Jury Splits Verdict in Cult Trial

SANTA ANA —  After one of the most sensational civil trials ever held in Orange County, a Superior Court jury Friday found in favor of two daughters who had accused their 76-year-old mother of subjecting them to years of physical and sexual abuse during sadistic satanic rituals.

However, the jurors awarded the daughters no monetary damages, and found that while their mother had been negligent, she had not intentionally harmed them.

Attorneys on both sides called the 10-2 verdict “a compromise,” with jurors wishing to express sympathy for the suffering of the daughters, yet unwilling to conclude that their mother had intentionally abused them as part of a satanic cult.

“I think (the mother) is a victim too,” said one 30-year-old juror, who refused to give her name.

The juror said she had no doubt that the women had been physically and sexually abused. Asked whether she believed their testimony of satanic abuse, which included descriptions of rape, torture, druggings and human sacrifices in secret caves, the juror said, “We’ll never know.”

“I think the key to this lies wherever the father’s buried,” the juror said.

The women had testified that their late father prostituted and raped them, as well as forced them to participate in the satanic rituals. He died four years ago.

Jurors said there were wild swings of opinion inside the jury room during the two days of deliberations. They reached a decision for the daughters, and then spent only “10 minutes” discussing whether to award monetary damages.

Two of the 12 jurors dissented. They said there was no physical or material evidence to show that even if the women were abused, their mother was to blame.

“I just did not find a preponderance of the evidence,” said dissenting juror Tom Vaccaro.

“As far as I am concerned, (the mother) is not guilty,” said Dolores Sue Thomas. The 49-year-old homemaker wept in the jury box as the verdict was read.

“It’s been horrifying,” Thomas said. “I’m glad it’s over.”

Most of the jurors rushed out of the courtroom without speaking to reporters, some with tears streaming down their faces. Two said they had been deeply upset by the ghastly tales of sadistic abuse that were a staple of the 11-day trial.

“We gave the message that we think, in a way, that this happened, and it shouldn’t happen again,” said the jury forewoman, who asked not to be identified. “This is going to be with me for the rest of my life.”

The two daughters were permitted to sue their mother using only their initials in order to protect the identity of the older sister’s 11-year-old daughter, who was also allegedly abused by her grandmother.

The daughters, now 48 and 35, are both professionals, the older living in Newport Beach and the younger in Costa Mesa. Both sobbed when they heard the verdict.

“It’s wonderful to be heard and believed,” said the older sister. “We were believed, and I’m very grateful.”

Their 76-year-old mother, who lives in Mission Viejo, was not present in the courtroom.

On the witness stand, the silver-haired widow, who dressed in prim suits and clutched a romance novel during most of the trial, had denied any knowledge of satanism or any other kind of abuse. She told the jury that her daughters were only after her money.

The sisters have insisted that they stood to reap no financial gain by suing, since their mother had told them that they would inherit everything after her death. They said their purpose was to alert the public that ritual abuse does exist in seemingly “normal” families.

The older sister said she suffered daily abuse and terror from earliest childhood. “It can only happen in secrecy and the secret is being broken,” she said.

The younger sister said the trial itself had already accomplished one of her goals: to encourage “other survivors to come forward.”

Their attorney, R. Richard Farnell, a former homicide prosecutor for the Orange County district attorney’s office, said he was initially reluctant to accept the case because the allegations seemed so incredible. He said he has since concluded that satanic abuse does happen and will eventually be acknowledged by the public, just as child abuse and incest, unthinkable a generation ago, are now proven to exist.

“It will take some time for the public to believe,” Farnell said. “We’ve broken new ground. Those child molesters out there can have some sleepless nights. Their victims will remember.”

However, defense attorney Tom M. Allen said the verdict did not prove the existence of a satanic conspiracy.

“They wanted to show that there was a multigenerational, national satanic ritual abuse network and the jury just didn’t believe that,” Allen said.

Allen said the jury vindicated his client by finding she was not directly culpable for any of the horrific acts described both by her daughters and by her 11-year-old granddaughter, who also told of bloody rituals and bizarre acts of torture and incest.

“She’s not the person who is responsible for those things,” Allen said. “She’s not the kind of person who goes around in caves and kills animals.”

Throughout the trial, the defense has argued that the women, who claim to suffer from multiple personality disorder, may sincerely believe that they were abused. However, Allen told the jury that they were encouraged to “remember” abuse that never happened by psychotherapists who were “true believers” in a widespread satanic threat.

The verdict “sanctifies the belief that something happened to them, but it doesn’t sanctify the claim” that their mother was responsible, Allen said. Had the jury believed the mother herself “wore robes and danced around in caves,” they would have awarded substantial monetary damages, he said.

Allen said he had “absolutely no intention” of appealing the verdict.

Farnell said he had not decided whether to appeal the jury’s decision not to award damages in a case that has cost thousands of dollars to pursue.

One of the jurors said she had no choice but to believe that the women were in some way abused, since the defense did not give a credible alternative explanation for their psychological problems.

A battery of psychologists, psychiatrists and psychotherapists--including one who appeared on behalf of the defense--testified that more than 95% of those with multiple personality disorder suffered severe abuse in early childhood. Two experts testified that both sisters and the daughter exhibited multiple personalities.

The juror noted that the mother had a heart murmur and had left everything to her daughters, who therefore stood to gain nothing by suing their mother.

Nevertheless, the juror said, the grandmother’s kindly and benign appearance made it difficult to believe she had participated in the atrocities her daughters and granddaughter described.

“I wish she would have looked mean and evil, but she didn’t,” the juror said. “It would have made it easier.”

Times correspondent Ted Johnson contributed to this report.