All the Lies They Did Not Tell

by Pablo Trincia

The case of the Panaro River skull was opened and closed almost immediately. Beduschi didn’t give it another thought. But three years later, that human bone found a few hundred feet from the cemetery would turn up again. This time, in a story of anguish, tears, and death.

Lorena and her husband, Delfino Covezzi, were members of a cult that brought the children of Massa to local cemeteries at night in order to rape them, sell them to a band of pedophiles, and make them participate in human sacrifices.

Her three oldest children confirmed their cousin’s account, accusing Lorena of psychological violence, kidnapping, rape, and murder in cemeteries, where she and her husband forced the children to watch and actively participate in all manner of crimes.

Lorena and Delfino were initially sentenced to twelve years, then acquitted in December 2014 after a long judicial appeal. But Delfino never saw the end of that trial. He died of a heart attack the year before.

Mrs. Tonini was furious. Before these revelations, she’d felt a mixture of pity and disgust for that gaunt, ignorant woman who couldn’t even feed and clothe her son. Now, she was overcome with so much anger that she could no longer hide it from Dario. How could his mother allow such a thing? Was she so afraid of Romano that she’d go along with anything?

Don Giorgio’s circuitous moves amounted to child grooming—a tactic commonly used by sexual predators that involves making friends with parents and relatives before targeting a young victim. It creates the ideal conditions to act without interruption.

Don Ettore saw the matter as an incredible case of collective hysteria caused by the inexperience and incompetence of practitioners who thought they’d discovered a ring of pedophiles. Instead, they destroyed entire families.

The suspects in Pedophiles-1 had been charged with domestic sexual acts against minors aged zero to eleven. In Pedophiles-2, they were also charged with holding meetings of an orgiastic and ritualistic nature in cemeteries.

Dr. Maggioni’s medical examinations had found signs of abuse—extremely serious abuse—in all the children. The evidence stood up in court, despite the fact that the forensic examiners and gynecologists who analyzed her pictures of the children’s genitals—which were projected onto a large screen in court—didn’t think these signs were all that obvious.

When Dr. Maggioni pointed to a photo of a girl’s genitals and said her hymen seemed to have disappeared due to repetitive and serious acts of violence, Dr. Cattaneo pointed out that the hymen was actually clearly visible.

In fact—as modern scientific textbooks on the subject explain—it’s only possible to be absolutely certain sexual violence was inflicted on a minor when there are unequivocal traces like lacerations, pregnancies, or sexually transmitted diseases.

But the weight of the children’s accusations against their parents more than made up for this forensic uncertainty.

It became increasingly clear to the public that something had gone wrong in the trials of the Devils of the Bassa.

Yet that same year, another lawsuit began. Pedophiles-3 only involved Lorena and Delfino, who were charged with abusing their children.

Lorena’s brothers’ problems continued beyond the Pedophiles-2 trial. They were brought into a new criminal trial in which they were the only defendants. Pedophiles-4 took place in Reggio Emilia.

Ancient and contemporary history everywhere in the world abounds with witch hunts like the one in Salem at the end of the seventeenth century. Previously, European Jews were a frequent target and were often accused of conducting violent rituals and child sacrifice.

blood of Christian children to prepare their traditional unleavened bread. One of

Qanon

They’re all born of a similar root: the idea, or the fear, that in every community there are individuals or groups of people leading double lives, lacking all sense of good, who are ready to commit atrocities in the name of absolute evil.

There was a new enemy in town—internal, invisible, and far more dangerous than the Communist menace represented by the distant Soviet Union. This one could worm its way into cities and schools, where it attacked the smallest and most helpless members of society. And it had a name: SRA, which stood for “satanic ritual abuse.”

The McMartin trial was the longest in the history of the United States and concluded after seven years with the acquittal of all the defendants.

They were seeing the familiar traits of a worrisome social phenomenon that was very similar to Europe’s caccia all’untore of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when anyone suspected of spreading the plague would be hunted down.

Psychologists used regressive hypnosis, anatomical dolls, drawings, and targeted questions to help children reconstruct a specific event or to confirm the stories of other children who had already been interviewed. It wasn’t unusual for the therapists to be the first to mention satanic ritual abuse to the children.

“Boh, honestly, I’m not sure whether anything actually happened or not . . . Many shrinks also try to make you tell them what they want you to say, you know, for money, so I’m not sure anymore . . . I have some memories, but I don’t know if they’re real or not . . . I mean, as a kid you pull out whatever you want . . .” “Patient zero,” the voice that launched a thousand hurricanes, was questioning himself and doubting what he’d said.

The abuse at the Galliera household—this he did remember, in “shreds.” As for everything that happened after, he remembered very few things.

But even months after she was taken away, when she started to talk about her abuse and her abusers, Marta always denied knowing Dario. She repeatedly contradicted one of her own stories about going to the home of a priest who’d raped them both. But she didn’t know Dario. She’d never seen him before. Investigators and psychologists found an explanation: Marta was resisting. She was struggling to get everything off her chest. Dario, on the other hand, was right. Always and forever. Prosecutor Claudiani said it himself in his report on the Pedophiles-2 trial. There was no reason to think otherwise.

That’s how the hypothesis of the satanic rituals was born. Not from Dario’s spontaneous account, but from an arbitrary association presented to him ready-made and tied together with a bow. A prepackaged storyline that just needed to be approved. Yes, you’re right.

A few months later, Marta confirmed Dario’s story to Dr. Donati. She repeated it to the consultants from the Hansel and Gretel Research Center in Turin in front of a camera. Again, the psychologists didn’t seem interested in listening. They seemed to be looking for confirmation of an idea they already had clear in their own minds.

Despite acquittals on all three counts, she was never allowed to see Melania and Marco again. They were taken away for good and placed with different families.

Three agents from the most important centers for the fight against pedopornography in the north, center, and south of Italy confirmed it. They’ve been monitoring video material that circulates around the world for the past twenty years. None of them have ever come across a snuff movie with a satanic background, human sacrifice, or the drinking of blood.

I thought it was improbable that a bunch of pedophiles, who typically have mental health issues and act alone, had all randomly found themselves living in two towns in the Bassa Modenese,

For each child, Dr. Donati’s center received between $1,250 and $1,700 per month, depending on the seriousness of the case. Over the course of about ten years, CAB received $2.7 million in public funds, despite the glaring and potentially dangerous conflict of interest.

“No one knows. I’ve forgotten a lot of things about that time. But I’m one hundred percent certain that I made everything up. The story I told the social workers, the psychologists, the judges . . . Those things never happened to me. I think someone put words in my mouth . . . It certainly didn’t come from me.”

She understood soon enough that nothing happened was not the answer the doctor was expecting.

“They told me that I was a liar, that I was a coward, that they knew the truth . . . because the other kids had already told the truth. Pure and simple psychological violence, that’s what it was. I mean, she talked for an hour a week, for four and a half years, to a little girl who was crying . . . Unperturbed, she carried on with her narrative. Anything I said was of no importance.”

After the series and book came out, things started to happen. The story appeared on numerous Italian television networks, and in the summer of 2019, the district attorney’s office in Reggio Emilia arrested several psychologists and social workers. They were charged with removing children from their families for financial gain on the basis of false accusations of sexual abuse. The Hansel and Gretel Research Center in Turin, the nonprofit organization that employed Dr. Cristina Roccia and Dr. Sabrina Farci—the psychologists who interviewed the children from Mirandola and Massa Finalese—was at the center of the investigation. Claudio Foti, the center’s founder, was convicted in November.