July 18, 2022 • 54 mins
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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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Marissa (00:00):
Macabrepedia makes light of dark subject matter
(00:02):
that may not be suitable for allaudiences. Listener discretion
is advised.
Matthew (00:16):
Dungeons and Dragons Satan's game. Your children like
it or not, are attracted intheir weaker years to the
occult, and a game like Dungeonsand Dragons fuels their
imagination and makes them feelspecial, while drawing them
deeper and deeper into thebowels of El Diablo. A warning
(00:38):
from the dead airwaveswatchtower. Dungeons and Dragons
has enjoyed a monumentalresurgence over the last five or
so years, once relegated tobasements and school cafeteria
corners, played by those labeledas misfits and nerds. d&d is now
a household name thanks to theincreased appearances in media
(00:59):
with shows like Stranger Thingsutilizing a group of d&d players
as the series protagonists.
Actual play shows like criticalrole, the adventure zone and
dimension 20, drawing millionsof fans to the hobby in the last
recent years, d&d has alwaysbeen synonymous with outcasts
and the different because ofthis tabletop RPGs have become
beacons of inclusion for thosewho otherwise feel different
(01:23):
from the norm. Dungeons andDragons is a game of the
imagination and we're friendsgather together to create a
collaborative narrativeexperience. These stories often
involve deeds of great heroismand battles against evil
villains. Players of the gameswere not the only ones who would
partake in fanciful stories. Yousee, the uninformed public
(01:43):
directed in no small part by themedia of the time would use the
game of Dungeons and Dragons asa launching pad for the era of
the Satanic Panic. Join us as weadd another entry into this our
Macabrepedia.
Marissa (02:07):
Hello, and welcome to Macabrepedia a marriage of true
crime and truly bizarre. We areyour hosts, Matthew and Marissa.
And today it sounds like we aregetting into something that
we've been watching lately.
Satan, own Satan, Jesus,
Matthew (02:25):
Jesus.
Marissa (02:28):
Stranger things
Matthew (02:29):
a little bit. Yeah, I mean, the Stranger Things is the
popular Netflix series does havethat uses has been leaning on
d&d a little bit in some of itsstorylines. The protagonists,
again are a group of friends whoplay d&d together and I feel
(02:50):
like initially that scene wasintended to kind of invoke that
nostalgia for like ET because Ibelieve et kind of starts off in
a similar way with the kids areall playing d&d together. And
there's countless references andshows nowadays and back in the
80s, where there were roleplayers that were you know, the
(03:14):
nerdy people were often depictedas being basically a d&d players
listening to Rush.
Marissa (03:22):
Yeah, this is before nerd culture had its day.
Matthew (03:25):
Yeah, back when back when being a nerd was just being
a nerd. I missed those days in away. When my when I was the
mullet that when I had my mulletwith, in my constantly wearing a
Dick Tracy t shirt andsweatpants with holes in it
(03:45):
carrying around a briefcase thatI specially made so that I could
fit all that dungeon master'sguide, the monsters manual and
the player's handbook along withat least one set of dice. Yeah,
yeah. And I like that Dick Tracyshirt and in sweatpants was
like, I wore that like I was ananime character. Like that was
(04:05):
like the costume. I was alwaysdrawn in.
Marissa (04:07):
Nice. Yeah. And Greenwillow so it was green.
Matthew (04:11):
I didn't have a green wallet.
Marissa (04:12):
You did not we did not hold me you did not write a
green mold. Like green hair.
Matthew (04:16):
I had green hair. That was much later that was in my
Adidas wearing phase. That wasmy, my pseudo goth phase. Kinda.
That's different. That's a storyfor we'll save that for the for
the Satanic Panic metal. Anyway,so yeah, we're kind of talking
about the Satanic Panic, which Ihad a few experiences with
(04:39):
growing up as a d&d player inthe in the early 90s. But yeah,
I've been waiting a long time toget into these stories, some of
those as someone who attributesquite a bit of the positive
experiences to my life as beingpart of the hobby of role
playing. I was really excited tokind of tackle these almost All
(05:00):
of my creative learning skillsare heavily influenced by
tabletop role playing games. SoI write I draw I craft and a lot
of that is with the with theidea with ideas for the stories
that I've had for for my d&dgames. Yeah.
Marissa (05:16):
I mean, you you literally sit down and I will
spend hours working on your yoursystem. Yeah.
Matthew (05:21):
And d&d is the predominant. That's that's the
umbrella term. That's, that'sthe Kleenex of tabletop role
playing games. It's right. It'srecognizable. But and in this
story, particularly that that isthat is when we say d&d, we're
really actually talking aboutd&d, but when I say d&d, I mean,
(05:42):
anything from Pathfinder,vampire, the masquerade, etc,
etc. So but I had, I was I'mvery big into role playing games
anyways. But the Satanic Panicwas a time between kind of like
1979 and early 2000s, probablythe year 2000. And go that late.
(06:04):
Well, in 1997, was when aparticular group that we'll
touch on in here kind ofcompletely fell apart. So it was
in the very late 90s. And thenthere was even touch it as the
idea of the Satanic Panic, wewere giving it a time time
window from 1979 to like, 1997,let's say, because you can take
(06:29):
the ideas of the Satanic Panicand sometimes referred to as the
moral panic. And we couldstretch this all the way back to
the 1600s. Like and and evenbefore that, where there's
belief that of devil possession,and the witch trials and the
Spanish Inquisition and allthat. It's all kind of a very
similar thing. It's just
Marissa (06:49):
just this time d&d was just this part. Yeah, I'm
focused. But in
Matthew (06:53):
this timeframe between in the late 70s and late 90s,
there was there was a big therewas a huge push. And when
somebody says the Satanic Panichas generally the decades that
are referring to but even if youjust go back a few years, there
was like this whole all thestuff that like Q anon and all
(07:13):
this kind of stuff and saying,you know, it also has this kind
of moral panic vibe to it aswell. Right? So even
Marissa (07:20):
if you want to go back with Harry Potter, which was in
late 90s, and early Yeah, Imean, I remember getting Harry
Potter book and people beinglike, 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'sHarry Potter.
Matthew (07:35):
Right? Yeah. And that's the thing it's, it's we're I'm
deliberately focusing when I'mgoing in for these entries when
I say Satanic Panic I'm keepingit to roughly the late 70s to
possibly early 2000s dependingon how far I push push some of
these stories but anyways, butyeah, you can see there's
(07:57):
there's always a Satanic Panicin some levels. But this one is
like when it was like beingbrought to you by the local news
or by the national news andstuff like that. But in this
kind of is also as far as forthe most part it's it's kind of
it's kind of North America wasreally hit hitting on this I did
(08:19):
find some articles that werereported on by the BBC, but I
don't really know what the whatit was like as far as like
anywhere else in the world as toif it was quite quite so much of
this satanic or moral panicbeing and and I'd love to hear
it so some of our internationallisteners, let me know I do know
that one of our one of ourinternational listeners just put
(08:41):
a Satanic Panic patch on theirdenim jacket. That was pretty
cool. So I was like, hey,perfect timing my dude anyways.
This the Satanic Panic again, iswhere there's like a belief that
heavy metal rock music DNDhorror movies etc, is causing a
surge in demonic activity andcreating murderers and Satan
(09:02):
worshippers by the score. Thiswas also at the height of like
the Church of Satan, which washeaded by Anton Zahn, Dora
LaVey, who was a bit he's awhole nother subject on his on
his own. He's an interestingcharacter. And there was a
handful of tragedies that wouldbe blamed on d&d, some of which
(09:23):
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 themore some of the ones that are
more more well known. This storywas originally put on the back
burner because of how much timeit would be needed in order to
cover the major stories of theSatanic Panic like you mentioned
this months ago. Yeah, likeAnton LaVey and Aleister Crowley
and and going like, I was goingto tie it into the witch trials
(09:47):
and all this stuff and it justseemed like this would be this
could this could just could takemonths worth of episodes in
order to get it done. But wehave done a few multipart
entries and many series A in thepast on Macabrepedia. And they
were pretty well received bylisteners. So thanks for that.
And because of that, I kind offelt a little more like, oh, we
can do a series, you know, likepeople seem to be okay with
(10:10):
that. But it was during one ofthe latter episodes of Stranger
Things season four, that thiswas a very minor spoiler, one of
the antagonist characters drops,drops in on a town council kind
of meeting, like, like a PTAkind 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'spretty easily able to stir up a
fear of like devil summoning andcult murders and rituals and
stuff. And the citizens arequickly been banding together to
hunt down the murderous leaderof this satanic cult of d&d
players. And Marissa, youthought that that seemed a bit
(10:54):
strange that they were soquickly swayed into a belief
that there was a demon cultamong them?
Marissa (10:59):
Well, I know, mobs are a thing, but they just never
make any sense. I mean, they dobut they don't.
