The Satanic Panic: Dungeons and Devils

Today's entry is the first in a series—the series of the Satanic Panic. In the decades of the 80s and 90s America was rife with accusations around satanic rituals and murders brought on by the power of the devil. In recent years Stranger Things, Critical Role and other pop culture media have increased the visability of D&D. Role playing games have not always been so well recieved. This entry focuses on the demonization of Dungeons and Dragons. Tabletop role-playing games and their connections to suicide and murder! Join us for another entry into this our Macabrepedia.

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Transcript

Marissa: 0:00

Macabrepedia makes light of dark subject matter that may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

Matthew: 0:16

Dungeons and Dragons Satan's game. Your children like it or not, are attracted in their weaker years to the occult, and a game like Dungeons and Dragons fuels their imagination and makes them feel special, while drawing them deeper and deeper into the bowels of El Diablo. A warning from the dead airwaves watchtower. Dungeons and Dragons has enjoyed a monumental resurgence over the last five or so years, once relegated to basements and school cafeteria corners, played by those labeled as misfits and nerds. d&d is now a household name thanks to the increased appearances in media with shows like Stranger Things utilizing a group of d&d players as the series protagonists. Actual play shows like critical role, the adventure zone and dimension 20, drawing millions of fans to the hobby in the last recent years, d&d has always been synonymous with outcasts and the different because of this tabletop RPGs have become beacons of inclusion for those who otherwise feel different from the norm. Dungeons and Dragons is a game of the imagination and we're friends gather together to create a collaborative narrative experience. These stories often involve deeds of great heroism and battles against evil villains. Players of the games were not the only ones who would partake in fanciful stories. You see, the uninformed public directed in no small part by the media of the time would use the game of Dungeons and Dragons as a launching pad for the era of the Satanic Panic. Join us as we add another entry into this our Macabrepedia.

Marissa: 2:07

Hello, and welcome to Macabrepedia a marriage of true crime and truly bizarre. We are your hosts, Matthew and Marissa. And today it sounds like we are getting into something that we've been watching lately. Satan, own Satan, Jesus,

Matthew: 2:25

Jesus.

Marissa: 2:28

Stranger things

Matthew: 2:29

a little bit. Yeah, I mean, the Stranger Things is the popular Netflix series does have that uses has been leaning on d&d a little bit in some of its storylines. The protagonists, again are a group of friends who play d&d together and I feel like initially that scene was intended to kind of invoke that nostalgia for like ET because I believe et kind of starts off in a similar way with the kids are all playing d&d together. And there's countless references and shows nowadays and back in the 80s, where there were role players that were you know, the nerdy people were often depicted as being basically a d&d players listening to Rush.

Marissa: 3:22

Yeah, this is before nerd culture had its day.

Matthew: 3:25

Yeah, back when back when being a nerd was just being a nerd. I missed those days in a way. When my when I was the mullet that when I had my mullet with, in my constantly wearing a Dick Tracy t shirt and sweatpants with holes in it carrying around a briefcase that I specially made so that I could fit all that dungeon master's guide, the monsters manual and the player's handbook along with at least one set of dice. Yeah, yeah. And I like that Dick Tracy shirt and in sweatpants was like, I wore that like I was an anime character. Like that was like the costume. I was always drawn in.

Marissa: 4:07

Nice. Yeah. And Greenwillow so it was green.

Matthew: 4:11

I didn't have a green wallet.

Marissa: 4:12

You did not we did not hold me you did not write a green mold. Like green hair.

Matthew: 4:16

I had green hair. That was much later that was in my Adidas wearing phase. That was my, my pseudo goth phase. Kinda. That's different. That's a story for we'll save that for the for the Satanic Panic metal. Anyway, so yeah, we're kind of talking about the Satanic Panic, which I had a few experiences with growing up as a d&d player in the in the early 90s. But yeah, I've been waiting a long time to get into these stories, some of those as someone who attributes quite a bit of the positive experiences to my life as being part of the hobby of role playing. I was really excited to kind of tackle these almost All of my creative learning skills are heavily influenced by tabletop role playing games. So I write I draw I craft and a lot of that is with the with the idea with ideas for the stories that I've had for for my d&d games. Yeah.

Marissa: 5:16

I mean, you you literally sit down and I will spend hours working on your your system. Yeah.

