Uncover - S6 "Satanic Panic" E2: 'It was hell'

Episode Date: February 10, 2020

By June 1992, nine people face nearly 180 charges related to the sexual abuse of children who have attended a home daycare in Martensville. Journalist Dan Zakreski revisits the sites of the story that dominated everyone's attention, including a ‘Devil Church,’ and reflects on his own role in spreading the story. Then, we meet a young mother searching for answers who shares her own heartrending story of a childhood turned upside down by the Martensville Nightmare. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/uncover/uncover-season-6-satanic-panic-transcripts-listen-1.5437487

My name is Ian Urbina. I've reported on some pretty mind-blowing stories, but nothing like what happens at sea. If they got within 800 meters, that is when we would fire warning shots. Murder, slavery, human trafficking, and staggering environmental crimes. Men have told me that they've been beaten

with stingray tails, with chains. If you really want to understand crime, start where the law of the land ends, the outlaw Ocean. Available now on CBC Listen and everywhere you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. It's spring 1992, and a tiny town on the Saskatchewan Prairie is in the grips of pure terror. A gang of devil worshippers is said to be on its way to Martinsville.

Basically, they were going to come in and attack the town and burn things down and attack all the churches. And they were just going to have mass destruction on the town. Martinsville Police Chief Mike Johnston has put his force on high alert, telling officers like Randy Chudak to brace for chaos. They were going to come in and steal some children and use them for their rituals. Going through everything that happened and then getting this, it just shakes your foundation and sends shivers down your back. In a report dated April 16, 1992, Chief Johnston writes,

The indications were that tonight was a very important night with the occult in the preparation of potential victims. The group in town is known as the Brotherhood of the Ram, with the Ram being a reference to Satan. He adds that the group can and does offer human sacrifices. The high alert comes months into an investigation that centered on a local home daycare. There have been four arrests so far, with more to come. Throughout the night, police wait, wondering what's about to be unleashed on the town. And hoping they and their families will be okay. And then, so tell me the end of that story.

Did anyone come to town? No. Nobody ever showed up. And so for a few days, it was still on high alert. We still stayed on high alert for five days afterwards, but nothing ever came of it. And so kind of went back down to normal. So as normal as we could. No fires, no attacks.

Churches remain standing and children are safe with their families. For now. In Martinsville, Saskatchewan, there are allegations that as many as 30 children at a daycare centre may have been systematically abused. Although the charges against the accused didn't mention Satanism, rumours were rampant that it was the work of a Satanic cult. There was kids drinking blood, there was sacrifices. Police allege that children were taken to this building that's also been referred to as the Devil's Church. We had a duty to protect the public. It was almost to the point where it was unbelievable.

I've never been more scared in my life. Our lives are gone. It's not me. I never did it. This isn't a work of fiction. This is a work of history. I'm Lisa Bryn Rundle, and this is Uncover Satanic Panic, Episode 2, It Was Hell. Dan, can you say again, now that Mitch is recording you, why this is, why it's a good time of year? Mitch is recording you, why it's a good time of year. Oh, yeah.

You've arrived mid-July, and the story had broken, I think it was probably mid-June back then, and not much changes, you know, in terms of the geography of the town, the geography of the province. It's going to look today the way it would have looked 30-some years ago. It's a clear and sunny day. We've just landed after an early flight to Saskatoon,

Saskatchewan's largest city at about 300,000 souls. Dan Zekreski has picked us up at the airport. Do you remember what it was that you first heard, when you first heard what was happening in Martinsville? Our court reporter came into the office and he was ashen and saying there was just this rank story out of Martinsville. He said it was unlike anything he'd ever seen and everything was going to go crazy. So sort of the first thing we did was get the map and find out where Martinsville was. Dan's a reporter at the CBC in Saskatoon now. But nearly 30 years ago, when all this went down,

he was working at the big newspaper here, the Saskatoon Star Phoenix. So this is what you would have seen, you know, driving out back then. We're north of the city. It's sort of classic mid northern Saskatchewan, lots of broken stands of trees, pretty flat, big sky, these weird little bedroomy communities. It thins out the further north you get, but this is sort of the Saskatoon. For my part, I'm excited to finally be seeing the place. Almost relieved. I mean, you pour over articles, you scour images, you talk to people.

