Uncover - S6 "Satanic Panic" E4: ‘There is still time to wake up'

Episode Date: February 8, 2020

A local activist in Saskatoon, Marjaleena Repo, says she knew instantly that the accused were innocent, victims of nothing less than mass hysteria. Though she sounds the alarm in any forum she can find, her warnings are ignored. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/uncover/uncover-season-6-satanic-panic-transcripts-listen-1.5437487

On Mother's Day 1985, Philadelphia did something unthinkable. The city had been engaged in a standoff with a radical organization called MOVE. The helicopter takes off, then... The city dropped a bomb on MOVE's headquarters, killing 11 people, 5 of them children. My daughters were taken away by this corrupt government! Why is it so many have never heard of the MOVE bombing? Black people will never get justice in America. The Africans vs. America. Available now everywhere you get your podcasts.

This is a CBC Podcast. You know, I think maybe my first intervention was to go get up at that meeting and then say, you have no business talking like that. We still have, you know, a presumption of innocence and you are basically condemning these people. Marilena Repo

is an activist and writer in Saskatoon with a special interest in justice issues. And she's a force. There's not a guilty person there. I don't only believe it, I know it. She says she knew without question, from the moment the story broke, that the Sterlings were innocent. And so were all the other accused. that the Sterlings were innocent, and so were all the other accused. This is before the charges were really laid out.

They would organize a meeting in a Martensville area for parents, an information meeting. And the people that they invited as speakers were the members of the committee against the ritual abuse of children. She's talking about one of the first town meetings held in Martinsville. It was in reaction to the June arrests of nine people for the systematic abuse of children. The invited speakers called themselves experts in satanic ritual abuse. This committee, led by a local reverend,

was formed in the late 80s to tackle the burgeoning phenomenon. The committee leader told the Saskatoon Star Phoenix around this time that, quote, with ritual abuse, we're sort of where we were 10 to 15 years ago with sexual abuse. Back then, it was hard to convince people that children were being sexually abused. It was hard to convince people that children were being sexually abused. Now, it's difficult to convince people that children can be sexually and physically abused in a satanic ritual context. But in fact, convincing people was getting a whole lot easier. And committee members were frequently invited to speak, in the media and at events like this one. So basically, you had people who were the two believers presenting to a, you know, pretty

alarmed group of parents that, you know, this might be happening or might have happened to your child or, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And that's when I jumped in. I asked Marilena what kind of reaction she got. Not a very good one. Shocked, and nobody applauded. One of them, a big, hulky guy, told me that I had no business being there.

This meeting was only meant for people in Martinsville. I said, well, you try to toss me out. We'll see what happens. You jumped right in. Why did you do that? Well, I think my main thought was all the time from the very beginning. If I don't do it, who will? I had understood that there's such a thing as mass hysteria. And I thought, who else is going to say anything? The judge, his decision that I'm an innocent man, what happened to me should never happen to anybody. We come along as a task force, and we're going to organize the material,

and we're going to move the investigation forward. But at the end of the day, we start to see flaws. She was 18 at the time of the offenses. The judge found her guilty on seven charges dealing with the sexual assault of two boys. We all knew which way the story was suddenly going. Not what went wrong with the kids. It was what went wrong with all of this.

I'm second by it all. The children should not have to report this second time around. I'm Lisa Brynrundel, and this is Uncover, Satanic Panic, Episode 4. There is still time to wake up. The Sterlings came to court to hear the reading of the charges. They had to stand for 25 minutes as they heard 60 charges read out to them. It's late summer, 1993. Ron and Linda Stirling, and their 23-year-old son, Travis Sterling, are being tried together.

The charges include trying to suffocate a child, threatening some with a gun, and sexually assaulting up to 15 boys and girls in their care. The Sterlings have pleaded not guilty to all charges. 108 prospective jurors are called, the most in Saskatchewan history. We have to screen out a substantial number of people that have formed an opinion. It takes days for lawyers to settle on six men and six women. It promises to be a long and difficult trial for all involved. Sitting right up front, taking copious handwritten notes, is Mary Elena.