Matthew: 5:21

And d&d is the predominant. That's that's the umbrella term. That's, that's the Kleenex of tabletop role playing games. It's right. It's recognizable. But and in this story, particularly that that is that is when we say d&d, we're really actually talking about d&d, but when I say d&d, I mean, anything from Pathfinder, vampire, the masquerade, etc, etc. So but I had, I was I'm very big into role playing games anyways. But the Satanic Panic was a time between kind of like 1979 and early 2000s, probably the year 2000. And go that late. Well, in 1997, was when a particular group that we'll touch on in here kind of completely fell apart. So it was in the very late 90s. And then there was even touch it as the idea of the Satanic Panic, we were giving it a time time window from 1979 to like, 1997, let's say, because you can take the ideas of the Satanic Panic and sometimes referred to as the moral panic. And we could stretch this all the way back to the 1600s. Like and and even before that, where there's belief that of devil possession, and the witch trials and the Spanish Inquisition and all that. It's all kind of a very similar thing. It's just

Marissa: 6:49

just this time d&d was just this part. Yeah, I'm focused. But in

Matthew: 6:53

this timeframe between in the late 70s and late 90s, there was there was a big there was a huge push. And when somebody says the Satanic Panic has generally the decades that are referring to but even if you just go back a few years, there was like this whole all the stuff that like Q anon and all this kind of stuff and saying, you know, it also has this kind of moral panic vibe to it as well. Right? So even

Marissa: 7:20

if you want to go back with Harry Potter, which was in late 90s, and early Yeah, I mean, I remember getting Harry Potter book and people being like, well, it's a particular person in my life, like saying, Oh, you shouldn't read that. Because that's the devil's work. And I'm like, it's just it's Harry Potter.

Matthew: 7:35

Right? Yeah. And that's the thing it's, it's we're I'm deliberately focusing when I'm going in for these entries when I say Satanic Panic I'm keeping it to roughly the late 70s to possibly early 2000s depending on how far I push push some of these stories but anyways, but yeah, you can see there's there's always a Satanic Panic in some levels. But this one is like when it was like being brought to you by the local news or by the national news and stuff like that. But in this kind of is also as far as for the most part it's it's kind of it's kind of North America was really hit hitting on this I did find some articles that were reported on by the BBC, but I don't really know what the what it was like as far as like anywhere else in the world as to if it was quite quite so much of this satanic or moral panic being and and I'd love to hear it so some of our international listeners, let me know I do know that one of our one of our international listeners just put a Satanic Panic patch on their denim jacket. That was pretty cool. So I was like, hey, perfect timing my dude anyways. This the Satanic Panic again, is where there's like a belief that heavy metal rock music DND horror movies etc, is causing a surge in demonic activity and creating murderers and Satan worshippers by the score. This was also at the height of like the Church of Satan, which was headed by Anton Zahn, Dora LaVey, who was a bit he's a whole nother subject on his on his own. He's an interesting character. And there was a handful of tragedies that would be blamed on d&d, some of which we'll kind of cover today. There's, there's, there's, there's a lot of them, but we're kind of covering some of the more some of the ones that are more more well known. This story was originally put on the back burner because of how much time it would be needed in order to cover the major stories of the Satanic Panic like you mentioned this months ago. Yeah, like Anton LaVey and Aleister Crowley and and going like, I was going to tie it into the witch trials and all this stuff and it just seemed like this would be this could this could just could take months worth of episodes in order to get it done. But we have done a few multipart entries and many series A in the past on Macabrepedia. And they were pretty well received by listeners. So thanks for that. And because of that, I kind of felt a little more like, oh, we can do a series, you know, like people seem to be okay with that. But it was during one of the latter episodes of Stranger Things season four, that this was a very minor spoiler, one of the antagonist characters drops, drops in on a town council kind of meeting, like, like a PTA kind of meeting. That's what it is that PTA.

Marissa: 10:30

Yeah, I don't know if it was a PTA meeting. But yeah, I think that's a

Matthew: 10:33

It's a town, it's town council meeting, whatever, it doesn't really matter. And he's pretty easily able to stir up a fear of like devil summoning and cult murders and rituals and stuff. And the citizens are quickly been banding together to hunt down the murderous leader of this satanic cult of d&d players. And Marissa, you thought that that seemed a bit strange that they were so quickly swayed into a belief that there was a demon cult among them?

Marissa: 10:59

Well, I know, mobs are a thing, but they just never make any sense. I mean, they do but they don't.

