State Looks Into Alleged Ritualistic Murder Cases

The state attorney’s general’s office, responding to a grand jury request, has agreed to review how the Kern County Sheriff’s Department and other local agencies have handled child molestation cases that purportedly included the cannibalistic murders of infants.

In a letter asking for a state investigation, Carleen Radanovich, foreman of the Kern County Grand Jury, cited “the obvious mishandling of the children involved” and raised questions about “the methodology employed by law enforcement personnel,” according to Chief Deputy Atty. Gen. Nelson Kempsky.

Kempsky said that Radanovich expressed concern about Bakersfield children who were taken from their parents and placed in protective custody in foster homes and child welfare institutions. In some cases, the parents haven’t been charged.

He said she also expressed concern about children who first denied they had been molested, then changed their stories under repeated questioning and implicated “their parents, social workers and others.”

Satanic Rings

Kern County Sheriff Larry Kleier is investigating charges that satanic rings of adults have engaged in ritualistic murders that included sexual abuse, cremations, cannibalism and the drinking of human blood. The children say that as many as 77 adults were involved in the rings, with as many as 27 infants slain, according to Kleier.

But doubts have been raised by defense attorneys and others who cite an admitted shortage of corroborating evidence and obvious errors in the children’s stories.

Kleier has said repeatedly that he believes the stories of the satanic rites because nine children, independently, “began telling me the same thing.”

Stanley Simrin, an attorney representing some of the accused, said he doesn’t believe the stories because some of the children have said that infants who are known to be alive were killed and because “there’s absolutely no evidence” to support the allegations.

Molestation Counts

Although molestation charges have been filed against at least 17 people--five of them convicted--no one has been arrested or charged in connection with the purported murders.

Kempsky said that Radanovich asked specifically that three agencies be investigated in connection with the cases--the Sheriff’s Department, the county Welfare Department and the county district attorney’s office.

Kempsky said that because county prosecutors were not accused of specific misdeeds in the letter, they will join state prosecutors in reviewing the molestation cases.

Kempsky said that representatives of his office will meet with personnel from the district attorney’s office and Sheriff’s Department today to determine how the review will proceed.

Kleier, Welfare Director O. C. Sills and Dist. Atty. Edward R. Jagels have all said they will cooperate fully with the attorney general’s office in the probe.

“But I think it’s a waste of time,” Kleier said. He and Sills both said they thought their agencies had “handled these cases extremely well.” Jagels was not immediately available for comment.