You can see there's everything in there. Everything, yeah. This is all the different charges. She's still got those notes, along with all sorts of other papers from the time. She's flipping through a stuffed banker's box as she recalls the Sterling's trial. Well, the mood was tense, always tense, because when you look at the jury, you don't know what they're thinking. And I knew what I was thinking. I think these people have gotten all that propaganda and the false information. And how could they actually overcome?

And so I was watching them a lot and their faces don't reveal anything to the very end. Mary Elena didn't know the Sterlings at all before reading their names in the newspaper, just over a year before the trial. But now, she's here in the courtroom to bear witness and to offer emotional support. She checks in on the Sterlings during breaks. So it usually was just like a nice way to get in touch with them and pat them on the back and saying, you know, this can't go anywhere. This is clearly a can't result in conviction. I had a feeling, oh, it can't.

It can't. She says Ron tries to stay positive. He's known to be a very nice man. He's very jovial, a kind of gregarious guy. He wants to make contact with people, cracks jokes. And, you know, he tried to make light of what was heavy. It was harder for Linda. She looked like a doomed, you know, she had already been doomed.

They had to have endurance to go through this and try to remain human. The crown is up first. Prosecutors Bruce Bauer and Leslie Sullivan will argue that the Sterlings used their home daycare as a hunting ground for victims. That over the course of three years, they and an assortment of local police officers abused children in their home and at a building just out of town. Police officer Claudia Bryden comes to court with a briefcase full of notes on the nine-month investigation against the Sterlings. Up to now, Bryden has never had any problems answering questions,

but today she had to ask the judge for a break. Bryden was reading a transcript of an interview she did with a child. The child was describing a sexual assault. Bryden started to wipe tears from her eyes. The lack of physical evidence continues to be a problem for prosecutors. The Crown alleges the children were driven here in police cars and assaulted by the Sterlings. This police officer says they searched the building for blood and hair particles. They found nothing. He says there could be three reasons. There was nothing to find, he couldn't

find it, or everything had been cleaned up. Just as with the previous trials, this one hinges on the Crown's ability to present a convincing narrative to support their key evidence, the children's testimony. One by one, the children tell their stories. And what they have to say is hard to hear. Child number four talked about being locked up in a cage. There was just me and Travis. He came up close to the bars.

He would touch my bum and penis. I felt lonely and scared. Scared about what would happen next. Three months in, before the prosecution has rested their case, the trial becomes the longest in the history of the province. A reporter asks Travis Sterling, How does it feel to be a part of the longest trial in Saskatchewan? It's not real entertaining.

Soon, it'll be the defense's turn. But just as the prosecutors are wrapping up their case, they make an unexpected move. They decide not to pursue 15 of the 60 charges against the Sterlings, citing lack of evidence. The number of alleged victims falls from 15 to 11. And where the case will end up is anyone's guess. Through it all, Mary Elena speaks up for the accused in any form she can find. She hands

out flyers saying things like, the oldest child, who has been the main crown witness, said in court that Linda Sterling cut off the nipple of one of the children and swallowed it. Fact. There is no child with a nipple missing. And yet the trials go on. Two of the boys claimed that they had had an axe handle and vibrator shoved inside their penises and anuses. shoved inside their penises and anuses. If such a thing would have occurred, both boys would have required major surgery to repair the damage. They show no injuries whatsoever. I wrote articles. My first article was published in a Roman mail because Star Phoenix wouldn't publish it.

According to Marielena, the Star Phoenix refuses to publish her article, telling her it would bias potential jurors. And this would be damaging. Meanwhile, and I pointed out in an article all the different articles that they had had about showing how, you know, satanic cults are everywhere and very much in Martensville. In her article, she points out the absence of corroborating evidence in the Martensville case. She calls the children's accusations fairy tales. And she criticizes the media's gullibility and their portrayal of the accused as guilty. The media role was atrocious. So this is just a typical, typical fair,

full-page articles about satanicals. So when you have that put on the public, no wonder everybody was saying, when there's smoke, there's fire. It became very clear just before the Sterling's trial, because the lawyers, they presented a survey that they had done about opinions of people in Saskatoon. And the defense lawyers had polled 600 people.