Matthew: 11:07

Yeah, and that's how it is sometimes. We've had a bunch of Macabrepedia entries that include mob justice, and presumably innocent people being brutalized for crimes they didn't commit. And we've covered magic fueled axe murderers of Louisiana that took place only a few decades before this, with the Satanic Panic, and the idea of devil inspired wickedness has always loomed in many cultures, even non Christian cultures where they may not be devil slash Satan specific but the equivalent thereof. And I so and particularly in the timeframe that Stranger Things takes place and Season Four as of 1986. Like this was when this was really ramping up like if you if you take real world, us up until 1986. Like this was this was when these types of the Satanic Panic stuff was on like 60 minutes and stuff like that, like this was this was on people's mind. So when the character jumps to the conclusion that there's a satanic ritualistic cult that's that's in their in their town, it's easily believed, and people are ready to buy it. It's because the media has already been presenting that to them, but they don't, they don't really show that very much on Stranger Things, but I believe it's just kind of, it's kind of understood that that's going to be part of it. But anyways, I believe that everyone is at least familiar with d&d dungeon dragons. But we can still give like the five minute history of the game for those who may not be through a collaborative effort headed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in the mid 1970s, d&d was born. The creators were fans of a war game called chainmail, where larger scale battles would take place around a table using charts and dice and set of detailed rules and certainly some arguing to settle the outcomes of the medieval fantasy Battlefield, taking the rules of chainmail and scaling them down to allow for a deeper focus on individual adventures, and less on like large scale armies. Gary and Dave would launch what would become TSR publishing. They took this new style of gaming and bloomed a new industry out of it. They printed rule sets and adventure books for magic users, clerics and fighting men. Eventually thieves, elves, dwarves, etc would be added and by taking up the persona of one of these types, players would use wit and dice rolls to explore the fantastical landscapes created by their Dungeon Master, which is basically the guy who writes the stories. Those who love popular fantasy stories the likes of Jarrell Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings, Robert Howard and Conan piers Anthony and Zant series and Michael Moorcock with the Elric of nibs na which I mispronounce a lot of things in this in that this particular episode, but I'm Macabrepedia We're known for mispronouncing things it's metal nib Na, it's not really sounds like you're mispronouncing it's not known the bone. It's it's known that Binay

Marissa: 14:10

you do listen to the audio books. I've known that for a

Matthew: 14:13

long time. Yeah, that that was reassuring Anyways, now that those people who already have this like desire to consume fantasy novels and stuff, that they now have a way that they could write their own and actively participate in the creation of similar stories collaboratively with a group of friends around something just like a kitchen table or something. And one such participant was a child prodigy by the name of James Dallas Egbert the third. Now, this is probably the most popular story of d&d related stuff, right, so 1979 Dallas, will refer to him as Dallas. He He disappears from his Michigan University dorm. And he goes on, he attempts to kill himself by taking a bunch of drugs and then going down into the steam tunnels below the University. He doesn't die. He ends up waking up, kind of, I believe he took a bunch of cyanide laced stuff. And it didn't kill him. He's 16 years old at this point. He's 16 years old, and he's in the the Michigan University. So he's very smart kid. Yeah. And he, so he then after this attempt, he disappears, like for a much longer period of time, and he's gone for a long enough period of time where his parents start looking for him. And they, no one has seen him no one, no one's coming forth as to what was going on with that. So they end up getting, they ended up hiring a private investigator, the parents of Dallas, by the name of William deer, and deer doesn't really know anything about Dungeons and Dragons or anything like that. Anyway, so he goes up to Michigan State University, and he starts looking around in Dallas's room, he finds some d&d stuff. He claims it No, he claims that he finds a, like a cork board that has pushed pins in it. And for some reason he he's able to, he's able to discern that the push pins are in a similar formation to the steam tunnels of the university. So he then goes down there, they're searching along, and he's under this working. He's working under this idea that Dallas and his buddies who play d&d all went down into the into the tunnels to act out there. They're basically LARPing live action role playing go down there and play Dungeons and Dragons, and they get and Dallas gets lost, or that perhaps because of the same because of the satanic rituals that are in Dungeons and Dragons, they may have there may be some foul play, and his d&d group may have killed him or all this stuff. Wow, that seems like quite a leap. Yeah. And in a later article, the, well, deer would go on to write a book called The Dungeon Master about this whole thing. And there's other articles where the parents of Dallas were like, pretty much from the RIP, where deer was like, you know, we could sell the movie rights to this we could sell the movie rights to this so he keeps pushing for the the movie rights for this, this investigation.

Marissa: 17:57

It makes more sense then for him to elaborate on that stuff like that.

Matthew: 17:59

Yeah, but he sounds it sounds to me, like he's looking for a book. And he's like, oh, yeah, we're gonna link this to this kid who gets lost in the data in the in the steam tunnels, and Dungeons and Dragons and satanic rituals and all this stuff. And using his imagination and his pet. Yeah, exactly. That's what, yeah, that's what my opening was, is like the people with the craziest imagination were the people who are reporting on this. But the parents of Eggbert of Dallas were like, pump the brakes, like, let's not do that, right. So they the search, finds nothing, right? But this becomes this starts getting like nationwide attention. This kid who disappeared in the in the steam tunnels of the university. And then there was a phone call to the parents and want to buy the movie rights. No, it was Dallas. And he called and he's like, I'm not I'm not dead. Yeah, I just left and went as far away as I could, as my money would would have me. And he started working in like an oil field or something. And he just left school, he couldn't handle the pressure. And also he was he was part of the d&d Society of high school. But he was also part of the the Gay and Lesbian Alliance of his school, which are the club that was associated with that. And this is reported in a news article that I believe was pulled from his parents making these statements. So this is a kid in the 80s Another thing that's happening around the same time is like gays and and being associated with the AIDS epidemic and stuff like that. It's kind of in the suit. So this is this is a place where like, homosexuality is like, not okay, right.

