On November 30, 1990, Tammy Whittington, fourteen years old at the time, was raped and strangled by two teens, who then burned her body. A big part of the problem with this case is the nature of the people involved. Tammy’s sister’s name was Angie.

Tammy and Angie ran away many times during the past three years, Whittington said. The mother, who divorced her husband in 1979 and moved her family to Port Orange from New Hampshire, said she fought constantly with her daughters. She said they were uncontrollable. Complaints from Tammy led her mother to face child abuse charges in criminal court last October.

Ok, this is not a good start.

Ok, I was wrong. This is a terrible start. It gets worse…

At least five police officers had told Tammy Whittington that she would end up dead on the streets if she didn’t stop running away from home, her mother said. She started running away from home when she was eleven.

So what responsibility did Tammy’s mother have in this, when not being accused of child abuse, that is?

When the body was discovered, I knew deep down it was her, said Whittington, who blamed state social workers and police for not doing enough to prevent her daughters from repeatedly running away.

The only way cops and shrinks could have stopped them from running away would be to lock them up. The problem lay with the mother, something she wasn’t prepared to accept. Tammy was last seen on December 1, 1990. She had run away and was seen making a phone call at a gas station. Hunters found her skeletonized remains on January 13, 1991.

Yes, the crime was horrific. This is highlighted all the more when it is realized that one of her killers had sex with her corpse. But set the scene…

Four bottles of wine! Early in the morning! And she’s fourteen. Three glasses of wine and I will hopefully make it to my bed without falling and breaking my neck.

Who committed the murders? There was really little doubt…

…John Linssens and Judson Ronald Vedder, both seventeen years old. This immediately leads to the question…why?

And…

…drop-out housebreakers…in other words…losers with no future.

The youths had become chronic truants and runaways. They were living in tents and played with others as commandos in the boggy forest, carrying weapons, mounting training missions and setting traps.

They had graduated into home and car burglaries and modeled themselves after the Latin Kings street gang. Teens were spending so much time playing D & D and in the woods that parents became concerned.

Again…losers.

…not just losers…psychopaths as well. What about the burnt sacrifice?

Officials believe Vedder and Linssens burned Whittington’s body in an attempt to destroy evidence.

And that makes a lot more sense…doesn’t it? Committing rape and murdering a child, not to mention an act of necrophilia, has nothing to do with D&D.

On October 14, 1982, 16-year-old Steven Loyacano of Castle Rock, Colorado went into the family’s garage, got into the car, and committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. His mother, Rosemary Loyacano, stated that she found medieval weapons and occult items, including…animal bones...in her son’s room. Who were the Loyacanos?

Steven Loyacano Steven…was the son of Rosemary Loyacano, the Western Regional Director for BADD. According to his mother, on KFYI radio (14 July 87), an occult recruiter carbon used D&D to lure her son into the world of Satanism. After his death on 14 October 82 of monoxide poisoning, Rosemary said she found occult books, occult pornography, symbols from black masses, including altar cloths and candles hidden in her son's room. She said that friends of his said he had engaged in "rituals and animal sacrifices." As she searched his room and looked in drawers, she found his writings which she describes as "horrible.”

Can anyone tell me what occult pornography is?

…Oh, I see. Pornography in a boy’s bedroom? That’s a new one. What Rosemary described is definitely linked to devil worship, rather than satanism. It’s actually fairly hardcore.

Rosemary Loyacano’s son, Steve, committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in 1982. She describes searching his room and finding angst-ridden references to Satan along with D&D materials. Like Pulling, she assembled a similar narrative of her son’s death. As she explains it, “We found out another young boy in the same class had introduced him to satanism. I believe he used Dungeons and Dragons as a tool to interest my son in this.” Significantly, she explains how she arrived at this conclusion over a period of months: “Little by little we pieced it together with the aid of friends.” These “friends” were likely cult cops and moral entrepreneurs like Pulling. Eventually Loyacano became a moral entrepreneur herself, traveling the country and giving slide shows of BADD claims about D&D.

So she…thinks Dungeons & Dragons was the tool used by a cult recruiter to entice her son into devil worship. And if all of this were true, are we supposed to believe that all this stuff was in her son’s room, but she didn’t find out about it until after his suicide? Of course, this claim allows the parents to say they didn’t know how screwed up the kid was, and therefore didn’t get him the psychiatric help he needed. In a certain sense, she resorted to the same ploy as Put Pulling Herself, whose son committed suicide, and then mysteriously she found D&D things in is his room…and she never knew a thing about it. And, strangely enough, Rosemary became a friend of Pulling, joined BADD, and toured the country speaking out against D&D. Honestly, I don’t believe this all-too-convenient storyline to explain why nothing was done to help the two youths.

On December 2, 1986, the elderly couple…

…Paul and Janie Kutz…of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, were murdered. They were found stabbed with their throats cut. It was believed that Paul was watching TV, and Janie was asleep in the bedroom. So it would seem that they were taken completely by surprise. So how did police become aware of their murder?