Matthew (11:07):
Yeah, and that's how it is sometimes. We've had a bunch
of Macabrepedia entries thatinclude mob justice, and
presumably innocent people beingbrutalized for crimes they
didn't commit. And we've coveredmagic fueled axe murderers of
Louisiana that took place only afew decades before this, with
the Satanic Panic, and the ideaof devil inspired wickedness has
(11:31):
always loomed in many cultures,even non Christian cultures
where they may not be devilslash Satan specific but the
equivalent thereof. And I so andparticularly in the timeframe
that Stranger Things takes placeand Season Four as of 1986. Like
(11:51):
this was when this was reallyramping up like if you if you
take real world, us up until1986. Like this was this was
when these types of the SatanicPanic stuff was on like 60
minutes and stuff like that,like this was this was on
people's mind. So when thecharacter jumps to the
conclusion that there's asatanic ritualistic cult that's
(12:13):
that's in their in their town,it's easily believed, and people
are ready to buy it. It'sbecause the media has already
been presenting that to them,but they don't, they don't
really show that very much onStranger Things, but I believe
it's just kind of, it's kind ofunderstood that that's going to
be part of it. But anyways, Ibelieve that everyone is at
least familiar with d&d dungeondragons. But we can still give
like the five minute history ofthe game for those who may not
(12:35):
be through a collaborativeeffort headed by Gary Gygax and
Dave Arneson in the mid 1970s,d&d was born. The creators were
fans of a war game calledchainmail, where larger scale
battles would take place arounda table using charts and dice
and set of detailed rules andcertainly some arguing to settle
(12:59):
the outcomes of the medievalfantasy Battlefield, taking the
rules of chainmail and scalingthem down to allow for a deeper
focus on individual adventures,and less on like large scale
armies. Gary and Dave wouldlaunch what would become TSR
publishing. They took this newstyle of gaming and bloomed a
(13:19):
new industry out of it. Theyprinted rule sets and adventure
books for magic users, clericsand fighting men. Eventually
thieves, elves, dwarves, etcwould be added and by taking up
the persona of one of thesetypes, players would use wit and
dice rolls to explore thefantastical landscapes created
by their Dungeon Master, whichis basically the guy who writes
(13:41):
the stories. Those who lovepopular fantasy stories the
likes of Jarrell Tolkien and theLord of the Rings, Robert Howard
and Conan piers Anthony and Zantseries and Michael Moorcock with
the Elric of nibs na which Imispronounce a lot of things in
this in that this particularepisode, but I'm Macabrepedia
(14:01):
We're known for mispronouncingthings it's metal nib Na, it's
not really sounds like you'remispronouncing it's not known
the bone. It's it's known thatBinay
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 alreadyhave this like desire to consume
fantasy novels and stuff, thatthey now have a way that they
could write their own andactively participate in the
creation of similar storiescollaboratively with a group of
friends around something justlike a kitchen table or
(14:33):
something. And one suchparticipant was a child prodigy
by the name of James DallasEgbert the third. Now, this is
probably the most popular storyof d&d related stuff, right, so
(14:53):
1979 Dallas, will refer to himas Dallas. He He disappears from
his Michigan University dorm.
And he goes on, he attempts tokill himself by taking a bunch
of drugs and then going downinto the steam tunnels below the
(15:14):
University. He doesn't die. Heends up waking up, kind of, I
believe he took a bunch ofcyanide laced stuff. And it
didn't kill him. He's 16 yearsold at this point. He's 16 years
old, and he's in the theMichigan University. So he's
very smart kid. Yeah. And he, sohe then after this attempt, he
(15:40):
disappears, like for a muchlonger period of time, and he's
gone for a long enough period oftime where his parents start
looking for him. And they, noone has seen him no one, no
one's coming forth as to whatwas going on with that. So they
(16:01):
end up getting, they ended uphiring a private investigator,
the parents of Dallas, by thename of William deer, and deer
doesn't really know anythingabout Dungeons and Dragons or
anything like that. Anyway, sohe goes up to Michigan State
University, and he startslooking around in Dallas's room,
(16:25):
he finds some d&d stuff. Heclaims it No, he claims that he
finds a, like a cork board thathas 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 similarformation to the steam tunnels
(16:45):
of the university. So he thengoes down there, they're
searching along, and he's underthis working. He's working under
this idea that Dallas and hisbuddies who play d&d all went
down into the into the tunnelsto act out there. They're
(17:06):
basically LARPing live actionrole playing go down there and
play Dungeons and Dragons, andthey get and Dallas gets lost,
or that perhaps because of thesame because of the satanic
rituals that are in Dungeons andDragons, they may have there may
be some foul play, and his d&dgroup may have killed him or all
this stuff. Wow, that seems likequite a leap. Yeah. And in a
(17:28):
later article, the, well, deerwould go on to write a book
called The Dungeon Master aboutthis whole thing. And there's
other articles where the parentsof Dallas were like, pretty much
from the RIP, where deer waslike, you know, we could sell
(17:49):
the movie rights to this wecould sell the movie rights to
this so he keeps pushing for thethe 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 thedata in the in the steam
tunnels, and Dungeons andDragons and satanic rituals and
all this stuff. And using hisimagination and his pet. Yeah,
exactly. That's what, yeah,that's what my opening was, is
like the people with thecraziest imagination were the
(18:19):
people who are reporting onthis. But the parents of Eggbert
of Dallas were like, pump thebrakes, like, let's not do that,
right. So they the search, findsnothing, right? But this becomes
this starts getting likenationwide attention. This kid
who disappeared in the in thesteam tunnels of the university.
(18:42):
And then there was a phone callto the parents and want to buy
the movie rights. No, it wasDallas. And he called and he's
like, I'm not I'm not dead.
Yeah, I just left and went asfar away as I could, as my money
would would have me. And hestarted working in like an oil
(19:02):
field or something. And he justleft school, he couldn't handle
the pressure. And also he was hewas part of the d&d Society of
high school. But he was alsopart of the the Gay and Lesbian
Alliance of his school, whichare the club that was associated
with that. And this is reportedin a news article that I believe
(19:24):
was pulled from his parentsmaking these statements. So this
is a kid in the 80s Anotherthing that's happening around
the same time is like gays andand being associated with the
AIDS epidemic and stuff likethat. It's kind of in the suit.
So this is this is a place wherelike, 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 localcommunity college or something
like he's at like a pretty goodsubstantials university right
and he's a bit of an outcastbecause he's, he's like two,
three years younger than thenthe people that are supposed to
be there. And he's obviouslyhe's a is he's a heck of a smart
(20:12):
kid. But he gets into drugs. Andhe's he's trying to deal with
his own sexual identity andeverything. There's a lot of
things that are leading up tohim. d&d provides. I mean, it's
a good time regardless, but youknow, it does draw people who
feel a bit different, you know,it draws people who are looking
(20:33):
for a little escapism, wherethey can just be the person that
they want to be. And just, youknow, go on adventures and do
these things and live out adifferent life, not to the point
where people are being lost intotheir characters or anything
like that. That's very, veryrare orange, the steam tunnels.
Yeah. And the steam tunnelsthing was just this this guy,
(20:53):
you know, trying to make makesomething out of nothing. And he
had heard rumors that they weregoing down there and playing on
occasion anyways, but Dallasends up being convinced by his
parents to contact deer, theinvestigator who goes and talks
to Dallas a couple times. AndDallas. Ultimately, that's kind
(21:14):
of where the Satanic Panicportion of Dallas is. story
ends, Dallas ends up committingsuicide by gunshot, self
inflicted gunshot to the head.
After within a year of thiswhole thing happening, so sad.
(21:34):
Yeah, so the kid obviously had alot of other issues that were
not being in check. And he was,you know, he was young, they had
a couple of drug addictions andstuff like that was just just
kind of a last guy, last guy,you know, and he just didn't
(21:54):
have the help or support aroundhim that he needed. And that's
really unfortunate. It's stillit's super tragic, regardless of
it. But the that's when that'swhen 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. Andthe parents were like, no, like,
we're not going to do that.
Right. So he ends up writing outthe Dungeon Master book, and I
(22:15):
haven't read the book, but I didsee reference where he kind of
backpedals a little bit on thebelief that it was because of
d&d. But he still used DungeonMaster, which is a trademarked
name from Dungeons and Dragons,as their as his like, you know,
catchphrase for him or for thetitle of his book, backpedal
(22:37):
that much. Yeah, couldn't havedone it that much. But he does
kind of distance it a little bitin the book from what I
understand. But the parents ofof Eggbert Tao cyber, kind of,
you know, they're they don'tthey're not really pushing it as
as a d&d thing is more of atragedy that it is whenever
somebody takes their own life,you know, but anyways, so
(23:02):
shortly thereafter, there is abook that comes out, not the
Dungeon Master, but in 1981,which is two years after the
disappearance in one year afterhis his death. There is a book
that comes out by Rona Jaffecalled mazes and monsters, which
(23:22):
obviously is a take on Dungeonsand Dragons, right mazes and
monsters. And this book has astory of a boy who becomes lost
in his fantasy world, andultimately starts going through
the sewer tunnels and living outthe life of his character. This
would later be adapted to a bookor to a movie made for TV movie
(23:48):
by the same name starring in hisfirst leading role. A young Tom
Hanks really in the movie istrash is so bad. But in the
movie, Tom Hanks is playing themain character, and he's eat it
see, and I don't know the book.
And I vaguely remember themovie, which he's basically a
(24:09):
schizophrenic. As far as I cantell, he's he's a delusional
schizophrenic, who's, who'sbehaving in such a way where he
just can't he can't figure outreality. And he ends up like, I
think he ends up stabbing ahomeless man or a guy who tries
to rob them. And he ends up bythe end of the movie. He's
(24:29):
living with his parents who hebelieves are innkeepers. And he
has to and he's like, he's hischaracter from his d&d game. And
he pays them in a magical goldcoin that reappears on his on
his nightstand every night, andthen he provides it to them. So
they're also playing into thisfantasy 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 allthat's really important. And
there are there are there areother notable situations that
are also blamed on d&d as wellthat are kind of similar to the
Dallas Egbert situation. Therewas a 17 year old, on June
(25:20):
9 19 8217 year old Irving Leegoes by bank, pulling the second
killed himself by shootinghimself in the chest with a gun.