But none of that tells you how big the sky is, how vast the plains are, and how lightly attached to the earth that can make you feel like you could float away at any moment. Or maybe it's all those weather network alerts warning about tornadoes. It was hard not to notice that every single bathroom in the Saskatoon airport appears to be a tornado shelter.

Should we be worrying about tornadoes? Yeah, well, if you head a little further south, it's more of an issue. We've had plow winds through here. What's that? It's like a tornado, only it's just a wall. It doesn't do the rotation. It just comes through like a plow. Oh yeah. Never ceases to amaze me. Big weather out here. And once we clear the city it's a little different up here. It's the sky. You get outside of the city and

it's just kind of, oh my god, you can see like eight weather systems. Land of living skies. That's us. Dan is forthright, matter of fact, cut with a healthy skepticism. He gives the impression that he's seen a lot in his time. And as a guy who's covered crime in Saskatoon for a few decades, he probably has. Okay, so we're entering Martinsville. We're looking at a lot of homes, bungalows. It looks lovely. Trees and lawns and Martinsville looks like a giant piece of graph paper plopped in the middle of miles and miles of farmer's fields.

A perfectly ordered grid of street, lawn, house. Street, lawn, house. It's bigger today than it was when the nightmare began, but it's still the kind of place where everyone seems to know everyone. This is where, if you couldn't afford to buy a house in Saskatoon, you could come to Martinsville and, you know, pay 30% less and get, you know, a nice bungalow split level, two-storey, with most of the amenities that you would find in the city.

There were schools, there were churches, there was a grocery store. It looks idyllic. Yeah. Yeah, that's the problem, eh? It looks idyllic. Yeah. Yeah, that's the problem, eh? We're looking for one house in particular.

A modest place, low and long, that once belonged to Ron and Linda Sterling. It was the eye of the storm. So who were the Sterlings? What did you know then? My first understanding of the Sterlings was watching Ron get perped, walk across his lawn. You want to get out of my yard?

Right now? Back off. He looked exactly like you'd think a guy like that would look like. A guy like what? He looked exactly like you'd think a guy like that would look like. A guy like what? He looked like a white trash pedophile, to put a fine point on it. Dan is shaking his head with regret,

remembering just how quickly he and everyone else jumped to conclusions. quickly he and everyone else jumped to conclusions. I've watched Ron Sterling get walked across his lawn over and over in old TV footage, the pale blue of the bungalow siding dominating the frame. In an instant, the Sterling residence went from the kind of place you'd happily drop your kid at each morning to the alleged headquarters of a devil-worshipping cult. And there we are. Oh, that was their house. Yeah, everything has grown up.

That hedge, the little caragana there was not there. So most of the local media had been tipped off about his arrest, and everyone was set up where the hedge was. So he came out on the right-hand side there and was led across the lawn in cuffs with kind of his family watching and all the neighbors and his, you know, get off my lawn. and his, you know, get off my lawn. But he was, you know, kind of an overweight white guy with thinning blonde hair, looked really angry.

Of course he was, he was rattled. In hindsight, you're looking at a guy who's in shock. Like, I don't want to harp on the pre-internet stuff, but we just didn't have the ability to instantaneously communicate and do massive amounts of research. You know, our sources of information were, you know, the mainstream media and the police and the courts. And even as, you know, I was, you know, I'd been a reporter for nine years, I wasn't a complete virgin.

I wasn't a complete virgin. But the idea of, you know, RCMP, city police, justice, social services, the foster care system, therapists, everybody saying, oh, and kids don't lie, everybody just pointing their fingers at these guys saying there's this massive, horrible thing happening right under our noses. You know what it's like in a newsroom. People start talking, and it's just a pile on. And it becomes a self-fulfilling thing.

It feels really... It's just a house on a street, right? It's just a house on a street. I thought they would have changed the colour. They made it easy for me. I would have thought that too. I'm taken aback by how little has changed. And it won't be the last time. last time. By spring 1992, based on disclosures from the children, charges had been laid against Ron, Linda, and Travis Sterling, and a Martinsville police officer. But before the first week of June is out, 10 charges of sexual assault, eleven of sexual touching.