Two Not-So-Bright soldiers by the names of Mark Thompson and Jeffrey Meyer…

So, we can already see where this is going.

It does seem strange that they would keep the book on the dashboard.

When deputies examined the truck, they found a black robe and long black hood, the kind movie Ninjas wear, with what appeared to be bloodstains on them. They found a butterfly knife, a double-bladed martial arts weapon, a blowgun and three darts and a book called…Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Oriental Adventures book.

The costumes were purchased the day of the murder, and the police found the receipt in the truck.

Now as far as this goes, the Kutz couple had made a serious mistake…

And…

This window had been broken since the couple moved into the house and was covered with tape, and it is puzzling that Paul Kutz seemed adamant that he wouldn’t fix it. A spare key? Just fix the window and get a…regular spare key. So, from the criminals’ perspective, they were extraordinarily lucky. However, I think it’s far more reasonable to believe that they were casing homes in the neighborhood and noticed the broken window.

The book found on the dashboard of the truck was most likely something like…

It doesn’t exactly tax the mind to believe that one of the characters one can choose is a ninja.

The D&D book wasn’t the only one in the truck…

The book in question is probably…

…published in 1986, the year in which the murder of the Kutz couple took place. And it’s worth noting that the physical evidence points to an obsession with ninjas, which is fairly common with young boys, showing how immature the two killers were.

A Charlotte martial arts instructor said he regularly sees fanciful Ninjas. I get calls three times a week from people who want to be Ninja warriors, said Paul Cash, a Mecklenburg County police captain who runs American Kempo Karate Academy. Half of them already have their uniforms…you can get them through karate magazines…and they’re practicing moves they’ve seen in the movies. We don’t take them.

Dungeons & Dragons is not about a struggle between good and evil. And it does seem a bit strange that you can buy pewter Ninja figurines at a tobacco store. It was Meyer who played the D&D card…

And so it is that the claims about D&D were largely unsubstantiated, and since the anti-D&D movement was in full swing, why not take a shot and claim it?

Young people who drop out of school in this day and age have mental issues. And Green Beret goes well with ninja. Ninjas were not thieves…

Cat burglars?

Darla told me that a cat burglar is a burglar who steals cats, so Hamburglar must steal ham, not hamburgers. At any rate, thieves dressed in black and carrying weapons would kill silently, presenting the advantageous situation in which no one would hear a gunshot. Cat burglars who stole credit cards?

They stole guns too. But ninjas don’t use guns, they use silent weapons and commit assassinations by stealth, and well enough to enter and leave without anyone knowing that they had been there. Guns tend to make noise. And if ninjas don’t use guns, who does? Yes…hoodlums.

Ah, they stole jewelry too. I wonder if ninjas sell stolen loot to hock shops. This crime looks like a burglary and a murder. The two went to the home to steal credit cards, guns, and jewelry. Ninjas dress in all black, which is good if you are going to commit a burglary. And you don’t want neighbors to hear gunshots, so you used edged weapons. But must we look at the non-practical element as well?

Thompson’s father said the following…

Tompson said he would like to know more about the mental condition of his son.

However, Thompson’s father bought the story that would make Pulling and Loyacano proud…

No, his son was sick and sadistic, and given the inability to make it through high school, and having a childish obsession with the ninja nonsense, we can conclude that he was mentally ill and very immature. They joined the military, but the question remains…would they have made it in the military? And I know a condition that causes some people to have difficulty distinguishing what’s real from what’s unreal...

…yes, that would be it.

On January 17, 1984, the violent murder of…

…Robert and Kathy Swartz of Cape St. Claire, Maryland, took place. Kathy’s body was found outside lying in the snow. She was also naked. Police believe that she had been chased for several blocks by her attacker. She was caught, stabbed, and taken back home, where she was repeatedly stabbed. Her skull was cracked open with a hatchet. Robert’s body was found lying on the floor of a basement game room, where he died of 17 stab wounds. The bodies were discovered by one of the couple’s three adopted children.

Mrs. Swartz had not been raped, so one may posit that Robert was attacked first, then Kathy, who was able to run out the door, and run for three-quarters of a mile. The killer caught her by her gown, tearing it off, and then caught up with her in the woods, where he caught her again, brought her back to the house, and killed her. Her body was found spread-eagle by the swimming pool. The murders clearly evidence that whoever the killer was, he was very angry. There are some bizarre facts to the case that make one pause…

Tracing her bloody footprints, police said that Mrs. Swartz had run nearly a mile through streets, yards, and woods the night before, trying to elude her killer.

I say that is strange because I assume that she was screaming as she supposedly ran through streets and yards, yet it appears that no one knew that anything was wrong. No one came out of their house to see what was happening. Of course, someone may have but opted not to come forward.

When no traditional motive can be found, one must look closer to home.