And out of those 600 people, only four believed that the Stirlings were innocent. The final words of her first article are a call to action. There is still time to wake up, she writes. And there was. Her warning came nearly a year before the start of the trials. Mary-Elena remains energetically disdainful of the way the Martensville nightmare unfolded. The investigations were conducted already in an atmosphere of moral panic. A panic that Mary Elena believes was made possible by the place itself.

Well, it's a religious community, and a very central feature in this community was the Alliance Church, which is very fundamentalist. A lot of the parents belong to that. And in that church, every Sunday, you will hear things about Satan and what Satan does and how Satan seduces us and how he does this and does that and destroys our families. And, you know, there is a scare-mongering kind of thing built into certain religions. And the children would get something in the Sunday school, and they would get something at home, and they would listen to the parent talk about satans and terrible people and whisper things.

It's very easy to create, you know, that kind of a mood. Mary Elena didn't know it, but there were others quietly sounding the alarm inside the investigation, members of that special RCMP-led task force. They began warning prosecutors of potential weaknesses in the case before the first trial began. of potential weaknesses in the case before the first trial began. This set off tensions between the task force and prosecutors. At one point in a memo, the head of the task force puts it this way. We are seeking the truth, as opposed to only looking at what will support the charges currently before the court.

Over the course of months, the task force members had not just reviewed, but reinvestigated the case. And what they found was damning. Serious flaws in the original investigation, including, crucially, in the way the children were interviewed. This case, as you know, started out very simply and very small. October 1991, Claudia Bryden gets the initial complaint from the parents of a two-year-old who goes to Linda Sterling's daycare. The next, very next priority, of course, was to identify, as best as possible, other potential victims. It snowballed because we realized that, you know, the daycare was still operating. We had a duty to protect the public.

This seems to be the moment the investigation begins to go awry. My job at that point, if I was able to locate another family, was to simply call and let them know that we were conducting an investigation into activities at that home and left it basically at that. But at trial, parents say there was more. One mother testifies that Claudia shared information from another child that led the mother to suspect her son had been abused before he made any allegations. Another parent reports that he all along believed the police,

who had informed him that his son was a victim of abuse, despite his son's denials. Claudia tells a different story. Well, if that's been suggested, that I said to the parent, that person is lying because that's ridiculous. If I said anything to parents at all about talking to their kids, it was always to be careful not to suggest anything to them and to write whatever they might disclose to you down. And that was done so that, or that was a request made so that we could actually show, you know, the flow of information. There's also testimony that early on, families

received a children's book, a government-issued resource called The Secret of the Silver Horse. In the story, a young girl named Jennifer has invited two friends over to see something, a secret object that she has rescued from the trash. It's an old hood ornament, but to the kids, it's an almost magically beautiful silver horse. Jennifer has hidden the treasure in the family's back shed. And before she'll show it to them, she makes her friends, Terry and Manuel, promise not to tell anyone.

Suddenly, Terry began to cry, and the words tumbled out. Big person put a hand inside my pants and kept touching me down there. I didn't know what to do. Big Person kept saying I wasn't to tell anyone about it, that it was a secret. Manuel and Jennifer said nothing.

They believed Terry and knew Big Person had made their friend very unhappy. You should tell a grown-up, Jennifer said at last. But it's a secret, Terry sobbed. No, it isn't, said Jennifer. It's not a nice secret. Not like the horse. According to court testimony, one child only began speaking of abuse after he'd been read the book twice in the preceding week.

Another boy reported multiple assaults identical to what's described in the story, but only after reading the book. So, did the disclosures come because the book did its job, opening a channel through the shame and fear of speaking up about abuse? Or did it tell the kids what kind of answers the grown-ups wanted? Then, there was this. These parents were all cautioned on how to talk to their kids, by me, very specifically. And the caution was, if you have a conversation with your child, you cannot lead them. And in court, parents confirmed this. You have to simply ask very benign questions, such as, do you like being in daycare?

