Lawsuit Re: Sex Abuse Allegations Against Daughter of Pres. Nelson and Her Husband

[Calm]

4 hours ago, Abulafia said:

CFR on this. From the records I have she gave one talk in a relief society lesson at her Bountiful Ward. She didn't appear to be doing a fireside circuit or anything like that.

Happy to change it to "lecture" (later, got to go).  My point is someone asked her or she volunteered and was accepted.  This is evidence to me there was concern already present in the community and where there is concern, there is discussion.  I am not claiming Smith triggered the concern or original discussion, though I suspect given how she describes the events, she most likely greatly added to them even with only one lecture.

[cinepro]

5 hours ago, Abulafia said:

Calm, I think planting false memories under hypnotic or other techniques may be possible for certain individuals  who are already mentally ill.  I'd put Teal Swan in that category  from the little I know about her. 

But that's widely different to 6 kids who remember a father's abuse. Baby sitter abuse and a sex ring.

 

This is where you're wrong. 

False memories can be given to anyone under many different circumstances.  Especially kids.  It happened all the time in the 80s and 90s, and it is apparently still happening today (although the justice system appears to have finally gotten their act together to understand how unreliable these reports are without additional corroboration).

Here's the presentation I linked to earlier.  While the whole thing is interesting, the part that most applies here starts at 28:00.

Edited October 24, 2018 by cinepro

[cinepro]

33 minutes ago, Calm said:

Happy to change it to "lecture" (later, got to go).  My point is someone asked her or she volunteered and was accepted.  This is evidence to me there was concern already present in the community and where there is concern, there is discussion.  I am not claiming Smith triggered the concern or original discussion, though I suspect given how she describes the events, she most likely greatly added to them even with only one lecture.

Marion Smith says "In July, 1985, I was asked to give a lesson to my ward Relief Society on the symptoms and treatment of child sexual abuse."  This is in Bountiful.  The moral panic over ritual child abuse was already in full swing across the country.

This is what had happened earlier that summer in Lehi:

Quote

During the Summer of 1985 Mrs. Sheila Bowers of Lehi, Utah, contacted Dr. Barbara Snow, a therapist working with the Intermountain Sexual Abuse Treatment Center. Bowers was worried about her three small children, who seemed to talk too freely about sex. Dr. Snow interviewed the children and concluded that they had in fact been sexually abused. Dr. Snow claimed that the children had told her about the perpetrator, a teenage babysitter who was the daughter of Keith Burnham, the respected Bishop of the Lehi Eight Ward of the Mormon Church. Dr. Snow also asked to interview other Lehi children who had been attended by the same babysitter, and most of the families involved decided to comply. As a result of these further interviews, Dr. Snow announced that she had evidence that the babysitter and her parents, Bishop Burnham and his wife Shirley, had sexually abused a number of Lehi children. The Burnhams were also accused of abusing their own younger children, who were removed from their parents and placed in foster homes by the State Division of Family Services (weeks later, no evidence of abuse was discovered -- despite Dr. Snow's claims -- and they were returned to their home).

https://www.cesnur.org/2001/archive/mi_mormons.htm

So there's the Marion Smith - Barbara Snow connection there.  Once the Bountiful kids started seeing Snow, all bets were off.

Edited October 24, 2018 by cinepro

[Anijen]

52 minutes ago, cinepro said:

False memories can be given to anyone under many different circumstances.  Especially kids.  It happened all the time in the 80s and 90s, and it is apparently still happening today (although the justice system appears to have finally gotten their act together to understand how unreliable these reports are without additional corroboration).

Emphasis mine. I agree totally, 100%, False memories have been shown can be given to almost anyone. Evidence such as this are not allowed, all evidence of this nature will be deemed highly prejudicial, thus, inadmissible.

[cinepro]

25 minutes ago, Anijen said:

Emphasis mine. I agree totally, 100%, False memories have been shown can be given to almost anyone. Evidence such as this are not allowed, all evidence of this nature will be deemed highly prejudicial, thus, inadmissible.

