Day-care sex-abuse hysteria

Day-care sex-abuse hysteria was a moral panic that occurred primarily in the 1980s and early 1990s featuring charges against day-care providers of several forms of child abuse, including Satanic ritual abuse. A prominent case in Kern County, California first brought the issue of day-care sexual abuse to the forefront of the public awareness, and the issue figured prominently in news coverage for almost a decade. The Kern County case was followed by cases elsewhere in the United States as well as Canada, New Zealand, Brazil, and various European countries.

The Kern County child abuse case was the first prominent instance of accusations of ritualized sex abuse of children. In 1982 in Kern County, California, Debbie and Alvin McCuan were accused of abusing their own children. The initial charges were made by Mary Ann Barbour, the children's step-grandmother, who had a history of mental illness. Coercive interviewing techniques were used by the authorities to elicit disclosures of parental sexual abuse from the children. In 1982, the girls also accused McCuan's defense witnesses: Scott Kniffen, his wife Brenda, and his mother. Mary Ann Barbour reported that the children had been used for prostitution and child pornography, tortured, and forced to watch snuff films.

In 1984, all of the McCuans and the Kniffens was sentenced to over 240 years in prison. Their convictions were overturned in 1996.

The McMartin Preschool trial started in August 1983 when Judy Johnson, the mother of a  2 ¹⁄₂-year-old boy, reported to the police that her son was abused by Raymond Buckey at the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California. After seven years of criminal trials, no convictions were obtained, and all charges were dropped in 1990. As of 2006^[update], it is the longest and most expensive criminal trial in the history of the United States. The accusations involved hidden tunnels, killing animals, Satan worship, and orgies. Judy Johnson was diagnosed with acute schizophrenia and in 1986 was found dead in her home from complications of chronic alcoholism. Buckey and his mother, Peggy McMartin, were eventually released without any charges. In 2005 one of the testifying children retracted his testimony and said he lied, to protect his younger siblings and to please his parents.

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