We take a deep dive into the satanic panic that gripped the nation in the 80s and 90s. Where did it come from? Were there really satanic cults? And how did the satanic panic affect the investigation into the murders of Stevie, Michael, and Chris?Check out our new True Crime Substack the True Crime Times Check out our other show The Prosecutors: Legal Briefs for discussion on cases, controversial topics, or conversations with content creators.Get Prosecutors Podcast Merch Join the Gallery on Facebook Follow us on TwitterFollow us on Instagram Check out our website for case resources: Hang out with us on TikTokSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What is the Satanic Panic?
So think like adrenochrome now, think like the Illuminati, you know, like every time Beyonce, you know, puts her hands up, she's signaling some satanic thing. Like everybody in government's a Satanist. Like this was sort of the top level of this. And that was something people believed in. And there was an interconnected group, right? So big conspiracy, right?
Then, though, there were the sort of self-styled Satanists, these local groups, which is kind of what we're talking about here, where you would have unconnected groups of people who were dabbling in this stuff really as an excuse to do other things. And then you would have basically just one-off people who believe they were Satanists and did bad things. Right.
i think it's pretty clear we're going to talk about this a little bit that the bottom exists like there are people who consider themselves to be like the son of sam or whatever and who are involved in criminality because they want to be evil right the other two is where you really get into a lot of questions so it's worth noting in west memphis they're not saying this is part of the global elite satanic cult they're saying self-styled group small group people who are doing this
So why does Jerry Driver believe that Damien's involved in this? Well, this goes back to that arrest. And we talked about this before, but I want to read this to you just just to remind you of what all was said. So, yes. And so he's being interviewed in relation to this case. And he's talking about how he came to believe that Damien was involved in this kind of stuff. Yes, that is correct.
About the 29th of May, 1992, I received a call from the Crittenden County Sheriff's Office that Mr. Echols had been arrested along with Deanna Holcomb at a trailer down in Lakeshore Trailer Park. He was charged with burglary and let's see, sexual misconduct. I went to the sheriff's office and along with Detective John Murray, questioned Mr. Echols at the time.
Mr. Echols said to both of us that he was involved in the occult. but not as a devil worshiper as such. He said he was a gray witch. And then he had a group of people that participated in this with him, and that his main participant was a boy named Jason Baldwin, who also lived at Lakeshore.
Just real quick, the gray witch, I don't know how much of this is true, how much of this Damien actually said. The gray witch thing is something that Damien has said before and has written down before, and Deanna Holcomb talked about, so I could see him saying something like that. Damon would talk about he doesn't want to be in the light or the dark. He wants to be somewhere in the middle.
So this sort of fits with that. Not mentioning Jason Baldwin. He also informed me at the time that Jason would never ever give him up and that he loved him. During the same interview with Mr. Echols, he was asked, what was the extent of the cult activities in Crittenden County in the West Memphis area?
And he told us that it was fairly extensive, that there were three or four groups in West Memphis itself. They were further along in their activities than he may or may not have been. And by that, he said he meant that they had reached the end of their animal sacrifice portion to receive power, and that the next logical step would be to sacrifice a human.
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Chapter 3: What were the main allegations during the Satanic Panic?
Yeah, I know. I think that's absolutely right. I think it helps explain why certain measures were taken, why certain interviews were requested, why they took certain people's polygraphs. But at the end of the day, I don't think that this is a satanic killing. I think this is a horrific killing.
innocent children and to weave this into some movie as opposed to what it is which is just devastation and tragedy and seeing all this it's helpful to know where it sits in time but i think focusing on the satanic panic and ties of the convicted to the satanist cults maybe not white witch, black witch, whatever, is missing the real thrust of the evidence in the case.
And I don't think we need to spend more time focusing on it because if we wanted to write a movie, if we wanted to make something that was very, you know, exciting, of course you would focus on the satanic aspect of the case. But for...
evidentiary purposes other than to understand why they interviewed certain people, what people were saying and kind of what was everyone's filter in which they were seeing many things is helpful to know. But I don't think this is going to be the key for understanding what happened that night to the boys.
Like I said, well, I'm sure we'll mention some of this again because it comes up a lot, but I think we're not gonna spend a lot of time on Satanism going forward. Next week, we're going to sort of return back to our general outline and start talking about various things about the case in more depth, including some tough stuff like the autopsies.
of the boys, how these boys were bound, the kind of injuries they suffered, what kind of weapons might have been used, the area they were found, that sort of thing. Now that we've talked about this subject, which, you know, there's not a lot that's fun about this case, but you can kind of have fun with this just because it's so out there.
Next week's going to be a little bit tougher, but we're going to get back into that and work through some of that. I'm interested to know what you guys think, though. If we've been too dismissive of the satanic angle, there are people who believe, you know, I talked about that book Abomination, and that guy thinks this is part of some greater satanic thing going on in the world.
That's his position. So maybe we've been too dismissive of it. It is something that's important. It played a role in the trials, or at least one of them. So, you know, let us know what you think. Shoot us an email, ProsecutorsPod, at ProsecutorsPod for all your social media. Join us on the gallery on Facebook. There's been a lot of discussion of this case, and frankly, it's been pretty good.
This is our eighth episode we've recorded. We've released two. Hadn't gotten crazy yet. I don't know if everybody's focused on Karen Reid or not. There's a few people who are whatever, but that's fine. That's part of the game. So join the gallery and let us know what you think on there. If you want to hear these episodes recorded live, join Patreon for as little as $3 a month.
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