Plaintiffs Speak the Unspeakable

Orange County Superior Court, Department 10, a civil case, spectator seats maybe half full, nothing special. And then the testimony begins.

“I was forced to drink blood out of a glass and eat human flesh,” says the little girl.

“His eyes were gouged out and there were ice picks in his ears and there was blood running out of his mouth,” says her mother another day. “He told me, ‘If you ever talk to anyone about this, that is what will happen to you.’ ”

Listening at the defense table is a 76 year-old woman, glasses, silver bouffant hair, a person for whom the description matron seems particularly apt. Her expression rarely changes. It is blank.

This elderly woman--the court has given her the pseudonym of Ellen Roe--is the grandmother of the 11-year-old girl. She is allegedly responsible for the horrors described under oath.

Roe’s two daughters, ages 35 and 48, are suing their mother for an unspecified amount. They say their memories of years of abuse are so grotesque that it was only recently, through therapy, that they have come out.

They say they grew up in a Satanic cult.

These two sisters, the younger a businesswoman in Newport Beach and the older, a holder of a Ph.D.--blame Ellen Roe and her deceased husband for crimes that family newspapers used to describe only as unspeakable acts .

This was a euphemism for things that decent people could barely even imagine, let alone recount.

Many of these things are now being described in Orange County Superior Court, depending on who is talking about them, either matter-of-factly or between sobs.

They are all hideous and bizarre; murders of infants bred for slaughter, incest, torture and cannibalism are but a few.

And each and every one of them screams a silent question to the jury, “ Do you believe ?”

The defense, of course, says clearly that nobody should. That is Ellen Roe’s legal strategy: her daughters are making this up. They are mentally disturbed, is what the defense says.

And the plaintiffs and their expert witnesses agree with them on that. Multiple personality disorder is the term that they use. It means that different beings inhabit one person’s mind.

But what came first?

Could these crimes really have happened? And if they did, who among us could be expected to come away from them unscathed? Wouldn’t you too go a little nuts?

So far, there is no hard evidence, like a body, or a weapon, or anything that the jurors can get their fingers on and pass from lap to lap.

In such cases--and accounts of ritualized satanic abuse are nothing new--there rarely is. And surely if there were, the case of Ellen Roe would be tried in criminal court. Murder, for one, is a capital crime. No statute of limitations applies.

So does all this mean that these unspeakable acts must not have occurred?

I would be the last person to say that was so. I’ve talked with too many straight-shooting cops, men and women who have examined such acts up close. Even thinking about these crimes makes me want to throw up.

But what could cause somebody to do such things? Could a motive really be that Satan was calling the shots?

As far as I can tell, any juror has got to have a reasonable doubt. But, then again, it is not the existence of Satan that is on trial in Superior Court.

Still, the demonic specter seems to float about. Which, legally speaking, is surely a risk. Prosecutors in criminal courts elsewhere have prosecuted cases of ritualistic abuse, and won, after bringing up so-called satanic trappings that devil worshipers have left about.

Here, so far, there is not even that.

Other prosecutors have simply left that stuff out. And keep in mind, devil worship by itself is not against the law. It tends, however, to play toward our prejudices about the lunatic fringe.

Listening to the testimony the other day in Department 10 of Superior Court, I thought to myself that it was all pretty crazy stuff, weird and scary, like something out of Hollywood that I would never believe.

On occasion, I saw flashes of the same on the faces of jurors too. Others were grimly serious; one or two took notes.

Then, after a while, the cumulative weight of the testimony started to make me numb. So much, so horrible. I started to tune out. I can’t say whether I believe or not.

If I were on the jury, it might be hung.

While I was in the courtroom, Judge Robert Monarch ordered both attorneys--for the alleged abuser and for those allegedly abused--into his chambers for some legal wrangling that he didn’t want the jurors to hear.

His reason to the jury: “We want your minds to remain pure.”

In this case especially, that is extremely hard to do.

Dianne Klein’s column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Readers may reach Klein by writing to her at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7406.