Now he also, if you listen to,or if you if you if you listen
(25:42):
to the way that he was spoken ofby his his peers and the people
who knew him, he was a troubledperson who had a lot of issues
with fitting in. And when I sayhis peers, it doesn't really
seem like he had a lot of closefriends or anything. But he did.
He had his kind of his d&dgroup. And those people who knew
him referred to them said thathe had a lot of trouble fitting
(26:03):
in, you talked to his mom,Patricia Pauling, and she's
like, Oh, he was he was ahealthy kid, he had, you know,
he was just the life of theparty kind of like there's just
this this, this perfect, thingsdo not match up. Right? It's
definitely seems like a parentwho doesn't quite understand
their child, or the or a childwho's able to hide his true
(26:29):
feelings when he's around hisparents. And so I don't know
it's not I'm not placing faultor blame or anything.
Ultimately, he ended up killinghimself. And that's terrible.
But Patricia poling, campaignedagainst Dungeons and Dragons,
insisting that her son was ahappy, healthy man, both mind
and body, child until the day hekilled himself, where I believe
(26:51):
he killed himself in like thefront yard or something. While
going through banks, which iswhat his nickname was, and I'm
curious about this, too, becausebank, I don't know if he was
given the name bank by hisparents. I think that they use
the I think that when I watchedthe I watched an interview with
(27:11):
her, and I think she referred tohim as bank, which leads me to
believe that the parents gave itgave him the name. But bank is
also a character from the booksby 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 anoutsider, he's he's the only
(27:32):
person born on this island,where everybody has a magical
ability, and he's the only onewho apparently doesn't have a
magical ability. And this wasreleased in 1977. So it could
have definitely been somethingthat he may have, he may have
read, but I don't know if it wasgiven to him or whatever. But
anyways, his name is bank sameas the character from a fantasy
(27:53):
book. So while going through histhings, Patricia found notebooks
full of d&d references, shefound that bank had been playing
d&d with a group led by theschool's principal, really one
of the notebooks made referencesto banks character receiving a
(28:15):
curse, stating something alongthe lines of your soul is mine,
and that eventually this yoursoul will would be claimed at a
later date. And she took that tomean that her son killed himself
because he had his character hadbeen cursed in d&d, so she
attempts to sue the school, andthe principal, as well as TSR
(28:36):
publishing. For the people whoreleased Dungeons and Dragons.
She leaves she loses bothattempts at doing this. Also,
side note, this is early d&d,character death was a real thing
for all you people who playfifth edition, and your
characters are like, You can'tkill those characters back in
the day you started with a witha with a with a corral of zero
(28:57):
level characters and thecharacters that made it the
first level where yourcharacters 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. Sobut so polling goes on. After
losing the cases against theprincipal and TSR by and she
responds by creating badbothered about Dungeons and
(29:30):
Dragons, a group dedicateddedicated 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 mostlike, like I I'm a little bit
like, I don't like this verymuch 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 DrunkDriving. Okay, so it's no longer
as I said, 1997 That was whenbad disappears. So she would
label herself an expert on thematter of d&d, and its links to
the occult. She would alsobecome a private investigator,
and eventually gained enoughnotoriety to be featured in a
(30:20):
segment of 60 minutes, whichI'll link in the show notes.
It's, it's, it's worth watching.
It's fun just for the nostalgiaof that. Polling would describe
d&d as a fantasy role playinggame which uses demonology
witchcraft, Voodoo murder, rape,blasphemy, suicide,
assassination, Insanity, sexperversion, homosexuality,
(30:43):
prostitution, satanic typerituals, gambling, barbarism,
cannibalism, sadism, desiccatedesecration, demon summoning
neck, romantics, divination andother teachings. And she would
advise authorities to askteenage suspects, if they had
been if they had had anyconnection to Dungeons and
(31:05):
Dragons, or if they had everread the Necronomicon. The
Necronomicon is not real. It's afantasy Grimoire that was that
is referenced in HP Lovecraftfictional 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 allthe stuff that Yeah, but there's
not like there's not actually aNecronomicon anyways. Most of
the things that pulling claimsin that little blurb that I just
(31:47):
gave you they can be found ind&d, she's she's right, they are
all in there. I mean, but whatyou do with them is what you do
with them right? Particularly inthe A d&d years, which is the
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons,which was pretty early adoption
anyways, but she, that it's shedidn't she she didn't go on to
(32:10):
say and this is something that Ican personally attest to. She
didn't she didn't point out thatd&d also promotes social
interactions, imagination,reading, writing, problem
solving math, world history, itwas because of d&d that I
developed interests in worldcultures, religions, myths, and
all that kind of stuff. She alsowarned warned that
(32:34):
underachieving or overachievingcan be signs of children who are
at risk. So stay right in themiddle. Yeah, if you as long as
you're hitting like a nice solidC c plus, you're probably okay.
Saying things like promotinghomosexuality, and quote,
unquote, sexual perversion,which I assume means anything
(32:55):
outside of like a heterosexualactivities between married
couples with the express desireto procreate is something that
would be perverse or bad. Like,yeah, it probably does promote
those types of things. Itdoesn't necessarily mean like,
like, when you when when you saysex, perverse sex perversion, it
(33:18):
doesn't necessarily mean thatyou'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 ofperson who's going to who's
going to be like, well, then wegot to stop it, you know,
(33:40):
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 forthis woman, because she's
clearly deeply upset andgrieving her son's loss. And she
just latched on to this anddoesn't see it clearly. But she
she's definitely, you know, justobsessed with it.
Matthew (34:03):
I would say, you would think that, yeah, watch her
interview on 60 minutes. Youdon't think that? less so? Okay.
Um, I, you know, right off theRIP, obviously, you feel like
you want to blame something forsuch a tragic loss. Certainly
not going to blame your ownparenting mistakes and lack of
(34:26):
attention. And you know, whatguilt might be part of it? Sure.
So she's trying to lash outagainst it. And you know, like,
I'm not saying she's a badparent. I'm not at all trying to
say, I don't know, I only sawthree minutes of an interview on
60 minutes. I can't judge her asa person with that, but she,
she's not devastated by theloss. In that interview. I also
(34:48):
am not I was, I don't know theexact date of when it was it
could have been a few yearsafterwards. 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 feellike she should have she should
have had enough people tellingher that there's nothing there
to like, let it let it gowithout unless she was trying to
get something else because shedoes. She does also promote
herself as an expert on the onthe subject matter which she's
not. Right. So I mean, I guessas far as d&d advice, not
(35:24):
advocates, what is it people whoare against a subject? She was
on the forefront of that line?
Right. So yeah, I guess she'skind 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, theywould do so because that would
be also making yourself moresusceptible 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. Butthat'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 ofthe loss. And again, I'm not
placing blame. I don't know, Idon't know the situation. I
don't know if it's somethingthat could have been prevented.
I don't know if she's right. Shevery well, this kid might have
just been that level of upsetthat he had very little else
that he really held as importantin his life. So when this
(36:16):
happened, he when his characterwas cursed, he might he might
have been a breaking point. Ican't I don't know not. Again,
this is why we generally leave100 year buffer. So I can I can
speculate without worry. But no.
But you also have to think toother things that are involved
in that the principal of theschool was leading this. And I
don't know how much interactionyou had with the teachers and
(36:40):
principals and stuff of yourschool, they normally pulled a
lot of attention to theoutcasts, not necessarily
because you're always indetention or anything, but
because they're trying to helpyou in some way. Right? So the
principal having this d&d group,I bet that it was made up of a
(37:01):
bunch of kids who were had somesocial, social connecting issues
and stuff like that, you knowwhat I mean? Like I feel like he
in this is actually somethingthat nowadays is promoted in a
lot of schools and stuff and alot of afterschool programs and
stuff to promote all of thosethings that I was saying with
like problem solving and socialinteractions 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 theprincipal probably recognized
that, that he was that bank wasa student that needed a little
more guidance and someone totrust and go to so I don't know.
Again, I have no idea. Butanyway, so she ends up getting
(37:49):
on 60 minutes. And in this same60 minutes, they interview like
a group of of gamers who are inthe middle of their in the
middle of their group and if youare middle of their session, and
if you actually the referencethat I made the very opening
dungeon dragons Satan's gamethat comes from dead out wives,
watchtower, the dead ale wives.
(38:14):
It was created by Dan Harmon,the creator of Rick and Morty.
So and this is like 1415 yearsago that that was that that that
this comes from? But he he doesit in the same vein as the 60
minutes thing. So theyeventually cuts to the the the
the secret the secret listeningin on on the storyline of what
(38:38):
they're doing. It's just a bunchof people that are goofing off
at the d&d table. But when 60minutes actually goes and does
this, they're like picking updice. And they're like, Well,
what is this one? Do? Kids like?
Oh, that's a D four doesn'treally get to us that much.
