The Capitol in Salt Lake City is pictured on Monday, May 6, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
Lawmakers took steps to revive a failed bill from last legislative session that would define and criminalize “ritualistic child sexual abuse.”
On Wednesday, members of the legislature’s Judiciary Interim Committee voted to re-open Child Abuse Amendments, a version of a bill sponsored by Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, during the 2024 legislative session that appeared to have support, but was never voted on by either the Utah House or Senate.
The bill describes the stuff of nightmares, reminiscent of the “satanic panic” that swept through Utah decades ago, involving a number of high-profile allegations of sexual abuse involving devil worship.
Many of those allegations surrounding the satanic panic were later debunked. In 1995, investigators with the Utah Attorney General’s Office who interviewed hundreds of Utahns claiming to be victims of some kind of satanically-motivated abuse said criminal charges were only filed in one case, according to a Deseret News story at the time.
But survivors, some of whom who spoke to lawmakers Wednesday, have for years advocated for a bill targeting this uniquely traumatic abuse. Their experiences are so unimaginable they are often met with skepticism — and the abuse is so taxing that many possible witnesses die by suicide, police officers say.
In the words of Ivory, witness testimony describing ritualistic abuse makes you “feel a little sick.”
During the committee meeting, one survivor said her abuser would wait every day at her bus stop to kidnap her, starting when she was just seven years old.
The woman, who testified in favor of Ivory’s bill last legislative session, described “being offered up as a sacrifice to an evil, unknown deity in exchange for power with unfamiliar chanting, candles lit and strange symbols displayed.”
“The school never noticed or contacted my home. I felt invisible. My family never knew, and my sweet and very aware parents believed I was safe at school,” she said. “I was literally hunted, caught and raped with a live snake inside a pillowcase over my head, with my abuser chanting aloud and asking Satan to join us.”
The woman said she blocked out memories of the abuse for decades, and that her abuser was never prosecuted.
Lt. Jason Randall with the Utah County Sheriff’s Office said he’s currently investigating a case that fits the definition of “ritualistic.” Two victims who could have testified have taken their own lives, and he said fear of being not believed might be preventing others from coming forward.
“One of the biggest consequences in these types of crimes is the victims are minimized,” he said. “They are abused and then they are left in a mental state where, when they come forward, it can be so unbelievable they are completely marginalized.”
Randall said codifying this particular kind of abuse — which he told lawmakers can include “thousands of different offenses” — would send a message to survivors that ritualized abuse is a crime investigators take seriously.
Under Ivory’s bill, “ritual abuse of a child” would be a new, second-degree felony that prosecutors could use if a crime meets a certain threshold.
“Ritual,” in the bill, is described as a ceremony “marked by specific actions, specific gestures, ceremonial objects, ceremonial clothing, religious texts, or specific words … designed to commemorate, celebrate, or solemnize a particular occasion or significance in a religious, cultural, social, institutional, or other context.”
Sexual abuse that involves a lengthy list of additional crimes could meet that definition, including torture, mutilation, human or animal sacrifice, bestiality and “ingestion or external application of an organic substance or material.”
The bill also defines some very specific actions — forcing a child to take drugs, enter a coffin or open grave that contains a human corpse, touch a mutilated human corpse or animal, or participate “in an unlawful, unauthorized, or mock marriage ceremony” are listed in the bill.
Ivory tried to pass a similar bill last legislative session, which resulted in a lengthy, emotional and graphic committee hearing where survivors and advocates described ritualistic abuse in detail. It sailed through the House Judiciary committee with just one lawmaker, Rep. Brian King, D-Salt Lake City, voting no because much of what’s described in the bill is already illegal.
But it was never brought to the House floor for a vote and ultimately died when the legislative session ended, never getting any consideration from either the House or Senate. This time around, Ivory said he has strengthened the definition of “ritual” in hopes that more lawmakers will get on board.
“There are certain things that are so heinous and hard to even talk about, that rise to the level of of needing heightened protection, both to punish and to prevent such such action,” Ivory said on Wednesday. “There are substantial, verified, credible allegations of these actions taking place right here in Happy Valley.”
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