Borshch Bones NOT Human SacrificeIn 1985 an ancient ritual abuse myth reappears among urban Dukh-i-zhiznikiWhy are thousands of descendants of Spiritual Christians from Russia in Southern California still scared by the longest and most expensive criminal trial in American history? by Andrei Conovaloff, February 21, 2011 — DRAFT In-Progress — Updated: April 20, 2020; September 14, 2022. URL: http://www.molokane.org/molokan/LA_Times Contents
1. Background In 1904, Russian historian Gantz wrote about heretics in Russia, including Skakuny (Leapers, Skippers, Jumpers): "All these sects are
accused of child-murder. They are said to wish to send children
unspotted to the Kingdom of Heaven. It is to be
noted that all these data are unreliable, because no
stranger is admitted to the secret devotions, while the
imaginations of the denouncers has just as much tendency
to revel in sexual and sanguinary [bloodthirsty]
ideas as that of the exalted devotees. The persecution
of these sects by the Government is easy to understand.
"(1)
In 1906 July, the Los Angeles Express reported: "A rumor to the effect that the “Holy Rollers” [or Holy Jumpers, in Monrovia] contemplate making sacrifices of children, to appease the wrath of God, is in circulation, and timid women are keeping close watch over their little ones ..."(2)In 1909 June, the Los Angeles Herald and the New York Times announced: "Human Blood Sect To Be Investigated; Russian Authorities Find Body of Fanatics Which Offer Sacrifices of Persons ... Dispatches from Perm, European Russia, say ... the sect of the Crimson God, ... are accused of human sacrifices and other horrible practices. .. The Ural region, ... is a breeding ground for many fanatical cults. It is a meeting place for ... persons who flee from Russia on account of religious persecution. .. their beliefs have developed along the most fanatical lines."  ——————————2. Myth ignites in Southern California The map (right) shows the path of the infectious myth of satanic child abuse allegations through Southern California in the early 1980s. The eruption of the 1982 hysteria may have been psychologically planted by the extensively publicized 1976 Chowchilla kidnapping of 26 kids in Madera County, Central California, 170 miles north of Bakersfield, Kern County. From 1982 to 1985, the hysterical media reports of child sexual abuse spread about 300 miles from Bakersfield to Manhattan Beach to Pico Rivera, and to Dukh-i-zhizniki in Norwalk, while simultaneously spreading eastward across the country, then to Europe and beyond for a decade. The fear was flamed by sensational mass media, mentally ill people, and naive aggressive government attorneys — many seeking fame and fortune. A total of 44 people were arrested in 3 districts in Southern California. While many were arrested, no one was absolutely proven guilty as the hysteria continued for more than a decade around the world. It was finally stopped by sensible social scientists, medical doctors and legal scholars. Books and movies have been made about many of the cases. In 1992 the Innocence Project was started by 2 Jewish lawyers to free people wrongfully imprisoned. In 2005 the Innocence Network began; and in 2012 the National Registry of Exonerations project was launched. The Norwalk case (#4 below) is detailed here to explain its impact on affiliated faith tribes of Spiritual Christian Dukh-i-zhizniki in Southern California who falsely believe they are "Molokans". #1 on map (right) — In 1982, 34 people were arrested in Bakersfield, Kern County, California, for alleged child sexual abuse — 120 miles north of Los Angeles.() #2 on map (right) — In 1983, repeated sensational news excited mentally ill parents in Manhattan Beach, West Los Angeles, where 7 day care workers got arrested.(4) #3 on map (right) — In 1984, hysterical parents in Pico Rivera, east of Los Angeles, accused their neighbors of similar crimes, resulting in 4 arrests. #4 on map (right) — In 1985, the myth was again falsely projected upon heretics from Russia, this time on a congregation of Spiritual Christian Dukh-i-zhizniki, who unfortunately mislabel themselves as "Molokans" in Southern California. They were in the wrong neighborhood at the wrong time, with the wrong name. No arrests, but fear still permeates throughout this very fragmented and segmented community. A hysterical woman looking for satanists confused "Moloch" with Molokan, called police and media. Within a week, thousands of alleged "Molochs" were terrified for their careers, reputations and property. The false label — "Molokan" — that their immigrant ancestors used when they arrived in Los Angeles beginning in 1905 to hide the fact that most of them were mixtures of Prygun (Holy Jumper) and other zealous faiths from Russia, sounds like, and is sometimes spelled "Moloch." About a dozen times the Bible describes kids sacrificed by fire to the "king" god Moloch (Molek, Molech, Molech, Milcom, Malcam, Malkam, ....) Animal bones discarded after Dukh-i-zhiznik ritual communal meals (no wine) in Norwalk were imagined by delusional people, some with mental disorders, to be human bones. An excavation trench for sewer drain pipe was suspected by a few local kids and their parents to lead to underground caves and rooms for devil worship and human sacrifice. The zealous accusers were on a compulsive witch-hunt. While watching daily television news announcing that what happened in Bakersfield had spread to Manhattan Beach, then to their Pico Rivera neighbors and across the country, they believed there was an epidemic of Satanism which must be stopped. A single mentally ill mother in Pico Rivera, Vickie Meyers, led the search for Satanists and the attack on the Spiritual Christian Dukh-i-zhizniki. When kids and parents dug up bones in Norwalk buried by "Russian Molochs," the police were notified and "reluctantly" conducted a full investigation on a vacant lot. The sensational event was reported in all local media. All informed 15 congregations of Dukh-i-zhizniki in Southern California and their relatives were concerned, some struck with intense long lasting fear. Will they get arrested? Will their faith and pictures be on TV news for weeks, months? It was sensational "breaking news" used to promote TV ratings during sweeps that scared the holy crap out of the former Holy Jumpers (now Dukh-i-zhizniki), and continues today. Only one Dukh-i-zhiznik representative, Mike Treguboff, of the wrongfully accused congregation no longer in Norwalk, was brave enough to talk to the media. He had no choice. An investigating reporter got his phone number from a Realtor who had the old property rental agreement, and phoned Treguboff twice. The reporter tried but failed to find something unusual, an exclusive news scoop. The short experience clouded Treguboff with fear for 2 years. He disconnected his phone, and feared for his job. He changed congregation membership. He got no support from any coreligionists anywhere. Dukh-i-zhizniki of all faith tribes and status were afraid to help him, or even ask how he was doing, lest they be exposed or involved. They offered no Christian courage.