Unless you're a wizard becausethat's your hit points. And
that's how much you can get hitby it. And guess if you have a
dagger, it will be a D four. ButI mean, it's just kind of like
(38:58):
it's just weird to like, havethese people be like and what
demon is this summon and they'relike, nothing measures your hit
points, man. It's just so funnywhen somebody just so
uninitiated comes into a waythat it was it was cute. What
when asked about the connectionbetween d&d and suicide and
murder, when this question wasposed to Gary Gygax, the Oh gee,
(39:21):
depending on if you're aBlackmore person or a gray Hawk
person. That's that's a debatethat can happen in discord or
something. Anyways, Gary Gygaxresponded with, are you going to
connect monopoly to the peoplewho file for bankruptcy? As you
said, like it's a game. Yeah,it's a game that does that. You
(39:43):
can't just because this happensdoesn't necessarily mean that
there's a causation there. Andthis is also kind of funny now,
because both games are actuallyowned by Hasbro. Which they
weren't at the time, and Hasbroalso owns the trademark for weed
keyboards on you Hasbro. Oh man,where do you get all your demon
(40:06):
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 Patriciapolling in 1997 Belushi died of
lung cancer, which is a terribleway to go. Yeah. And that was
unfortunate. But there was alsokind of on the flip side where
(40:34):
those people who are trying toblame Dungeons and Dragons for
the deaths and whatnot of peoplethat they care about. In
1919 84, a girl by the name ofMary Towie was murdered by
Darren Molitor age 19 And Ron,add Cox, the three of them while
(40:59):
preparing for Mary's, Friday the13th party, they they're setting
up music and they're gettingthey get some beer and some some
weed and they're there. They'rehanging out and party and this
is a 1984 they're hanging out.
(41:19):
The the two guys stay over ather house on that Thursday, I
guess and then into that Friday,they're still hanging out and
smoking and drinking and alsopracticing martial arts. Okay,
smoking, drinking and practicingmartial arts. Let's take a
party. Yeah, so part of thismartial arts stuff that they're
doing ends up in wrestling. AndMary ends up being hogtied
(41:46):
effectively. She has her herhands and legs bound. And they
basically leave her there. AndDarren Molitor. I'm probably
saying his name wrong, butDarren ends up like kind of like
taunting her and stuff whilewhile they're while while she's
(42:08):
all bound. And she's calling tobe untied and all this stuff and
and meanwhile, Ronald ad Cox islike sitting at the top of the
stairs, and just like drinking abeer while this is going on, and
she continues to scream andscream. She's trying to get him
to stop. One of them goes downand like lights a cigarette for
gives her some beer and shehelps her smoke the cigarette
(42:28):
while she's bound. Andeventually she keeps yelling and
whatnot. And Malter goes down toher. And she he takes an ace
bandage, like an elastic bandageright? And ties that around her
neck. And then he leaves and thetwo of them go upstairs and
(42:51):
they're listening to music andgetting wasted. They go back
downstairs, and she has stoppedyelling, and he would describe
Malta would describe it as herher feet turned yellow. And her
face was purple and black withher eyes bulging and her mouth
was hanging open. And theyrealized that they had strangled
(43:12):
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 hehe, it looks like he did. The
issue was it was tight enoughthat she could she could
breathe, but it stopped theblood circulation to her brain.
So eventually, her brain juststopped receiving oxygen or
stopped receiving the oxygenatedblood and then she ended up
(43:36):
dying. So they end up stealingher parents car and a gun and
they flee to Georgia. Theyeventually turn themselves in
and they get put on trial.
They're both found guilty. AndMalta tries to use Dungeons and
Dragons as his defense thatbecause he played Dungeons and
(43:58):
Dragons, he was desensitized tomurderous acts and violent acts.
And because then he actuallyeven tried to get polling as an
expert witness to come in andspeak on the evils of this is
his defense. I say he but hisyou know, his defense team was
trying to get polling to come inand as an expert witness and
(44:22):
basically be like, oh, yeah,dungeon dragons made him do it.
Yeah. Did you? She they, therewas a doctor, and like an actual
doctor, psycho psychologist, andappalling that were both brought
in. But the judge was like thatis completely irrelevant. If you
(44:43):
played a game. That iscompletely irrelevant. He killed
somebody. He has in he's in he'ssaying he's dissents. Now, and
they basically just said thesetwo 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 wardesensitized to violence and
they kill somebody, they'restill 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'mdesensitized. And he actually
tried to get an appeal later onthis as well, because he
believes that their testimonyshould have been brought into it
and, and the doctor was evenkind of just like, there's, I
mean, maybe, you know, and nowthat was kind of why the judge
(45:31):
was like, This guy is not evenconvinced. Like he's, you're
asking them these questions andthe 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 chargedof for killing for people when
he was like 16 years old orsomething. He was driving under
the influence, but his defenseattorneys actually said that.
They use the defense ofaffluenza because they said he
was affluenza. affluenza notinfluenced because his parents
(46:01):
were so affluent or well to dothat they had never given any
boundaries and therefore hedidn'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 toorich 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 ofdifferent claims. But that is
kind of some of the that is kindof the the major some of the
some of the major ones for theDND specific related Satanic
Panic moments. If you have anyother ones feel free to reach
(46:42):
out and let us know please do.
Your we can. You can reach usout on any of those of our
normal social media as we willget 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 thatstand on beachy Island and
resolute Canada. They belong tothree members of an ill fated
expedition to the NorthwestPassage, and one unlucky soul
who was sent to look for them.
In 1845, Sir John Franklin ledan expedition to find the
(47:17):
Northwest Passage, a suspecteddirect route between the
Atlantic Ocean and the PacificOcean across the Arctic. So they
were trying to find a way easyway to get between the two.
These ships that they took werecalled the Aerobus. And the
terror. I know this story, yes.
It's a subject of a very goodbook called The terror by John's
(47:38):
Dan Simmons. But anyway, anotherTV show. Yeah, that too. And
they were supposed to beunstoppable 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. Itstopped them. Of course. They
were stuck for weeks. The 121nine members of the expedition
had visited beachy island for awinter in cabinet and buried
three of their members, JohnTorrington, William brain and
John Hartle. It's unknown howthese three men died. The rest
of the crew abandoned the stuckships later and they tried to
(48:17):
walk to safety. And this isreally just a guess. Because I
guess they don't really know.
They found a few graves. Butthat's pretty much all that they
they know from this. Oh, theydid find the ships later. The
crew probably resorted tocannibalism, and there is some
evidence of that. And many diedfrom scurvy and lead poisoning,
(48:41):
suspected and actually read thatthe lead poisoning was from
bullets. Now. It's because Ididn't seal the CANS properly.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, so that was butalso the scurvy, they did
actually bring with them. Ithink it was lemon juice, to try
to get rid of that. But after awhile lemon juice loses its
effectiveness. And so it wasn'teffective at all. And so they
(49:04):
got scurvy. But all men from theexpedition were lost, and they
were never heard from again.
Both ships were eventuallyfound. They found the Aerobus
and 2014. And the terror in2016. And again, this happened
in 1845. So long time. Yeah. Thefourth grave marker was for
Thomas Morgan, a member of oneof the expeditions that were
later launched to try to findout what happened to the
(49:26):
Franklin Expedition. Row badluck, 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 isour McCobb minute. This story is
very interesting. I've done alot of research here and there
on the Aerobus and the terrorbut 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 mypersonal life of dealing with
the Satanic Panic. Lay it on mewell with, I'm gonna. But as far
as during this whole time, Iremember that I was the dungeon
master of my group as I amforever dungeon master, but I
(50:19):
had I would carry around a lotof d&d books. And at the time I
was being watched by ababysitter, and who was have a
particularly strong religiousslant. She spent a lot of her
time watching 700 club and stufflike that. And of course, like I
(50:43):
said, during this time, placeslike the 700 Club, we're all
about trying to talk about d&d Vand being a bad bad influence
and wizards in witchery anddivination and stuff being the,
the the tools of the devil, soshe wouldn't allow me to bring
the books into her house. So Iused to have to leave my
(51:05):
backpack sitting outside and notbe allowed into her house with
them. Which she told me a storyabout they found d&d books at
her friend's house, and theytried to burn them and the and
the books exploded, but one ofthe guys was saying a prayer to
(51:25):
the flames like, went around himand 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 didnot burn a d&d book and have a
(51:46):
fireball bust up out of there.
Now, and now. There was nosorcerer 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 wasreally weird. Then also my
school are at this in like,sixth or seventh grade. This was
the a little bit later. Theytried to bend d&d, but they
(52:19):
didn't try to do it by banningd&d. They tried to ban bringing
dice to school for under theguise of like gambling or
whatever. We were like, okay,that's fine. You don't with that
is it's not hard to make arandom number generator on a
piece of paper. Yeah, not thatbig of a deal. Anyways, but that
(52:40):
was so yeah, so I had to dealwith a person who was very much
bought into this whole satanicthing. And, and also at the
time, I remember seeing stuffthat is more into the next
episode that we're about to gointo. But the much more about
the the the horrors of ofchildren in daycare,
(53:03):
ritualistic, demonic satanicpractices. Well, we'll save that
for our next satanic episode,entitled, devils in daycare.
It'll make sense next week. Butuntil that time, thank you all
for listening. If you have anyof your own Satanic Panic
(53:24):
stories that you would like toshare, please feel free to reach
out, you can reach us onTwitter, and Facebook at
Macabrepedia. And of
Marissa (53:33):
course, Instagram at Macabrepediapod. And if you
wanted to shoot us an email, youcan 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'msure there's a link somewhere in
the show notes you can always doso and we just released a
Patreon episode where we weredoing would you rather that
might be something that we'llwe'll continue going with over
there. And you kind of got anidea as to what some of our the
(54:03):
randomness that you can findover there with the release that
we did with the Bloody Mary theBloody Mary episode with our
guest hosts. But anyways, joinus next week as we add another
entry into this our Macabrepedia
Macabrepedia makes light of dark subject matter
(00:02):
that may not be suitable for allaudiences. Listener discretion
is advised.
