No Charges Likely in Claims of Satanic Cult Murders

No charges are likely to be filed in connection with reports that as many as 27 infants have been murdered in so-called satanic cult sacrifices, the Kern County district attorney said Tuesday.

Dist. Atty. Edward Jagels said an investigation by the Sheriff’s Department has not substantiated any of the claims by children involved in molestation cases that as many as 77 adults performed ritualistic murders involving sexual abuse, cremations, cannibalism and the drinking of human blood.

Jagels said he believes there were molestations, but as for the charges of satanic murders, “We don’t know. There is certainly no corroboration of these accusations.”

“I do not believe that there were (homicides),” he said. “There are no locally missing children, no physical evidence to corroborate any homicides--no bodies, no bones, no gravesites or anything else.”

Some of the children interviewed named as murder victims “children who are in fact alive,” Jagels said. He said the sheriff’s investigation is “essentially complete--we don’t see any major areas that haven’t been covered.”

Kern County Sheriff Larry Kleier--who had repeatedly said this summer that he believes the children’s stories of satanic rites--was unavailable for comment Tuesday. A spokeswoman for the sheriff would only say “we are in the process of conducting an investigation and we have no comment.”

Though molestation charges were filed against 17 people, and five of them were convicted, no one has been arrested or charged in connection with the purported murders.

In one molestation case, Kern County Superior Court Judge Marvin Ferguson has concurred with Jagels’ findings. In returning a 6-year-old girl to her mother’s custody six months after she was taken away, Ferguson said:

“There is no physical evidence that has been presented to corroborate the allegations of these so-called satanic killings. No evidence was presented to corroborate these alleged large gatherings of people supposedly present at the time these acts were supposed to have happened.”

The children’s testimony in the case was “fraught with inconsistencies” and “unbelievable and incredible,” Ferguson said.