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126 Ingram Ritual Abuse Case
To put the daughters’ accusations in perspective,
it is important to note that in 1983, at an
earlier church retreat, the older daughter had
made charges of sexual abuse against a church
counselor. Then, in 1985, at another retreat, both
daughters accused a neighbor of the same crime.
In neither of these cases was enough evidence
found to pursue them. Another factor to take into
account is that, at the time, recovered memory
therapy had not yet been debunked as pseudoscience,
meaning that the daughters’ “recovered
memories” were regarded as plausible. It should
also be noted that the initial charges were gradually
amplified into grandiose stories of ritual abuse
after the first daughter viewed the Geraldo Rivera
special “Satan’s Underground” and read the SRA
book by the same name.
When Ingram got word of his daughters’ accusations,
he had difficulty reconciling their charges
with his own lack of memory. Asserting that, “I
didn’t raise my daughters to lie,” he speculated that
“there must be a dark side of me I don’t know
about.” From the standpoint of the teachings of his
church (which, as noted, postulated demons of
forgetfulness), this hypothesis made perfect sense.
Ingram was then placed under arrest, interrogated,
and encouraged to confess, with the understanding
that if he would just start to confess, the appropriate
memories would be recovered. He was also
encouraged to confess by his pastor, who had been
counseling the girls and affirmed that the abuse
had really taken place. Detectives also allowed the
minister to attempt an exorcism of the demons he
believed were blocking Ingram’s memories. As he
explained later to his therapist,“They wanted more
stuff and I just wasn’t getting it. I told him [the
pastor] I thought I had a demon in me that was
keeping me from doing this, and he said not a
demon but he did deliver me from several spirits. I
actually kind of vomited out and that day I was
able to get some real good information” (Lennon
and Ingram 1988, website). Told that he was suffering
from multiple personality disorder (a disorder
the legitimacy of which the psychological profession
would later dispute), Ingram compliantly
confessed to whatever he was accused of—and the
accusations became increasingly bizarre.
The girls eventually amplified their claims to
include such items of information as: they were
raped during more than 800 rituals, they received
abortions from their father, they witnessed the
sacrifice of twenty-five babies, and more than
thirty members of the sheriff’s department were
involved in SRA. The older daughter would later
assert on tabloid TV that she had been aborted
during a Satanic ritual and compelled to eat parts
of her child. Both daughters also asserted that, as a
result of ongoing abuse, their bodies were covered
by scars. However, a medical exam found nothing
on the two except an appendectomy scar on the
older girl. A female sheriff’s detective attending this
examination confirmed the doctor’s observations:
On April 20, 1989, I asked [the older daughter]
to show me where she had been cut on her
stomach by one of the defendants. She lifted
her sweater and pointed to the midline area
between her sternum and navel. I was not able
to observe any scaring. I stretched the skin
slightly to insure that the scar was not covered
by any body hair. I still was unable to see any
scar....Later the same date, I checked [the
younger daughter’s] shoulders, clavicle area,
and upper arms for scars. I saw no marks or
scars. As she was wearing a tank top, I moved
the shoulder of the garment so I could see all
of the shoulder area. I asked . . . if she thought
she had scars in that area. She indicated that
she did not. (Thompson 1989, website)
Despite the surreal nature of the two girls’
claims, law enforcement officials took their assertions
seriously and began a county-wide search
for Satanic ritual activity. As noted by Daniel
Brailey, founder of an organization devoted to
freeing Ingram:
The Ingram investigation was the most
expensive in Thurston County history, costing
close to one million dollars. The county used
helicopters with specialized night vision
equipment in a fruitless attempt to catch the
Satanists in the act, in nearby wooded areas.
They were successful, however, in busting a lot
of beer parties. One detective was so spooked
he couldn’t sleep at night without a light.