Matthew (00:16):
Dungeons and Dragons Satan's game. Your children like
it or not, are attracted intheir weaker years to the
occult, and a game like Dungeonsand Dragons fuels their
imagination and makes them feelspecial, while drawing them
deeper and deeper into thebowels of El Diablo. A warning
(00:38):
from the dead airwaveswatchtower. Dungeons and Dragons
has enjoyed a monumentalresurgence over the last five or
so years, once relegated tobasements and school cafeteria
corners, played by those labeledas misfits and nerds. d&d is now
a household name thanks to theincreased appearances in media
(00:59):
with shows like Stranger Thingsutilizing a group of d&d players
as the series protagonists.
Actual play shows like criticalrole, the adventure zone and
dimension 20, drawing millionsof fans to the hobby in the last
recent years, d&d has alwaysbeen synonymous with outcasts
and the different because ofthis tabletop RPGs have become
beacons of inclusion for thosewho otherwise feel different
(01:23):
from the norm. Dungeons andDragons is a game of the
imagination and we're friendsgather together to create a
collaborative narrativeexperience. These stories often
involve deeds of great heroismand battles against evil
villains. Players of the gameswere not the only ones who would
partake in fanciful stories. Yousee, the uninformed public
(01:43):
directed in no small part by themedia of the time would use the
game of Dungeons and Dragons asa launching pad for the era of
the Satanic Panic. Join us as weadd another entry into this our
Macabrepedia.
Marissa (02:07):
Hello, and welcome to Macabrepedia a marriage of true
crime and truly bizarre. We areyour hosts, Matthew and Marissa.
And today it sounds like we aregetting into something that
we've been watching lately.
Satan, own Satan, Jesus,
Matthew (02:25):
Jesus.
Marissa (02:28):
Stranger things
Matthew (02:29):
a little bit. Yeah, I mean, the Stranger Things is the
popular Netflix series does havethat uses has been leaning on
d&d a little bit in some of itsstorylines. The protagonists,
again are a group of friends whoplay d&d together and I feel
(02:50):
like initially that scene wasintended to kind of invoke that
nostalgia for like ET because Ibelieve et kind of starts off in
a similar way with the kids areall playing d&d together. And
there's countless references andshows nowadays and back in the
80s, where there were roleplayers that were you know, the
(03:14):
nerdy people were often depictedas being basically a d&d players
listening to Rush.
Marissa (03:22):
Yeah, this is before nerd culture had its day.
Matthew (03:25):
Yeah, back when back when being a nerd was just being
a nerd. I missed those days in away. When my when I was the
mullet that when I had my mulletwith, in my constantly wearing a
Dick Tracy t shirt andsweatpants with holes in it
(03:45):
carrying around a briefcase thatI specially made so that I could
fit all that dungeon master'sguide, the monsters manual and
the player's handbook along withat least one set of dice. Yeah,
yeah. And I like that Dick Tracyshirt and in sweatpants was
like, I wore that like I was ananime character. Like that was
(04:05):
like the costume. I was alwaysdrawn in.
Marissa (04:07):
Nice. Yeah. And Greenwillow so it was green.
Matthew (04:11):
I didn't have a green wallet.
Marissa (04:12):
You did not we did not hold me you did not write a
green mold. Like green hair.
Matthew (04:16):
I had green hair. That was much later that was in my
Adidas wearing phase. That wasmy, my pseudo goth phase. Kinda.
That's different. That's a storyfor we'll save that for the for
the Satanic Panic metal. Anyway,so yeah, we're kind of talking
about the Satanic Panic, which Ihad a few experiences with
(04:39):
growing up as a d&d player inthe in the early 90s. But yeah,
I've been waiting a long time toget into these stories, some of
those as someone who attributesquite a bit of the positive
experiences to my life as beingpart of the hobby of role
playing. I was really excited tokind of tackle these almost All
(05:00):
of my creative learning skillsare heavily influenced by
tabletop role playing games. SoI write I draw I craft and a lot
of that is with the with theidea with ideas for the stories
that I've had for for my d&dgames. Yeah.
Marissa (05:16):
I mean, you you literally sit down and I will
spend hours working on your yoursystem. Yeah.
Matthew (05:21):
And d&d is the predominant. That's that's the
umbrella term. That's, that'sthe Kleenex of tabletop role
playing games. It's right. It'srecognizable. But and in this
story, particularly that that isthat is when we say d&d, we're
really actually talking aboutd&d, but when I say d&d, I mean,
(05:42):
anything from Pathfinder,vampire, the masquerade, etc,
etc. So but I had, I was I'mvery big into role playing games
anyways. But the Satanic Panicwas a time between kind of like
1979 and early 2000s, probablythe year 2000. And go that late.
(06:04):
Well, in 1997, was when aparticular group that we'll
touch on in here kind ofcompletely fell apart. So it was
in the very late 90s. And thenthere was even touch it as the
idea of the Satanic Panic, wewere giving it a time time
window from 1979 to like, 1997,let's say, because you can take
(06:29):
the ideas of the Satanic Panicand sometimes referred to as the
moral panic. And we couldstretch this all the way back to
the 1600s. Like and and evenbefore that, where there's
belief that of devil possession,and the witch trials and the
Spanish Inquisition and allthat. It's all kind of a very
similar thing. It's just
Marissa (06:49):
just this time d&d was just this part. Yeah, I'm
focused. But in
Matthew (06:53):
this timeframe between in the late 70s and late 90s,
there was there was a big therewas a huge push. And when
somebody says the Satanic Panichas generally the decades that
are referring to but even if youjust go back a few years, there
was like this whole all thestuff that like Q anon and all
(07:13):
this kind of stuff and saying,you know, it also has this kind
of moral panic vibe to it aswell. Right? So even
Marissa (07:20):
if you want to go back with Harry Potter, which was in
late 90s, and early Yeah, Imean, I remember getting Harry
Potter book and people beinglike, 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'sHarry Potter.
Matthew (07:35):
Right? Yeah. And that's the thing it's, it's we're I'm
deliberately focusing when I'mgoing in for these entries when
I say Satanic Panic I'm keepingit to roughly the late 70s to
possibly early 2000s dependingon how far I push push some of
these stories but anyways, butyeah, you can see there's
(07:57):
there's always a Satanic Panicin some levels. But this one is
like when it was like beingbrought to you by the local news
or by the national news andstuff like that. But in this
kind of is also as far as forthe most part it's it's kind of
it's kind of North America wasreally hit hitting on this I did
(08:19):
find some articles that werereported on by the BBC, but I
don't really know what the whatit was like as far as like
anywhere else in the world as toif it was quite quite so much of
this satanic or moral panicbeing and and I'd love to hear
it so some of our internationallisteners, let me know I do know
that one of our one of ourinternational listeners just put
(08:41):
a Satanic Panic patch on theirdenim jacket. That was pretty
cool. So I was like, hey,perfect timing my dude anyways.
This the Satanic Panic again, iswhere there's like a belief that
heavy metal rock music DNDhorror movies etc, is causing a
surge in demonic activity andcreating murderers and Satan
(09:02):
worshippers by the score. Thiswas also at the height of like
the Church of Satan, which washeaded by Anton Zahn, Dora
LaVey, who was a bit he's awhole nother subject on his on
his own. He's an interestingcharacter. And there was a
handful of tragedies that wouldbe blamed on d&d, some of which
(09:23):
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 themore some of the ones that are
more more well known. This storywas originally put on the back
burner because of how much timeit would be needed in order to
cover the major stories of theSatanic Panic like you mentioned
this months ago. Yeah, likeAnton LaVey and Aleister Crowley
and and going like, I was goingto tie it into the witch trials
(09:47):
and all this stuff and it justseemed like this would be this
could this could just could takemonths worth of episodes in
order to get it done. But wehave done a few multipart
entries and many series A in thepast on Macabrepedia. And they
were pretty well received bylisteners. So thanks for that.
And because of that, I kind offelt a little more like, oh, we
can do a series, you know, likepeople seem to be okay with
(10:10):
that. But it was during one ofthe latter episodes of Stranger
Things season four, that thiswas a very minor spoiler, one of
the antagonist characters drops,drops in on a town council kind
of meeting, like, like a PTAkind 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'spretty easily able to stir up a
fear of like devil summoning andcult murders and rituals and
stuff. And the citizens arequickly been banding together to
hunt down the murderous leaderof this satanic cult of d&d
players. And Marissa, youthought that that seemed a bit
(10:54):
strange that they were soquickly swayed into a belief
that there was a demon cultamong them?
Marissa (10:59):
Well, I know, mobs are a thing, but they just never
make any sense. I mean, they dobut they don't.
