For a long time, I just figured that my parents’ friends were a bunch of sick rich pedophiles enamored of the 1960s and 1970s cinema genre of witchcraft and the Devil, like the popular Vincent Price movies portrayed at the time. Often referred to as “happenings,” during these events, drunk, drugged-out narcissists paid my parents to do what they wanted with my siblings and me. (All three of my siblings are much older than I.) For many years into my young adulthood, I thought that the satanic stuff was basically their one step beyond hedonism. Bored, rich, and demented beyond reason, they assumed that my father in his high priest red robes (signifying blood sacrifice) would be their fall guy if the group were exposed. Both of my parents participated in orgies involving children, which was instrumental to Omaha’s “happenings.”
…Rich, affluent, and powerful, my parents and their friends held beliefs that were well thought out and complex. Doctors, lawyers, law enforcement, high-ranking businessmen, and politicians—the people involved were community pillars, wealthy, well educated, well connected, and completely drunk on the power their group wielded.
…As a child, I couldn’t tell anyone what was happening because I couldn’t trust who was involved and who wasn’t, and what was happening was so crazy that I figured no one would believe me even if I told. People were adept at looking away, fearing they would somehow become involved in things too sordid to speak publically about.
–Rabbit Hole: A Satanic Ritual Abuse Survivor’s Story by David Shurter
- David Shurter on Twitter