Some of the things that incompetent corrupt government (but I repeat myself) do to cause the horrific suffering of innocent people disgusts me beyond belief. It makes me sick. This is one of those instances. This one a result of inane "therapists" coaching young children to make up "stories" and then claim that the stories must be true because young children don't lie or make up stories... remember the "daycare satanic ritual abuse" utter nonsense of the 80s? Innocent people all over the country were convicted and jailed based upon stories told by coached children about going on UFOs and seeing people murdered, etc. (no bodies nor any other evidence of any kind was ever found). I don't know how people imprisoned for 25 years for something they never even considered doing, much less did, can survive mentally and emotionally intact. And please note, not one single one of the cops, therapists, prosecutors, judges, jurors, etc. nor anyone else involved in the obviously false conviction ever suffered one iota of a consequence for their incompetence or intentional misdeeds. If the "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" turns it's unlimited power on you, you're fucked. Even if they're completely making shit up.
Read it and weep.
TEXAS COUPLE EXONERATED 25 YEARS AFTER BEING CONVICTED OF LURID CRIMES THAT NEVER HAPPENEDhttps://theintercept.com/2017/06/20/texas-couple-exonerated-25-years-after-being-convicted-of-lurid-crimes-that-never-happened/TWENTY-FIVE YEARS after they were convicted of a crime that never happened, Fran and Dan Keller were formally exonerated on June 20 in Austin, Texas.
The couple’s prosecution in 1992 was part of a wave of cases across the country amid an episode of mass hysteria known as the Satanic Panic. Beginning in the 1980s, accusations flew that the childcare industry had been infiltrated by bands of Satanists hell-bent on brainwashing and sexually abusing young children. The Kellers’ exoneration closes a decadeslong chapter of profound injustice for a couple that paid an exceptionally high price for the credulousness of local law enforcement.
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Fran and Dan Keller were each sentenced to 48 years in prison for the alleged sexual assault of a 3-year-old girl who was an occasional drop-in at their home daycare center on the rural outskirts of Austin. The child initially accused Dan of spanking her “like daddy” used to, but under intense and repeated questioning by her mother and a therapist, the story morphed to include claims of rape and orgies involving children. From there, the number of children alleging abuse increased and the accusations grew even more lurid and confounding: The Kellers had sacrificed babies; they held ceremonies in a local graveyard; they put blood in the children’s Kool-Aid; Fran cut off the arm of a gorilla in a local park; they flew the children to Mexico to be sexually assaulted by military officials.
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When I began reinvestigating the case in 2008 for the Austin Chronicle, I was stunned to learn that police and prosecutors who had worked the case back in the early ’90s still believed some of the most outrageous allegations leveled against the Kellers. The Austin Police Department refused to release its investigative report on the case, forcing the Chronicle to take the agency to court. We ultimately won the right to full, unredacted access.
After reading the report, it was not hard to understand why the department had fought to keep it secret. It was an ALL-CAPS, run-on-sentence fever dream full of breathless accusations and absent any actual investigation that could prove or disprove the claims. On multiple occasions, the lead investigator took the girl who accused the Kellers to lunch at McDonald’s before setting out for drives in the neighborhood where she would point out locations: Yes, she had been abused there; yes, she recognized the cemetery where the Kellers had killed and buried babies; yes, many of the residents of the quiet neighborhood were in on the hi-jinx. Not once did investigators question the child’s statements.