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• THE FRANKLIN COVER·UP
ual abuse is only part of it. But are these stories of incest and
human sacrifice true Many mental health experts think not.
And at least two law enforcement officers, with the FBI and
the San Francisco police, say they have looked into some of
the claims and found nothing." (Emphasis added.)
An embattled minority of law enforcement officials disagrees
with Lanning of the FBI. Ted Gunderson, a 28-year FBI veteran,
former special agent-in-charge of the Bureau's Los Angeles
Field Division, speaks from his personal knowledge of one of
the most infamous recent cases involving ritual abuse, the
McMartin pre-school case in California. After a 33-month
trial, and despite voluminous evidence against them, school
operators Peggy McMartin Buckey and her son, Raymond
Buckey, were exonerated in January 1990 on 52 counts of
molesting the children in their care, while the jury failed to
reach a verdict on thirteen other counts against Raymond
Buckey.
In a May 25, 1990 interview with Executive Intelligence
Review, Gunderson said, "In the McMartin case, for example,
before any criminal charges were filed against anyone, 460
complaints were filed with the Manhattan Beach police. Are
we to believe that 460 families fed their children the same
story of ritualistic sexual abuse, animal sacrifices, etc." He
stressed that the crimes were reported in an affluent suburban
area, where residents are typically skeptical about organized
child abuse or satanic conspiracies.
Gunderson commented on the effect of Lanning's disclaimers:
"In my opinion, other than [satanists active in the United
States in the twentieth century] Aleister Crowley, Anton LaVey,
and Michael Aquino, Ken Lanning is probably the most effective
and foremost speaker for the satanic movement in this
country, today or any time in the past."
Evidence from Gunderson's investigations has convinced
him that tens of thousands of children or young people disappear
from their homes each year, and that many are ritually sacrificed.
A decade ago, one estimate, printed in Reader's Digest
in July 1982, was that "approximately 100,000 children are
unaccounted for" each year. That number sounds too high, but
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