The couple were strict Catholics, and foster parents. Robert was a computer specialist with General Electric who picketed a local abortion clinic. Kathy taught English at the same high school that her son Larry attended. They were involved in a marriage encounter group. Robert taught Sunday school, and both visited nursing home residents. They had two adopted sons, Michael and Larry. It was the latter who found the bodies. The initial take was that Michael was the killer.

“I think Michael had some deviancies that probably would have precluded anybody from having any type of relationship with him on any level … He was profoundly troubled,” Riely said. Friends and family told investigators that Michael had once even threatened to murder his parents, telling Kay that he could “walk up to Bob and stick a knife in his back [and] kill him,” according to Riely. 

Michael had spiraled out of control. He was breaking into houses and abusing drugs such as LSD and PCP, and PCP use always ends badly. But Michael had threatened to kill his parents, and now they were dead.

Tensions came to a head one evening when Michael snuck out to hang with friends, and his parents locked the front door and kicked him out of the house. They later called Social Services to have him placed with another family.  

There were two problems. First, Michael had been arrested and sent to the Palmer Family Boys’ Home at the Crownsville State Hospital. And he was there, in a locked ward, at the time of the murders. Second, a bloody handprint and bloody footprints found at the scene weren’t Michael’s.

Initially, Larry, who wasn’t suspected yet, was placed with another foster couple…

But it didn’t take long to figure out that the murders had been carried out by…

…Larry, who had been an adopted son since the age of seven. Larry was a cunning kid…

Bravo! How many convicts who desperately want to impress a parole board play the…I’m-Religious-Now card! Larry’s playing it before his trial even began.

According to one psychiatric report, Larry had at one time intended to become a priest.

Nice touch. The Swartz couple were strict, and some perceived that they were more strict than was common. Larry, who was loyal to Michael, played soccer and was usually described as a normal high school student in his junior year. However, his academic performance was poor…he routinely made Cs and Ds in school, and his adoptive parents would berate him for it in front other people. There’s no evidence that they were abusive, but adopting children means adopting the things that happened to those children. Larry may have seemed like a normal kid, but he wasn’t. One thing that came up was the Old Bugbear…

Ok, he likes D&D. Now, Larry was good at manipulating people…

Awesome…if I played D&D the night of the murders, and it won’t be hard to convince Sam Price since he already has a ridiculous, Pat Pullian and Rosemary Loyacnoish, view of the game, I can confess my guilt and link it to D&D, upon which I can base an, albeit exceedingly weak, argument that I was psychotic at the time. I would also say that the expression…big strong monster…makes me doubt that Larry was as big of a D&D player as we are told. D&D players love monsters, they know their names, their hit points…and players have their favorite monsters. If you were really an ardent player, you would name the big strong monster you encountered.

But the case brought up some troubling facts about Larry…

And…

Family and friends have depicted the parents as exacting people who had disowned one of their three adopted children – Michael – and had been unable to cope with Larry’s severe emotional problems.

But something else came up in the psychological tests…

Wow, I don’t suppose he was making it up…perhaps? How many stories is this kid gonna make up? And Larry was very honest when he described what happened…

In fact, it seemed as though he would admit his guilt to anyone who stood still long enough to listen to him…

Larry initially entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity which involved him trying to fake schizophrenia. But he faced a big problem…he wasn’t insane.

Sorry, Pulling and Loyacano…another blind alley.

On February 24, 1986, a bizarre murder took place…

…Maurice Huish (left) murdered Leigh Turner (center). This occurred in Australia, showing just how widely accepted the key components of the Satanic Panic had become. The odd thing about the murder is that Maurice went to the home of Leigh dressed up like a woman…a woman named…Linda. But the defense attorney claimed that…

 Linda was viewed as a separate personality, and Huish spoke in the third-party when talking about Linda. But it was Maurice, not Linda, who finally found a story to go with…

It's not easy for a man who hasn’t had much practice to successfully pass himself as a woman, and it boggers the mind to accept that Huish, well known to Turner, could have pulled it off. In fact, the movie…La Cage aux Folles…was brought up during the trial as having a series impact on Huish. As we all know, the movie is top-heavy with…

…drag queens and male cross dressers. So one might posit that Huish had learned how to pass himself off as a woman by practicing what he saw in the film. But it would appear that Turner finally recognized that he was dealing with Huish…

Turner’s comment about Huish being a sadistic bastard is no doubt linked to the real reason for the murder. But Huish stuck to the gimmick of having a female alter-ego…

Out of practice?

But sometimes you just go to the lowest common denominator…

So…

So, Linda likes D&D too.

It’s important to remember that characters in D&D work together to achieve a goal. There is killing in the game, but the killing is basically aimed at the various types of monsters and monster-like beings the players will encounter.