(5) Instead of standing up for their faiths as their ancestors did(6), thousands of Dukh-i-zhizniki in Southern California retreated in selfish fear for what might happen to their careers and jobs, businesses, congregations and organizations, if they were found out to be associated with alleged "Moloch" Satanists, daily alleged in all news media to sexually abuse, murder kids in a dungeon, and eat them. Delusions of a few accusers, magnified on TV, impacted these Spiritual Christian Dukh-i-zhizniki in Southern California with long-term needless anxiety, fears and drastically reduced their ranks. Hundreds of the integrated and assimilated wealthiest families stopped attending religious meetings, some moved their residences and businesses. Organization newsletter mailings were drastically reduced or cancelled. While none of the 44 people arrested in the first 3 cases was unanimously declared guilty, nearly all charges were dropped, and more than $25 million was paid in restitution. Compared to the relatively few day-care families seriously affected, hundreds of Dukh-i-zhizniki are impacted and continue to hide and divide 35 years later (in year 2020). 3. "Blood libel" History in Russia and USA In the 300s (4th century), organized Christians persecuted other faiths and perceived heretics. Beginning in the 1100s, Jews were prosecuted for the imagined blood libel.(1,2) In the mid 1700s for 15 years, two Russian Orthodox Church investigatory commissions in Moscow documented what they believed to be the Quaker heresy(7) infecting their territory and claimed to have uncovered "orgies and bloody sacrifice" — the blood libel allegedly spread into the Russian Empire from Europe. These false reports about religion were documented for centuries as fact. About 1900, the immigrating ancestors of Spiritual Christians from Russian were often called "Russian Quakers" by the press during their arrival to North America. In the 1990s after perestroika, Russian scholars were free to examine this bizarre history. In 2000, Panchenko published an overview and summary focusing on Russian schismatics and sectarians, concluding the blood libel reports were "pure fantasies"(8). No direct evidence could be found anywhere, he said.(9) On 2014 October 14, a history conference "The Strange World of Ritual Murder: Culture, Politics, and Belief in Eastern Europe and Beyond," was held at the University of Illinois. 12 scholars presented papers about false persecution of and hatred for Jews, especially in Russia, and "imagined crimes, real victims." In 2017 July, 14 research papers from the 2014 conference (above) were published in a book: Ritual Murder in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Beyond : New Histories of an Old Accusation, eds: E.M. Avrutin, J. Dekel-Chen, R. Weinberg; Indiana University Press, Jul 12, 2017, 303 pages. Separate papers and the book are online. May 2018 Minister Howard-Browne, who in 2017 laid-hands in prayer over President Trump in the White House Oval Office, preached: "... ... the people who rule the planet worship Lucifer. These people perform human sacrifices and drink blood. We got all the documentation on this. ... pedophilia at the highest levels of government ..."(3) Bemporad, Elissa, Legacy of Blood: Jews, Pogroms, and Ritual Murder in the Lands of the Soviets (New York, 2020; online edn, Oxford Academic, 19 Dec. 2019), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190466459.001.0001, accessed 2 Sept. 2022. 4. History Repeated In the 1980s, myths of Satanism and child abuse were kindled in California by a series of unrelated events, unfortunately connected by delusional people into a flaming hysteria, sensationalized by the media and politicians, then spread across the U.S. in 2 years, and around the world in 10 years.(4) Social scientists studied this 20-year Satanic ritual abuse (SRA) hysteria and found a high incidence of mental illness among parents making the false allegations about their kids.(12) The total social cost was enormous. The hysteria first flared in Southern California and 3 years later nearly destroyed the Dukh-i-zhiznik societies with terror, which permanently segmented their social structures.
5. Hysteria Infects Pico Rivera In April 1984, on the short Planter Street in south Pico Rivera, 4 adults were wrongfully arrested for allegations of kidnapping and child molestation solely based on stories from 11 neighborhood kids reported police by their mothers. The most vocal and hysterical of the mothers was Vickie Meyers. "... they were arrested in order to appease an angry and hostile group of parents threatening physical harm to those persons whom they believed may have molested their children."(18)A 10-day pretrial hearing was held in Whittier Municipal Court, a population center of descendants of Spiritual Christians from Russia, many affiliated with nearby Dukh-i-zhiznik congregations. Many live and work in Whittier-area governments, schools and own businesses; and their kids attend local schools. This case in east Los Angeles County amplified the sensational news about the McMartin Daycare School in the west county. Child abuse was now county-wide. Each of the 4 accused had their own attorney. In May 1984, Los Angeles District Attorney Robert Philobosian (1982-1984) seeking reelection enhanced the McMartin indictments to 208 from 115.(15) But, he lost the election to Ira Reiner (1984-1992). On Planter Street Vickie Meyers was obsessed to hunt and stop more Satanists. She telephoned anyone on the Pacific Coast who might have clues or information, and complained often to police (19) that Satanists existed in in adjacent cities. In July 1984, the Los Angeles County Sheriff assigned 8 full-time investigators to the Planter Street case for 4 months, with no results. Similar cases reported by Meyers were extensively investigated in Whittier and Covina, also inconclusive.(20) In March 1985 in Manhattan Beach, an expedition of about 50 McMartin Preschool parents dug for "secret underground rooms" in an adjacent vacant lot where they imagined massive sexual abuse of children occurred. None were found. A few days later the District Attorney's office hired an archaeological firm began to excavate. Again, none were found. (photo, court record) Vickie Meyers' persistent quest to find more Satanists finally paid off with a report of buried bones in Norwalk. 6. Allegations Against Dukh-i-zhizniki In May 1985, Meyers followed a phone tip leading her 4 miles south from her house along the 605 Freeway to Norwalk. In a neighborhood leveled for construction for the new Century Freeway (Interstate 105), there was a vacant lot where a temporary rented Dukh-i-zhiznik meeting hall once stood. The congregations was nick-named "605 church" after the adjacent freeway, a name that changed several times since it was founded before 1910 on Clarence street, In Russian the word tserka (church) is never used because historically the "Church" in Russia was Orthodox. The ancestors of this tribe of Spiritual Christians were anti-orthodox (heterodox) and treated as heretics. To conceal their religious meetings from authorities, they say still they are going to sobranie, using the Russian word for "meeting". And to hide their fragmented mystical tribal faiths, they falsely claim to be "Molokans", a word which Meyers could not find in the dictionary, but it appeared to her to be the same as "Moloch." In that Norwalk neighborhood kids fantasized that Satanism occurred in and under the former Dukh-i-zhiznik meeting hall. The kids saw people wearing strange white clothes (photo below). The men had long beards and wore white long-sleeved Russian peasant shirts (kosovorotki), and all women were covered in white costumes