Nelsons daughter and son-in-law accused of sex abuse

[_Mary]

traditional media seems to be supporting the sensationalized claims against Barbara Snow rather than accurately reporting on what the Attorney General reports actually found.

I think we can all agree that Snow's reputation has been totally shot. The narrative is that within the context of a Satanic Ritual abuse panic, Snow fed the fires by planting false memories in many of her patients. She was/is therefore a dangerous woman who has done more harm than good. If there was any truth to any of the claims of abuse then Snow tainted any case she was involved in to such an extent that it would be impossible to proceed. This would be the case with the Miles.

This doesn't account however for the confession of the perpetrator who admitted that the Miles, the babysitter and his friend Dan were involved. But maybe Snow saw him at some point and implanted false memories in him also. (Slight sarcasm there..)I don't think Snow was ever involved with Bill Carstensen, though he was counselled at ISAT at some point according to Marion Smith.

If I'm representing Lemmie and Cinepro's position on Snow correctly, then they have provided evidence themselves for why they feel that way.

Both the Hadfield and Bullock cases provide the fire for that because in both cases it was Snow's methods that were used by the defence.

[_cinepro]

traditional media seems to be supporting the sensationalized claims against Barbara Snow rather than accurately reporting on what the Attorney General reports actually found.

This doesn't account however for the confession of the perpetrator who admitted that the Miles, the babysitter and his friend Dan were involved. But maybe Snow saw him at some point and implanted false memories in him also. (Slight sarcasm there..)I don't think Snow was ever involved with Bill Carstensen, though he was counselled at ISAT at some point according to Marion Smith.

We're having the same conversation on the other board, where I just responded as to why Bill's "confession" might not be good evidence. But for those who aren't following it there, I'll post it here as well.

If you read the transcript of the conversation Marion says she had with Bill, it's very leading and the information is being introduced by the interviewer, not Bill. This is very problematic. And remember, it's being told from the perspective of someone who believed these things were actually happening. But comments like this raise a huge red flag for me:

(Marion) Perhaps Bill had little memory of many of his actions as he apparently was highly dissociative. No new information was really received by us.

Another key principle that needs to be remembered is it was also possible for false memories to be given to the accused.

This is a good article about that:

False memories and false confessions: the psychology of imagined crimes

In 2015, Shaw set out to discover if she could implant detailed memories of committing a crime in people's minds, as a proxy for understanding how real-world false confessions arise. To do that, she used an updated version of Loftus's shopping-centre experiment. With her former PhD adviser Stephen Porter, a forensic psychologist at the University of British Columbia, Shaw recruited 60 student participants, splitting them into two groups. The first was told they'd experienced an event as teenagers, such as an injury, a dog attack, or losing a large sum of money. The second was told they'd committed a crime, such as assault or theft, as teenagers. To make the memories more convincing, Shaw wove in autobiographical information from the participants' parents - such as where they were living, and the name of a friend that the participant had at the age they'd supposedly committed the crime.

After the initial meeting, none of the participants could recall the false memory. But every night for three weeks, they were encouraged to spend a few minutes visualising the event. Adding some social manipulation, Shaw told them most people can recall memories, but only if they try hard enough.

Shaw recalls the moment she realised her experiment was working. An important cue that a false memory is taking hold is the richness of the reported detail: "I had a participant who was doing my guided imagery exercise; it seems so trivial but she said, 'Blue sky, I see a blue sky.' It showed that she was buying into the idea of actually experiencing this event and was accessing a memory, as opposed to her imagination. Those were the kinds of details that ended up being the foundation for the event itself."

The combination - a seemingly incontrovertible story backed up by real autobiographical details, visualisation and performance pressure - resulted in 70 per cent of participants generating a rich false memory of the event. Previous implantation studies had rates of 35 per cent. Unexpectedly, participants were as receptive to the false memories of committing crimes as they were to the emotional ones, Shaw says, despite the assumption that people would find it harder to believe they'd acted criminally in the past.

(Emphasis added)

So yeah, when you tell me they were giving Bill drugs and telling him he had done stuff like this and then he seemed to remember doing it, I'm not really convinced. Especially when exchanges like this happen:

MARION: How did it all get started?