The reference to the game…Assassins…is a telling one. Precursors to this game go back to 1981. The game features assassins that are assigned “characters” to kill. This is a game that is acted out in the real world, and has produced problems…

A 19-year-old Cal State Long Beach sophomore shot while playing a popular game called "assassin" left intensive care Tuesday as university officials pleaded with students to stop playing the game. Mike Reagan, Norwalk, was in stable condition at Los Altos Hospital with gunshot wounds to his chest and leg. A hospital spokeswoman said Reagan was recovering well. The university's vice president, Jack Shaline, issued a statement to the student body Monday urging them not to play "assassin," in which players skulk about with toy weapons "terminating" other players.

Saturday night Reagan was nearly "terminated" for real when he assumed a firing position and aimed his simulated M-16 automatic rifle at a campus policeman. Reagan and Julia Gissel, 19, were seen getting out of a car carrying rifles. Sgt. Stephan King saw them rattling doors along a walkway and ordered them to "freeze police." The woman stopped, officers said, but Reagan turned around, assumed a squatting firing position and pointed the toy gun at King, who fired three times. University officials said King believed he was firing at a burglar.

There have been more than a dozen recent break-ins in the area where the shooting occurred…

Assassin was nothing like Dungeons and Dragons, as is readily apparent. It is Assassin, not D&D, that glorifies the gratuitous violence directed at real people, as opposed to giants, trolls, beholders, and dragons. Assassin spawned a bizarre movie called…

…Tag - The Assassination Game, which featured the first film appearance of Linda Hamilton, who went on to play Sarah Conner in the Terminator movies. Tag was released in 1982. If you want a game to blame, it would be Assassin, not D&D. Huish, speaking about Assassin, said…

And he engaged in a game called Assassins, in which he attacked imaginary victims on campus. He said it gave him a healthy sense of paranoia. Because…any person walking around campus may have a contract on you. It was like watching horror movies. You know you are safe, but you are still frightened.

But who was Maurice Huish?

…a loner. So what?

More…

Fantasy?

I suppose Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a fantasy world as well.

Ok…

The reference to Jack Torrance is particularly interest given the possibility that…

…Jack’s homosexuality can be found in hidden shots in the movie.

And Huish was an active member of the Viking Society, which involved dressing up in Viking garb and acting out mock battles. Maybe he dressed up like a Valkyrie. Of course, there is no D&D in any of this. The reason for the murder is a tried-and-true motive that is almost as old as man himself…

More…

A love triangle…an excellent motive for murder.

On September 16, 1985, police responded to the scene of a terrible car accident.

Wayne Haun, 22 years old, was driving his much-loved Mustang, headed for some weightlifting. Suddenly, a car slammed into the back of the Mustang, killing him. The driver of the other car was…

…John D Justice, a seventeen-year-old High Student honors student…a particularly intelligent and gifted young man who was so badly wanted to go to college. After taking him to the hospital, police began to get suspicious. Following the conversation, police went to…

…the home of the Justice family for a welfare check. Horrified, they found three dead bodies, those of John W Justice (37), Mary Justice (37), and Mark Justice (13). All had been stabbed to death. It didn’t take police long to realize that the driver of the car that killed Haun, the only person still alive among the Justices, John Justice Jr, was the murderer.

Although John was alive, he originally intended a murder-suicide…

Ok, that’s the murder part.

…and that’s the suicide part.

So Justice was a coward...killing others but unable, or unwilling, to kill himself.

Why? Because he was a coward.

Cowards aren’t known for their courage. Still, John made a half-assed attempt…

John was known for excelling in school. He was a member of a high school program called…It’s Academic…and represented his high school in interscholastic math competitions, being a member of the Mathletes team. He was also brilliant at chemistry. And he worked 25 hours a week to save money for college. He was obsessed with going to college, and was hoping for Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or the University of Chicago. And he spent a lot of time applying for scholarships. Why? Because his family didn’t have any money. He was clearly hardworking and devoted to school. And he sought out scholarships, aiming for some of the best colleges in the U.S. all on his own. On the surface, he was a kid that most parents would proudly claim as their own. But there was more beneath the surface.

More…

So, one wants to find a motive. Apparently, there were a…

…few bizarre rumors of John’s membership in a teenage satanic cult or that he was a D&D devotee who sacrificed his family on his Dungeon Masters's orders.

The source?

So much for Buffalo TV news…there aren’t already enough lies in the media, they had to go and fabricate one more. At any rate, D&D had nothing to do with what happened. But what did? As one might expect, John muddied the waters with different statements. Strangely…

He butchered his family out of love? They didn’t get everything they were owed in life, so he massacred them? His aunt…

…supported him nonetheless.

He floated this twist…

Dr. Tim Rasmusson, Justice's doctor, said, "He told me he killed his mother because she was against everything he ever wanted to do. He said he killed his brother and father out of love - so they wouldn't feel hurt when he and his mother were gone."

That’s as stupid as the first thing he said. Not long before the murders, he was convincing himself that colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, and Yale were where he wanted to be.

