Chapter 7

Chapter seven of The Boy who was Raised as a Dog one amazing problem that Dr. Perry encountered during his practice. This issue involved memory and how it can be manipulated and coerced as with the issues with a supposed satanic cult in eastern Texas in 1993.

Chapter seven involves something that had been dubbed the “satanic panic” in Gilmer, Texas. At this point, scientists were just beginning to understand the malleability of memory. Dr. Perry equates memory with a Microsoft Word document, every time you “open” a memory it is automatically available to be edited. You essentially cannot retrieve a memory without editing your interpretation of that specific memory. Because of this malleability of memory, not a lot of coercion is required in order to change a memory, or even create a memory that never really happened. This coercion regarding memory is what happened with the satanic panic. Dr. Perry was called in to help after a seven-year old boy, Bobby Vernon Jr. was found to be in a coma after being punished by his recently adoptive parents. These parents committed suicide soon after. When EMS came to the adoptive parents home they determined from the other children in the home that Bobby was punished when he refused to continue to run up and down the stairs. The parents then beat the boy, only stopping when they realized he was unconscious. EMS said they would have to call CPS. EMS was then informed that the parents were employed by CPS. They were a “therapeutic” foster home for Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA). CPS in west Texas then called CPS in east Texas where they confirmed the parents’ story. This family had moved from east Texas to get away from an apparent satanic cult. It was this situation that made higher-level CPS workers to step in. In east Texas a supposed satanic cult had been exposed. There were testimonies of ritual killings, drinking blood, cannibalism and more that were elicited from children from these foster parents. There were eight supposed cult members in custody awaiting trial and there were experts on Satanism and a special prosecutor working on the case.

At this point, CPS became concerned about the validity of these investigations, and the state attorney general was asked to get involved. At this point sixteen children had been taken from their homes and Dr. Perry decided to get involved. Dr. Perry was mainly concerned with determining if the children in custody had actually been victims of abuse from their parents. Many children were taken from their parents because of accusations from other children about abuse that they had been lead to “remember” during the investigation. To determine the truth, Dr. Perry and his team began to reconstruct the history of each child in custody. The entire issue began in 1989 when a man named Ward Vernon was accused by his then wife, Bette Vernon, of sexually abusing their two daughters. Both parents were soon implicated in the abuse and the children were placed in foster care. Unfortunately, Ward was only sentenced to probation. While on probation, Ward began living with a woman, Helen Karr Hill, who had five children. So when CPS determined where Ward was living, those five children were removed as well. Helen later gave up her parental rights. During the investigation, the children also accused their grandparents and their uncle, Bobby Vernon, of abuse and Bobby’s five children were removed from his home. Later two more children would join the others in foster care after accusations by the other children. Unfortunately, it is not that rare for there to be abuse spread throughout multiple generations of families and Dr. Perry did not see that CPS was unjust in removing those children from their homes as there was physical evidence of abuse in some cases. Terribly, it was the foster home placement that caused the real problems to begin. The children were placed in two fundamentalist Christian “therapeutic” foster homes. Two separate movements converged to form these especially volatile foster homes. The first movement was the “recovery movement” which included the idea that people could recall memories of abuse, which is the reason of their issues as an adult. The second movement was the rise in evangelical Christianity. This sect of Christianity firmly believed that the devil must be behind the widespread sexual atrocities that were present in society. To these Christians, there was no other plausible explanation as to why people would do such terrible things to children. These two movements combined to create a concept of Satanic Ritual Abuse that was seemingly the problem for the Vernon children. When these children were placed in foster care, the foster parents and caseworkers that were involved in the case had attended a seminar on SRA. At this time, none of the information about SRA had been tested sufficiently before they were publicized. It has now been determined that memories recalled while under hypnosis and even during therapy can be influenced by the therapist. While children rarely lie about sexual abuse, they can be led to concoct tales by adults, when in actuality the child is simply saying what they thought the adult wanted to hear. At this time another terrible form of treatment was being performed, called “holding therapy.” During this treatment, children would be tightly restrained in order to “open up” about their memories. Most terribly, if the child did not provide a convincing story of abuse, that child would be physically and verbally abused until he provided that story.