Marissa: 19:48

I'm sure he's feeling a lot of pressure. Yeah, he's

Matthew: 19:49

feeling a ton of but he's 16 years old. He's a sophomore in college. Yeah. Right. And not just like a local community college or something like he's at like a pretty good substantials university right and he's a bit of an outcast because he's, he's like two, three years younger than then the people that are supposed to be there. And he's obviously he's a is he's a heck of a smart kid. But he gets into drugs. And he's he's trying to deal with his own sexual identity and everything. There's a lot of things that are leading up to him. d&d provides. I mean, it's a good time regardless, but you know, it does draw people who feel a bit different, you know, it draws people who are looking for a little escapism, where they can just be the person that they want to be. And just, you know, go on adventures and do these things and live out a different life, not to the point where people are being lost into their characters or anything like that. That's very, very rare orange, the steam tunnels. Yeah. And the steam tunnels thing was just this this guy, you know, trying to make make something out of nothing. And he had heard rumors that they were going down there and playing on occasion anyways, but Dallas ends up being convinced by his parents to contact deer, the investigator who goes and talks to Dallas a couple times. And Dallas. Ultimately, that's kind of where the Satanic Panic portion of Dallas is. story ends, Dallas ends up committing suicide by gunshot, self inflicted gunshot to the head. After within a year of this whole thing happening, so sad. Yeah, so the kid obviously had a lot of other issues that were not being in check. And he was, you know, he was young, they had a couple of drug addictions and stuff like that was just just kind of a last guy, last guy, you know, and he just didn't have the help or support around him that he needed. And that's really unfortunate. It's still it's super tragic, regardless of it. But the that's when that's when William deer is like, we got to sell the rights to this, we got to do this. And he's pushing push and push them. And the parents were like, no, like, we're not going to do that. Right. So he ends up writing out the Dungeon Master book, and I haven't read the book, but I did see reference where he kind of backpedals a little bit on the belief that it was because of d&d. But he still used Dungeon Master, which is a trademarked name from Dungeons and Dragons, as their as his like, you know, catchphrase for him or for the title of his book, backpedal that much. Yeah, couldn't have done it that much. But he does kind of distance it a little bit in the book from what I understand. But the parents of of Eggbert Tao cyber, kind of, you know, they're they don't they're not really pushing it as as a d&d thing is more of a tragedy that it is whenever somebody takes their own life, you know, but anyways, so shortly thereafter, there is a book that comes out, not the Dungeon Master, but in 1981, which is two years after the disappearance in one year after his his death. There is a book that comes out by Rona Jaffe called mazes and monsters, which obviously is a take on Dungeons and Dragons, right mazes and monsters. And this book has a story of a boy who becomes lost in his fantasy world, and ultimately starts going through the sewer tunnels and living out the life of his character. This would later be adapted to a book or to a movie made for TV movie by the same name starring in his first leading role. A young Tom Hanks really in the movie is trash is so bad. But in the movie, Tom Hanks is playing the main character, and he's eat it see, and I don't know the book. And I vaguely remember the movie, which he's basically a schizophrenic. As far as I can tell, he's he's a delusional schizophrenic, who's, who's behaving in such a way where he just can't he can't figure out reality. And he ends up like, I think he ends up stabbing a homeless man or a guy who tries to rob them. And he ends up by the end of the movie. He's living with his parents who he believes are innkeepers. And he has to and he's like, he's his character from his d&d game. And he pays them in a magical gold coin that reappears on his on his nightstand every night, and then he provides it to them. So they're also playing into this fantasy of this. Whatever. So it's