Or how is daycare for you? That's allowing a response that is not led in one way or the other. And they knew how important it was to not make any suggestions. But many of the parents were unwilling or unable to follow those instructions. And honestly, I completely get that. You wouldn't have to say much more than sexual assault at the daycare for most parents to freak out. Apart from the 1991 complaint about the toddler and the earlier complaint against Travis that Claudia had found shoved in the back of a filing cabinet, none of the children disclosed abuse until after police contacted their families. And it was only

after, quote, repeated and sometimes highly suggestive questioning that they made any allegations. This is from court documents. One child was told twice by his mother that Travis Sterling had sexually assaulted the boy's sister. Another child was told by his parents, quote, Some of the children that have been babysat at Ronald and Linda's are saying some bad stuff happened there, some bad things, and we just want to know if anything bad happened to you guys. In the case of one family, a parent admitted dissuading his son from recanting, telling him that other children were also talking about the building out of town.

The child had told him he was worried he may have invented the devil church. The children disclosed in a particular fashion, and this is the direction it went in. And this is why the allegations that the police led these kids are really unfounded, because the kids disclosed first to their parents. That's why they came to the police station in the first place. As the case grew, the number of investigators grew too. And in the end, it's determined by a panel of judges that several investigators, quote, accepted unquestioningly parents' reports of their children's disclosures without determining whether that information was obtained in a reliable manner.

During ensuing interviews, they prompted the children through the use of suggestive questions to confirm the version of events recounted by their parents. In other words, cops influence the parents, parents influence the kids, and then cops do what they can to get the kids to disclose. Because they already believe the children have been abused. 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 In the fall of 1991, investigator Rod Moore comes to Martinsville to assist in the investigation. Disclosures start to pour in. Soon, a pattern emerges. At first, the children have nothing to report.

Nothing bad happened. But as parents and investigators persist, and encourage, the children begin to give different answers. down to my ankles. Okay, how did they get down? They made us pull them down. Very good, I'm impressed to see it. That's Rod Moore interviewing one of the Martinsville children. If you didn't catch that, the child reports that his abusers made him pull his pants down. Moore responds, very good, I'm impressed with you. Many of the interviews, like this one, were videotaped. I haven't seen those tapes, though. I wish I could.

30 years on, it's not clear if any copies still exist. The bits you'll hear are all that remain publicly available, because they appeared in an old documentary. But even in these tiny clips, you can tell how things could go wrong fast. Rod Moore again. So this person that was driving, what do you think should happen to this person? Jail.

The child responds, jail. I agree. And did you know that a policeman that has been accused of touching kids out in Martinsville? Mary Elena watched those tapes. The children told nothing. But when they said nothing happened, that wasn't enough.

It wasn't accepted. Children, you don't believe, you're supposed to believe. Believe the children! That was one of the slogans. Believe the children. Well, because the interrogators had their own ideas, and they wanted to extract that information, and they got it. So you're saying they were not believed when they said... Absolutely, when they said nothing happened.

And you see that those videos can get children to say the weirdest things because you're basically giving it to them. Again from her flyer. Another child who first denied that anyone had harmed him in any way, ended

up saying after repeated interrogations by parents and police investigators that he had witnessed people being killed, acid being poured on people's faces, and that he was forced to eat feces and intestines, which were also stuffed into his ears. Fact, there are no dead bodies and no acid damage, and no other child has even hinted at such occurrences. Each follow-up interview, and there are many, elicits new details and new accusations against new people. Some children are interviewed by police more than a dozen times. Claudia says the many interviews were necessary.

Do we like to interview people more than once? No, we don't. It would be just lovely if you could sit somebody down, including an adult, and get just the full story right off the hop. But with children especially, it doesn't happen that way. Others disagree, arguing that it coaxed the children into alleging more and more.