John pled not guilty by reason of insanity. This was upheld in the murders of his father and brother, but he was convicted of murder in the deaths of his mother and Wayne Haun. The verdict was later changed, holding Justice guilty of manslaughter in the death of his mother and Haun. The defense claimed that John was a paranoid schizophrenic who was obsessed with college…

Perversely…

Sometimes, when people who aren’t insane try to convince others they are insane, there is an insane urge to throw all manner of insane things into the mix…

This reference to an apocalyptic holocaust isn’t new. In fact, it sounds like a twist on the beliefs of Charles Manson…

By 1968, race riots, the Black Panther movement, and anti-world violence convinced Manson Armageddon was coming. He called it Helter Skelter after the famous Beatles song.

Manson believed the Beatles were speaking to him through the lyrics of their White Album, which was released in late 1968. The apocalyptic message, as Manson interpreted it: Blacks would “rise up” and overthrow the white establishment in a race war. Manson and his Family would be spared by hiding out in a “bottomless pit” near Death Valley until they could emerge to assume leadership of the postrevolutionary order.

But why have a dungeon master when you can have a Satan worshiper? He clearly picked this out of the Satanic Panic fruit basket and, moreover, did a little reading on Charles Manson.

But then, in time for a new trial in 1992…

Are there any further indicators of trouble with Justice?

Ok, but the police said this…

So, the police were familiar with the family due to their fighting. However…

Justice’s aunt, Jean Dubill, talks of her sister’s inability to deal with John’s earlier suicide attempt at the age of 13.

He tried to commit suicide years before?

Justice’s maternal grandfather, Andrew Dubill, notes that his late wife had a history of schizophrenia.

It runs in the family.

There is also the matter John Jr. being his mother’s and brother’s protector when his father became violent.

His father was violent, so what went on in the home of the Justices went well beyond loud arguments. Justice was suicidal, depressed, and very angry for years. Did he do what he did because of college? It may have been more than just that. John was desperately trying to find a way to be what his family wasn’t. Not going to college meant he would be just like them…and that was the last straw.

 In December 1984, a deranged man named…

…Daniel Eugene Remeta was unfortunately released from prison. He became involved with a former-honor student who ran away from home named…

…Lisa Dunn. And…

...they were the cutest couple there ever was. Two other men became involved with them…Mark Anthony Walter and James C Hunter, Jr. They went on a killing spree that started on January 27, 1985, lasting until February 13, 1985, ending in a shoot-out with police at the L.A. Roesch farm in Kansas. Walter was killed and Dunn and Remeta were wounded. Danny was using a .375 Magnum that Dunn had stolen from her father. All three were arrested. In the case that ensured, Dunn claimed Stockholm Syndrome to explain her role in the killings. A total of five people were killed outright, or as part of a robbery. Remeta was sentenced to death in Florida and died in the electric chair on March 31, 1998.

Again, D&D is not a boardgame, which anyone who has ever played it knows full well. So, Remeta blames his horrible deeds on Dungeons and Dragons…wrapping some stupid prison interviewer around his finger. And! He gives him a silly poem on top of it. But what is known about Remeta? His father, Thomas, was a drunk who would disappear on many a bender and abused his children.

On one occasion, Danny was taken to an emergency room after his father wacked him with a board.

The family was evicted from their home in 1971 and moved to Traverse City.

…nothing introduces your son to the new neighborhood kids than shooting at them. Boysville was a reform school, and Danny never learned his lesson there, being a frequent runaway. He graduated to stealing, breaking windows, and shoplifting. Family members forced Danny and Greg to fight each other, Danny was bullied, and his uncle killed his dog in front of him.

Danny dropped out of school in the ninth grade and would be sent to the Maxey Boys Training School. He escaped and continued committing crimes. At the age of 17, he was sent to state prison for 10 years. In prison, he spent most of his time in the hole, committing sodomy, inciting riots, and guilty of assault with a deadly weapon. He left prison when he was 27 years old. That’s when the real problems began. After meeting Dunn, the killing spree would begin. And his mother?

Yes, the story is an old one…she was a serious alcoholic…

Remeta's mother, Betty, said her family never had guns in the home and didn't even own a car.

I'm a mother; I know how you feel. My thoughts and prayers have been with you each and every day," Betty Remeta wrote in a letter of apology to the victims of her son's crimes that was published in the Wichita (Kan.) Eagle-Beacon.

The letter said she never knew her son to be violent and could not understand what happened.

"He was no animal or monster turned loose on the streets," she wrote. "The rest of my life I'll ask myself why."

A monster is exactly what he was, and he knew it. And so did she. Greg was a problem too, and authorities had become so tired of the Remetas that, following the arrest of Greg, they were…

As much as it irks me to even quote this comment by his mother, I will…

No comment.

I don’t think any more quotes like this are necessary. Danny once said that he had only two goals…to kill a cop, and to be a hitman. And he said his life was a long suicide journey, stating that he could not live among other people outside of jail

Danny Remeta was a cold-blooded murderer and master manipulator. His claims about Dungeons & Dragons were simply an attempt to push blame for his horrible crimes onto something else.