Marissa: 24:52

sure we'll take your money. Yeah, it's

Matthew: 24:54

a weird, it's a weird movie. But yeah, it's our gave us Tom Hanks and that's all that's really important. And there are there are there are other notable situations that are also blamed on d&d as well that are kind of similar to the Dallas Egbert situation. There was a 17 year old, on June 9 19 8217 year old Irving Lee goes by bank, pulling the second killed himself by shooting himself in the chest with a gun. Now he also, if you listen to, or if you if you if you listen to the way that he was spoken of by his his peers and the people who knew him, he was a troubled person who had a lot of issues with fitting in. And when I say his peers, it doesn't really seem like he had a lot of close friends or anything. But he did. He had his kind of his d&d group. And those people who knew him referred to them said that he had a lot of trouble fitting in, you talked to his mom, Patricia Pauling, and she's like, Oh, he was he was a healthy kid, he had, you know, he was just the life of the party kind of like there's just this this, this perfect, things do not match up. Right? It's definitely seems like a parent who doesn't quite understand their child, or the or a child who's able to hide his true feelings when he's around his parents. And so I don't know it's not I'm not placing fault or blame or anything. Ultimately, he ended up killing himself. And that's terrible. But Patricia poling, campaigned against Dungeons and Dragons, insisting that her son was a happy, healthy man, both mind and body, child until the day he killed himself, where I believe he killed himself in like the front yard or something. While going through banks, which is what his nickname was, and I'm curious about this, too, because bank, I don't know if he was given the name bank by his parents. I think that they use the I think that when I watched the I watched an interview with her, and I think she referred to him as bank, which leads me to believe that the parents gave it gave him the name. But bank is also a character from the books by piers Anthony, the Xanth books, the first and 10th book, The main character's name is bank in a spell for chameleon. And Bank is a person who is an outsider, he's he's the only person born on this island, where everybody has a magical ability, and he's the only one who apparently doesn't have a magical ability. And this was released in 1977. So it could have definitely been something that he may have, he may have read, but I don't know if it was given to him or whatever. But anyways, his name is bank same as the character from a fantasy book. So while going through his things, Patricia found notebooks full of d&d references, she found that bank had been playing d&d with a group led by the school's principal, really one of the notebooks made references to banks character receiving a curse, stating something along the lines of your soul is mine, and that eventually this your soul will would be claimed at a later date. And she took that to mean that her son killed himself because he had his character had been cursed in d&d, so she attempts to sue the school, and the principal, as well as TSR publishing. For the people who released Dungeons and Dragons. She leaves she loses both attempts at doing this. Also, side note, this is early d&d, character death was a real thing for all you people who play fifth edition, and your characters are like, You can't kill those characters back in the day you started with a with a with a with a corral of zero level characters and the characters that made it the first level where your characters because

Marissa: 29:04

yes, I've heard you rant about this, but that was

Matthew: 29:06

cheap. In the old days, guys. Anyways, you said we make light of dark subject we do. So but so polling goes on. After losing the cases against the principal and TSR by and she responds by creating bad bothered about Dungeons and Dragons, a group dedicated dedicated to building awareness of the evils of d&d.

Marissa: 29:37

So is it is it BDD like mad and sad Mothers Against Drunk Driving? Okay,

Matthew: 29:42

this is bothered about d&d which you're bothered like that's that's like the most like, like I I'm a little bit like, I don't like this very much kind of

Marissa: 29:54

mad was already taken mad about. I don't know.

Matthew: 29:57

Yeah, well, there's there is if you look at up now, bad BDD is bikers Against Drunk Driving. Okay, so it's no longer as I said, 1997 That was when bad disappears. So she would label herself an expert on the matter of d&d, and its links to the occult. She would also become a private investigator, and eventually gained enough notoriety to be featured in a segment of 60 minutes, which I'll link in the show notes. It's, it's, it's worth watching. It's fun just for the nostalgia of that. Polling would describe d&d as a fantasy role playing game which uses demonology witchcraft, Voodoo murder, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, Insanity, sex perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, satanic type rituals, gambling, barbarism, cannibalism, sadism, desiccate desecration, demon summoning neck, romantics, divination and other teachings. And she would advise authorities to ask teenage suspects, if they had been if they had had any connection to Dungeons and Dragons, or if they had ever read the Necronomicon. The Necronomicon is not real. It's a fantasy Grimoire that was that is referenced in HP Lovecraft fictional works of the Cthulhu series.

Marissa: 31:23

Now my friend in high school, one of my friends, she bought a copy of

Matthew: 31:25

it and the Necronomicon Yeah, the little black one that has like the symbol for like, disturbed on the Necronomicon but it won't be a book of magic. It's also an Evil Dead and all the stuff that Yeah, but there's not like there's not actually a Necronomicon anyways. Most of the things that pulling claims in that little blurb that I just gave you they can be found in d&d, she's she's right, they are all in there. I mean, but what you do with them is what you do with them right? Particularly in the A d&d years, which is the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, which was pretty early adoption anyways, but she, that it's she didn't she she didn't go on to say and this is something that I can personally attest to. She didn't she didn't point out that d&d also promotes social interactions, imagination, reading, writing, problem solving math, world history, it was because of d&d that I developed interests in world cultures, religions, myths, and all that kind of stuff. She also warned warned that underachieving or overachieving can be signs of children who are at risk. So stay right in the middle. Yeah, if you as long as you're hitting like a nice solid C c plus, you're probably okay. Saying things like promoting homosexuality, and quote, unquote, sexual perversion, which I assume means anything outside of like a heterosexual activities between married couples with the express desire to procreate is something that would be perverse or bad. Like, yeah, it probably does promote those types of things. It doesn't necessarily mean like, like, when you when when you say sex, perverse sex perversion, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're doing like that. It's that's promoting like crazy, terrible things. Just not the norm, maybe Sure. But now, nowadays, if you were to say like, it promotes homosexuality, you're only going to get a bite by a very specific type of person who's going to who's going to be like, well, then we got to stop it, you know, because it's like, Oh, really? That's cool.

Marissa: 33:45

Also, before you get super interested, go, say like, I actually feel really bad for this woman, because she's clearly deeply upset and grieving her son's loss. And she just latched on to this and doesn't see it clearly. But she she's definitely, you know, just obsessed with it.