Another round of charges are laid. Eleven charges. Against those already accused and five other suspects. All nine people are rounded up, with nearly 180 charges between them. The same day, police arrested the couple who ran the daycare, as well as arresting their son. Charges were also laid against two former Martinsville police chiefs and a suspended police officer from the town's force. An unidentified juvenile was also charged. On Friday, there were more charges, this time against two more police officers, one from the RCMP and one from the nearby Saskatoon City Police Force. In the years that followed,

these new charges against the Sterlings and others would all fail to hold up in court. But for now, the town is in shock. I'm a parent. I live here. I've lived here for 12 years. And I'm second by it all. Fear runs rampant. It hurts like I'm a mom. And it really, your mind goes wild.

You think of the worst things. Religious leaders speak out. Some say they've known for years about the satanic presence in town. You believe that there is some ritualistic satanic cults operating around here? Oh, for sure. Signs begin to appear in the front windows of homes around Martinsville with just four powerful words. We believe the children.

If you lived with some of these children, you'd know that their trauma is real, that they have lived through these things. What they're saying is real, very real. The case was unavoidable. If you opened a paper or turned on the radio or watched TV, you were bound to see more and more disturbing details, including tales of a mysterious place somewhere just out of town. This is the building that police have described as a rural site. It's also been referred to as the Devil's Church. Police allege that children who attended a daycare center in this Martinsville house

were taken to this building northwest of the town and sexually assaulted. It's here that children say they were locked in freezers, stripped and hoisted in cages, drugged, suffocated, threatened with weapons and subjected to sexual torture, including, gruesomely, rape with an axe handle. Police wouldn't say much, but they'd said enough.

They'd found the so-called Devil Church. The mayor and the police chief hold town meetings, urging calm. Hard to believe this morning that there will be a better day. But I assure you there will be a better day. Randy Chudak finds himself tasked with arresting a superior officer in the Martinsville police force. One of the hardest days in my career ever was a day that I had to go and arrest a fellow police officer. And knowing that

he not believing that he was capable of doing that, but knowing that I had to do my job. And Claudia Bryden finds herself broken. About two weeks, I went with no sleep. And I ended up in the hospital. I was completely exhausted, physically, mentally, emotionally. So there I was, you know,

with two little kids and a husband at home, and I couldn't even brush my own teeth, you know. I was just so, it was a terrible time. It was my worst nightmare. But the investigation isn't over yet. The children have identified more suspects. An RCMP-led task force takes over the active investigation.

They will pursue the remaining accused. And this thing could spread even farther. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell.

I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. So do you want to head into the country then and do a little drive? Let's do it. Before we're done our tour with Dan, there's one more place I'm hoping to find.

I don't know where the place is. I was trying to, I actually took a drive out there last weekend. Oh, that's kind of you. Well, I wanted to see if it came back and it didn't. At a certain point, they all kind of looked the same. Yeah. Which was part of it. Like it could be everything just, it went from color to black and white. It just became so ominous. to black and white. It just became so ominous. Dan was on this same search nearly 30 years ago. This was a place where some of the children reported being... Yeah, they were taken. I think they were saying they were put in a van or something

and they were taken out there and put in the cages and that's where the primary abuse site. put in the cages, and that was the primary abuse site. After the story broke, every journalist was trying to find the devil church. But they didn't have much to go on. Well, we just had the descriptions that we had, that there was a property outside of Martinsville where the kids had been taken, and there was a blue-out building there. The fact that there was nothing turning up in Martinsville where the kids had been taken and there was a blue outbuilding there. You know, the fact that there was nothing turning up in Martinsville was not a huge flag

that something was wrong. It just meant that, well, we just have to look harder. Like all the weird outbuildings and you know, I was, yeah, there's blue buildings there. You know, like there's blue buildings there. You know, like there's blue buildings everywhere. Is that it? And if that's it, what do we do? Like, do we roll up?

And what if they grab me and cut my head off? And again, like everything looked suspicious. If you get out into the country and start talking to people, you know, every town has its dark little story. And dark in the country is not like dark in the city. You know, it's rural and bloody and weird and insular. The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, Dan's paper, had several reporters covering all angles of the Martensville case. And it was a big story.