Do you recall how many times each child was interviewed? Oh my goodness. The children were interviewed so many times by the policewomen, policemen, special investigators, their parents, because parents couldn special investigators, their parents, because parents couldn't stop asking them questions, and then counselors. Mary Elena points at the people she considers unprincipled professionals, social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists,

who advise parents to look for things like bedwetting, not liking doctors, nightmares, or not wanting to go to school as possible signs of abuse. In Martinsville, therapists organized meetings with parents and handed out a checklist with these symptoms. Many of the alleged victims also met with therapists regularly. And at trial, the contents of these sessions came under fire. One social worker was forced to admit that he had asked a child repeatedly to remember details of abuse, and that under such circumstances a child might feel so pressured to satisfy the

interviewer that he would embellish his story. That it's like murder of the mind. would embellish his story. It's like murder of the mind. Just to make it totally clear to anyone listening to this, it's not that you don't think sexual abuse of children happens. Oh my God. That's never an issue. That was never an issue. But it became an issue for the other side, the total other side, that any claim of sexual abuse must be true.

No question asked. I got accused of being a supporter. I got public criticism of being a supporter of child abuse, child sexual abuse. I got that. Mary Elena used to have a friendly relationship with the children in her neighborhood, inviting them in on occasion for juice and cookies, a practice she immediately halts. Too dangerous.

Were you accused of being in the cult? Yes. Some of the people said that they knew very well that I was part of a coven. Martinsville police officer Randy Cheddock also watched the tapes of the children's interviews Once I was involved in the task force and I was able to see some of the interviews I was horrified

What stands out for me is the absolute most unbelievable interviewing I've ever seen. And leading questions. Every question was a leading question. A lot of it was, this was the person you saw, right? This is the person that did this to you, right? Or did they touch you here? Or did they touch you here? Or did they touch you here? And eventually the child would agree with them and they were rewarded

for doing this. Kids were complimented for their bravery. They were promised colouring books. And in one case, a visit to see the police dog. They were also told that the interview would be over. They could go play. After you talk about what happened. Here's an example from a news report. Moore patted the doll's backside and said, Has anybody ever touched you back here? Right here.

This got no answer. Who has touched you here, sweetie? he asked. Still no answer. And then we don't have to talk about this no more, okay? You just quickly tell me once, and then we're done. Deal? The child nodded in agreement. Okay, who's touched you back here?

Finally, she answered. Hmm, a man did. Good girl, Moore said. In spite of Moore's promise to stop, the interview continued. In spite of Moore's promise to stop, the interview continued. In the next 20 minutes, Moore asked or told the child 17 times that someone had touched her. We reached out to Rod Moore, now retired from the Saskatoon police, but we didn't hear back. The interviews took place either in the children's homes or in what's called a soft room,

a warmer kind of interrogation room, decorated a bit like a living room. Except this living room had a camera and anatomically correct dolls. Parents often hovered nearby, at times directly intervening in their children's interviews. Why do you think Rod Moore and Claudia Bryden were using those techniques? I don't think they knew any different. And I think there was a lot of pressure to get results. Claudia maintains that she understood the suggestibility of children and conducted the interviews accordingly. And that she never offered any kind of reward in exchange for information. I would say I'm here to talk to you about something,

and I understand you have something that you would like to tell me, and you just simply explain, you know, I need you to tell me the truth. And, you know, it kind of went from there. But are you saying, no, that there weren't leading questions? Oh, no, there were absolutely leading questions. And they were intentionally asked. I took dozens and dozens of statements from dozens of kids over a long period of time. And in order to clarify things, you have to ask questions based on information that was previously given.

I follow up and I say, OK, where did you go in this blue car? That's a leading question. You're darn right it is. But I didn't supply the original information. And yes, you have to be very careful not to suggest things and everybody knows that. It's been a well-known fact for a very long time

and it was drilled into us in training. And, you know, it's easy to misspeak. If accidentally, you know, something pops out, you do occasionally make the odd mistake. But an expert brought in by the task force determines that the initial interviews contained several errors, including leading questions and inappropriate rewards. This is the first time anyone with expertise

in gathering evidence from children is working the case. He finds that Claudia and Rod Moore's work may have, quote, contaminated children's memories, and that, quote, it was not always clear whether the information provided had come from the child or the interviewer. Later, the task force would conclude that the final stages of the investigation had been driven by what they called emotional hysteria. And all of this raises a whole new disturbing possibility. Not just that the interviews had been compromised as evidence, but that nothing had happened at all. For nearly four months,