This practice was performed frequently on foster and adopted children. The foster parents who took in the Vernon children performed this “holding therapy” and even added their own additions to make it more “effective.” In actuality, the treatment of these children is what sometimes when people only have a little bit of knowledge about a problem and provide a “solution” that actually makes the problem worse. This “solution” is completely ineffective. As Dr. Perry states “using force or any type of coercion on traumatized, abused or neglected children is counterproductive: it simply retraumatizes them.” In this type of “therapy” does not create bonds of attachment, it created obedience through fear. This “trauma bond” now has a name, Stockholm Syndrome. In actuality, this treatment is not how trauma should be handled at all. Fortunately for Dr. Perry, all of these “treatments” were audio or videotaped. This allowed certain facts to emerge that allowed Dr. Perry to try to determine which children were actually abused, and whose parents were accused in order to appease their interrogators.

This was how Brian became one of the children in these foster homes. He was a bright young boy who lived with his parents and younger brother. From the media, Brian’s parents thought that they would be one of the next family’s accused of abuse. When CPS came to take him away, Brian went inside to warn his parents and he had to watch his parents be taken away in handcuffs. Brian was able to take one item from home. He chose his Bible. This should have been a clue that he was not being raised by a satanic cult.

With all this information, Dr. Perry then had to determine which children were abused and which were not. Where was the safest place to place these children? Their foster homes seemed to be as much of the problem as placing these children back with their possible abusers. Dr. Perry decided to use a continuous heart rate monitor. From previous experiences, Dr. Perry had determined that if children were exposed to something that caused them to recall their trauma, their heart rate would change dramatically, either increase with hyper arousal or decrease with a dissociative response. Dr. Perry tried this method with these children while asking them questions, but Dr. Perry repeatedly stressed that if there were something the child did not want to talk about, they would not discuss it. When Dr. Perry was talking with Brian, the experience of being taken away from his parents showed a major contrast in heart rate and behavior compared to his supposed confessions about a satanic cult and their actions. Dr. Perry’s testimony to a judge was ultimately what allowed Brian to return to his parents.

Determining what actually happened to the Vernon children would be more difficult. Some of these children had been abused, but their “confessions” about SRA had warped these children’s credibility and their parents could conceivably claim that none of what the children talked about had ever happened. Unfortunately, the town of Gilmer was still split about the satanic cult that supposedly occurred there. The original judge on the case and the grand jury had refused to drop the indictments, though another judge dropped many later. Ultimately, “without any evidence other than the coerced testimony of sixteen children, twentieth-century adults were ready to convict half a dozen people” that concept is absolutely frightening to me.

This chapter was very difficult for me to read and approach with an ethical concern. As a Christian, I am terrified that children were abused in Christian foster homes. I can understand the desire for many Christians to want to blame the devil for the absolutely terrible things that people can do to each other. It scares me that Christians are willing to coerce confessions of satanic cults out of scared and traumatized children. As someone who studies psychology, it scares me that a little bit of information about how the mind works and about supposed therapies can make a situation so much worse than it already was.

It is certainly easy to blame the devil for the evil things that people do to each other. I certainly believe that much of the behavior of people in regards to abuse can be because of our sinful nature and because of our separation from God and his goodness. I simply do not understand how this idea that the devil is behind all evil things in the world leads to the abuse of children in the hands of Christian foster parents. I almost see their abuse, seemingly in the name of God, as worse than the abuse that these children suffered in their homes. I know that it is terrible to say, but sometimes I believe that the actions that Christians take when trying to “help” actually causes more damage.

I honestly do not know what the solution to this problem is. In the past, I have truly believed that knowledge is power, but I now know that not enough knowledge, or the wrong kind of knowledge can be detrimental in society. I certainly believe that the foster parents and the CPS workers were trying to help. I know that they did not intentionally harm and retraumatize those children. I simply do not know how we make sure that children are receiving the right type of help instead of being harmed even more.