Remembering Satan

by Lawrence Wright

  Ingram insisted on taking the Sexual Addiction Screening Test three times—once giving answers based on his state of mind before his arrest, once for the period before Pastor Bratun came and delivered him of demon spirits, and once for his current state. The first exam showed him to have no sexual deviations at all; however, on the basis of Ingram’s responses in the two other exams, the counselor diagnosed him as a pedophile and a “walking time bomb.”

  The counselor also talked to Dr. Peterson and Pastor Bratun about Ingram. Peterson described Ingram as highly manipulative and completely separated (“dissociated”) from his feelings, so much so that Peterson believed that Ingram had two ego states—a split personality, in layman’s terms. He also recognized the effects of cult programming on Ingram. Bratun agreed with Peterson’s observations. He saw the two ego states consisting of, on the one hand, a hardworking, civic-minded, loving father, who was so priggish he “wouldn’t let his daughter come downstairs in a nightgown,” and, on the other hand, an angry, violent, and manipulative individual who was the polar opposite in every respect of the Paul Ingram most people knew and respected. In Bratun’s opinion, the exorcism in the jail cell had been the key moment in integrating these two opposing halves.

  “He speaks with very flat responses, and no affect,” the counselor reported. “It appears that he gives himself permission to ‘get a memory’ when this is done in a Christian context. Mr. Ingram appears to be a product of a dissociative disorder in which there is more than one personality that is capable of assuming control. He does not, however, appear to fit the criteria of multiple-personality disorder. Mr. Ingram does appear to have been affected by periods of intense indoctrination around cult issues.… In a sense, the longer his secret life remained separated, and the more pressure was brought by external forces to do more and more deviant sexual acting out, the more tightly he bound the walls of his separate, dissociative life.” The Christian counselor added that, as Ingram was prayed for, “he began to make the tightly bound compartments mentioned above (separate ego states) porous and allowed some of the memories to begin to return.” This defense counselor would eventually testify for the prosecution.

  It was a stark Christmas for many families. The detectives found that the Ingram case was following them home, when they had the chance to be home at all. They certainly weren’t in a holiday mood. To cheer them up, Ericka brought in a plate of Christmas cookies. Undersheriff McClanahan was so worried about the mental health of his investigative team that he assembled a team of psychologists to debrief them. The detectives were encouraged to express their feelings candidly, but they reacted so furiously that the psychologists beat a retreat and diagnosed the whole bunch as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

  Rabie and Risch were both in solitary confinement. Rabie was still pleading for a lie detector test. He refused to take his medication for narcolepsy and spent much of his time sleeping; it was the only time he had ever felt grateful for his affliction. During his waking moments, the former detective pored obsessively over the police reports of his case, which his attorney had secured. Risch lost forty pounds in solitary, and his hair, which had been jet black, turned completely white. His wife worried that he might have suffered a stroke; one day, he suddenly seemed unable to complete a sentence. His thoughts wandered, and he had difficulty hearing.

  On the day after Christmas, Sandy returned, again alone, to the house on Fir Tree Road. “Dear Paul,” she wrote that day, “I am praying for you that you can be totally and wholly restored.… Sometimes I am very afraid. Afraid because of what has happened in the past.… Sometimes I am even afraid of you Paul mostly because I do not know the truth. Was I controlled by you.” Apparently contradicting what she told Pastor Bratun, she continued, “I am not remembering anything, but with God’s help I will remember. I was very tired after driving today. I was also very upset—and didn’t want to come back here. I didn’t want to leave Mark.” Then she began to draw upon other memories, memories that she and Paul shared. “Do you remember Paul Ross he was such a good baby so smart—do remember Ericka so beautiful, so tiny a diaper just wouldn’t fit. And Andrea—How they would cry every night and I would sit & cry & hold them and as soon as you come home & took one of them they would quit crying—& Chad how badly you wanted another boy—He was a delight a quite delight always telling funny things He was hard to correct because everything he said would make you laugh—” Here the handwriting became skewed, and it spilled over the ruled lines of the stationery. “Paul, Do you remember how we meet—How shy you where? Do you rember that first drive in movie I remember but not the movie Do you rembere even before we married how we said or you said if we were unfaithful that was it Do you Remember—all the Ice Cream—when I was pregnant with Paul Ross—”

  The last line ran off the bottom of the page.

