‘Satanic panic’ exoneration shows real-life cost of conspiracy theories

Melvin Quinney’s recent exoneration wasn’t widely publicized, but we should all take notice.

Convicted in 1991 of sexually abusing his 9-year-old son as the leader of a satanic cult, the San Antonio man was declared innocent last week by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Quinney is the latest Texan to be cleared after getting unjustly caught up in the now-debunked “satanic panic” prosecutions of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

And he’s an example of how baseless conspiracy theories can have tragic consequences.

The nationwide hysteria held that secret networks of Satan worshippers, many of them working at day care centers, were sexually and physically abusing children in rituals including the killing of animals, cannibalism and other grotesque acts.

It all began with the publication of the book Michelle Remembers, written by a Canadian psychiatrist and a former patient who he helped “remember” Satanic ritual abuse by her mother. The psychiatrist and the patient later got married.

Though quickly challenged, the doctor’s controversial memory-recovery therapy aimed at uncovering ritual abuse was nonetheless embraced by therapists and social workers across the U.S. Prosecutions hinged on the questionable testimony of children largely influenced by these panicked professionals. Police, prosecutors and juries were all too willing to believe them.

Such was the case with Quinney. During a court hearing last summer, his son recanted his testimony and said it was coerced by his mother, who had been in the middle of a nasty divorce with Quinney, and therapists who convinced him that his dad was a devil worshipper.

In 2017, Dan and Fran Keller were declared innocent by the Travis County district attorney after being convicted in 1992 of sexually abusing children during satanic rituals in their Austin day care. That also never happened.

Thank goodness we’re all so much wiser now. Or are we?

According to a February 2022 study by the Public Religion Research Institute, nearly 1 in 5 Americans believe in the basic underpinnings of QAnon, which holds that a secret cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles dominate the government, media and financial sectors of our country.

Also remember the viral Pizzagate, the discredited 2016 conspiracy theory that held that emails of top Democrats contained coded messages connecting them to human trafficking rings operating out of restaurants, including the Comet Ping Pong pizza joint in Washington, D.C.

And can we ever forget the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol? Evidence of widespread voter fraud has never been found, yet thousands of protesters, many of them armed, rioted because they believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen. A September 2022 poll by Monmouth University showed that 60% of Republicans still believe that.

Facts matter. Evidence matters. In Quinney’s case, justice finally prevailed. We must be able to trust our democratic institutions to protect us from false accusations and from the pressure to rush to judgment.