Roads. Some insist that the idea of such activity is nothing more than an urban myth. William Robinson, Newport News’ Commonwealth’s Attorney, calls the link of the so-called vampire killing in the city to occult activity “a creature of the media.” He says the victim suffered from a rare disorder that made his skin extremely sensitive to light, thus his pattern of staying inside durring the day and only venturing forth at night. Williamsburg officers say that the church desecration was an isolated incident enacted alone by an emotionally disturbed young man. The killing of the ram is labled a high school prank by police.
Officers in Richmond and Virginia Beach, however, say that Peninsula police departments are closing their eyes to an ugly reality that is threatening the mental stability and even the lives of area children and teenagers. Experts in the field of ritualistic crime maintain that “minor” incedents, such as the vandalizing of cemeteries and churches, the scrawling of satanic graffiti, and the killing of animals, are just the tip of a very large iceberg and that to ignore or discount the more serious implications is to invite disaster.
“Tidewater is becomming a hotbed of satanic activity,” says Virginia Beach detective Don Rimer. “Richmond has been dealing with this for years, but we’re the new guys on the block. Cult members from the Richmond area have told us that there people are moving here, living down here.” Rimer has seen a significant increase in occult-related activity in Virginia Beach in recent months. He is currently investigating eight cases of ritual animal killings that have occured since early spring. The remains of the animals have been at various locations throughout the city. In one case which occurred in the Princess Anne area, two dogs and two pigs were found lying head-to-head in the shape of a cross. In another case, a goat was burned to death.
Rimer’s job was made more difficult by citizens and other law enforcement officials who refuse to believe that the problem is real and that it is here in Hampton Roads. “Denial is the first thing you are met with when you are trying to tell people that something evil is going on in their community,” he says.
Last month, Rimer met with representatives of police departments and mental health facilities from 35 states at a three-day seminar in Richmond. Says Rimer, “I saw seasoned law enforcement officers cry at that seminar.” Stories of macabre incidents are on the rise around the country. Survivors of ritual abuse tell of Black Masses (rituals performed which mock the traditional Catholic mass), the drinking of human blood, cannibalism and mutilation, ritual killings of infants conceived by cult members for the express purpose of sacrifice, of being tortured and sexually abused in ways that strain the imagination, and of self-mutilation by cult members to prove their devotion to the Prince of Darkness. There are tales of personality splittings – complex processes of brainwashing which effectivly divide a victim’s personality so that he is able to lead two (or more) distinct lives and perform acts in each life that are not consciously recalled in the other. According to survivors, these process involve the use of hallucinogenic and other drugs, forcing victims to engage in un-natural sex acts (often photgraphed and videotaped for later blackmail), and locking victims in coffins of other small spaces for days. The victims they say, are almost always children and teenagers. Infants are the purest, and therefore most desirable, sacrificial offerings. Testimony in hundreds of cases around the country indicates that youngsters are the most vulnerable prey of cults every kind and esecially the ones linked to satanism.
A 12-year-old Richmond girl disappearing in 1984 while walking a short distance to her grandmother’s house. Her remains were found more than two months later, too decomposed for immediate identification. X-rays comparisons finally alowed a positive I.D. Later that year, two girls, ages five and seven, were removed from the custody of their mother, who along with her boyfriend had allegedly abused the girls sexually. The girl revealed that she had witnessed the death of the slain 12-year-old and that she and her sister had been made to eat human entrails. Law enforcement officials confermed that the mother and her boyfriend had participated in cult activity. Evidence of satanic rituals was found at the mothers apartment, just blocks away from the home of the murdered child. According to a Richmond investigator, who asked to remain anonymous, social workers determined that the little girls were not emotionally stable enough to testify in court, and the mother and boyfriend were released due to lack of evidence. The children remain under the protection of child welfare services.
Kathy Snowden, a licensed Clinical Social Worker in private practice in Richmond, has gained much experience in the field of ritual abuse (particulary generational abuse) in recent years and believes that this kind of horror can surface anywhere. “It’s a serious problem,” says Snowden. “Three years ago I didn’t know anything about this, and I didn’t believe it when I first encountered it.”
One of Snowden’s first experiences with a survivor of ritual abuse was the case of Cassandra Hoyer, a Richmond woman whose memories of satanic rituals including human sacrifice and cannibalism were consciously recalled in vivid detain durring sessions with Snowden and Dr. Norman Holden, director of outpatient services at Charter Westbrook in Richmond. Since then, Snowden has spent hundreds of hours with other survivors and their therapists in Richmond and around the country.
Says Snowden, “The level of horror and terror, the smell and taste memories, the hearing and body memories, all are so vivid to ritual survivors. They experience nausea in recalling of some memories.” There are various levels of cult activity and involvment on the part of individuals and groups. One is the self-styled satanist, the “loner” type who is already seriously emotionally disdurbed before becomming involved in occult activity. The sociopathic personality is attracted to the books on the occult, and he devises his own private rituals based on on his research. Some loners hurt no one but themselves while others may take their beliefs to the extent of murder.