The really insane thing was that for a while, the kids wouldn't even testify in court.  I can understand why, but when that's the only evidence against a person, that's a pretty big modification of basic principles of justice   So you would have the therapist saying "So-and-so said this, and it's my judgement as a therapist that they were telling the truth."  And a jury would convict people based on that.

[bluebell]

5 minutes ago, cinepro said:

The really insane thing was that for a while, the kids wouldn't even testify in court.  I can understand why, but when that's the only evidence against a person, that's a pretty big modification of basic principles of justice   So you would have the therapist saying "So-and-so said this, and it's my judgement as a therapist that they were telling the truth."  And a jury would convict people based on that.

That's insane.

[provoman]

These Utah brothers accused their father of sexual abuse a dozen years ago. Now, they say they lied and are trying to clear his name.

[cinepro]

If anyone wants to know how to implant a false memory, here's how Elizabth Loftus (the woman in the YouTube video) says to do it:

 

Quote

No matter how bizarre or alien the scenario seems, it’s never so strange that you cannot convince someone it actually happened. “We are almost at the point of having a recipe for how to do this,” Loftus says. “A first step involves trying to make people feel something is plausible. In questionable therapy, people are told that many, many people have repressed memories and that you need to uncover them to feel better. That is a plausibility-enhancing message.”

The second step, she says, is to create a sense of recollection. “Once people believe something could have happened to them or that it did happen, they may not have any kind of feeling of recollection. Then you engage them in imagination exercises where you put sensory details into this belief. And it starts to be experienced as a recollection.”

https://www.thecut.com/2016/11/remembering-childhood-trauma-and-abuse-that-never-happened.html

 

[Anijen]

43 minutes ago, cinepro said:

The really insane thing was that for a while, the kids wouldn't even testify in court.  I can understand why, but when that's the only evidence against a person, that's a pretty big modification of basic principles of justice   So you would have the therapist saying "So-and-so said this, and it's my judgement as a therapist that they were telling the truth."  And a jury would convict people based on that.

Not to mention that is called leading the witness and hearsay, and they are generally not admissible.

Edited October 24, 2018 by Anijen

[Abulafia]

Cinepro, I included Loftus in the timeline.

What, for me, is exhausting about this conversation is..

1. An assumption that any link with Barbara Snow means all subsequent info from the children, now adults, is suspect to an impossible degree.

2. You're  ignoring continuously that the only details the kids admitted to Snow was the abuse of the babysitter and her 2 male accomplices. 

3. One female child told her mother about the Miles and about her dad.  She did NOT tell Snow initially.

4. The perpetrator admitted in a taped interview at John Hopkins that the Miles, the babysitter and his friend Dan were involved in the sex ring. 

 

 

Edited October 25, 2018 by Abulafia

[Abulafia]

Also..Loftus conclusions are controversial because getting lost in a supermarket is nothing like the deep trauma associated with child abuse. 

[Abulafia]

Also.. putting children on the stand in those days was a terribly traumatic experience. It's bad enough for adult victims.  I've seen that trauma first hand.

 

So only insane to the ignorant. 

[Tacenda]

8 minutes ago, Abulafia said:

Also.. putting children on the stand in those days was a terribly traumatic experience. It's bad enough for adult victims.  I've seen that trauma first hand.

 

So only insane to the ignorant. 

That's what I thought, and that it was pretty common to protect the abused, and having them relive it again.

[Abulafia]

5 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

That's what I thought, and that it was pretty common to protect the abused, and having them relive it again.

It's a horrific experience for victims.

On the case I was on, the men wanted to look their dad in the eye.  The women needed a barrier so they didn't need to face him. 

 

This is adults.  

[Abulafia]

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/safeguarding-children-victims-and-witnesses

[katherine the great]

21 minutes ago, Abulafia said:

Cinepro, I included Loftus in the timeline.