Matthew (11:07):
Yeah, and that's how it is sometimes. We've had a bunch
of Macabrepedia entries thatinclude mob justice, and
presumably innocent people beingbrutalized for crimes they
didn't commit. And we've coveredmagic fueled axe murderers of
Louisiana that took place only afew decades before this, with
the Satanic Panic, and the ideaof devil inspired wickedness has
(11:31):
always loomed in many cultures,even non Christian cultures
where they may not be devilslash Satan specific but the
equivalent thereof. And I so andparticularly in the timeframe
that Stranger Things takes placeand Season Four as of 1986. Like
(11:51):
this was when this was reallyramping up like if you if you
take real world, us up until1986. Like this was this was
when these types of the SatanicPanic stuff was on like 60
minutes and stuff like that,like this was this was on
people's mind. So when thecharacter jumps to the
conclusion that there's asatanic ritualistic cult that's
(12:13):
that's in their in their town,it's easily believed, and people
are ready to buy it. It'sbecause the media has already
been presenting that to them,but they don't, they don't
really show that very much onStranger Things, but I believe
it's just kind of, it's kind ofunderstood that that's going to
be part of it. But anyways, Ibelieve that everyone is at
least familiar with d&d dungeondragons. But we can still give
like the five minute history ofthe game for those who may not
(12:35):
be through a collaborativeeffort headed by Gary Gygax and
Dave Arneson in the mid 1970s,d&d was born. The creators were
fans of a war game calledchainmail, where larger scale
battles would take place arounda table using charts and dice
and set of detailed rules andcertainly some arguing to settle
(12:59):
the outcomes of the medievalfantasy Battlefield, taking the
rules of chainmail and scalingthem down to allow for a deeper
focus on individual adventures,and less on like large scale
armies. Gary and Dave wouldlaunch what would become TSR
publishing. They took this newstyle of gaming and bloomed a
(13:19):
new industry out of it. Theyprinted rule sets and adventure
books for magic users, clericsand fighting men. Eventually
thieves, elves, dwarves, etcwould be added and by taking up
the persona of one of thesetypes, players would use wit and
dice rolls to explore thefantastical landscapes created
by their Dungeon Master, whichis basically the guy who writes
(13:41):
the stories. Those who lovepopular fantasy stories the
likes of Jarrell Tolkien and theLord of the Rings, Robert Howard
and Conan piers Anthony and Zantseries and Michael Moorcock with
the Elric of nibs na which Imispronounce a lot of things in
this in that this particularepisode, but I'm Macabrepedia
(14:01):
We're known for mispronouncingthings it's metal nib Na, it's
not really sounds like you'remispronouncing it's not known
the bone. It's it's known thatBinay
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 alreadyhave this like desire to consume
fantasy novels and stuff, thatthey now have a way that they
could write their own andactively participate in the
creation of similar storiescollaboratively with a group of
friends around something justlike a kitchen table or
(14:33):
something. And one suchparticipant was a child prodigy
by the name of James DallasEgbert the third. Now, this is
probably the most popular storyof d&d related stuff, right, so
(14:53):
1979 Dallas, will refer to himas Dallas. He He disappears from
his Michigan University dorm.
And he goes on, he attempts tokill himself by taking a bunch
of drugs and then going downinto the steam tunnels below the
(15:14):
University. He doesn't die. Heends up waking up, kind of, I
believe he took a bunch ofcyanide laced stuff. And it
didn't kill him. He's 16 yearsold at this point. He's 16 years
old, and he's in the theMichigan University. So he's
very smart kid. Yeah. And he, sohe then after this attempt, he
(15:40):
disappears, like for a muchlonger period of time, and he's
gone for a long enough period oftime where his parents start
looking for him. And they, noone has seen him no one, no
one's coming forth as to whatwas going on with that. So they
(16:01):
end up getting, they ended uphiring a private investigator,
the parents of Dallas, by thename of William deer, and deer
doesn't really know anythingabout Dungeons and Dragons or
anything like that. Anyway, sohe goes up to Michigan State
University, and he startslooking around in Dallas's room,
(16:25):
he finds some d&d stuff. Heclaims it No, he claims that he
finds a, like a cork board thathas 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 similarformation to the steam tunnels
(16:45):
of the university. So he thengoes down there, they're
searching along, and he's underthis working. He's working under
this idea that Dallas and hisbuddies who play d&d all went
down into the into the tunnelsto act out there. They're
(17:06):
basically LARPing live actionrole playing go down there and
play Dungeons and Dragons, andthey get and Dallas gets lost,
or that perhaps because of thesame because of the satanic
rituals that are in Dungeons andDragons, they may have there may
be some foul play, and his d&dgroup may have killed him or all
this stuff. Wow, that seems likequite a leap. Yeah. And in a
(17:28):
later article, the, well, deerwould go on to write a book
called The Dungeon Master aboutthis whole thing. And there's
other articles where the parentsof Dallas were like, pretty much
from the RIP, where deer waslike, you know, we could sell
(17:49):
the movie rights to this wecould sell the movie rights to
this so he keeps pushing for thethe 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 thedata in the in the steam
tunnels, and Dungeons andDragons and satanic rituals and
all this stuff. And using hisimagination and his pet. Yeah,
exactly. That's what, yeah,that's what my opening was, is
like the people with thecraziest imagination were the
(18:19):
people who are reporting onthis. But the parents of Eggbert
of Dallas were like, pump thebrakes, like, let's not do that,
right. So they the search, findsnothing, right? But this becomes
this starts getting likenationwide attention. This kid
who disappeared in the in thesteam tunnels of the university.
(18:42):
And then there was a phone callto the parents and want to buy
the movie rights. No, it wasDallas. And he called and he's
like, I'm not I'm not dead.
Yeah, I just left and went asfar away as I could, as my money
would would have me. And hestarted working in like an oil
(19:02):
field or something. And he justleft school, he couldn't handle
the pressure. And also he was hewas part of the d&d Society of
high school. But he was alsopart of the the Gay and Lesbian
Alliance of his school, whichare the club that was associated
with that. And this is reportedin a news article that I believe
(19:24):
was pulled from his parentsmaking these statements. So this
is a kid in the 80s Anotherthing that's happening around
the same time is like gays andand being associated with the
AIDS epidemic and stuff likethat. It's kind of in the suit.
So this is this is a place wherelike, 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 localcommunity college or something
like he's at like a pretty goodsubstantials university right
and he's a bit of an outcastbecause he's, he's like two,
three years younger than thenthe people that are supposed to
be there. And he's obviouslyhe's a is he's a heck of a smart
(20:12):
kid. But he gets into drugs. Andhe's he's trying to deal with
his own sexual identity andeverything. There's a lot of
things that are leading up tohim. d&d provides. I mean, it's
a good time regardless, but youknow, it does draw people who
feel a bit different, you know,it draws people who are looking
(20:33):
for a little escapism, wherethey can just be the person that
they want to be. And just, youknow, go on adventures and do
these things and live out adifferent life, not to the point
where people are being lost intotheir characters or anything
like that. That's very, veryrare orange, the steam tunnels.
Yeah. And the steam tunnelsthing was just this this guy,
(20:53):
you know, trying to make makesomething out of nothing. And he
had heard rumors that they weregoing down there and playing on
occasion anyways, but Dallasends up being convinced by his
parents to contact deer, theinvestigator who goes and talks
to Dallas a couple times. AndDallas. Ultimately, that's kind
(21:14):
of where the Satanic Panicportion of Dallas is. story
ends, Dallas ends up committingsuicide by gunshot, self
inflicted gunshot to the head.
After within a year of thiswhole thing happening, so sad.
(21:34):
Yeah, so the kid obviously had alot of other issues that were
not being in check. And he was,you know, he was young, they had
a couple of drug addictions andstuff like that was just just
kind of a last guy, last guy,you know, and he just didn't
(21:54):
have the help or support aroundhim that he needed. And that's
really unfortunate. It's stillit's super tragic, regardless of
it. But the that's when that'swhen 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. Andthe parents were like, no, like,
we're not going to do that.
Right. So he ends up writing outthe Dungeon Master book, and I
(22:15):
haven't read the book, but I didsee reference where he kind of
backpedals a little bit on thebelief that it was because of
d&d. But he still used DungeonMaster, which is a trademarked
name from Dungeons and Dragons,as their as his like, you know,
catchphrase for him or for thetitle of his book, backpedal
(22:37):
that much. Yeah, couldn't havedone it that much. But he does
kind of distance it a little bitin the book from what I
understand. But the parents ofof Eggbert Tao cyber, kind of,
you know, they're they don'tthey're not really pushing it as
as a d&d thing is more of atragedy that it is whenever
somebody takes their own life,you know, but anyways, so
(23:02):
shortly thereafter, there is abook that comes out, not the
Dungeon Master, but in 1981,which is two years after the
disappearance in one year afterhis his death. There is a book
that comes out by Rona Jaffecalled mazes and monsters, which
(23:22):
obviously is a take on Dungeonsand Dragons, right mazes and
monsters. And this book has astory of a boy who becomes lost
in his fantasy world, andultimately starts going through
the sewer tunnels and living outthe life of his character. This
would later be adapted to a bookor to a movie made for TV movie
(23:48):
by the same name starring in hisfirst leading role. A young Tom
Hanks really in the movie istrash is so bad. But in the
movie, Tom Hanks is playing themain character, and he's eat it
see, and I don't know the book.
And I vaguely remember themovie, which he's basically a
(24:09):
schizophrenic. As far as I cantell, he's he's a delusional
schizophrenic, who's, who'sbehaving in such a way where he
just can't he can't figure outreality. And he ends up like, I
think he ends up stabbing ahomeless man or a guy who tries
to rob them. And he ends up bythe end of the movie. He's
(24:29):
living with his parents who hebelieves are innkeepers. And he
has to and he's like, he's hischaracter from his d&d game. And
he pays them in a magical goldcoin that reappears on his on
his nightstand every night, andthen he provides it to them. So
they're also playing into thisfantasy 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 allthat's really important. And
there are there are there areother notable situations that
are also blamed on d&d as wellthat are kind of similar to the
Dallas Egbert situation. Therewas a 17 year old, on June
(25:20):
9 19 8217 year old Irving Leegoes by bank, pulling the second
killed himself by shootinghimself in the chest with a gun.