I still don’t consider myself a killer. To me, a killer is someone who has no human values. I won’t kill a kid. I don’t know if I could kill a female. I might, Lisa Dunn, I could probably kill her.

Ah, yes…but he wasn’t a killer.

At 12:17 on February 4, 1999, Gov. Frank Keating rejected a call for clemency that came from a death row inmate named…

…Sean Sellers, who was promptly executed by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Prison at McAlester.

``I'm begging you for mercy,'' he said. ``I can't imagine what I could say today to cause you to have mercy on me. The only thing I know to do is try to show my heart.''

That was the message Sellers gave the parole board as he begged to not be executed. But the parole board unanimously rejected Sean’s pitiful plea. The story began on September 8, 1985, when salesclerk…

…Robert Paul Bower was found shot to death in the Circle K where he worked. According to the police, nothing had been stolen. The police investigation went in the wrong direction. Bower sold drugs, and that’s how the investigation proceeded. Most of the time, it will be drugs. In this case it wasn’t, assuming that the killers had not, in fact, killed Bower for something drug related. But the police believed that they didn’t. Then on September 6, 1986, the police received a call from Sean Sellers…

…the son of Vonda Bellofatto, and stepson of Lee Bellofatto, stating that he came home, after staying with a friend the night before, and found that his parents had been murdered.

When the police got to the Bellofatto’s home, they were immediately suspicious. The idea that someone would break into the house, immediately kill the couple, then rob the house, didn’t fit.

The scene included the point of entry, a door with a wooden dowel that made it almost impossible to open the door from the outside, was lying on the floor. So, if there was an intruder, he couldn’t have accessed the house through that door, and no other possible point of entry was located. Valuables hadn’t been taken, and although drawers were open, the contents were still folded, or arranged, neatly in such a way that no burglar had touched them. Yes, someone else killed the couple, and then made a remarkably pathetic attempt to stage a burglary.  It did not take long to suspect that Sean had committed the crime. Sean had a friend, and yes…he actually had a friend... named…

…Richard Howard, who had been with Sean the night of the Bower murder but had nothing to do with the murder of Sean’s parents. But he agreed to hide the murder weapon in his home. Richard was married, and, the stress of knowing Sean killed his own parents, he told his wife. Then Richard took the gun and wrapped it up and threw it into a garbage can. Not long after, Richard told the police. And then, wishing to clear the air, he admitted to being involved in the murder of Robert Bower at the Circle K, and claimed that Sean killed the salesclerk. He wasn’t involved in the murder of Sean’s parents.

So now it was time for the real show. His defense strategies swayed in the wind and changed from one thing to something else. After several failures, it was time to play the insanity plea due to a mental illness card. First, he was a sociopath. Then! Your favorite and mine…Split-Personality-Disorder. Supposedly, he had a second personality named…The Controller. How creative. He had a third personality named…Danny. That’s pretty boring. And The Controller committed the murders. This went nowhere. Why? Because this whole nonsense about SPD and The Controller didn’t come up in his trials in the 1980s. It popped up in 1991-1992, when his case was being reviewed. Most people knew little about SPD, now called…Dissociative Personality Disorder…and I believe that neither exist. Perhaps they saw the Three Faces of Eve…one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, saw Sybil…a case that was a total fraud, and maybe even Chris MacNeil’s claim in The Exorcist that Regan was showing signs of this. And of course, Regan’s problems lay elsewhere. Actually, within the Nine Personality Types, there is a…controller. However, most traits associated with this personality type are quite positive…confident, efficient, takes the initiative, goal-oriented, self-disciplined, and competitive. But I do think that a great deal of Sean’s problems was the fact that his parents were truck drivers, and when they were gone, Sean was left with other family members. He would later accuse them of abusing him, and tried playing the sexual abuse card, his psychiatrist claiming that Sean would hammer pins into his penis, and that he had been forced to lick the testicles of a gang member in LA. But he did move over 30 times while he was a child, making it impossible to develop friendships, and ensuring that he would never have the feeling that he belonged somewhere.

Sean consistently blamed satanism and witchcraft as what caused him to do the horrible things he did. And it appears he made up…

…his own demonic language. There was a brief foray into…wait for it…demonic possession. And wow! He didn’t pick a demon from the usual list of bad guys, e.g. Beelzebub, Legion, Baphomet, Pazuzu…by way of example. He claimed that he was possessed by a demon named Ezurate. Now, I dig demons…and I’m always interested when new names pop up. And for the life of me, I had never heard this name. I did find that there was a death metal band named…

…Ezurate…a bunch of clowns. However, this band was formed in 1994. That said, they said this about their name…

Named after a Dungeons & Dragons demon, Ezurate, a black-metal group from the northern suburbs.

