TIghtly packed, three episode docuseries about the people involved in an alleged child sex ring in a small, conservative Texas town in 2005.
Twenty years before the Mineola case, a moral panic over alleged child sex abuse in day care centers sprung up in Kern County, Ca, and quickly spread to other towns across the United States, as well as Canada, New Zealand, Brazil, and various European countries. The Mineola, case has similarities to those cases, and some important differences. Primarily, the allegations were not made against a daycare center, but rather BY a foster mother, who appears to have used her control over the children in her care to fabricate sensational charges of grooming and abuse of very young children. It is similar to the earlier daycare cases in that there was basically no evidence, just the testimony of very young children. Interviewer bias, manipulation and peer pressure was used to extract "testimony" from the involved children. And, as is too often the case in coerced confessions, only the end result of several hours of grilling and emotional blackmail was shown to jurors.
In a small Bible belt towns, Puritanism is a powerful force. A small "swingers club" of consenting adults had raised the ire of townsfolk who could not abide the fact that some people enjoy the company of others outside a traditional marriage. The townsfolk tried a number of ways to shut down the "swingers club" without success. So when a foster mother linked that group to alleged child molestation, it was ridiculously easy to find a sympathetic prosecutor to take up the case.
It is not a feel-good story. There are plenty of victims and very few heroes. Still, if you have an interest in prosecutorial over-reach and manipulated police interrogations, this will likely interest you.
Twenty years before the Mineola case, a moral panic over alleged child sex abuse in day care centers sprung up in Kern County, Ca, and quickly spread to other towns across the United States, as well as Canada, New Zealand, Brazil, and various European countries. The Mineola, case has similarities to those cases, and some important differences. Primarily, the allegations were not made against a daycare center, but rather BY a foster mother, who appears to have used her control over the children in her care to fabricate sensational charges of grooming and abuse of very young children. It is similar to the earlier daycare cases in that there was basically no evidence, just the testimony of very young children. Interviewer bias, manipulation and peer pressure was used to extract "testimony" from the involved children. And, as is too often the case in coerced confessions, only the end result of several hours of grilling and emotional blackmail was shown to jurors.
In a small Bible belt towns, Puritanism is a powerful force. A small "swingers club" of consenting adults had raised the ire of townsfolk who could not abide the fact that some people enjoy the company of others outside a traditional marriage. The townsfolk tried a number of ways to shut down the "swingers club" without success. So when a foster mother linked that group to alleged child molestation, it was ridiculously easy to find a sympathetic prosecutor to take up the case.
It is not a feel-good story. There are plenty of victims and very few heroes. Still, if you have an interest in prosecutorial over-reach and manipulated police interrogations, this will likely interest you.