  9

  On December 30, Ericka and Paula Davis returned for another interview session with Joe Vukich. Ericka wrote out a new statement:

  Mom

  She used to spank me at first when I came home from kindergarten. That was for doing nothing wrong. She would spank me very hard for a long time. Later she would spank me with wooden things or whatever she could get in her hands brushes things like that. Most of the time she was angry and would hit or kick or push. She never defended me or the other kids when our dad would come beat us. They had polls [poles] and she would use them as sexual devices to hurt me. The polls were like things used in a closet for hanging things on, made out of wood. She would do that when my father was also not there. Other people also saw these polls. She just told me not to talk about things that were happening or say I don’t want to ever hear you say that again. From the time I was about 5 yrs old until the time I was about 12 yrs old. until we moved from 89th St. I remember being carried from my bed, by my father in the middle of the night. There were many people there waiting outside by the barn. Some of them were Jim Rabie, Ray Risch, Mom, Dad, High Priestess in a robe the people wore white, red & black. There were many men there & some women. They chanted as I was carried out. It was cold out middle of the night and all I wore was a nightgown. My mother walked with us to the barn from the time I was taken from my bed until the time I we were in the barn. There was a table inside the barn. There was also a fire. All the people around the table including my mom & dad wore a gown & a hat resembling a viking hat with horns. There was a lot of blood everywhere. There was pitchforks in the ground—that was also used to threaten us with. The sacrifice. They would lay it first on the table then the high priestess would pick it up all the people would chant & the women would say words then the baby would be put on the table & all of the people including my mother & father circling the table would stab it with knives until it died. They continued to do this for a long time sometimes even after it was dead. Then they would all walk to the pit and chant and the high priestess would carry the baby and put the baby in something white then put it in the ground. Then they would bury it. The baby was a human baby about 6–8 months old. Sometimes they would use aborted babies. They would tell me this is what would happen to me also. They also would say you will not remember this. They would say it over & over again like a chant.

  It was the first time that anyone in the Ingram family other than Paul had mentioned satanic rituals. His accounts had not included any mention of human sacrifice, however. Ericka then drew maps of the old house and the new one on Fir Tree Road, indicating where the ceremonies were held and where the babies were buried.

  Loreli Thompson was beginning to get suspicious of some of Ericka’s stories, which seemed to change with every telling. In the morning briefings she urged Vukich to be more confrontational. There were some other details that didn’t add up, she insisted. Why did the daughters have to tell their mother about the abuse if, in fact, she was involved? Vukich was defensive; he believed Ericka was still too traumatized to respond to such close questioning. The truth was that all the detectives were turning into advocates for the victim
s they had been assigned. Schoening had become very protective of Sandy, just as Thompson had with her charge, Julie. Thompson worried that if she pushed too hard Julie might hurt herself. It wouldn’t be easy to live with a suicide on her hands. But Thompson realized that if Julie was ever going to be able to testify, she would have to respond to the contradictions in her story. The next time Thompson met with Julie, she asked specifically why Sandy would have inquired about the abuse that morning in November, when she picked Julie up at school just before going on vacation with Paul. Julie wrote down, “I think she ask me to make it look like she didn’t know.” Julie looked exhausted; she said she had not slept well in days. Thompson asked Julie if she had been in communication with her sister about the case. “She called me and told me about satanic stuff,” Julie acknowledged. Did she remember anything like that? “I remember burying animals,” she said. “Goats, cows, and chickens.” Were these natural deaths? Julie didn’t know. Did she ever go to parties where people were wearing costumes? Julie became thoughtful. “No,” she finally answered. Any ceremonies besides church? She shook her head no.

  When Thompson inquired about an abortion Julie said she had undergone, Julie wrote, “I was 15 year old. I remember driving for about 30–45 min. and the doctor office was very little and an orange color. The only thing I remember about the abortion was pain. I screamed it hurt so bad.” Her father had taken her to the clinic. That was about all she could remember.

  “I then asked if there were marks or cuts on her body from the abuse,” Thompson wrote in her report. “She shook her head yes, radically. She showed me her forearms. I noted two light cuts on the right arm and two round marks on the left arm. These were small round marks similar to a burn mark. All of the injuries were on the forearms. I inquired about cuts on her upper arms, back and legs. She wrote down, ‘Yes,’ that there were injuries there. I asked how these wounds were inflicted. She wrote down, ‘With knives.’ … I asked who did this to her. She wrote down, ‘Jim Rabie and my dad.’ ” Julie then put her head down on the table and began to cry. Thompson asked if she might let her see the scars, but Julie adamantly refused.

  The sisters’ inability to actually talk about their abuse was becoming a problem as the trial date of Rabie and Risch approached. Rabie was charged with seven counts of statutory rape in the second degree, rape in the second degree, and indecent liberties. The charges against Risch were three counts of statutory rape in the second degree and rape in the second degree. Gary Tabor, the chief prosecutor, met with Julie in Detective Thompson’s presence. A conservative, deeply religious man who still speaks in the flat, nasal tones of his native Oklahoma, Tabor has a heavy-lidded gaze, a gap-toothed smile, and a reputation as the smartest prosecutor in the county. Even he was confounded by all the rabbit holes in the Ingram case, however. From the prosecution’s point of view, this recent note of satanic-ritual abuse was more than troubling, because juries tend to disbelieve such allegations. Tabor longed to keep the case simple, but it went on metastasizing and invading new territory. He could easily imagine what a clever defense attorney might do with the mass of contradictory memories that constituted the case against Rabie and Risch so far. Moreover, the victims appeared to be so traumatized that it was an open question whether they could testify in court. Tabor was trying to size up Julie as a witness. What he saw was not encouraging. She could not make eye contact. She pulled chewing gum out of her mouth in long strands. Tabor asked her if she was having trouble remembering the abuse. Julie replied that she just remembered things as she went along. She began tearing at the rubber sole of her shoe. Tabor asked how her mother had acted when she came into the room before the men came to abuse her. Julie didn’t answer. Tabor and Thompson then watched as Julie peeled the sole off her shoe.