Important? Sure, Dungeons & Dragons was a persistent element in the character Sean created and initially used by his defense lawyers as they desperately tried to find a way to convince the jury that Sean Sellers was a sociopath. For what it’s worth, I have searched high and low for D&D demon named Ezurate. Thus far, I’ve come up empty handed. However, Darla is a frequent player of D&D, and I bought her all the books. I told her that she had better not murder me or I would ground her. She is looking through her books in an effort to find …Ezurate.

Sean’s main angle was satanism and given the fact that the Satanic Panic was growing ever more prevalent at the time, this was a pick that would resonate with the Kooky Christian Right. He made various claims over time. The basic picture is that he was a high priest of a coven called The Elimination. Sean had a habit of making gaffs. This group was made of thirteen members. Ah, yes…of course…the strange, haunting number considered bad luck. I suppose he could have said that this group with a goofy name had 666 members! Well, he didn’t. The name meant that the group’s goal was to wipe out, i.e. eliminate…Christianity. Ah, yes! Thirteen kooks vs. 2 billion people. I wonder who would win? The need for Satanism was rooted in the pathetic excuse that Sean gave for murdering Robert Bower. He was a sacrifice to Satan. His claims hold that participation in Satanism required breaking all of the Ten Commandments. He claimed that he broke them all except the Sixth Commandment…Thou Shalt Not Commit Murder.

The satanic bible has a chapter in it called on the choice of the human sacrifice. And it says that you should choose people who by their actions basically deserved to be killed. Who contribute nothing to society, who won’t be missed, have no one, you know. And we picked a man that in our eyes fit this perfect description. He worked the midnight shift at a Circle K, he had tattoos and stuff all up and down his arms, he looked like he’d been a speed freak or something, he just long hair you know kind of beard and stuff, druggie, probably ex-biker or something like that.

I think it was the murder of Bower that set off the subsequent events. Unless Sean knew Bower, he didn’t know whether he met the criteria Sellers laid out. Secondly, Sean abused amphetamines, making him a speed freak. Now if there were something between Sean or Richard and Bower, it would take away this whole sacrifice thing. And there was. The night before, Richard and Sean went to the Circle K to buy beer, Bower refused to sell it to them. Yes, so they returned the next night, probably high on drugs, to rob the place and teach Bower a lesson. Richard said he didn’t know that Sean was going to kill Bower. I believe him. It wasn’t a robbery? Sean admitted that when he looked up, Richard was in the cash register. Now it doesn’t seem like they took anything, but Richard may have believed that they were going to rob the store. And Sean was smart enough to know that if it wasn’t a robbery, the police would need to investigate possibilities that wouldn’t lead back to him. And it worked…until Richard spilled the beans. The drug connection involving Bower and Sellers is an interesting line of inquiry.

The idea of prowling around for a human sacrifice is not understood correctly. The connection between satanism, and we’re talking about LaVeyan Satanism, and human sacrifice is as follows…

The use of a human sacrifice in a Satanic ritual does not imply that the sacrifice is slaughtered "to appease the gods". Symbolically, the victim is destroyed through the working of a hex or curse, which in turn leads to the physical, mental or emotional destruction of the "sacrifice" in ways and means not attributable to the magician.

 (The Book of Lucifer, On the Choice of a Human Sacrifice). The sacrifice is symbolic, not the actual sacrifice of a human being. The whole Satanic Panic idea that (true) satanism is connected with human sacrifices may owe much to LeVay not picking a different term.

Under NO circumstances would a Satanist sacrifice any animal or baby! For centuries, propagandists of the right-hand path have been prattling over the supposed sacrifices of small children and voluptuous maidens at the hands of diabolists. It would be thought that anyone reading or hearing of these heinous accounts would immediately question their authenticity, taking into consideration the biased sources of the stories. On the contrary, as with all "holy" lies which are accepted without reservation, this assumed modus operandi of the Satanists persists to this day!

The Satanic Panickers like to accuse satanists of sacrificing babies, children, and animals to Satan. Clearly that’s not the case. The source of the confusion is that most people don’t understand, for which there is no better example than Sean Sellers, that LeVayen Satanism is based of a strict form of atheism. Yes, there is no god, there are no gods, there are no angels, there are no demons. But…to get to the heart of the matter, LeVayen Satanism involves the realization that there is no spirit-being named Satan. Satan is a concept, a primal force, one that frees people from the demands of traditional religions and allows them to experience their sensual-selves without guilt. Satan is a principle by which people experience the parts of their being that standard religions regard as sinful. Now you have kooks who call themselves Satanists, who believe in performing actual sacrifices, mostly as a fantasy, rarely as an actual act, who believe that there is a being named Satan stomping around the universe, who wants to be worshipped. To hold that view, you must throw out LeVay, the Church of Satan, and the Satanic Bible. What’s left, I suppose, are cheap horror movies. When…Devil Worshippers…make use of the Satanic Bible, they have no idea what they’re talking about, so it’s not surprising that real Satanists felt that Sellers didn’t know what he was talking about. The murder of Bowers was originally cast as a robbery and revenge for not selling Sean and Richard beer, but Sellers took the revenge aspect to the ultimate conclusion. Why did he kill his parents? There were a number of things brewing inside him that were leading to an explosion. But one must, at least momentarily, wonder whether Sean was afraid that his parents would find out about the murder of Bowers. Sean also said that he killed Bowers because he wanted to know how it felt to kill someone. And that is nothing more than a deranged psychopaths out for thrills. Sean drank blood? He did. But he did at school. Did he have the Satanic Bible? He did, and he took it to school. Clearly, Sean was not getting attention from his peers so he resorted to things that no one would fail to notice. Acting out always gets attention.