with full white head scarfs covering all their hair. These head scarfs are ridiculously mispronounced as ba-BUSH-ka by Americans, a word that translates as old woman and grandmother [BA-bush-ka]. During the meeting they slowly chanted Russian hymns and songs, jumped and shouted faster songs when one or more feel the presence of the Holy Spirit (loud noises). During funerals and evening service is held, and the body buried before noon the next day, when the white coffins is carried to the hearse with the casket open, showing the dead person. A prayer and song is sung, before the lid is put on, and the casket inserted into the vehicle. After burial, members and guests go home, change clothes, and return for a meal and service which can last 4 or more hours. On the day of burial, food is cooked by a team (called "party") who start early in the morning, and stay afterward to clean up. Typically someone in the cooking party will bury the bones that nobody wants. (21) Admittedly hysterical, Meyers convinced skeptical police to conduct a forensic investigation of the buried bones and excavate the underground sacrifice chambers. Crime scene investigators (CSI) reported animal soup and roast bones, no people bones and no caves. Meyers was adamant that all the scientists were wrong, the police inadequate, the lawyers practiced Satanism, and she vowed to continue to expose these Satanists. She kept many bones for her own analysis (photo below). In January 1986, the McMartin trial began in Los Angeles Superior Court, more than 2 years after the news first erupted, and again dominated the media daily. Many Dukh-i-zhizniki were terrified. Will they be next? Sunday school and Sunday assembly (sobranie) attendance plummeted. Some wealthy families moved to Orange County. Support for 2 community newsletters that were mailed to thousands was drastically reduced. 7. Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Name If the Dukh-i-zhiznik congregations stayed in their East Los Angeles sector and had not chosen to hide behind the false "Molokan" label, these allegations probably would have never occurred, and Meyers probably would have targeted other alleged Satanists. Being hysterical is not a crime. Diseases of the brain have been stigmatized by American society and largely ignored by the U.S. health care industry-government complex. Millions of undiagnosed, misdiagnosed and untreated people are free in our world. Due to the media hype about an epidemic of child-molestation, the police reluctantly investigated allegations by delusional people mostly to protect their jobs by following orders from media hungry district attorneys during an election year. The politics and timing was optimal for Meyers, but the place was unfortunate for these urbanized independent descendants of immigrant peasants from Russia with no centralized organization or leadership. In East Los Aangeles, most old-time natives personally know these non-Orthodox faiths from Russia and their fancy peasant dress on Sunday and holidays. Thousands went to school with Spiritual Christians from Russia of all faiths, and some shared ethnic food during holidays and at homes.  2005 photo of prayer at a cemetery burial showing typical Dukh-i-zhiznik dress — Westernized fancy Russian peasant-style in all white. Though their ancestors immigrated in multi-colored dark dress, it evolved to this mandatory basic white symbolizing spiritual purity. Many East Los Angeles natives are familiar with these Rusos (Russian in Spanish). The men above are presbyters from two different congregations near East Los Angeles (at the time), and are not members of the "605" congregation investigated. The immigrating Spiritual Christians were first concentrated in the Eighth Ward of Los Angeles (east of Alameda to the LA river, between Aliso and First streets). Next they dispersed east to the Ninth Ward Flat(s) (1910), Boyle Heights (1920-1960), East LA (1950-1980), and during the 1985 allegations, they clustered in and near Montebello, Downey, Whittier, Hacienda Heights (map below) with tens of thousands of descendants scattered throughout Southern California, and the west coast (map). Though Meyers lived 2.5 miles east of their largest cemetery at 7201 E. Slauson Ave, she probably never heard of them before her allegations. In the past 25 years (now 2020), since the allegations, most of the Dukh-i-zhiznik congregations have clustered in and north of Whittier, near the court where the Planter Street cases were first held. Most of their Spiritual Christian ancestors from Russia who settled in southern California immigrated in a wave from Russia with a variety of faiths, of which the majority were varieties of Pryguny, and by the 1950s transformed all remaining congregations into Dukh-i-zhizniki, leaving residual Pryguny with no meeting hall of their own. The other Spiritual Christian faiths retained meeting halls, some in the Los Angeles area (Subbotniki, Stundisty, Armenian Dukh-i-zhizniki, Evangelic Christians, Russian Baptists) while Molokane relocated in 1906 to establish a large congregation in San Fransisco on Potrero Hill, and the few Doukhobors moved north to the California Central Valley or back to Canada. Today more than 90% of these descendants are fully Americanized, intermarried, melted, assimilated and few know much, if any, of their heritage. A congregation of Armenian-American Pryguny divided; most transformed into Dukh-i-zhizniki then Pentecostal; while the evangelic Shakarian family founded the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International. The FGBMFI is the only descendant group which actively recruits new members and has grown. In contrast, the strictest American Dukh-i-zhizniki ban members from attending other faiths, do not participate in interfaith meetings, do not evangelize, have no missionaries or tracks (printed handouts), often shun each other and ostracize, and have no official representative or central office. When approached for questioning, elders typically don't answer, walk away, or refer the questioner to someone else who does the same. They are a closed society who will turn away non-member neighbors curious to attend a meeting. This Flatbush Ave congregation was nicknamed "605" for being along the 605 San Gabriel River Freeway. It's original names were Romanovskoye sobranie (Romanov meeting hall) after their village Romanovo in Kars province, Imperial Russia (now in Turkey); "Klubnikin's" after their founding prophet; then "Shubin's" after their presbyters; then podval (Russian for basement) for the step-down, first level half-basement of the house used at 116 S. Clarence street, next to the original Klubnikin's Market and Bakery; and finally "Clarence street church" in the UMCA Newsletters edited by the Federoff family who censored what they believed to be "vanity" heritage labels. This was the last remaining congregation in the "Flat(s)." In 1915 their first building was damaged by fire and repaired. After the death of their prophet E. G. Klubnikin, also in 1915, the congregation split into 3 branches. In 1975 the original building was completely destroyed by fire. After 1975 for 3 years the residual original congregation met house-to-house until finding a vacant low-rent former church building in the construction zone for the new Century Freeway, which they rented from 1978 to 1982, when it was demolished (date not now known). To prepare the building for Dukh-i-zhiznik rituals, a baptismal hot tub was removed and additional plumbing added for a women's bathroom and to upgrade kitchen drainage. To be "spiritual clean" the most conservative Dukh-i-zhiznik congregants insisted that their temporary "605" Norwalk meeting hall not be registered or their names shown on any government documents, so younger member Mike Treguboff was appointed to rent the hall and manage their business affairs (temporalities) in his name, which is how an investigating reporter got his phone number from a real estate agent.