Now he also, if you listen to,or if you if you if you listen
(25:42):
to the way that he was spoken ofby his his peers and the people
who knew him, he was a troubledperson who had a lot of issues
with fitting in. And when I sayhis peers, it doesn't really
seem like he had a lot of closefriends or anything. But he did.
He had his kind of his d&dgroup. And those people who knew
him referred to them said thathe had a lot of trouble fitting
(26:03):
in, you talked to his mom,Patricia Pauling, and she's
like, Oh, he was he was ahealthy kid, he had, you know,
he was just the life of theparty kind of like there's just
this this, this perfect, thingsdo not match up. Right? It's
definitely seems like a parentwho doesn't quite understand
their child, or the or a childwho's able to hide his true
(26:29):
feelings when he's around hisparents. And so I don't know
it's not I'm not placing faultor blame or anything.
Ultimately, he ended up killinghimself. And that's terrible.
But Patricia poling, campaignedagainst Dungeons and Dragons,
insisting that her son was ahappy, healthy man, both mind
and body, child until the day hekilled himself, where I believe
(26:51):
he killed himself in like thefront yard or something. While
going through banks, which iswhat his nickname was, and I'm
curious about this, too, becausebank, I don't know if he was
given the name bank by hisparents. I think that they use
the I think that when I watchedthe I watched an interview with
(27:11):
her, and I think she referred tohim as bank, which leads me to
believe that the parents gave itgave him the name. But bank is
also a character from the booksby 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 anoutsider, he's he's the only
(27:32):
person born on this island,where everybody has a magical
ability, and he's the only onewho apparently doesn't have a
magical ability. And this wasreleased in 1977. So it could
have definitely been somethingthat he may have, he may have
read, but I don't know if it wasgiven to him or whatever. But
anyways, his name is bank sameas the character from a fantasy
(27:53):
book. So while going through histhings, Patricia found notebooks
full of d&d references, shefound that bank had been playing
d&d with a group led by theschool's principal, really one
of the notebooks made referencesto banks character receiving a
(28:15):
curse, stating something alongthe lines of your soul is mine,
and that eventually this yoursoul will would be claimed at a
later date. And she took that tomean that her son killed himself
because he had his character hadbeen cursed in d&d, so she
attempts to sue the school, andthe principal, as well as TSR
(28:36):
publishing. For the people whoreleased Dungeons and Dragons.
She leaves she loses bothattempts at doing this. Also,
side note, this is early d&d,character death was a real thing
for all you people who playfifth edition, and your
characters are like, You can'tkill those characters back in
the day you started with a witha with a with a corral of zero
(28:57):
level characters and thecharacters that made it the
first level where yourcharacters 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. Sobut so polling goes on. After
losing the cases against theprincipal and TSR by and she
responds by creating badbothered about Dungeons and
(29:30):
Dragons, a group dedicateddedicated 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 mostlike, like I I'm a little bit
like, I don't like this verymuch 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 DrunkDriving. Okay, so it's no longer
as I said, 1997 That was whenbad disappears. So she would
label herself an expert on thematter of d&d, and its links to
the occult. She would alsobecome a private investigator,
and eventually gained enoughnotoriety to be featured in a
(30:20):
segment of 60 minutes, whichI'll link in the show notes.
It's, it's, it's worth watching.
It's fun just for the nostalgiaof that. Polling would describe
d&d as a fantasy role playinggame which uses demonology
witchcraft, Voodoo murder, rape,blasphemy, suicide,
assassination, Insanity, sexperversion, homosexuality,
(30:43):
prostitution, satanic typerituals, gambling, barbarism,
cannibalism, sadism, desiccatedesecration, demon summoning
neck, romantics, divination andother teachings. And she would
advise authorities to askteenage suspects, if they had
been if they had had anyconnection to Dungeons and
(31:05):
Dragons, or if they had everread the Necronomicon. The
Necronomicon is not real. It's afantasy Grimoire that was that
is referenced in HP Lovecraftfictional 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 allthe stuff that Yeah, but there's
not like there's not actually aNecronomicon anyways. Most of
the things that pulling claimsin that little blurb that I just
(31:47):
gave you they can be found ind&d, she's she's right, they are
all in there. I mean, but whatyou do with them is what you do
with them right? Particularly inthe A d&d years, which is the
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons,which was pretty early adoption
anyways, but she, that it's shedidn't she she didn't go on to
(32:10):
say and this is something that Ican personally attest to. She
didn't she didn't point out thatd&d also promotes social
interactions, imagination,reading, writing, problem
solving math, world history, itwas because of d&d that I
developed interests in worldcultures, religions, myths, and
all that kind of stuff. She alsowarned warned that
(32:34):
underachieving or overachievingcan be signs of children who are
at risk. So stay right in themiddle. Yeah, if you as long as
you're hitting like a nice solidC c plus, you're probably okay.
Saying things like promotinghomosexuality, and quote,
unquote, sexual perversion,which I assume means anything
(32:55):
outside of like a heterosexualactivities between married
couples with the express desireto procreate is something that
would be perverse or bad. Like,yeah, it probably does promote
those types of things. Itdoesn't necessarily mean like,
like, when you when when you saysex, perverse sex perversion, it
(33:18):
doesn't necessarily mean thatyou'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 ofperson who's going to who's
going to be like, well, then wegot to stop it, you know,
(33:40):
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 forthis woman, because she's
clearly deeply upset andgrieving her son's loss. And she
just latched on to this anddoesn't see it clearly. But she
she's definitely, you know, justobsessed with it.
Matthew (34:03):
I would say, you would think that, yeah, watch her
interview on 60 minutes. Youdon't think that? less so? Okay.
Um, I, you know, right off theRIP, obviously, you feel like
you want to blame something forsuch a tragic loss. Certainly
not going to blame your ownparenting mistakes and lack of
(34:26):
attention. And you know, whatguilt might be part of it? Sure.
So she's trying to lash outagainst it. And you know, like,
I'm not saying she's a badparent. I'm not at all trying to
say, I don't know, I only sawthree minutes of an interview on
60 minutes. I can't judge her asa person with that, but she,
she's not devastated by theloss. In that interview. I also
(34:48):
am not I was, I don't know theexact date of when it was it
could have been a few yearsafterwards. 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 feellike she should have she should
have had enough people tellingher that there's nothing there
to like, let it let it gowithout unless she was trying to
get something else because shedoes. She does also promote
herself as an expert on the onthe subject matter which she's
not. Right. So I mean, I guessas far as d&d advice, not
(35:24):
advocates, what is it people whoare against a subject? She was
on the forefront of that line?
Right. So yeah, I guess she'skind 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, theywould do so because that would
be also making yourself moresusceptible 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. Butthat'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 ofthe loss. And again, I'm not
placing blame. I don't know, Idon't know the situation. I
don't know if it's somethingthat could have been prevented.
I don't know if she's right. Shevery well, this kid might have
just been that level of upsetthat he had very little else
that he really held as importantin his life. So when this
(36:16):
happened, he when his characterwas cursed, he might he might
have been a breaking point. Ican't I don't know not. Again,
this is why we generally leave100 year buffer. So I can I can
speculate without worry. But no.
But you also have to think toother things that are involved
in that the principal of theschool was leading this. And I
don't know how much interactionyou had with the teachers and
(36:40):
principals and stuff of yourschool, they normally pulled a
lot of attention to theoutcasts, not necessarily
because you're always indetention or anything, but
because they're trying to helpyou in some way. Right? So the
principal having this d&d group,I bet that it was made up of a
(37:01):
bunch of kids who were had somesocial, social connecting issues
and stuff like that, you knowwhat I mean? Like I feel like he
in this is actually somethingthat nowadays is promoted in a
lot of schools and stuff and alot of afterschool programs and
stuff to promote all of thosethings that I was saying with
like problem solving and socialinteractions 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 theprincipal probably recognized
that, that he was that bank wasa student that needed a little
more guidance and someone totrust and go to so I don't know.
Again, I have no idea. Butanyway, so she ends up getting
(37:49):
on 60 minutes. And in this same60 minutes, they interview like
a group of of gamers who are inthe middle of their in the
middle of their group and if youare middle of their session, and
if you actually the referencethat I made the very opening
dungeon dragons Satan's gamethat comes from dead out wives,
watchtower, the dead ale wives.
(38:14):
It was created by Dan Harmon,the creator of Rick and Morty.
So and this is like 1415 yearsago that that was that that that
this comes from? But he he doesit in the same vein as the 60
minutes thing. So theyeventually cuts to the the the
the secret the secret listeningin on on the storyline of what
(38:38):
they're doing. It's just a bunchof people that are goofing off
at the d&d table. But when 60minutes actually goes and does
this, they're like picking updice. And they're like, Well,
what is this one? Do? Kids like?
Oh, that's a D four doesn'treally get to us that much.