BILL: I can't. ..I haven’t been able to come up with those things and I expend an inordinate time trying to put things together...and have come with hypothesis from the beginning...(stops)

MARION: But not memories?

BILL: Correct.

[_Lemmie]

I actually found this article to be quite balanced. A lot more balanced than Cinepro or Lemmies responses on the whole.

Abuse occurred. A high standard was required for prosecution. That only occurred with Hadfield. That others were not prosecuted doesn't mean abuse didn't occur, only that there wasn't the evidence to convict.

In my estimation, Cinepro and Lemmie read Snow and Satanic Panic and therefore all claims are invalid, false, untrue. I don't think it is as easy as that.

My last responses quoted a court decision, written by a judge, in 2002. Your 'estimation' is absolutely wrong, and is not based in facts.

[_Mary]

If this narrative is accurate, Hadfield was almost certainly innocent.

While many Lehi citizens refused to believe the claims against the Burnhams, others joined Dr. Snow in a parent-therapy group. Alan B. Hadfield and Rex Bowers, both active Mormons in the Eight Ward, emerged as vocal supporters of Dr. Snow. At their urging, the Utah County Sheriff's Office and the Utah Attorney General Office began a lengthy investigation. In the meantime Dr. Snow continued to interview new children, and more shocking revelations came. In February 1986 the son of Rex Bowers, in an interview with Dr. Snow, recalled instances of sexual molestation by his father.

In May both a daughter and son of Alan Hadfield told Dr. Snow that they had been forced by their father to have both anal and oral sex with him. Believing the allegations, Hadfield's wife abandoned her husband, never to return. Dr. Snow, at this stage, claimed that the children had confessed -- just as in other prominent cases throughout the country-- that they had been initiated into Satanic cults, and compelled to worship Satan. They had apparently described rituals very similar to the horrible "Feast of the Beast" that Michelle Smith had remembered and described in her 1980 book. When the police concluded their investigation in 1987, Dr. Snow had accused fourty adults -- almost all of them active Mormons in Lehi's Eight Ward -- to be ritual child abusers and members of a secret Satanic cult. Although Snow was publically and vocally backed by the Intermountain Sexual Abuse Treatment Center and by Dr. Paul L. Whitehead, public-affairs representative for the Utah Psychiatric Association, prosecutors decided to file charges against only one individual, Alan Hadfield.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

At trial, it came out that both Wayne Watson, Chief Deputy Utah County Attorney, who had witnessed through a two-way mirror one of Dr. Snow's interviews, and Judy Pugh, a colleague of Dr.Snow at the Intermountain Sexual Abuse Treatment Center, thought that Dr.Snow was coaching the children into admitting sexual and Satanic abuses that they had initially denied. A ten-year old girl testified that she had tried to persuade Dr.Snow that she had never been abused, but later had cracked under the pressure of the therapist, persuaded that Dr.Snow would not have let her go unless she agreed to accuse someone of ritual abuse. Hadfield's defense attorney Dr. Stephen Golding, director of clinical psychology at the University of Utah, as an expert witness who labelled Snow's techniques as "subtly coercive and highly questionable". A nervous and confused Hadfield did not help his case when he said in Court: "If I did those things, I don't remember".

https://www.cesnur.org/2001/archive/mi_mormons.htm
(Emphasis added)

Imho, that can be be read both ways Cinepro. They might have supported her to hide their guilt. I don't know if Hadfield or Bullock, for that matter, were guilty or innocent. What I do know is that the jury found them guilty based on the evidence available to them, and I'm not a party to all the evidence for conviction that was presented. I am aware of the modus operandi of the defence which was to concentrate on Snow's methods. Ultimately that was unsuccesful, not because (imho) the jury and judges were blinded by a Satanic panic, because the defence made darn sure that was on the table, but because there was enough evidence to convict *in spite*|of the involvement of Snow.

[_Lemmie]

Are you saying that some of the news reports in your timeline are not accurate due to sensationalization? I just looked again and I didn't see any distinction. Which media reports in your chronology do you think contain inaccurate statements?