(5) After meeting in homes again, a permanent building was built in 1985-1989 at 15052 Clark avenue in the City of Industry. Now nicknamed "Clarkies," this congregation is also not incorporated, preferring to remain separated from the state, with Andy J. Shubin appointed to manage their temporalities. After the scare, Treguboff transferred to a different Dukh-i-zhiznik congregation in Whittier, variously known as Prokhladnoe, Melikoy, and Costa Glen Ave.(22) At least 10 other congregations had moved their prayer halls in stages from their ghetto in Flat(s) to Boyle Heights, East Los Angeles, Montebello, La Puente, and Hacienda Heights. Since 1985, three other congregations also moved from East LA to Whittier due to vandalism, racism (fear of Mexicans), and for closer proximity to residences of co-religionists. 8. Maps  The orange rings (2nd image above) show how the congregations, cemeteries and Sunday school (red-yellow dots) of Spiritual Christians from Russia in 1985, began in a ghetto on the east side of downtown Los Angeles in 1904, and migrated eastward (yellow arrow), spreading out (in a radiating section) as many descendants moved to suburbs in eastern Los Angeles county. The Flatbush Ave. prayer hall (bottom of red rectangle) was located miles south of neighborhoods familiar with these descendants of immigrants from Russia. Planter street accusers ventured 4 miles south in search of more Satanists. 9. No Martyrs Dukh-i-zhiznik oral history is rich with legions of martyrs — brave ancestors who suffered for their faith — torn on the rack, burned, nose ripped, imprisoned, exiled, women forced to nurse pigs. During World War I, for 10 months 34 Pryguny and Maksimisty were jailed in Arizona for not registering for the draft, and 6 were imprisoned for 4 years, and during WWII about 2 were jailed for a year (including my father John J. Conovaloff in Arizona), and during the Korean war 5 cases are documented — in total, more than 450,000 man-hours in jail. In 1985, the martyrs vanished. No one stepped up to defend the "605" congregation or wanted to be publicly associated with their faiths or heritage. Mike Treguboff said about May 29, 1985, he was driving home from his job as a factory supervisor while listening to the radio. He heard news that police, neighbors, and reporters were watching jack hammers and a tractor digging up the foundation of a former church on Flatbush Avenue in Norwalk. They were looking for bones of dead children killed and eaten by Satanists. Only a few miles from the scene, and curious to see if the news was about his former meeting hall property, he turned around and got on the 605 Freeway going south. Near the intersection of the new 105 Freeway, he drove slowly along the right lane and then along the freeway fence. He was about a 100 feet or more from a crowd of "as many as 200 people" at his former meeting hall (sobranie) location. He saw TV cameras and antennae trucks, police cars flashing, a tractor, kids on bikes. He was afraid to get any closer to such a mad crowd as reported on the radio while he was watching the scene from a distance. Treguboff drove home with anxiety and fear of what crazy event might happen next.(5)
His boss was questioned by county investigators, and assured him that nothing illegal was found and he still had a job. Whew!! (5) One man alone answered questions while up to a thousand coreligionists hid in nearby suburbs. No one wrote letters, signed a petition, or called police in protest or defense. Their fear spread to all inter-group contact and impacted their ethnic identity and meeting attendance. Though professed to be Christians, no one had compassion to pat Treguboff on the back for what he bravely did or even speak to him about his ordeal. He suffered 2 years of anxiety.(5) No other American Dukh-i-zhizniki contacted any media or law enforcement in defense of their co-religionists, nor did they hold a meeting or publish any news in their organization newsletters. Mute. The way this embarrassing history was hidden, appears similar to how the bride selling scandal (1911-1915) was concealed, with silence. An organization of business men, The Heritage Club, mostly Americanized descendants of Spiritual Christians Molokane, Pryguny and Dukh-i-zhizniki, formed in 1979, met monthly at Downey Community Hospital, 3 miles southeast of Planter street. Most members lived nearby, many in Downey; are upper-middle class, educated; with expensive homes, important jobs; and many with lucrative government contracts. They were terrified to be exposed. Some moved to Orange County. In 1985, unaware of the Satanist fears, historian Ethel Dunn appealed to the Heritage Club with Dr. Obrien-Rothe for funding to conduct research in Russia for "The Origin of Molokan Singing" project. Founding members of the Heritage Club first agreed to help, then refused, claiming the FBI would investigate them and they would loose their careers and businesses if they were associated with Russia or Russians.(22) In 1986, due to fear of being associated with Satanists, The Heritage Club ceased mailing an annual newspaper to their entire ethnic community — distribution dropped about 85%, from near 5000 to about 700.(23) In 1980, the mis-named United Molokan Christian Association (UMCA) (24) moved from East LA to Hacienda Heights, closer to the population center of their younger families. Average Sunday school attendance counted in the 100s in the 1960s, dropped in the 1970s for being "too far" and in the "Mexican area." At the new location attendance rose somewhat, then dropped as Dukh-i-zhizniki converted the community organization into a private elementary school while neglecting other youth programs. After 1985, average Sunday school attendance dropped to about a dozen kids. The annual UMCA picnic attended by thousands for decades, dropped to a few hundred. In 1985 the "Cold War" with the Soviet Union was still on and many patriotic Americans were suspicious of aliens, foreigners. The "working class white" Americans of Pico Rivera and Norwalk could be powerfully affected by racial stereotypes and preconceptions, and feel threatened by "other" (out-group) white people not exactly like them. 10. Vickie Meyers, the "Hysterical and Paranoid Parent"  "Bones found 4 miles south of their home were discarded after making borshcht (Russian soup) and roasting meat for communal meals. Meyers believes these are human bones." — Modesto Bee, 1987 (25) Meyers had 2 boys, ages 3 and 8. Pico Rivera had no city police department and contracted with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) for services, which included a special child molestation/ abuse investigation department; which was not called for help. The officer who first responded to Meyers was not trained in child abuse, child molestation or investigation, and he did not ask for skilled help from the central office. Probably special permission was needed from the local commander, with more paperwork and extra costs. For simplicity and speed, the local officers chose to do it all themselves, to finish their reports, although the County office had jurisdiction and should have been consulted. 