Matthew: 34:03

I would say, you would think that, yeah, watch her interview on 60 minutes. You don't think that? less so? Okay. Um, I, you know, right off the RIP, obviously, you feel like you want to blame something for such a tragic loss. Certainly not going to blame your own parenting mistakes and lack of attention. And you know, what guilt might be part of it? Sure. So she's trying to lash out against it. And you know, like, I'm not saying she's a bad parent. I'm not at all trying to say, I don't know, I only saw three minutes of an interview on 60 minutes. I can't judge her as a person with that, but she, she's not devastated by the loss. In that interview. I also am not I was, I don't know the exact date of when it was it could have been a few years afterwards. But people

Marissa: 34:54

grieve differently. I haven't seen it so I can't speak.

Matthew: 34:57

But I'm just saying, Yeah, I agree with you. But at the same time, I kind of feel like she should have she should have had enough people telling her that there's nothing there to like, let it let it go without unless she was trying to get something else because she does. She does also promote herself as an expert on the on the subject matter which she's not. Right. So I mean, I guess as far as d&d advice, not advocates, what is it people who are against a subject? She was on the forefront of that line? Right. So yeah, I guess she's kind of

Marissa: 35:33

she probably knows it front to back, but she's reading it wrong.

Matthew: 35:36

Yeah. I don't think she read it. Because I don't I don't think that they would, they would do so because that would be also making yourself more susceptible to SJR blow?

Marissa: 35:46

Like, I don't know, I haven't I haven't. I haven't done this research you have. But that's just, I just feel bad for her in a certain way. That's

Matthew: 35:53

feeling bad for her, for the entire family, the entire pulling family because of the loss. And again, I'm not placing blame. I don't know, I don't know the situation. I don't know if it's something that could have been prevented. I don't know if she's right. She very well, this kid might have just been that level of upset that he had very little else that he really held as important in his life. So when this happened, he when his character was cursed, he might he might have been a breaking point. I can't I don't know not. Again, this is why we generally leave 100 year buffer. So I can I can speculate without worry. But no. But you also have to think to other things that are involved in that the principal of the school was leading this. And I don't know how much interaction you had with the teachers and principals and stuff of your school, they normally pulled a lot of attention to the outcasts, not necessarily because you're always in detention or anything, but because they're trying to help you in some way. Right? So the principal having this d&d group, I bet that it was made up of a bunch of kids who were had some social, social connecting issues and stuff like that, you know what I mean? Like I feel like he in this is actually something that nowadays is promoted in a lot of schools and stuff and a lot of afterschool programs and stuff to promote all of those things that I was saying with like problem solving and social interactions and

Marissa: 37:23

stuff. Sure, you right, good principals will do that.

Matthew: 37:25

Yeah. I wholeheartedly believe that. So I think that it Yeah, I think that it was done. I think it was done, because the principal probably recognized that, that he was that bank was a student that needed a little more guidance and someone to trust and go to so I don't know. Again, I have no idea. But anyway, so she ends up getting on 60 minutes. And in this same 60 minutes, they interview like a group of of gamers who are in the middle of their in the middle of their group and if you are middle of their session, and if you actually the reference that I made the very opening dungeon dragons Satan's game that comes from dead out wives, watchtower, the dead ale wives. It was created by Dan Harmon, the creator of Rick and Morty. So and this is like 1415 years ago that that was that that that this comes from? But he he does it in the same vein as the 60 minutes thing. So they eventually cuts to the the the the secret the secret listening in on on the storyline of what they're doing. It's just a bunch of people that are goofing off at the d&d table. But when 60 minutes actually goes and does this, they're like picking up dice. And they're like, Well, what is this one? Do? Kids like? Oh, that's a D four doesn't really get to us that much. Unless you're a wizard because that's your hit points. And that's how much you can get hit by it. And guess if you have a dagger, it will be a D four. But I mean, it's just kind of like it's just weird to like, have these people be like and what demon is this summon and they're like, nothing measures your hit points, man. It's just so funny when somebody just so uninitiated comes into a way that it was it was cute. What when asked about the connection between d&d and suicide and murder, when this question was posed to Gary Gygax, the Oh gee, depending on if you're a Blackmore person or a gray Hawk person. That's that's a debate that can happen in discord or something. Anyways, Gary Gygax responded with, are you going to connect monopoly to the people who file for bankruptcy? As you said, like it's a game. Yeah, it's a game that does that. You can't just because this happens doesn't necessarily mean that there's a causation there. And this is also kind of funny now, because both games are actually owned by Hasbro. Which they weren't at the time, and Hasbro also owns the trademark for weed keyboards on you Hasbro. Oh man, where do you get all your demon supply? Hasbro?

Marissa: 40:08

What we don't have we don't have Luigi board. Anyway, okay, we'll get one.