Did I imply that in any way? No. I'll put any and all articles up and the reader can decide on any sensationalism therein. This has already taken too much of my time.

In response to doc:

[I get the feeling you're not actively aware of any media that "seems to be supporting the sensationalized claims against Barbara Snow rather than accurately reporting on what the Attorney General reports actually found."

You wrote:

[I've included them on the timeline

Hence my question. Thank you for the clarification.

[_cinepro]

I think we can all agree that Snow's reputation has been totally shot. The narrative is that within the context of a Satanic Ritual abuse panic, Snow fed the fires by planting false memories in many of her patients. She was/is therefore a dangerous woman who has done more harm than good. If there was any truth to any of the claims of abuse then Snow tainted any case she was involved in to such an extent that it would be impossible to proceed. This would be the case with the Miles.

Here is an appraisal of Dr. Snow's techniques that was presented in the Bullock trial. If what these people say is true about how Snow interviewed kids, then I don't think there's much doubt about what was going on.

In response, defendant presented three expert witnesses who were critical of Dr. Snow's techniques and the validity of Dr. Tyler's corroborative assessments because of the asserted contamination of the victims' testimony occasioned by Dr. Snow's interviewing process. Specifically, Dr. Monica Christy testified that it was important to tape the initial interviews of the children, not only to record the answers, but also to understand how the questions were asked and to be able to remember the fine details of the interview. Dr. Christy challenged the objectivity of Dr. Snow's interviewing techniques of ignoring the child's response until the child learned to give the answer she expected and of rewarding answers that she liked by making such comments as "good boy." Dr. Christy was critical of Dr. Snow's practice of "shaping" the testimony of a child by confronting an undesired response with the statement that the child must tell the truth, thereby implying that the truth had not been told. She was also critical of the fact that at the meeting held in the office of the county attorney, the boys were permitted to "cross-contaminate" each other by sharing their versions of the sexual abuse incidents.

Dr. Michael DeCaria was similarly critical of Dr. Snow's interviewing procedures. He testified that when interviewing children, the questions must be "open-ended." That is, a question cannot have the answer already contained within it. The interviewer must also be neutral and impartial from the outset and not make prejudgments as to what has occurred. Additionally, Dr. DeCaria explained that there is a danger in having children repeat allegations to different people since the more an event is discussed, the more real the event may seem to become. He emphasized the need to record the interviews of the children. It was his ultimate opinion that by the time the boys were interviewed by Dr. Tyler, they were irretrievably contaminated by their previous contacts with Dr. Snow, their parents, and the other children.

Dr. Stephen Golding testified that one who interviews a child in such cases must remain completely neutral and that when Dr. Snow conceded that she was a child advocate looking for sexual abuse, she missed the forensic mental health standards "by a mile." It was his conclusion that once the boys had been contaminated by the interviewing methods of Dr. Snow, it was impossible for Dr. Tyler or anyone else to know what had actually happened.

https://law.justia.com/cases/utah/supre ... 70053.html
(Emphasis added)

This is how the Deseret News described the situation:

Bullock says his conviction has its roots in a bitter divorce with his first wife, which spawned a custody fight for the couple's children as well as allegations of sexual abuse against Bullock by his ex-spouse.

According to Bullock, in September 1985 when it appeared Bullock and his wife at the time were likely to win custody, the ex-spouse took the children to Dr. Barbara Snow, a therapist with the Intermountain Sexual Abuse Treatment Center.
Before long, Snow was spearheading the investigation into the alleged abuse, which she told police was rampant in the neighborhood. Bullock was eventually charged with abusing four boys when they were 6 or 7 years old.

Snow did not take notes or record any of her interviews with the children, and police found no physical evidence of the alleged abuse, according to court records.

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/937 ... -base.html

[_cinepro]

What I do know is that the jury found them guilty based on the evidence available to them, and I'm not a party to all the evidence for conviction that was presented. I am aware of the modus operandi of the defence which was to concentrate on Snow's methods. Ultimately that was unsuccesful, not because (imho) the jury and judges were blinded by a Satanic panic, because the defence made darn sure that was on the table, but because there was enough evidence to convict *in spite*|of the involvement of Snow.