11. Cost of Mental Illness Mental illness affects about one-fourth of the population. About 6% of the adults and 10% of children have serious mental disorders (NAMI). Less than half are diagnosed and treated (NCS). Untreated mental illness is a source of allegations of SRA.(8) The McMartin Preschool case was started by mentally ill accusers and managed by unskilled but well funded "legal" workers. 208 people were wrongfully accused for over 500 crimes allegedly commuted against 40 kids, from a total of 360 wrongfully diagnosed as having been abused. In 1990, after 7 years and $15 million in legal costs, the case was dismissed. It was the longest and most expensive criminal trial in American history.(12) The Pico Rivera Planter Street allegations were dismissed after much press. The wrongfully accused sued their neighbors and city, winning a $7.3 million settlement for false allegations and arrest 10 years later in 1995.(8) When the government appealed, the settlement inflated to ~$18 million in 2000. The media hysteria severely impacted Dukh-i-zhizniki. 100 years after immigration, the total attendance at all diaspora congregations is less than the number that immigrated. (27) Attendance and donations for the new LA-UMCA Molokan Elementary School, started by Dukh-i-zhizniki in 1981 to isolate their children from the evils of the world and teach their doctrine, increased progressively during the 1980s, then declined. The borshch bones that Vickie Meyers dug up to show the media, scared most of the Dukh-i-zhizniki away, and those who remained buried themselves from society. |
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12. References
13. News articles (More coming)
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Neighborhood Youngsters, Two Couples Accused of Molesting ChildrenLos Angeles Times, Apr 13, 1984 OC_A14 (461 words)Two couples who live on the same block in Pico Rivera were formally charged Thursday with sexually molesting four neighborhood children, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office announced. |
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Bones dug up at site of alleged ritual killingsParents say children forced to watch mutilationsThe Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution, May 23, 1985, page A/13 (451 words)Los Angeles Times NORWALK, Calif. - A group of parents, digging at an abandoned church site where children said they were forced to watch satanic killings of humans and animals, have uncovered 300 to 500 bones. The bones, uncovered during three days of digging at the site in Norwalk, about 15 miles south of Los Angeles, are the latest twist in a convoluted child-molestation investigation that has involved at least 12 children. But the parents and officials disagreed Wednesday ... |
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Soup Bones or Satanism?Churchyard Dug Up in Molestation CaseMay 30, 1985 — Los Angeles Times — Section: Long Beach — Page: 10-10 — By David Ferrell — Red notes updated March 4, 2020. False label "Molokan" appears 3 times.NORWALK — News cameras rolled as jackhammers and bulldozers took cracks at the huge slab of concrete. Dozens of bystanders watched from under shade trees cordoned off with long ribbons of police tape. Sheriff's deputies milled about near a mobile crime lab as traffic slowed to a crawl on the nearby San Gabriel River Freeway [605 Freeway]. The scene last Friday, in a former church yard on Flatbush Avenue [at Branscomb Street, southeast corner], was part of the search for evidence in a child-molestation case that has baffled investigators for more than a year and has torn apart the working-class neighborhood of Planter Street in Pico Rivera. Beginning May 18, parents of the alleged victims dug at the site and uncovered hundreds of bones they attributed to satanic sacrifices of humans and animals. The parents said their children had reported being taken there and watching rituals in chambers beneath the church. According to the parents and police reports, at least a dozen Planter Street children have described being molested and, in some cases, threatened with knives and guns to keep them quiet. Last April, four residents of Planter Street were
arrested and charged with 19 counts of kidnapping and
child molestation. The charges against them were
dismissed at a preliminary hearing in July in downtown Whittier, however,
after several children recanted their stories and the
judge ruled there was insufficient evidence. A fifth
resident, arrested in September, has been bound over for
trial on two counts of molestation and two counts of
kidnapping. All allegations were dismissed 10 years later. A total of $18 million in damages were awarded. Called a 'Witch Hunt' Defense attorneys have described the case as a "witch hunt" cooked up by conspiring children, crusading parents and the recent media uproar over child molestation in general. "This is the kind of case we all read about ... where
(lives) are ruined by absolute fabrications," one
attorney, Peter Gwosdof [Gvozdev],
said in an interview. "I just can't believe that such a
case exists." [The attorney's
last name is the same in Russian as the American Dukh-i-zhiznik
surname Gozdiff, ] Former suspects have filed multi million-dollar damage suits against the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the city of Pico Rivera, which contracts with the sheriff for police services. The suits charge false arrest, civil-rights violations, defamation and negligent infliction of emotional distress. Parents, meanwhile, have carried on a search for evidence while at odds with sheriff's investigators. Some parents have criticized the Sheriff's Department for taking what they said was only a cursory look at the allegations involving ritual sacrifices that surfaced last summer. Led by Vicki Meyers, mother of three of the alleged
victims, a small band of parents began digging at the
former site of the Old Dukh-i-zhiznik "The kids told us there was a basement under this
church," Meyers said. "We rented a jackhammer and
decided to dig up the bottom." Although sheriff's deputies halted the excavation on the state-owned property last week, Norwalk Mayor Marcial (Rod) Rodriguez, urged investigators, city officials and parents to begin working together to look beneath the building's concrete foundation. By Tuesday, the quest had produced a haul of about 500 bones — most or all believed to be animal remains — and conflicting conclusions about what the bones might mean. Parents Point to Bones To the parents, the bones helped confirmed the allegations, but a sampling of the bones examined last week by the coroner's office was determined to be nothing more than soup bones and poultry bones — perhaps left over from some long-ago meals, a coroner's spokesman said. A member of the Dukh-i-zhiznik
meeting hall "We used to throw our trash in the rubbish bin, but
most of our services were on weekends and the rubbish
(trucks) came toward the end of the week," church member
Mike Treguboff said. "We had flies and maggots . . . so
we said, 'The land's open, we might as well bury the
bones.'"
