Here’s the thing: I don’t want there to have been real Satanic cults doing drugs and human sacrifices and sexually abusing kids in secret group rituals. But apparently all of that really did exist, and maybe these cults are still around, and the “mainstream” just doesn’t want to speak about it, and lumps it all in with “QAnon” and “Satanic panic”. But now, decades later, the evidence is piling up.
Most recently, I watched this interview with a retired New York undercover cop who had some involvement with the Son of Sam killing and a motorcycle gang that was alleged to be part of Satanic rituals:
Skip to 1:29:19 for the Etan Patz cold case and what Mike Codella uncovered by interviewing some of the criminals in that milieu who alleged that Patz was killed in a Satanic ritual not long after being kidnapped. I know all this stuff sounds bizarre and fantastical, but there are real dead bodies (including a young woman whose body was found who’d been killed by blunt force trauma to the chest from a dull sword) and other real evidence tied to real crimes. Occult true crime.
Not being from New York, learning there was a Satanic cult located in Yonkers, Westchester County, New York is just one more “sure, why the hell not?” piece of the puzzle. The city of Yonkers doesn’t ring any bells for me as far as organized crime or any other lore, so I guess they were where all the Satanic covens were.
How far back does this go? I found a report of what sounds like a Satanic ritual in a house in Yonkers in the NY Times Archive from 1931: the branding of a 17-year-old boy who was being held by an 82-year-old man and a 78-year-old woman.
AGED COUPLE HELD IN A ‘CULT BRANDING’; Yonkers Police Seize Man, 82, and Wife, 78, When Told of Cries of 17-Year-Old Boy. FIND ALTAR IN DIM HOUSE Officials Sift a Report That Youth, Whose Back Is Scarred, Was Seared to “Drive Out Devil.”
YONKERS, N.Y., Aug. 12.—A religious cult which may have practiced exorcism through no less a “magical formula” than a hot instrument drawn across the back and shoulders of a 17-year-old boy is under investigation by the local police.
Special to The New York Times. Aug. 13, 1931
That was nearly 92 years ago, and the two elders were around 80 years old, and there’s no indication that they’re the ones who founded the cult, or were the only members. So at minimum this has to have been going on for over 150 years. I suspect these groups have been in America since the Colonial days.
The 1931 story noted that the couple, “Carmello Zemo” (probably a misspelling of “Carmelo Zema”) and his wife, were held for a hearing on charges of disorderly conduct. I bet nothing happened after that. I found a Carmelo and Jennie Zema, Italian immigrants, in Ancestry.com, but no interesting info.
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