In both cases, there was no other evidence than what had been revealed during interview sessions with Snow. That's why the defense had to concentrate on that. Because it was literally the only evidence.

Yes, the jury believed the kids. They accepted that as "enough evidence." But they shouldn't have. They made an understandable, but very tragic, mistake. Because sometimes kids in those circumstances lie.

[_Rosebud]

If this narrative is accurate, Hadfield was almost certainly innocent.

While many Lehi citizens refused to believe the claims against the Burnhams, others joined Dr. Snow in a parent-therapy group. Alan B. Hadfield and Rex Bowers, both active Mormons in the Eight Ward, emerged as vocal supporters of Dr. Snow. At their urging, the Utah County Sheriff's Office and the Utah Attorney General Office began a lengthy investigation. In the meantime Dr. Snow continued to interview new children, and more shocking revelations came. In February 1986 the son of Rex Bowers, in an interview with Dr. Snow, recalled instances of sexual molestation by his father.

In May both a daughter and son of Alan Hadfield told Dr. Snow that they had been forced by their father to have both anal and oral sex with him. Believing the allegations, Hadfield's wife abandoned her husband, never to return. Dr. Snow, at this stage, claimed that the children had confessed -- just as in other prominent cases throughout the country-- that they had been initiated into Satanic cults, and compelled to worship Satan. They had apparently described rituals very similar to the horrible "Feast of the Beast" that Michelle Smith had remembered and described in her 1980 book. When the police concluded their investigation in 1987, Dr. Snow had accused fourty adults -- almost all of them active Mormons in Lehi's Eight Ward -- to be ritual child abusers and members of a secret Satanic cult. Although Snow was publically and vocally backed by the Intermountain Sexual Abuse Treatment Center and by Dr. Paul L. Whitehead, public-affairs representative for the Utah Psychiatric Association, prosecutors decided to file charges against only one individual, Alan Hadfield.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

At trial, it came out that both Wayne Watson, Chief Deputy Utah County Attorney, who had witnessed through a two-way mirror one of Dr. Snow's interviews, and Judy Pugh, a colleague of Dr.Snow at the Intermountain Sexual Abuse Treatment Center, thought that Dr.Snow was coaching the children into admitting sexual and Satanic abuses that they had initially denied. A ten-year old girl testified that she had tried to persuade Dr.Snow that she had never been abused, but later had cracked under the pressure of the therapist, persuaded that Dr.Snow would not have let her go unless she agreed to accuse someone of ritual abuse. Hadfield's defense attorney Dr. Stephen Golding, director of clinical psychology at the University of Utah, as an expert witness who labelled Snow's techniques as "subtly coercive and highly questionable". A nervous and confused Hadfield did not help his case when he said in Court: "If I did those things, I don't remember".

https://www.cesnur.org/2001/archive/mi_mormons.htm
(Emphasis added)

Imho, that can be be read both ways Cinepro. They might have supported her to hide their guilt. I don't know if Hadfield or Bullock, for that matter, were guilty or innocent. What I do know is that the jury found them guilty based on the evidence available to them, and I'm not a party to all the evidence for conviction that was presented. I am aware of the modus operandi of the defence which was to concentrate on Snow's methods. Ultimately that was unsuccesful, not because (imho) the jury and judges were blinded by a Satanic panic, because the defence made darn sure that was on the table, but because there was enough evidence to convict *in spite*|of the involvement of Snow.

Regarding what you've put bold, one of the common problems is guilty people trying to make themselves look innocent. For example, John Dehlin promoting his sexual harassment policy on the Open Stories Foundation website or advertising that he got excommunicated for his support of women. Or, a child predator spending an inordinate amount of time attacking other child predators and talking about how he supports the therapists who are sorting things out. Another really common example of this is the man who beats his wife on Saturday night the gets up in sacrament meeting to bear testimony of how much he loves and protects her on Sunday.

So, who supported and didn't support Snow in the beginning means nothing. Could be innocent. Could be guilty.

[_Mary]

My last responses quoted a court decision, written by a judge, in 2002. Your 'estimation' is absolutely wrong, and is not based in facts.