Unless you're a wizard becausethat's your hit points. And
that's how much you can get hitby it. And guess if you have a
dagger, it will be a D four. ButI mean, it's just kind of like
(38:58):
it's just weird to like, havethese people be like and what
demon is this summon and they'relike, nothing measures your hit
points, man. It's just so funnywhen somebody just so
uninitiated comes into a waythat it was it was cute. What
when asked about the connectionbetween d&d and suicide and
murder, when this question wasposed to Gary Gygax, the Oh gee,
(39:21):
depending on if you're aBlackmore person or a gray Hawk
person. That's that's a debatethat can happen in discord or
something. Anyways, Gary Gygaxresponded with, are you going to
connect monopoly to the peoplewho file for bankruptcy? As you
said, like it's a game. Yeah,it's a game that does that. You
(39:43):
can't just because this happensdoesn't necessarily mean that
there's a causation there. Andthis is also kind of funny now,
because both games are actuallyowned by Hasbro. Which they
weren't at the time, and Hasbroalso owns the trademark for weed
keyboards on you Hasbro. Oh man,where do you get all your demon
(40:06):
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 Patriciapolling in 1997 Belushi died of
lung cancer, which is a terribleway to go. Yeah. And that was
unfortunate. But there was alsokind of on the flip side where
(40:34):
those people who are trying toblame Dungeons and Dragons for
the deaths and whatnot of peoplethat they care about. In
1919 84, a girl by the name ofMary Towie was murdered by
Darren Molitor age 19 And Ron,add Cox, the three of them while
(40:59):
preparing for Mary's, Friday the13th party, they they're setting
up music and they're gettingthey get some beer and some some
weed and they're there. They'rehanging out and party and this
is a 1984 they're hanging out.
(41:19):
The the two guys stay over ather house on that Thursday, I
guess and then into that Friday,they're still hanging out and
smoking and drinking and alsopracticing martial arts. Okay,
smoking, drinking and practicingmartial arts. Let's take a
party. Yeah, so part of thismartial arts stuff that they're
doing ends up in wrestling. AndMary ends up being hogtied
(41:46):
effectively. She has her herhands and legs bound. And they
basically leave her there. AndDarren Molitor. I'm probably
saying his name wrong, butDarren ends up like kind of like
taunting her and stuff whilewhile they're while while she's
(42:08):
all bound. And she's calling tobe untied and all this stuff and
and meanwhile, Ronald ad Cox islike sitting at the top of the
stairs, and just like drinking abeer while this is going on, and
she continues to scream andscream. She's trying to get him
to stop. One of them goes downand like lights a cigarette for
gives her some beer and shehelps her smoke the cigarette
(42:28):
while she's bound. Andeventually she keeps yelling and
whatnot. And Malter goes down toher. And she he takes an ace
bandage, like an elastic bandageright? And ties that around her
neck. And then he leaves and thetwo of them go upstairs and
(42:51):
they're listening to music andgetting wasted. They go back
downstairs, and she has stoppedyelling, and he would describe
Malta would describe it as herher feet turned yellow. And her
face was purple and black withher eyes bulging and her mouth
was hanging open. And theyrealized that they had strangled
(43:12):
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 hehe, it looks like he did. The
issue was it was tight enoughthat she could she could
breathe, but it stopped theblood circulation to her brain.
So eventually, her brain juststopped receiving oxygen or
stopped receiving the oxygenatedblood and then she ended up
(43:36):
dying. So they end up stealingher parents car and a gun and
they flee to Georgia. Theyeventually turn themselves in
and they get put on trial.
They're both found guilty. AndMalta tries to use Dungeons and
Dragons as his defense thatbecause he played Dungeons and
(43:58):
Dragons, he was desensitized tomurderous acts and violent acts.
And because then he actuallyeven tried to get polling as an
expert witness to come in andspeak on the evils of this is
his defense. I say he but hisyou know, his defense team was
trying to get polling to come inand as an expert witness and
(44:22):
basically be like, oh, yeah,dungeon dragons made him do it.
Yeah. Did you? She they, therewas a doctor, and like an actual
doctor, psycho psychologist, andappalling that were both brought
in. But the judge was like thatis completely irrelevant. If you
(44:43):
played a game. That iscompletely irrelevant. He killed
somebody. He has in he's in he'ssaying he's dissents. Now, and
they basically just said thesetwo 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 wardesensitized to violence and
they kill somebody, they'restill 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'mdesensitized. And he actually
tried to get an appeal later onthis as well, because he
believes that their testimonyshould have been brought into it
and, and the doctor was evenkind of just like, there's, I
mean, maybe, you know, and nowthat was kind of why the judge
(45:31):
was like, This guy is not evenconvinced. Like he's, you're
asking them these questions andthe 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 chargedof for killing for people when
he was like 16 years old orsomething. He was driving under
the influence, but his defenseattorneys actually said that.
They use the defense ofaffluenza because they said he
was affluenza. affluenza notinfluenced because his parents
(46:01):
were so affluent or well to dothat they had never given any
boundaries and therefore hedidn'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 toorich 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 ofdifferent claims. But that is
kind of some of the that is kindof the the major some of the
some of the major ones for theDND specific related Satanic
Panic moments. If you have anyother ones feel free to reach
(46:42):
out and let us know please do.
Your we can. You can reach usout on any of those of our
normal social media as we willget 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 thatstand on beachy Island and
resolute Canada. They belong tothree members of an ill fated
expedition to the NorthwestPassage, and one unlucky soul
who was sent to look for them.
In 1845, Sir John Franklin ledan expedition to find the
(47:17):
Northwest Passage, a suspecteddirect route between the
Atlantic Ocean and the PacificOcean across the Arctic. So they
were trying to find a way easyway to get between the two.
These ships that they took werecalled the Aerobus. And the
terror. I know this story, yes.
It's a subject of a very goodbook called The terror by John's
(47:38):
Dan Simmons. But anyway, anotherTV show. Yeah, that too. And
they were supposed to beunstoppable 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. Itstopped them. Of course. They
were stuck for weeks. The 121nine members of the expedition
had visited beachy island for awinter in cabinet and buried
three of their members, JohnTorrington, William brain and
John Hartle. It's unknown howthese three men died. The rest
of the crew abandoned the stuckships later and they tried to
(48:17):
walk to safety. And this isreally just a guess. Because I
guess they don't really know.
They found a few graves. Butthat's pretty much all that they
they know from this. Oh, theydid find the ships later. The
crew probably resorted tocannibalism, and there is some
evidence of that. And many diedfrom scurvy and lead poisoning,
(48:41):
suspected and actually read thatthe lead poisoning was from
bullets. Now. It's because Ididn't seal the CANS properly.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, so that was butalso the scurvy, they did
actually bring with them. Ithink it was lemon juice, to try
to get rid of that. But after awhile lemon juice loses its
effectiveness. And so it wasn'teffective at all. And so they
(49:04):
got scurvy. But all men from theexpedition were lost, and they
were never heard from again.
Both ships were eventuallyfound. They found the Aerobus
and 2014. And the terror in2016. And again, this happened
in 1845. So long time. Yeah. Thefourth grave marker was for
Thomas Morgan, a member of oneof the expeditions that were
later launched to try to findout what happened to the
(49:26):
Franklin Expedition. Row badluck, 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 isour McCobb minute. This story is
very interesting. I've done alot of research here and there
on the Aerobus and the terrorbut 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 mypersonal life of dealing with
the Satanic Panic. Lay it on mewell with, I'm gonna. But as far
as during this whole time, Iremember that I was the dungeon
master of my group as I amforever dungeon master, but I
(50:19):
had I would carry around a lotof d&d books. And at the time I
was being watched by ababysitter, and who was have a
particularly strong religiousslant. She spent a lot of her
time watching 700 club and stufflike that. And of course, like I
(50:43):
said, during this time, placeslike the 700 Club, we're all
about trying to talk about d&d Vand being a bad bad influence
and wizards in witchery anddivination and stuff being the,
the the tools of the devil, soshe wouldn't allow me to bring
the books into her house. So Iused to have to leave my
(51:05):
backpack sitting outside and notbe allowed into her house with
them. Which she told me a storyabout they found d&d books at
her friend's house, and theytried to burn them and the and
the books exploded, but one ofthe guys was saying a prayer to
(51:25):
the flames like, went around himand 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 didnot burn a d&d book and have a
(51:46):
fireball bust up out of there.
Now, and now. There was nosorcerer 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 wasreally weird. Then also my
school are at this in like,sixth or seventh grade. This was
the a little bit later. Theytried to bend d&d, but they
(52:19):
didn't try to do it by banningd&d. They tried to ban bringing
dice to school for under theguise of like gambling or
whatever. We were like, okay,that's fine. You don't with that
is it's not hard to make arandom number generator on a
piece of paper. Yeah, not thatbig of a deal. Anyways, but that
(52:40):
was so yeah, so I had to dealwith a person who was very much
bought into this whole satanicthing. And, and also at the
time, I remember seeing stuffthat is more into the next
episode that we're about to gointo. But the much more about
the the the horrors of ofchildren in daycare,
(53:03):
ritualistic, demonic satanicpractices. Well, we'll save that
for our next satanic episode,entitled, devils in daycare.
It'll make sense next week. Butuntil that time, thank you all
for listening. If you have anyof your own Satanic Panic
(53:24):
stories that you would like toshare, please feel free to reach
out, you can reach us onTwitter, and Facebook at
Macabrepedia. And of
Marissa (53:33):
course, Instagram at Macabrepediapod. And if you
wanted to shoot us an email, youcan 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'msure there's a link somewhere in
the show notes you can always doso and we just released a
Patreon episode where we weredoing would you rather that
might be something that we'llwe'll continue going with over
there. And you kind of got anidea as to what some of our the
(54:03):
randomness that you can findover there with the release that
we did with the Bloody Mary theBloody Mary episode with our
guest hosts. But anyways, joinus next week as we add another
entry into this our Macabrepedia
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