Satanic Panic

It was the biggest gold discovery in history...until it wasn’t. In 1995, Canadian mining company Bre-X announced to the world it had found a significant amount of gold deep in the jungles of Indonesia. Stock prices soared as investors worldwide fought to stake their claim. But when Bre-X’s chief geologist mysteriously fell from a helicopter over the jungle, the story of the billion dollar discovery began to unravel. Nearly three decades later, no one has ever been held accountable. In the new podcast, The Six Billion Dollar Gold Scam, host Suzanne Wilton takes you from the jungles of Indonesia to small town Alberta, Canada, to investigate what really happened and find out more about the man behind the biggest goldmine fraud of all time. Produced for the BBC World Service and CBC by BBC Scotland Productions. More episodes are available at: https://link.chtbl.com/9CSp5nOS

From the BBC World Service and CBC Podcasts comes Hollywood Exiles. Host Oona Chaplin tells the story of the decades-long campaign to root out communism in Hollywood. It’s a campaign that eventually drove her grandfather, Charlie Chaplin, and many others out of tinseltown. Hollywood Exiles is a tale of glamour, duplicity and political intrigue that reverberates to this day. It’s the story of how Tinseltown became an ideological battleground. The toll of the fight was enormous – reputations, careers and families were torn apart by the campaign to drive communists from the movie business. More episodes are available at: https://link.chtbl.com/gGpqMwyf

Fraud. Abduction. Murder. Every week, Crime Story host and investigative journalist Kathleen Goldhar goes deep into a tale of true crime with the storyteller who knows it best. From the reporter who exposed Bill Cosby, to the writer who solved one of Australia’s most chilling cold cases — Crime Story guests include: Gilbert King (Bone Valley), Eric Benson (Project Unabomb),Carole Fisher (The Girlfriends), and many more. More episodes are available at: https://link.chtbl.com/N7FDXl5u

The high seas are beyond the reach of international law – and beyond the beat of most reporters. But Pulitzer-Prize-winner and former New York Times journalist, Ian Urbina, has sailed into uncharted territories. Urbina sets out on a years-long quest to investigate murder at sea, modern slave labour, environmental crimes and quixotic adventurers. Part travelog, part true-crime thriller, this 7-part series takes listeners to places where the laws of the land no longer exist. The Outlaw Ocean is brought to you by CBC Podcasts and the LA Times and produced by The Outlaw Ocean Project. More episodes are available at http://hyperurl.co/theoutlawocean

Throughout the 1980s, Satanic cults were widely believed to be preying on children — torturing and terrorizing them as part of dark rituals. Across North America, there were hundreds of false allegations, scores of unjust criminal trials and countless lives torn apart. But never any real proof. By the early 90s, the panic reached the tiny Prairie town of Martensville, Saskatchewan. And nearly 30 years later, the people touched by it all are still picking up the pieces. So what happened? And why do so many still believe to this day? Originally launched by Uncover on February 5, 2020.

Police Officer Claudia Bryden is drawn into a bizarre case unfolding in the peaceful Prairie town of Martensville, Saskatchewan. What starts with a single complaint about an alleged sexual assault in a home daycare grows into something bigger and more disturbing than anyone could have imagined.

By June 1992, nine people face nearly 180 charges related to the sexual abuse of children who have attended a home daycare in Martensville. Journalist Dan Zakreski revisits the sites of the story that dominated everyone's attention, including a ‘Devil Church,’ and reflects on his own role in spreading the story. Then, we meet a young mother searching for answers who shares her own heartrending story of a childhood turned upside down by the Martensville Nightmare.

As the number of suspects continues to grow, rumours of an underground Satanic cult whose members include police officers have taken root. Saskatoon Police Officer John Popowich finds himself facing “the worst things that a human being can be accused of.”

A local activist in Saskatoon, Marjaleena Repo, says she knew instantly that the accused were innocent, victims of nothing less than mass hysteria. Though she sounds the alarm in any forum she can find, her warnings are ignored.

As devastating as the Martensville Nightmare is for all involved, it’s just one piece of a much bigger picture. FBI special agent Ken Lanning spent the ‘80s trying to figure out what the hell was happening across North America, and why.

How does it come to be that hundreds of children across North America and beyond report such similar crimes? How has a phenomenon that’s never seen a proven case become so real in the minds of so many? And what does it mean for the children at the centre of it all?

Far from healed, the Martensville Nightmare remains an open wound for those who lived through it. And yet for the rest of us, the history is all but lost — a symbol of the broader failure across the board to face the effects of the Satanic Panic head on or to learn its lessons. But, some surprising good did emerge out of all the pain.