Ron, Linda and Travis Sterling have listened to The Crown's version of events. Today, Ron Sterling began telling his side of the story. Linda Sterling walked into court today when asked if she touched any of them for sexual purposes or seen anyone else doing so. She said, no, I did not. At one point when describing a child, Sterling started crying. She broke down a second time when describing how her family reacted to her arrest. The defense argues that the police investigation was grossly mishandled,

especially the interviews with the children. For the first time in the Martinsville daycare case, Ron Sterling and his family heard the voices of their accusers. But Sterling's lawyer is questioning how accurate those voices are. Last week, Moore agreed with the defense he'd made mistakes in interviewing the children. Today, he says he wouldn't do anything differently. He says his technique was the best way to allow the children to tell their story. One defense lawyer asked child number four,

do you have dreams about this? The child answers, yes. And the dreams seem pretty real? Yes. And sometimes it's pretty hard to remember if it was a dream or if it really happened? Yes. Expert witnesses raise doubts about how genuine the children's disclosures are. Even though there was repeated pressure and suggestion and questioning over and over and over again, this child denied and denied and denied.

Four days later, the same child was re-interviewed in a very, very suggestive and pressured interview and began to say things. But those ideas had been planted four days previously when the child denied everything. Then, the court learns that investigators went even farther than suggestive questioning. They don't really come up with details until adults give them clues. It wasn't just hints, it was pictures.

They had photographs of the so-called Devil's Church, which was nothing of the kind. They had pictures of objects there. They showed them to the children. And then the children remembered the pictures. After police located what they believed to be the devil church that one child had spoken of they began to show children photos of the property

along with items found there and in the Sterling home. It was only then that some of the children said they were taken to that location and began talking about a freezer, a cage, an axe. One panel of judges summed it up this way. All of the evidence of the children with respect to the description of the property and its contents could have been derived from the photographs they were shown. At trial, investigators were questioned about the way photos and objects were presented to children, sometimes before a child had even mentioned them. In one instance, a child described being assaulted with a vibrator. On cross-examination, Claudia conceded that the child had made no mention of a vibrator. On cross-examination, Claudia conceded that the child

had made no mention of a vibrator until she showed it to him. Nor did another child mention assault with an axe handle until shown the axe. When I asked her about it, Claudia added that, quote, all photos of any person's objects or places

that were shown to children by me were done so only on the direction of my supervisor or superior officers. Back at the trial, the lawyers begin their closing arguments. Linda Sterling's lawyer says the investigators were out to get his client. He says the police and parents were guided by their emotions and not reason. He says people became fanatical because of the allegations of sexual assault against children. He says that's a normal reaction for the parents, but he says it's inexcusable for the police. And he asked the jury to take an objective look at the evidence and acquit his client.

The judge finished the day... the jury to take an objective look at the evidence and acquit his client. It's been five long months and it remains utterly unclear to all involved just where the jury will come down. But finally, nearly two and a half years after Claudia first got the case, arguments come to a close. Today, jurors came to court with suitcases. They won't be going home again until they reach a verdict. In his charge to the jury, the judge commented on several inconsistencies in the children's testimony, things the children say they remember that could not possibly be true.

The judge tells jurors the prosecutors have scattered charges, The judge tells jurors the prosecutors have scattered charges, the way a farmer scatters seeds in a prairie field, in the hopes that some would sprout. A day goes by. Then two. Then three. January ticks over into February.

A slow decision is better than a fast one, as far as the accused are concerned. But the waiting had to be agony. The deliberating jurors pose a simple question to the judge that boils the trial down to its essence. If we don't think it happened the way prosecutors say it did, can we convict the defendants anyway? Finally, nine days later. This morning, the Martinsville child sex abuse scandal drew to a close as the jury delivered its verdicts. Ron and Linda Sterling were found not guilty of all the charges against them.