Matthew: 40:13

So again, we kind of I kind of said this a few times bad ends up meeting its end. With the death of Patricia polling in 1997 Belushi died of lung cancer, which is a terrible way to go. Yeah. And that was unfortunate. But there was also kind of on the flip side where those people who are trying to blame Dungeons and Dragons for the deaths and whatnot of people that they care about. In 1919 84, a girl by the name of Mary Towie was murdered by Darren Molitor age 19 And Ron, add Cox, the three of them while preparing for Mary's, Friday the 13th party, they they're setting up music and they're getting they get some beer and some some weed and they're there. They're hanging out and party and this is a 1984 they're hanging out. The the two guys stay over at her house on that Thursday, I guess and then into that Friday, they're still hanging out and smoking and drinking and also practicing martial arts. Okay, smoking, drinking and practicing martial arts. Let's take a party. Yeah, so part of this martial arts stuff that they're doing ends up in wrestling. And Mary ends up being hogtied effectively. She has her her hands and legs bound. And they basically leave her there. And Darren Molitor. I'm probably saying his name wrong, but Darren ends up like kind of like taunting her and stuff while while they're while while she's all bound. And she's calling to be untied and all this stuff and and meanwhile, Ronald ad Cox is like sitting at the top of the stairs, and just like drinking a beer while this is going on, and she continues to scream and scream. She's trying to get him to stop. One of them goes down and like lights a cigarette for gives her some beer and she helps her smoke the cigarette while she's bound. And eventually she keeps yelling and whatnot. And Malter goes down to her. And she he takes an ace bandage, like an elastic bandage right? And ties that around her neck. And then he leaves and the two of them go upstairs and they're listening to music and getting wasted. They go back downstairs, and she has stopped yelling, and he would describe Malta would describe it as her her feet turned yellow. And her face was purple and black with her eyes bulging and her mouth was hanging open. And they realized that they had strangled her

Marissa: 43:12

to death. Yeah, what did they think was gonna happen? Well, he

Matthew: 43:15

thought that he had left it loose enough that she could still breathe, which he he, it looks like he did. The issue was it was tight enough that she could she could breathe, but it stopped the blood circulation to her brain. So eventually, her brain just stopped receiving oxygen or stopped receiving the oxygenated blood and then she ended up dying. So they end up stealing her parents car and a gun and they flee to Georgia. They eventually turn themselves in and they get put on trial. They're both found guilty. And Malta tries to use Dungeons and Dragons as his defense that because he played Dungeons and Dragons, he was desensitized to murderous acts and violent acts. And because then he actually even tried to get polling as an expert witness to come in and speak on the evils of this is his defense. I say he but his you know, his defense team was trying to get polling to come in and as an expert witness and basically be like, oh, yeah, dungeon dragons made him do it. Yeah. Did you? She they, there was a doctor, and like an actual doctor, psycho psychologist, and appalling that were both brought in. But the judge was like that is completely irrelevant. If you played a game. That is completely irrelevant. He killed somebody. He has in he's in he's saying he's dissents. Now, and they basically just said these two people have nothing to do with with with This case at all.

Marissa: 45:00

I mean, that's never been a good defense. If a soldier comes back from war desensitized to violence and they kill somebody, they're still going to be on trial for murder.

Matthew: 45:08

Yeah. And it's not even like a true like plead of insanity. He's just like, I'm desensitized. And he actually tried to get an appeal later on this as well, because he believes that their testimony should have been brought into it and, and the doctor was even kind of just like, there's, I mean, maybe, you know, and now that was kind of why the judge was like, This guy is not even convinced. Like he's, you're asking them these questions and the best you can get it like maybe from the doctor, you know, so

Marissa: 45:38

that reminds me of that guy. Ethan Couch. Do you remember him he was like charged of for killing for people when he was like 16 years old or something. He was driving under the influence, but his defense attorneys actually said that. They use the defense of affluenza because they said he was affluenza. affluenza not influenced because his parents were so affluent or well to do that they had never given any boundaries and therefore he didn't know any better. And then he got a very light sentence I

Matthew: 46:09

do feel like I do know that it's this this this this fucker is so rich. Yeah, I'm too rich to know right or wrong.

Marissa: 46:16

Yeah, exactly. Wow. My reminds me of that and a bit. That's That's

Matthew: 46:21

ridiculous. Yeah. But yeah, you can get all you can get away with all kinds of different claims. But that is kind of some of the that is kind of the the major some of the some of the major ones for the DND specific related Satanic Panic moments. If you have any other ones feel free to reach out and let us know please do. Your we can. You can reach us out on any of those of our normal social media as we will get to right after this. Our McCobb minute.

Marissa: 46:55

This week's mcob minute comes to us from Canada. So there are four gravestones that stand on beachy Island and resolute Canada. They belong to three members of an ill fated expedition to the Northwest Passage, and one unlucky soul who was sent to look for them. In 1845, Sir John Franklin led an expedition to find the Northwest Passage, a suspected direct route between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean across the Arctic. So they were trying to find a way easy way to get between the two. These ships that they took were called the Aerobus. And the terror. I know this story, yes. It's a subject of a very good book called The terror by John's Dan Simmons. But anyway, another TV show. Yeah, that too. And they were supposed to be unstoppable ships. But once they got into the ice,

Matthew: 47:49

yeah, no one ever say it's unstoppable. You are dooming that ship.

