Numerous "ritual abuse" cases in
Bakersfield / Kern County, California (1982)

by Diane Vera

Bakersfield, in Kern County, California, was the scene of the very first large multiple-victim multiple-offender (MVMO) child sex abuse case involving allegations of "Satanic ritual abuse" (SRA). The first arrests were made in 1982.

A total of eight different "child sex ring" cases were tried in Kern County over the next several years, all based on the testimony of children who had been interviewed in very questionable ways. A total of 46 people were convicted, most likely for crimes that never even happened. The witch hunt stopped only when some children started to accuse some of the social workers, deputy sheriffs and deputy district attorneys themselves.

Even after the prosecution's extremely flawed methods were exposed, it has been a long, hard struggle to get all the wrongly-convicted defendants freed.

• Bakersfield / Kern County, CA, Ritual Abuse Cases on the website of the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
• None Dare Call It Reason: Kids, Cults, and Common Sense by Robert Hicks (another copy here) - discusses Bakersfield cases in second half of article
• Better than Never: Vindication for targets of sex witch-hunt by Jim D'Entremont, The Guide, June 2004 - about both the Bakersfield cases (in California) and the Fells Acres Day School case in Massachusetts
• On injusticebusters:
• Bakersfield cases
• John Stoll
• John Stoll (2)
• Conviction Without Evidence: A Police Witchhunt Case in Kern County, California - website on behalf of Jeffrey Modahl, who was in prison until May, 1999
• On the website of Justice Denied:
• Jeffery Modahl in Volume 1 Issue 1, 2/8/99
• Child Abuse Witch Hunts in Volume 1 Issue 8
• Waking Up From The Nightmare by Joanne Walker, Justice Denied Staff Writer, in Volume 1, issue 5
• A Modern Witchhunt: The McCuan Kniffen Frame-up in The Ethical Spectacle, August 1995
• Information on alleged Kern County sex ring on the website of Illinois Parents Fighting for Parental Rights
• Who Was Abused? by Maggie Jones, New York Times, September 19, 2004 another copy here
• Kern County ritual abuse case on everything2.com