We'd never seen anything like that. Like ritual child sexual abuse. It's like the most awful catnippy thing you could imagine, journalistically, because there was the luridness of the charges, but also this sense that there was larger forces at work here, like that there were Satanists around the province, this sort of secret society right under our noses. This was, you are looking for the mark of the ram.

It was just crazy, and I bit so hard, because everybody was involved in it. All the senior journalists I knew, everybody in town, everybody. We were suddenly, this was the fight between good and evil. I was on the side of good. Is it left on Powerline? Left onto Powerline Road, yeah. Okay.

Is that it? I seem to recall there being windows on the side that we can look in. So we might have come up one shy. Oh, there we are. That was... Yes. Oh! Oh!

Yeah, it stuck out like a sore thumb. We spot the building from the road. Did you want to drive in? Do you think that's okay? I mean, I just don't know how invasive that would feel to someone living here. Tell them what we're doing, and the worst that can happen is we leave. Yep, that's true. We head down the dirt driveway,

bordered on one side by marshy land filled with dead trees that are somehow still standing. They look like ghosts. And there it is. The Devil Church. The building itself is so unremarkable. A building with pale blue siding. A big shed, really. Windows here and there. It, behind the house and to the side, farther back on the property. And it, too, looks just the same as it does in pictures from the time. Dan goes to the door to let the owner know who we are and what we're doing. Sure, if you want, I'm going to take my headset off, though.

I don't want to freak them out. Look through the window of this building in 1992 and you'd see a freezer, a cage, an axe. In any other circumstance, not cause for alarm. But in that time and place,

it was nothing short of terrifying confirmation of what the children were saying. At least, it seemed that way. Back then, as now, a woman answers the door. I said, I introduced myself. I explained why we were here, and she said, I understand, and you can leave now. Dan turns the car around, and we leave the devil church behind. I'm disappointed, but I'm also not surprised. The owners of the shed were never suspects, but they were dragged into the nightmare nonetheless, as witnesses, they'd seen nothing, and just as human beings, disturbed by what

children were reporting had happened right under their noses. She's not the only one touched by this story who didn't want to talk about it. So many people we reached out to, maybe most, not only didn't want to talk themselves, but didn't want the nightmare talked about at all. Even Dan was hesitant. I mean, I

thought about that coming into this. You know, as to why am I doing this? And? It's pretty sobering. Yeah. Really trusting someone to be careful with what you say. And then I get an email from a woman named Samantha Lowen.

Hers is not a name I recognize. And I don't know what her connection to the Martensville case might be. It turns out she's been wrestling with her own demons stemming from the nightmare. And unlike just about everyone else, she wants to talk. She has questions she's hoping I can help answer. And she has her own heart-rending story.

Hello! Come on in! I'm Lisa. I'm Samantha. Samantha lives in Saskatoon now, but grew up in Martinsville. She was raised by a single father, and they lived across the street from her grandparents, who helped care for Samantha. She was young enough that she was only dimly aware of what was happening to her town, when her own life was suddenly blown apart. The school principal came in, it was grade one, I think we had just done a little exercise thing, it was this mousercise thing.

Hi, mosquiteers! Hi, Vicky! Let this mousercise thing. She had it on record and we would all dance around the room. And the principal came and called me to her and just said, I need, I need Samantha. And so I came to the door and she said, you're going to need your snowsuit. And so I had gone back and I had grabbed my ski pants and my coat and gone with her to the office where I met this social worker who was there. And so she, I don't remember what she said, except that she was going to take me with her. Seven years old, in grade one, and just like that, Samantha's in a car with a social worker, and she has no idea where she's going. And I was sitting in the front

seat, looking at the clock in the car, and realizing that probably my grandma would be expecting me home from school soon, and just being really worried about her. So I don't remember fearing for myself or being worried. I didn't know. I remember not knowing if I was ever going home again. I didn't know what was going on or if I would see people again, but I remember really worrying about my grandma. Sorry, I can't. I still can't talk about her without crying. The social worker takes Samantha to a large building

