Toledo Murder Case Rekindles Debate about Ritual Abuse, by Seamus McGraw, Court TV, May 4, 2006

Toledo Murder Case Rekindles Debate about Ritual Abuse

By Seamus McGraw
Court TV
May 4, 2006

http://www.crimelibrary.com/news/original/0506/0401_priest_sex_abuse.html

TOLEDO, Ohio (Crime Libarary) — It was, by all accounts, the chilling account of at least one survivor of sexual abuse at the hands of priests that triggered the investigation that led to the arrest and current trial of Gerald Robinson, a local priest charged with the ritualistic murder of 71-year-old nun in a hospital chapel 26 years ago.

And yet, the allegations of ritualized sexual abuse decades ago by a handful of priests in Toledo tales of children being raped decades ago by chanting clerics in candle lit rooms, of bizarre rituals and Black Masses, of penetration with crosses and snakes have, at least thus far, failed to yield a single prosecution for pedophilia.

While authorities have combed the area around Toledo searching for evidence to support the claims, originally made by one woman identified only as Jane Doe, but since echoed by other alleged victims, they have as yet not disclosed any evidence to support those allegations.

But that, that doesn't mean it didn't happen, says Candace DeLong, a former FBI agent and criminal profiler who spent years as a psychiatric nurse. "I'm guessing it probably did happen," DeLong said, "and there may have been some hint of a 'devil-esque" aspect to it."

Candace DeLong

In fact, similar allegations have long been rumored and reported across the United States and elsewhere. In the week since Robinson's trial began, Crime Library has received a flurry of correspondence from across the country, from New Mexico and California, to Pennsylvania and New Jersey, all of them detailing bizarre sexual rites performed on children, many of them now adults in middle age and beyond, and all chillingly similar in their details.

In some cases, the alleged victims claimed that they withheld the information out of fear; either fear of their alleged abusers and the power that they wielded as respected members of the clergy, or out of fear that their tales were so bizarre that no one would ever believe them.