But their son, Travis Sterling, was convicted on eight counts, including six counts of sexual assault, each of which carries a maximum sentence of ten years in jail. No one saw that coming, including Claudia Bryden. The outcome of the big trial, You have three individuals, three adults, all charged with similar offenses. The evidence was, you know, the same children giving similar evidence against all three individuals.

Only one person is convicted. That's very confusing. If you're a jury and you believe the evidence that a child gives against one person, why are you not believing the same evidence against other people? It should have been all or none. You know? Not too close. I tend to back up. It should have been all or none, you know?

Not too close. I tend to back up. Prosecutor Leslie Sullivan. We're relieved that it's reached a conclusion in this case. How do you feel about not having to be in footage? The jury heard all the evidence. It was a properly held fair trial, and we accept the jury's verdict. What does this mean for the upcoming trials in the case? We won't discuss any matters that are still before the court. A lawyer engaged to help preserve the children's privacy speaks on behalf of the families.

Well, I really don't have that much to say, except that quite clearly the families are disappointed. What solace, if any, could you provide them? Just simply that it isn't over yet, and that merely because this particular jury found two of the three accused not guilty does not mean that the rest will be found not guilty as well. John Popowich is there too. Like I mentioned back at these steps here in June, a public inquiry. I think it's about time we had one.

Ron Sterling emerges from the courtroom. I really don't know what to say. I mean, we told people two years ago we weren't guilty of any charges, and neither is our son. We believe that, and we're going to fight this right to the bitter end. Ron, tell us how this has affected your life, what you've gone through, and if you can sort of rebuild from here. Well, we've gone through hell, you know. I mean, everybody says that these kids have had a rough time these past two years.

We're not guilty of any charges. You can imagine what we've gone through. Well, the taint of these sort of charges is going to follow us no matter where we go or what we do. You know, this should never have happened in the first place. I don't know. Okay. That's it, okay?

And Linda Sterling. I just hope that the parents and the jury can sleep well when they know they've sent an innocent person to jail. Ron and Linda are acquitted not because of legal technicalities or loopholes, but because there was simply no credible evidence against them. In the end, the young offender will be acquitted too, and six of Travis's eight convictions will be overturned. But they don't know that yet. For now, all 15 convictions stand. And the people of Martinsville who've been watching and waiting,

yearning for solid answers, are left without them. Everyone seemed to agree that there was an injustice. But there was little agreement about exactly what the injustice was. That Ron and Linda were wrongly let loose. Or that Travis and the young offender had been wrongly convicted. And that wasn't going to change anytime soon. For Mary Elena's part, she's proud of her efforts.

At least Ron and Linda are free. You know, this was, of course, my whole intent at the time, you know, of how to have an impact, how to prevent what I thought was going to be a colossal injustice of everybody getting convicted. And, you know, when I look back at that, I think, well, that's my contribution. Finally, two weeks after the verdict, after Travis and the young offender are granted their appeals and released on bail. The parents of children involved in the Martinsville abuse case haven't finished telling their stories. They're angry with how the system has treated their kids. About two dozen parents met with reporters last night in Saskatoon to air their grievances.

One father's voice has been disguised to protect his child's identity. We found it frustrating to be unable to provide corroborating evidence to the court that some of our children, especially the younger ones who were not able to testify, suffered the same emotional, physical and mental trauma as those children that were able to testify. Our well-intentioned friends and family advise us to get over it. They don't understand the abused children have been robbed of their innocence. The children put their faith and confidence in the justice system. It let them down.

In their eyes, people convicted of abusing them have been set free. We believe our children and will continue to do so. Next on Satanic Panic. It's one more twist in one of the most sensational and puzzling court cases in Saskatchewan history. It wasn't the lack of corroborative evidence that concerned me. It was the lack of corroborative evidence when there should have been corroborative evidence. Even in cases of mass hysteria, and you go back to the Salem witch trials, eventually people began to realize this was all made up. If you were to ask me what frightened me most, it was the increasing sense that these adults were trying to destroy me as a person, not just my body.

destroy me as a person, not just my body. 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 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 and CBC TV's The Fifth Estate. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, all at CBC Podcasts, or email us at uncover at cbc.ca. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.