Criminally oriented cults are believed to be highly organized and connected through a network that reaches around the world. Membership often includes several generations of a family and such highly regarded individuals as doctors, lawyers, police officers and clergy.
There are several congregations of religious satanists who worship the devil, such as the Chuch of Satan founded by Anton LaVey in 1966 in San Francisco and the Temple of Set, both of which exsist solely to preach in pleasurable acts and vengeance instead of forgiveness. As yet, there no direct evidence of these elements proliferating in Hampton Roads, but experts such as Rimer and Snowden warn that such dangers, particularly to children, are comming and from several directions. Pat Pulling, mother of a 16-year-old Richmind youth who died as a result of his involvement with the popular fantasy game Dungeons and Dragons, and founder of B.A.D.D., has joined forces with Richmond and Virginia Beach detectives to warn other parents about what is happening in the region. “Kids find it (the occult) intriguing,” says Pulling. “They are vary open to it. People have got to open their minds enough to believe that this is going on. I hesitate to call it a conspiracy, but there is definitly a nationwide network of satanic cult activity.”
Pulling, Rimer and other law enforcement officials and terapists are working to alert parents of heavy metal rock music, the current crop of plotless blood-and-guts films, fantasy games and books on the occult. “Some song lyrics are pure Black Masses,” says Pulling. Satanic themes can be seen on album covers by such rock groups as Motley Crue, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, and Blue Oyster Cult. Drug use and unnatural sex are other themes in the music causing concern among authorities.
Books on witchcraft and satanism found in many local bookstores contain instructions for casting spells to cripple and kill, and one book offers a spell for destroying the marriage of an unfaithful lover. Corporate headquarters for the bookstores refused to divulge sales figures, but said that these books are very popular among teenagers. “We don’t carry The Satanic Bible anymore,” she said, “but the kids come in and special order it.”
Peninsula child psychologist Peter Powell believes the occult is a growing influence on youngsters in Hampton Roads. “We have a very real problem,” he says. “We have had children hospitalized here who have been physically abused and who have witnessed animal mutilations.” Rimer and a growing number of law enforcement officials in Virginia Beach and other area cities also believe that occult practices are even more threatening to area children and teens than what is found in books, movies and records. Their most recent investigations indicate that the more highly organizedand criminally active cults are moving into Hampton Roads. Virginia Beach officers have had a number of confermed sightings of rituals being performed by dark-robed, chanting adults who carried torches as they circled alters set up in open fields in the middle of the night. In one such ritual, a baby was reportedly carried aloft, but there was no indication that the infant was harmed. Experts on ritual crime are firmly convinced that the local incidents of animal killings, church and cemetary vandalism, and other reported sightings of rituals are evidence thatserious practitioners of satanic and other occult activity are making Hampton Roads their home. “High school kids may run through a cemetary, even knock over a gravestone,” says Detective Rimer, “but they don’t kill animals,” nor, he insists, do they try to remove bodies from graves, desecrate churches and drink there own blood, of murder children. Rimer and his associates and members of the Richmond police department bemoan the fact that the law enforcement officials are too quick to labe as high school pranks the growing number of incidents in the area.
The evidence is mounting, though little has surfaced publicly as yet. Much is under investigation that cannot be revealed, says Rimer. In the meantime, here is what parents should know:
Young people, either through normal adolescent or childish curiosity, or as a result of loneliness and depression, are easily influenced by and drawn into the occult, and parents need to observe carefully and seek professional help when a child becomes preoccupied with this type of activity. The greatest danger seems to lie in the children becoming victims of their own fantasies and interests. The jewlery and dress that depict satanic symbols, the concerts they attend, the albums and books they buy and the company they keep make them perfect targets for the more organized and sinister groups that some warn are moving into Hampton Roads. A refusal to believe that the danger is real, the denial of the existence of this kind of activity in our communities, may make victims of parents through the victimization of their children.
Something can be done by parents before it is too late. “Children who don’t have steady, well-controlled, affectionate families are the most vulnerable,” says Powell, but he adds that any young person can become involved. Because adolescence is a period of growth and natural assertion of independence, the teen years need to be carefully observed by parents. “Look at the way your children dress, and look at their reading material. Satanic music can be confusing to the mind of an adolescent. When there is evidence that your child is preoccupied with themes of death and mutilation, satanic symbols, music and films, or is excessively moody and secretive, that’s the time to become concerned. Get information, educate yourself, and never hide that from your child. Let him know that you are doing that out of love and concern.” Reverend Bob George of Peninsula Pastoral Counseling agrees. “Know where your children are,” says George. “Know who their friends are, what they are reading and what they are involved in. When this kind of communication breaks down within a family, there is a void, an empty space within the child. That void is going to be filled by something, someone, somewhere.”