Woman Tells Satanic Horror Story to Jury : Testimony: She and her daughter, 11, say they were sexually abused and forced to drink human blood. Her sister has joined the suit against their mother, 76.

In testimony reminiscent of a horror novel, a woman and her 11-year-old daughter told a Superior Court jury Thursday that they had been tortured, sexually abused and forced to drink human blood during satanic rituals in secret caves.

The woman, 48, who claims to have developed at least 10 personalities as a result of the abuse, and her 35-year-old sister, have filed a civil lawsuit in Superior Court in Orange County against their 76-year-old mother. They are seeking an unspecified amount in damages.

The sisters allege that from infancy until they were young women, they were forced to take part in bizarre cult activities, to participate in murders, and to commit acts of incest with both parents.

Their white-haired mother is mounting a simple defense: that none of those acts ever took place.

“There is not one scintilla of proof that this happened,” said her attorney, Tom M. Allen.

Under a special arrangement with the court, the sisters were permitted to use only their initials in their lawsuit, and their mother is being referred to by a pseudonym.

The older sister testified that she had no memories of the events that began more than 40 years ago until mid-1988, about six months after she began psychotherapy for marital problems.

To cope with the abuse, she testified, she developed at least 10 different personalities with names such as Sarah and Rosie. At least two personalities, a woman named Thelda and a wolf, were created during cult activities when she was given drugs and tortured with electric shocks, she told the jury.

The woman testified that while in these personalities, she was impregnated by another cult member at about age 12 and then forced to murder her 6-month-old baby. She told the jury she was also drugged and forced to stab a man in a satanic ritual, and was repeatedly prostituted by her father in a non-ritualistic setting.

The woman said she experienced “huge gaps” in her memory and a wide variety of psychological problems, but had repressed the memories so deeply that she was not aware that her family life had been in any way abnormal.

Shortly after her memories began to return, the woman testified, her daughter, then 8, began to talk about strange incidents in which her grandmother had worn a black robe.

The grandmother, dressed in a gray flannel suit, has sat silently at the defense table without speaking to her daughters.

When the 11-year-old granddaughter, a blonde in a pink-flowered jumpsuit, entered the courtroom and saw her grandmother Thursday, she burst into tears. After assuring the judge that she wished to testify, the girl recounted graphic tales of sexual abuse by her grandmother, bloody rites in the secret caves, and violent threats about what would happen to her if she told anyone.

The defense contends that the older sister, who has a history of nervous breakdowns and psychological problems, was coached into memories of abuse by her therapists, and that she in turn persuaded her sister and daughter to join her in the allegations.

Allen, the defense lawyer, said he will call experts on multiple personalities who will explain how memories of events that did not occur can be produced. He noted that the sisters have produced no physical evidence to support their claims.