  In a letter dated January 18, 1989, Sandy wrote:

  Dear Ericka and Julie,

  Mark is doing fine.… I call him everynight and see him every week.…

  Also I do have the house & 4 acres on the market to sale for 79,500 I still owe the bank about 48,000. Also have the other 6 acres for sale in two acres pieces. As soon as anything sales, I will be putting money into your savings accounts. I am hoping I can give each of you—Chad & Mark & Paul Ross also—enough money so that you can relocate, or go to college or do whatever you desire.…

  I am also planning to go to college and to relocate. Also I will be taking back my maiden name & start again.

  I am not talking with Paul because as I remember what has happened to me I am very much afaird.…

  If there is anything that you think you want from the house please let me know. Ericka I thought you might like your dishes from Greece.… I can put some things out like that & we can make arrangement for you to come & get them.

  I am paying your medical bills & your insurance & car payment & will continue to do so for a time—but I have no income until something sells.…

  Again I ask for your forgiveness. I trully did not know what was happening and I am just beginning to remember what did happen to me & I have remember something that have happened to you both. I do not understand it all or remember it all yet. But I will and they are not above the law and you both do not have to fear any longer.…

  Love Mom

  The day after Sandy wrote to her daughters, Loreli Thompson drove Julie to Seattle. Both sisters had spoken of having had abortions, in addition to severe scarring from other abuse. The attorneys for Rabie and Risch had been pressuring the court to have them submit to a physical examination to verify that the abortions and scarring were authentic. Julie had finally agreed to see a female doctor who specialized in treating abuse victims. All the way to Seattle, Julie was quiet. Thompson knew how much she hated talking about the case, so it wasn’t surprising that she’d be solemn. When they arrived, Julie insisted on going into the examining room alone.

  Earlier, Julie had told Thompson that the scars on her body made her so self-conscious that she never changed clothes in the high-school locker room and never wore a bathing suit without a T-shirt to cover her. When Julie emerged, the doctor told Thompson that there was no lingering evidence of an abortion, but that its absence wasn’t conclusive; often there would be no residual scarring, particularly in a very young woman. Repeated vaginal or anal abuse would not necessarily leave a mark, either; so the fact that the doctor found none was not unusual. The epidermis, however, is less forgiving—it would tend to reveal physical abuse. But the doctor had found no marks or scars anywhere on Julie’s body.

  Julie was unusually chatty on the ride back to Olympia. This time, it was Thompson who was quiet. There should have been scars, she kept thinking. Julie had said there were scars.

  Later, the same doctor examined Ericka; except for mild acne her only scar was from an appendectomy.

  “Would it be possible for someone to be cut superficially and for that to heal without making a scar?” Thompson asked.

  “I would think any significant cut would probably leave a scar,” the doctor said.

  As for evidence of Ericka’s abortion, the doctor told Thompson that Ericka denied that she had ever been pregnant; in fact, she claimed that she had never been sexually active.

  In every successful investigation, there is a point of coherence, where the mass of assembled facts takes on a pattern. The detectives can begin to draw inferences; they can recognize the probable truth and the probable lies. The Ingram case was moving in the opposite direction: what had seemed to make sense in the beginning was becoming ever more mysterious; the mass of facts grew enormous, but the patterns kept dissolving. Compounding the puzzlement and the general sense of panic was the fact that the case against Rabie and Risch was moving steadily toward trial, like a barrel approaching a waterfall.

  Joe Vukich saw Ericka again on January 23. Ericka had new disclosures to make, and once again they were so painful that she had to make them in writing. She described being abused by her mother, her father, Rabie, and Risch with leather belts and various sexual toys an
d bondage devices while someone took photographs. Sometimes she was gagged or whipped. She remembered a thick wooden paddle with holes in it. She was threatened with guns and knives. When Vukich asked about her abortion, all Ericka would write was, “It was at night.” He tried to press her to say more, but she indicated it was too hard to talk about. Then Paula Davis wrote this statement for her:

  My father made me perform sexual acts with animals including goats & dogs. My father made me fondle their genitals first. Sometimes I was on my hands & knees & sometimes I was lying down. He would bring the animals to me & have them perform oral licking to my genitals. Sometimes I was on my period, sometimes not on my period. Then my father would force me to have vaginal intercourse with the animals, While he took photographs. My mother was also present & also had intercourse with the animals.