in downtown Saskatoon. Did they tell you, did the social worker tell you what? No. No, she didn't tell me anything. She just, yeah, there was no explanation for what was going on. So I remember they had three dolls, two girls and a male, and they had me, they named the one after me. And then they had me name the

other one. They had these dolls do things. And they said, what would you do if, you know, somebody did this to you, or they did like, they had the dolls touching each other and that kind of thing. And I remember being completely mortified. My grandparents were very, very conservative Christian. Like there was no talk about sex in the house. Like this was very, I was completely mortified by these questions and did not know how to answer them. I don't know how I answered them. I think there was a lot. I don't know how I answered them. I think there was

a lot of I don't knows. But yeah, that's all I remember about that. And then they took me to a temporary foster home in the city and left me there for night. But I do remember at night, they had me sleep on the couch. There was a woman and she sat there on the computer. I have to have to try not to think about my own, you know, almost seven year old. But I lay there on the couch and I cried. And I remember crying for a long time. And she turned around and told me to shut up a number of times. That was probably the worst for me, the worst moments there of just missing, missing people. The next morning, my grandma and my aunt were at the door and picked me up.

It was early. They, I'm sure they came as soon as they could. My grandma and my aunt were at the door and picked me up. It was early. I'm sure they came as soon as they could. I've heard since how horrific that night was for them. Because they didn't know either if they'd ever see me again. Today we're in Samantha's living room. There's a breeze coming through the open window. She's friendly and welcoming.

She's made scones. And she's set up her two youngest downstairs in front of a TV so we can talk. Being in her home, it's immediately clear how important family is to her. Several generations smile out of frames on the walls and bookshelves and other surfaces. Is that a photo of you and your dad? Yeah, in the back there. I would have been three or four, probably. My dad had a terrible mustache. a terrible mustache. This was the 80s. Yes. So that's the sweater. That is the sweater of the 80s and the mustache of the 80s. My dad was a very, a very kind person. Anyone who knew him well, he was almost universally loved. I've said in the past that everybody liked him unless they were wrong.

But I don't run into many of those. He just had a way of disarming people, I think. Yeah, he had a humility and just a real gentleness about him. That, yeah, he just, everybody loved him. Samantha's dad grew up in Martinsville too, just like his mother and her father and so on. Through him, Samantha is a direct descendant of the Martins who founded Martinsville.

I remember climbing trees and there was a pond right next to town. So we'd build these rafts, we'd go catch snakes. And so it's kind of like we all got that farm, growing up on a farm kind of feel. I mean, I wish I could do that for my kids, right? I look in the middle of the city here and there were playgrounds on the south and the north side of town. And I remember going to all of them with my friends with no parents with us. And so, I mean, we're walking blocks and blocks as five, six, seven year old kids. And we all did that. I mean, I love it. Looking back, I feel like that was my town, be how I'd say it. Samantha would eventually learn that another child,

a friend, had accused her father of molestation. I think she was hearing similar stories elsewhere. I think that somehow in her peripheral, either sibling or friend was much more closely connected to this daycare and that there were stories circulating that she was hearing. From there, I don't know. From there, I don't know. Samantha's dad was investigated and soon cleared. No charges were ever laid against him. He was innocent. But still, Samantha wasn't allowed to go home.

So she went to live with her grandparents across the street. I've been told since that there was a period of time when I couldn't see my dad at all. I remember watching him go to work in the morning and having him wave to me as he left. After that, it was supervised visits only. And when she finally did get to go home, months later, everything had changed. I know our relationship changed. I remember spooning with him on the couch to watch movies when I was little, and that never happened again. There was a lot of that physical, just, you know, cuddling and hugging and that kind of thing that he didn't do that I only really realized years later had changed.

That I go, there was this distant memory, but dad never touched me in my memory, right? Like he didn't even hug me really. And he did occasionally, but he was not, he was not a touchy dad after that point. But he had been earlier. he was not a touchy dad after that point, but he had been earlier. And that affected my self-esteem. That changed a lot of things about how I saw myself without even knowing that that was happening. I think it has had long-term effects on me, definitely, psychologically. Just trust and that kind of thing.