I believe you are referring to this
"

Bullock appealed in 2002 and his request for a new trial was denied. The judges, however, wrote a scathing opinion of Snow’s methods:

"...Dr. Snow also testified extensively about her interview techniques, and she acknowledged that she did not record her interviews with the children, take notes during the interviews, or write reports following the interviews.

Indeed, Dr. Snow admitted that her “own integrity” was the only way of verifying what had occurred during the interview sessions....
[…]
“Snow intentionally failed to preserve critical evidence of her initial and subsequent interviews in spite of the fact that she knew such interviews were critically important to both the prosecution and the defense in ascertaining the truth of the allegations she ascribed to the children. In addition, such failure was accomplished in complete bad faith since she had been requested numerous times to do so by the police and by other therapists."

The details of this are in the timeline for 2002

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/ap ... 36/505568/


"In this case, Snow's improper interviewing techniques were fully identified, examined, criticized, and interpreted at a trial in which Mr. Bullock was represented by competent counsel. It is clear from the trial record, for instance, that Mr. Bullock's trial counsel attacked Dr. Snow's credibility throughout the trial, raised the argument that Dr. Snow implanted the allegations of abuse in the boys' minds, and elicited expert testimony — including the state's own expert — condemning Dr. Snow's interview techniques. Cf. Chambers, 410 U.S. at 302, 93 S. Ct. 1038 (finding Due Process violation where state evidentiary ruling prevented the petitioner from asserting his defense). Under the circumstances, we decline to hold that Mr. Bullock's trial was fundamentally unfair.

The second aspect of Mr. Bullock's due process claim revolves around Dr. Snow's failure to record her interviews with the children. According to Mr. Bullock:

Snow intentionally failed to preserve critical evidence of her initial and subsequent interviews in spite of the fact that she knew such interviews were critically important to both the prosecution and the defense in ascertaining the truth of the allegations she ascribed to the children. In addition, such failure was accomplished in complete bad faith since she had been requested numerous times to do so by the police and by other therapists. Finally, the loss of a record of these initial priceless interviews can never be replaced for Appellant's defense.

This argument is unavailing."

"As discussed earlier, trial counsel appeared to have an objectively reasonable strategy for admitting the children's hearsay testimony, namely to attack Dr. Snow's credibility and to reveal inconsistencies in the boys' stories. Therefore, because Mr. Bullock's ineffective assistance of counsel claims fail, his Confrontation Clause argument also fails."

"The quest for the truth in sexual abuse cases is always difficult, particularly when the prosecution's case heavily relies upon the testimony of young victims. In this case, Dr. Snow's disturbing and irresponsible conduct has made this quest especially difficult. We do not know whether Dr. Snow still counsels children or testifies as a prosecution witness in sexual abuse cases; if she does either, we hope that she now follows proper professional and ethical standards. See, e.g., State v. Hadfield, 788 P.2d 506, 508-09 (Utah 1990) (explaining pervasive criticism of Dr. Snow's interview techniques and how "one police officer ... described how the children in Dr. Snow's care were able to reproduce specific information after he had suggested to Dr. Snow that such information should be present in their statements")."

Just out of interest, have the children of Hadfield or Bullock ever recanted on their childhood testimony. I'm guessing that would be the only thing that could clear their names, and if they aren't doing it, why?

[_Rosebud]

Cinepro... I don't know if you were around a while back when I came down against a man named Karren who was also trying to expose ritual abuse. This is why. What he was doing didn't seem legit to me. His reasoning was off and he was dragging his young adult daughter's name into the fray as if she were old enough to really consent to his activism.

Real criminals fight with each other. They take sides against each other, sometimes accusing a fellow in crime in order to make themselves look innocent, etc.

Karren seemed off to me. He wanted to "expose" his ex-FIL by accusing the guy of sexually abusing his ex-wife and daughter. How would we ever know Karren wasn't doing that to take pressure off of himself if he had also been part of any abuse if abuse did occur?

Doesn't make sense that a well father would drag his ex-wife and daughter through mud to "save the world," if you know what I mean.

Same problem here. In fact, it happens so much that it's one of those things that's worth noting as a red flag.