Now Darla was thrilled to learn that Sean drew pictures…just like Michelle did. When I showed her Sean’s drawings, she was rather disappointed…

…and my favorites…

One aspect that is often overlooked, is alluded to in Sean’s Silly Satanic Altar…

I could be wrong, but this doesn’t look like some kind of ceremonial dagger. It looks like a samurai sword. Now it has been noted that Sean was very much into Ninjitsu and that much of his mindset was actually based on this.

As is so often the case, conflicting statements are made. The claim was made that, at a young age, a babysitter showed him books on the cult. Yet a more convincing claim was made that the babysitter took him along to the library and that Sean was…unwittingly…exposed to books about the occult. He claimed to have been influenced by a witch who came to his school and talked about human sacrifice. But it appears that he wasn’t there at the time of the speech, a friend named Tonya was. He was led into witchcraft by a witch named Glasheeon, yet another source said that Sean’s contact with a supposed witch was comprised of a single phone call.

Dungeons & Dragons figured early in the trial.

Of Sean, Pat Pulling writes, “Sean had become involved with D&D when he was around 13-years-old and, while he had used some of the typical game characters, he stated that he preferred the Egyptian Gods. This interest had created a desire in Sean to dig deeper into a variety of occult topics.” Mrs. Pulling goes on to give the impression that Sean’s involvement with D&D® led directly to his involvement with Satanism and the subsequent murders for which he was charged and convicted.

In an interview, Sean mentioned D&D as a step to witchcraft, not satanism. I’m not sure what to say about Egyptian gods, and it would be helpful for more specific information on which gods are intended. One might be able to read Satan into…

…Seth, and some believe that Seth is one of the elements underlying the Christian concept of Satan. However, Seth has a lot of beneficent traits, including the deity who protects the pharaoh. The association with the desert points more toward Azazel, and I would see more of the roman god Saturn in the character named Satan.

At the beginning of the trial, the claim was made that Sean was addicted to D&D. Yet he admitted to having participated in only 3 campaigns. That’s hardly an addiction. And another element is quite interesting. Sean said that he ran the character of a neutral/chaotic fighter. Yet when he took a test designed to determine the best character for the player, the result was a chaotic evil human warlock. He passed on this character even though a fighter cannot use magic or spells. A connection between Sean’s three D&D campaigns and the appeal of witchcraft and satanism could not be established. In fact, Sean said…

When I was playing D&D I was not a satanist, and in fact would probably have punched any Satanist I met right in the mouth. I was interested in witchcraft and Zen however. In doing some research at the library for a D&D adventure I was leading I happened upon the other books that led to my study of occultism.

...to be fair to TSR [the manufacturer of D&D] and in the spirit of honesty I must concede that D&D contributed to my involvement in Satanism like an interest in electronics can contribute to building a bomb. Like the decision to build a bomb, I had already made decisions of a destructive nature before I incorporated D&D materials into my coven projects, and it was Satanism not D&D that had a decisive role in my crimes.

While Sean does feel a Satanic menace does exist in America, he does not stand four-square behind Pat Pulling. “Patricia has an aptitude for going beyond moderation. Of those who would seek to make him an example of what happens to game players, as Mrs. Pulling has repeatedly done, Sean writes, “...using my past as a common example of the effects of the game is either irrational or fanatical.”

He also said…

I sat there for ninety minutes and completely laughed at the idiots who were talking about Dungeons & Dragons being the devil’s game, and how it can lead you into satanism and lead you down the primrose path. And I was thinking…no way, look at these fools.

Sean went on to play the I’m-A-Born-Again-Christian card, which, of course, has been played by those seeking clemency or parole countless times. And it gave him the attention he craved, with the Christian right making a hero out of him. As an aside…what made Sean so angry at God? He wouldn’t give him a girlfriend. What made Sean so angry at…

…his mother? Sean found a girlfriend, a drop-out named…and I’m not joking…Angel. But his mother expressed her disapproval of her, which was just more fuel to the fire…

And if there weren’t already a plethora of disturbing elements in Sean’s crimes, there is yet another one. When he walked into his parents’ bedroom, he was only wearing…

…his underwear. At least he didn’t have to spray paint his shoes.

I would end this discussion with Sean’s own words…

I could be the biggest con man you ever knew. You don’t have to believe I’m sincere but just look at the things I’m doing now.

Whatever, Sean.