It affected all of us. There's something else that you notice right away at Samantha's place. There are musical instruments everywhere. Do you want me to bring that down? What is a hurdy-gurdy? Intricate stringed objects which, as it turns out, were all built by Samantha's dad. It says Randy W. Letcomin, 1996. He built this then.

Beautiful. Yes, it's very pretty. You made that by hand? Yes. Wow. Yeah, he did. It was so amazing. And he made these.

Oh, I can see his... The mandolin there. His name inlaid there. Yeah, and then he built that guitar for me. He started it when I was 16. I think it was supposed to be a graduation project, but he didn't finish it until two years after I graduated. So it was a hobby project.

That is beautiful. It is. He and I designed the neck on that. Samantha's dad died seven years ago. But her grief still feels fresh. Did he tell you afterwards what that time was like for him? Yeah, that was, I mean, kind of a defining moment in our lives. It was hell. My aunt, she lived in town at the time, and she spent that night with my dad in the house and she said he just paced and cried. And I'd asked her, what was it like in the town? Because I think there was a lot that I didn't know about comments that were made, that kind of thing.

It wasn't the kids that overheard, I think, the bulk of it. But she had just said it was dismal. It was awful. It was just, it was bleak. Even though Samantha's father was cleared, the shadow of that accusation lingered. It divided the extended family between those who believed he was innocent

and those who didn't, and it hardened into a rift that's lasted. The town's founding family fractured, just like the town itself. So what motivated you to want to let these two weirdos into your house and put a microphone in your face? Well, obviously, I'm not afraid of talking about things, difficult things that that would never have played in or stopped me. Really, I think. It probably for my dad, really, because he felt so unjustly branded. Talking to Samantha makes me wonder how many others there were like her dad. People who were accused and cleared, but whose lives were thrown off course nonetheless. I have heard the number 200 repeatedly.

I don't know where that number came from or if it's an exaggeration, given the fact that I know my dad's name was never published in anything. I believe I was the only case where a child was removed from a home, I expect, because he was a single parent. where a child was removed from a home, I expect because he was a single parent. But, yeah, my understanding is that fingers were pointed at at least 200 people. And for some perspective, the town had, what, 3,000 people at the time?

200 accusations. It's a truly staggering thought. It would be pretty hard to confirm an exact number, but we do know it was a long list. Because for many in Martinsville, and beyond, the rules had changed. Voice was given to every suspicion, and credence to every allegation.

Relationships of all sorts were strained and fraying. Neighbors suspected neighbor. Couples turned each other in. Guilt and innocence was being ruled on with impunity in the court of public opinion. Don't have space. You can take out a wall and build more bookshelves. I did that when I was 10 or 11.

I don't want to overstay our welcome at Samantha's, and it's feeling like it's time to go. Her husband has come home, and the kids will be hungry soon. But before we go, I ask Samantha one last question. I'm curious if she has any memories of the signs. The ones that proclaimed, we believe the children. And what she made of them as a child. I have a little bit of a mental idea in some of the houses where they were, so I knew they were there.

I do remember hearing this concept of children don't lie, and as a child finding that bizarre, like, yes, we can. Next, on Satanic Panic. Everybody's almost afraid to look at each other, because you all knew which way the story was suddenly going then. It was a what-happens story, not what went wrong with the kids. It was what went wrong with all of this. Don't tell me that I'm involved in the Martinsville.

We come along as a task force and we're going to move the investigation forward. But at the end of the day, we start to see flaws of what doesn't seem to hold any water. That was the ultimate goal, was to determine what had happened to these kids. That was the ultimate goal, was to determine what had happened to these kids. When you're not guilty of anything, I mean, what are you going to say? You can deny everything, but the people that are interrogating you already have found you guilty. Y'all deep. Uncover Satanic Panic is written and produced by me, Lisa Rundle, and Alina Ghosh. Mixing and sound design by Evan Kelly.

Chris Oak is our story editor. Emily Connell is our digital producer. Evan Agart is our video producer. Original music by Olivia Pasquarelli. Tanya Springer is the senior producer of CBC Podcasts. Arif Noorani is our executive producer. Special thanks to Mitchell Stewart. If you want to see photos of some of the characters and places in this episode, head to our Instagram at cbcpodcasts.