The bones were mostly the remains of meals served at weddings and other occasions, Treguboff said. Lt. Bill Stonich, a member of the county's child-abuse detail, said more than 100 bones and bone fragments would be examined this week by both the sheriff's crime lab and a county paleontologist, to determine their age and origin. But so far, he said, none of the bones has promised a breakthrough."At this point, we are leaving literally no stone unturned," Stonich said Tuesday. He said investigators have done their best to check out every allegation. "The children have told us many, many things. We have spent thousands of hours investigating .... If (we) had human bones, certainly that would be something to look at in depth. "We don't have that. We have chicken bones, steak bones and so forth. We are no closer to prosecution (now) than we were prior to digging." Parents disputed the coroner's findings, arguing that some of the excavated bones were not cut in the manner of soup bones. The parents said the bones supported the charges even though searchers have yet to find the underground rooms where the rituals allegedly occurred. "My son told us where to dig ... " Meyers said. "We dug in a 6-by-8-foot area and found approximately 500 bones. The kids in the neighborhood know what's going on." Despite medical evidence that some children were
molested, investigators acknowledge they have had
difficulty from the start sorting out the scores of
detailed and sometimes confusing stories told by the
alleged victims, whose ages range from 3 to 11. Deputies
conducted a three-day investigation before arresting the
four original suspects last April. All allegations were
dismissed 10 years later. "The
Nightmare That Lingers," Los Angele Times, April 16, 1995. $18
million in damages awarded. Allegations Recanted Later After the arrests, investigators continued to gather testimony, interviewing children at the Pico Rivera sheriff's station. The children later began recanting their stories, however, and prosecutors based their case at the preliminary hearing on the testimony of two 8-year-old boys. Under questioning, one said he had lied, and another was accused of lying by Whittier Municipal Court Judge Patricia J. Hofstetter. The impact of the case has caused at least three families to move from Planter Street and turned the once-close-knit neighborhood into a place of factions and broken friendships, residents said. Amid widespread television and newspaper coverage last
week, rumors circulated about the religious rites
carried on at the Old Dukh-i-zhiznik
Almost true. By tradition, coffins were hand carried from the viewing in their villages homes to the village cemetery. In Los Angeles, they carry the coffin from their meeting hall (or adjacent building) to a vehicle on the street, and everyone drives to a cemetery. The ritual of carrying the open casket outdoors is again preserved at the cemetery by carrying it to the grave from the hearse, and closed just before burial. Volunteers take turns shoveling dirt into the grave, as they did in old world rural villages. Meyers, who mocked her own
reputation by wearing a jersey with the initials
"H.A.P.P." (Hysterical and Paranoid Parent), said the word
"moloch"* has religious significance:
Webster's unabridged dictionary defines it as "a
tyrannical power to be (appeased) by human subservience
or sacrifice."
But church member Treguboff said his is a Spiritual Christian sect that
separated from the Russian Orthodox Church in the 1600s.* The Russian word (moloko) "molok," which
means milk, distinguished members of the sect because
they used milk, rather than wine, in religious
ceremonies.** Treguboff
said diaspora male members wear
tunics, a high collar Russian shirt or kosovorotka,
during services, and the men generally wear beards. Women
wear a head shawl, (Russian: kosinka, "triangle"
scarf) and full-length dress with apron, all
preferably white or light pastel.
"I feel for the people who went through this ordeal with their children," he said, "(but) people just jump to conclusions." Parents criticized investigators Tuesday for halting their work at the site after they had dug only one long, sharply angled trench into the church's concrete slab. Parents said the 3-foot-deep trench was not enough to determine whether there were underground rooms. Investigation Criticized "They quit," complained one parent who requested anonymity. "The kids told them (the entrance to the cellar) had been filled in ... they were going to have to dig quite a ways to find anything. The kids ... felt they were getting pretty close." Stonich, however, said children did not indicate the entrance had been filled until after the digging failed to uncover a stairway. He said workmen found no areas that appeared to have been filled in. He also said no further digging is planned unless the studies of the bones support the children's allegations. "The children told us there was a tunnel and a basement below the foundation," he said. "There was no indication to me or to anyone else that (the basement) exists or ever existed." |
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Expert's Opinion in Molestation CaseBones in Churchyard Called Table ScrapsJune 6, 1985 — Los Angeles Times — Section: Long Beach — Page: 10-3 — By David Ferrell — Red notes updated March 4, 2020. False label "Molokan" appears 2 times.NORWALK — More than 100 bones and bone fragments unearthed at a former church site here have been determined by a county paleontologist to be commercially butchered beef and lamb bones, casting doubt on allegations that they are the remains of satanic human and animal sacrifices. That conclusion contradicts charges made by children
and parents in a yearlong child molestation case in Pico
Rivera, according to Lt.
Bill Stonich of the county's child abuse detail.
Parents had claimed their children were sexually
molested and forced to witness satanic sacrifices at the
former site of the Old Dukh-i-zhiznik
"We were told we would find bones of a human origin and/or bones of animals used in some type of ritualistic sacrifices," Stonich said. "We did not find any evidence of that. (We) determined that the bones were beef and lamb bones, apparently cut with a band saw, which is consistent with commercial meat-cutting practices." Stonich said the bones were examined last week by Dr. David Whistler curator of vertebrate paleontology
of the Los Angeles
County Museum of Natural History. Whistler's
conclusions, Stonich said, supported the earlier
explanation of an Old Dukh-i-zhiznik
Charges Still Pending The case began in April, 1984, with the arrest of four Planter Street residents on 19 counts of molestation and kidnapping. Their charges were dismissed at a preliminary hearing last July, but a fifth resident of the street was arrested in September. That suspect now faces trial on two counts of molestation and two counts of kidnapping. Vicki Meyers, a parent who helped initiate the digging
at the former meeting
hall "I don't care what the bones are," Meyers said. "I want
to know why my kids know where they were buried. If
they're (leftover) dinners . . . where's the other
garbage? There's no food with them, no paper plates . .