Marissa: 47:55

Just like the Titanic. Because the ice did stop it. It stopped them. Of course. They were stuck for weeks. The 121 nine members of the expedition had visited beachy island for a winter in cabinet and buried three of their members, John Torrington, William brain and John Hartle. It's unknown how these three men died. The rest of the crew abandoned the stuck ships later and they tried to walk to safety. And this is really just a guess. Because I guess they don't really know. They found a few graves. But that's pretty much all that they they know from this. Oh, they did find the ships later. The crew probably resorted to cannibalism, and there is some evidence of that. And many died from scurvy and lead poisoning, suspected and actually read that the lead poisoning was from bullets. Now. It's because I didn't seal the CANS properly. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so that was but also the scurvy, they did actually bring with them. I think it was lemon juice, to try to get rid of that. But after a while lemon juice loses its effectiveness. And so it wasn't effective at all. And so they got scurvy. But all men from the expedition were lost, and they were never heard from again. Both ships were eventually found. They found the Aerobus and 2014. And the terror in 2016. And again, this happened in 1845. So long time. Yeah. The fourth grave marker was for Thomas Morgan, a member of one of the expeditions that were later launched to try to find out what happened to the Franklin Expedition. Row bad luck, and he died of scurvy.

Matthew: 49:32

But I hit the rest of his crew made it back. Yeah, no, like we did lose that one guy. Oops.

Marissa: 49:38

I'm sure a bunch of people got scurvy, but he died from it. So. But anyway, that is our McCobb minute. This story is very interesting. I've done a lot of research here and there on the Aerobus and the terror but there's a lot more to find out

Matthew: 49:50

and so we can do an entry on that we

Marissa: 49:53

may very well but it is very interesting. Definitely look into it.

Matthew: 49:57

But as for the Satanic Panic story, I have a quick little little story from my personal life of dealing with the Satanic Panic. Lay it on me well with, I'm gonna. But as far as during this whole time, I remember that I was the dungeon master of my group as I am forever dungeon master, but I had I would carry around a lot of d&d books. And at the time I was being watched by a babysitter, and who was have a particularly strong religious slant. She spent a lot of her time watching 700 club and stuff like that. And of course, like I said, during this time, places like the 700 Club, we're all about trying to talk about d&d V and being a bad bad influence and wizards in witchery and divination and stuff being the, the the tools of the devil, so she wouldn't allow me to bring the books into her house. So I used to have to leave my backpack sitting outside and not be allowed into her house with them. Which she told me a story about they found d&d books at her friend's house, and they tried to burn them and the and the books exploded, but one of the guys was saying a prayer to the flames like, went around him and he was like, in a tunnel of flame. And I was like, Yeah, that sounds awesome. But that's just my d&d brain talking, buddy. But yeah, so and I was like, later in life I'm like, she just straight out lied to me like she did not go to she did not burn a d&d book and have a fireball bust up out of there. Now, and now. There was no sorcerer who could bend the damage around.

Marissa: 51:55

It was like early 90s, I guess for reference.

Matthew: 51:57

Yeah. Yeah, or 9090 9192. Probably right around that time. But that was that was really weird. Then also my school are at this in like, sixth or seventh grade. This was the a little bit later. They tried to bend d&d, but they didn't try to do it by banning d&d. They tried to ban bringing dice to school for under the guise of like gambling or whatever. We were like, okay, that's fine. You don't with that is it's not hard to make a random number generator on a piece of paper. Yeah, not that big of a deal. Anyways, but that was so yeah, so I had to deal with a person who was very much bought into this whole satanic thing. And, and also at the time, I remember seeing stuff that is more into the next episode that we're about to go into. But the much more about the the the horrors of of children in daycare, ritualistic, demonic satanic practices. Well, we'll save that for our next satanic episode, entitled, devils in daycare. It'll make sense next week. But until that time, thank you all for listening. If you have any of your own Satanic Panic stories that you would like to share, please feel free to reach out, you can reach us on Twitter, and Facebook at Macabrepedia. And of

Marissa: 53:33

course, Instagram at Macabrepediapod. And if you wanted to shoot us an email, you can do that as well. macabrepediapod@gmail.com.

Matthew: 53:41

And if you would like to support the show, feel free to do so over on Patreon. I'm sure there's a link somewhere in the show notes you can always do so and we just released a Patreon episode where we were doing would you rather that might be something that we'll we'll continue going with over there. And you kind of got an idea as to what some of our the randomness that you can find over there with the release that we did with the Bloody Mary the Bloody Mary episode with our guest hosts. But anyways, join us next week as we add another entry into this our Macabrepedia