. nothing." Investigators found no blood and saw nothing odd about the bones, according to Stonich. Congregation "I think they're getting down to nit-picking," Treguboff said angrily, denouncing the accusations. Stonich said investigators unearthed more than 100 bones in the most recent dig, May 24, before turning them over for scientific study. Parents, who began digging at the site May 18, had previously uncovered 300 to 500 bones, Meyers estimated. She said she turned over only a sampling of those bones to sheriff's deputies. Meyers said she intends to take some of the remaining bones to an independent cult specialist to determine whether they were used as part of satanic rituals.[No further reports in the LA Times exist. The local papers associated with the Long Beach Tribune, for Pico Rivera and Downey, may have published more information.] |
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Satan, Kids and Sex Statewide Spate Of Abuse Cases Leaves Cops, Families ReelingSan Jose Mercury News (CA), August 11, 1985, page 1A (1925 words)If 10-year-old David Tackett is correct, six satanic neighbors ran a thriving den of iniquity and murder in a modest beige house covered with ivy. ''I know the devil is there," said Tackett, who claims that he and eight playmates were sexually abused during cult-like rituals at the house on Planter Street. Sitting at his kitchen table recently, Tackett matter-of- factly described baby sacrifices, orgies, cremations, cannibalism, blood letting,... |
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The Nightmare That LingersLaw: Four people wrongly accused 11 years ago of child molestation have won a $7.3-million settlement. But the pain the allegations caused has not gone away.April 16, 1995 — Los Angeles Times — Section: Long Beach — Page: _ — By J. Michael Kennedy and John Pope — Red notes updated March 10, 2011The pain and the tears welled up in Helen O'Keefe when she thought of what it had been like all these years—the good name lost and the fight to get it back. The court battles, one after another, for her and her husband, Tim. And for their onetime neighbors, Jose Valentin and Myrna Malave, as well. Eleven years ago, a group of young children on Planter Street in Pico Rivera accused the four adults of sexual molestation, relating tales of "dancing knives" and baby killings. All the accused were marched off in handcuffs by sheriff's deputies as their neighbors watched. They were subjected to the sneering curses and threats that convicts reserve for child molesters, the lowest of the low in jailhouse hierarchies. Old friends wondered aloud if they had really done it. To this day, Valentin will not take his grandchildren out alone for fear of a knowing look from someone who recognizes him. Although the original charges were quickly dismissed as bogus, none of the accused have ever returned to the two small homes on Planter where they lived for so many years. "No matter how many years go by, it doesn't get any better," Helen O'Keefe said. "The stigma is still there." Last week was a victory of sorts for all four. A jury in Norwalk said they deserved to receive a settlement totaling $7.3 million from Los Angeles County for what they have endured, the pain of having their reputations soiled, perhaps beyond repair. One juror said she found it bizarre that even after all these years, two children who once lived on Planter still testified that they had taken part in satanic rituals long ago. But now comes the wait, the one to see if they must undergo yet another round of courtroom appeals before the long journey can be finished. So how could this happen? How could Tim O'Keefe the law student and Helen O'Keefe the bank employee, Jose Valentin the bakery worker and Myrna Malave the nurse fall into this morass? It seems unlikely that any of this would have occurred were it not for the now-infamous McMartin child molestation case, which had splashed across the news for the first time only a month before the four Pico Rivera residents were arrested. In that case, seven people were indicted on 115 counts of child molestation and conspiracy stemming from allegations at the family-run McMartin Pre-School in Manhattan Beach. Suddenly molestation became a hot topic, a subject that was being discussed everywhere. The McMartin case ended—six years and $15 million after it started—with a mistrial in the case of two defendants. Charges against the other five were dropped. Tim O'Keefe calls it "riding the McMartin wave" that got them all arrested in the first place. He blames what happened, at least in part, for his not being able to pass his California Bar exam. Malave says the ordeal is why she can no longer be a nurse and doesn't like to leave her house. Interacting with people has become difficult, she said. "There's always someone who's going to doubt." It all began April 3, 1984—a Tuesday—when a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy responded to a call from a woman on Planter, according to an appellate brief in the case. The O'Keefes, Valentin and Malave lived on that street as well, but the two couples did not know each other. According to the brief, the woman told the deputy that two of her children were acting strangely. Among other things, her 3-year-old son had been complaining that there were large spiders under his bed, making her suspect that he had been abused in some fashion. Further, her 8-year-old son told the deputy how, sometime earlier, he had been taken to a house down the street by a Latino teen-ager and locked in a closet. Neither story set off alarm bells. The deputy said at the time that he was uncertain whether either boy was telling the truth. But by Thursday, the neighborhood was in an uproar as word of more possible child molestations spread along the street. Deputies were called again to the street, this time because there were more than a dozen angry parents who had been told by their children that they, too, had been abused. The swirl of activity was lost on the O'Keefes, Valentin and Malave. (The latter two were married but used different last names.) What they did not know was that their two houses were being pointed out by some of the children as the places where child molesters lived. Beginning the next day, a Friday, their lives would be changed unalterably. Helen O'Keefe was the first to be confronted. A 26-year-old real estate appraiser for Great Western Savings Bank, she had come home for lunch and to finish a report she had been working on. She knew the small house well because she had lived there since she was 3 years old. There was a loud rapping at the door. When she opened it, she saw two sheriff's deputies, one with his gun drawn, the other with a shotgun. One of the deputies pulled her outside and forced her to the ground. "I felt like such a criminal," she said. "I kept saying, 'What's happening? What's happening?' " Down the street, Valentin, then 48, was at home watching television when he heard a noise in the back yard. When he went to investigate, he saw a group of deputies with their guns drawn. Then there was a knock at the front door. More deputies. They told him he was being detained until a search warrant arrived. Three hours later, Valentin was led off in handcuffs. "I wanted to die right there," he said. "I was in a state of shock." Through it all, he said, no one told him why he was being arrested. At the O'Keefe house, Helen was finally allowed to call her husband, who was working as a clerk in an Anaheim law firm while he attended law school. He rushed home, only to be arrested. Malave, then 42, was not home either when the deputies arrived. She was visiting her daughter when a friend phoned to say that something very strange was going on at her house. There was a crowd of people and police cars out front. When she reached the house, she too was arrested. Valentin had already been taken away. "I heard the words child abuse and right away said, 'You've got the wrong house,' " she recalled. " 'There's been a mistake. Child abuse to who?' " The arrest of the two couples was all over the news. They were charged with 17 crimes, including conspiracy, child molesting, sodomy, oral copulation, kidnapping and false imprisonment. Their bail was set at $100,000 each. And inside the jail, Tim O'Keefe, also then 26, said he understood the true meaning of fear the first time he was marched to the shower. "I had to strip and then walk down to the shower," he said. "There was just a barrage. Every thing was thrown at me—food and urine. People were spitting at me." They were calling him "baby raper." For Helen, it was equally demeaning, feeling as if she were on display at the jail and sickened by her own stench after six days with no shower. On the weekend after the O'Keefes were arrested, one of Helen's sisters, Roseann Ruvolo, called their parents in New Mexico. The parents drove nonstop through the night to get to Los Angeles the next day. Each day after that, until the O'Keefes were released after 22 days, someone from the family was at the jail to make sure all was well. Valentin and Malave posted bail earlier and were released before the O'Keefes. Ironically, relatives of defendants in the McMartin case often would be standing in line to visit at the jail as well. Ruvolo said they did not talk to them for fear of being associated with the more famous case. Getting out of jail did not diminish the anguish of being treated badly. Valentin found himself a pariah at the bakery, a total outcast. "People would swear at me. Someone spit on me," he said. "I had to sit there and take it. A guy said under his breath, 'I'll kill the son of a bitch.' When I'd sit down at a table in the cafeteria, everyone would get up and walk away. "A petition was circulated to get rid of me. I worked nights, and people followed me into the parking lot after work. People asked me if I really did these things. It went on for a long time." When Tim O'Keefe returned to law school for the first time, one of his classmates—a man he had known since childhood—asked him if he had really done all those things. Tim said he exploded in front of the class. "It was like going to the guillotine," he said. "You know the press has already been there asking about me." For her part, Helen O'Keefe returned to work at the bank, but only after enduring an initial threat to take her job away until her innocence was proved. She takes pride in the fact that she has stayed with the bank and been promoted, through economic downsizing and her own problems. Malave was supposed to start a new job the Monday after her arrest and lost it because she was in jail. She lost another job because of the time required in later civil suits. After several unsuccessful tries at a return to nursing, she is now on permanent disability. "I don't know if I could face a new job again," she said, citing the stress of the work now. In the wake of the arrest of the two couples, a talk show got into the act. One of the children on Planter Street appeared on the Oprah Winfrey program for a segment on victims of satanic rituals. There, he talked of being coerced into witnessing animal sacrifices, drinking animal blood from walnut shells and being put into coffins. Almost in passing, he also said he had witnessed a Latino baby being murdered and baked in an oven. Winfrey, at least on the air, appeared to accept it all as gospel. In the course of the interview, the boy's mother said the four people responsible had been arrested. The criminal case against the four never made it to trial. Instead, it was dismissed only three months after the charges were filed. Eight of the 11 children who made initial claims later admitted they had lied, according to a lawyer for the O'Keefes. Another of them recanted on the witness stand at the preliminary hearing. Whittier Municipal Judge Patricia Hofstetter, in dismissing the case, said inconsistencies in the children's testimony led her to conclude that they were lying. Peter Gwosdof , Helen O'Keefe's lawyer, speculated last week that the children of Planter Street who eventually recanted may have initially merely wanted to get in on the act, to be a part of the excitement going on at the time. In January, 1985, all four of the accused filed suit, charging false imprisonment, civil rights violations, defamation and the negligent infliction of emotional distress. But the weirdness of the case continued. Nine months after the four were freed, parents began digging around the former grounds of a Norwalk building Meanwhile, the two couples pressed forward with their civil suit, which did not reach a courtroom until 1990. A Superior Court judge concluded that the four should be awarded $3.7 million in damages. The county appealed and a jury trial was ordered. This most recent trial lasted six weeks. During it, one of the Planter Street children—now a teen-ager—took the stand and told essentially the same story that he had on the Oprah Winfrey show all those years ago. He declined to be interviewed, but said he stood by his testimony. Another witness took the stand and said he had been molested 150 times by 15 different couples in the neighborhood when he was a child. He also said "dancing knives" would come up out of the floor of the meeting hall Throughout both trials, sheriff's deputies maintained that they did not act improperly when they arrested the two couples. "It is still the feeling of the county counsel that the officers acted legally," said Peter Glick, the lawyer for the county. He added that the options of what to do next are still being considered. One juror, Helen McDowell, said the sentiment during deliberations was that the deputies did what they thought was right in light of a group of angry parents trying to protect their children. But they also felt that those arrested had suffered unjustly. "There was an atmosphere at the moment (the deputies) were really caught up with," McDowell said. Another juror, Margarita Hernandez, said the jurors were also amazed at the testimony of the two witnesses who are now teen-agers. "We just thought it was bizarre," she said. "Most of us have children and they do not speak that way. We really thought the kids had a problem." So both couples wait to see what will happen next. Valentin and Malave were in the process of separating when they were arrested in 1984 and have since done so. None of the four will say where they now live, although all still live in Southern California. All of the accused said last week that their lives had changed dramatically because of the arrests 11 years ago. They talk of headaches, anger, paranoia, insomnia and more. Malave said the arrest and subsequent events made her a different person. "I used to be outgoing. I was a happy-go-lucky person. I organized parties. I liked music and meeting people," she said. "I was very social, and now I'm the exact opposite. "I don't visit anybody and I don't go out much. I don't go to social gatherings, especially anywhere I know there are going to be children. I know it's wrong, but I'm afraid to touch them or hug them or say, 'Oh, you're so cute.' So I just stay away." |
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Law And Motion:
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False
Accusations Still Haunt Couple
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Nightmare On Planter StreetPress-Telegram (Long Beach, CA), October 13, 2000Sixteen years have passed since Tim and Helen O'Keefe and their onetime neighbors Jose Valentin and Myrna Malave became embroiled in a nightmare so horrendous that most of us could not even begin to imagine it. In the spring of 1984, just as the infamous McMartin Pre-School child molestation case was causing a national sensation, a group of children on Planter Street in Pico Rivera accused these four adults of similar crimes. The children told their parents tales of ... |
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Pair Falsely Jailed Win $14 MillionNeighborhood children accused Tim and Helen O'keefe of sex crimes in L.A. County, which appealed 2 previous verdictsContra Costa Times (Walnut Creek), October 15, 2000, page A26 (725 words)The nightmare began 16 years ago, when a group of children on Planter Street in Pico Rivera accused four adults of child bondage and molestation and of threatening that spiders would attack if the children told. Then came the sheriff's deputies with guns drawn, who took the two couples from their homes in handcuffs to jail. The charges were quickly dismissed as false. In January 1985, Tim O'Keefe, a law student, Helen O'Keefe, a bank employee, ... |
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