What, for me, is exhausting about this conversation is..

1. An assumption that any link with Barbara Snow means all subsequent info from the children, now adults, is suspect to an impossible degree.

2. Your ignoring continuously that the only details the kids admitted to Snow was the abuse of the babysitter and her 2 male accomplices. 

3. One female child told her mother about the Miles and about her dad.  She did NOT tell Snow initially.

4. The perpetrator admitted in a taped interview at John Hopkins that the Miles, the babysitter and his friend Dan were involved in the sex ring. 

 

 

I know you are addressing your comments to Cinepro but I think you're viewing these events in a vacuum. These people were almost certainly talking to each other almost non stop during this entire process--exchanging ideas and fanning the flames. The grandparents and parents were encouraging the children to say more and more and even rewarding them for "helping their friends" who were "being abused". It was an unbelievably unhealthy environment. I have to say that I agree with #1 completely. Anything associated with Barbara Snow is tainted.

[Abulafia]

6 hours ago, katherine the great said:

I know you are addressing your comments to Cinepro but I think you're viewing these events in a vacuum. These people were almost certainly talking to each other almost non stop during this entire process--exchanging ideas and fanning the flames. The grandparents and parents were encouraging the children to say more and more and even rewarding them for "helping their friends" who were "being abused". It was an unbelievably unhealthy environment. I have to say that I agree with #1 completely. Anything associated with Barbara Snow is tainted.

Yeah, I get that. I really do. But you still need to explain no 4.

[Abulafia]

And tbh, for me, the most unhealthy environment was caused by sexual abusers, whether that be the babysitters, the defendants or the perpetrator.  There's more than enough evidence on the perpetrator imho.

[Tacenda]

11 hours ago, Tacenda said:

That's what I thought, and that it was pretty common to protect the abused, and not having them have to relive it again in front of their abuser.

Oops, I was thinking I was in editing form. And quoted myself. 

Edited October 25, 2018 by Tacenda

[ksfisher]

12 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Oops, I was thinking I was in editing form. And quoted myself. 

You could just admit that you finally found someone you feel is worth quoting.

[Calm]

5 hours ago, Abulafia said:

Yeah, I get that. I really do. But you still need to explain no 4.

Could be a false confession given it would appear he didn't say anything like it to his therapists apparently.

[Abulafia]

It could be Calm. It could be. I don't know the answer to that for sure.  What I do know is that this kind of stuff goes on, and people involved can be otherwise respectable. 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/11/seven-members-paedophile-gang-jailed

Caution advised on the link. It shows  that drugs can be and are used on children.  How do drugs impact memory?  

[Calm]

Drugs in my personal experience massively affect memory, but of course different drugs have different effects and different people are affected in differvent ways even if there is a general consistency determined by research.  Any drugs intended to have an effect on one's emotional or mental state tends to have significant memory impact, in my opinion.  

The father was under treatment at the time of the interview, both the drug treatment and ongoing therapy if he was not resisting it might have put him in a highly suggestible, trusting state and this was his family telling him he did these things, family he loved and appears to have wanted to protect at that time unless it was all an act...telling the kids to dig deeper into the memories, for example.

Chances are the children were also put on antidepressants and antianxiety drugs, possibly sedatives at the time given the description of their behaviour.  This could cause confusion big time, especially with emotions running to hysterical at times as described by Smith.

I wonder about dreams and how often they may be confused with lived experience (vs imagined experience).  It has been 15 years I have seen my actual Canadian home during which time I have vividly dreamed dozens of times the more or less same not so dreamy dream home and neighborhood which is quite different (everywhere has the same sort of trees that existed on the favorite part of my walk, the University is on the river probably because there was nothing important to me between the river and it emotionally, the house itself is closer in type to a neighbour's I think remember from my childhood...kind of the standard house of my dreams).  It now takes effort to picture where things were and how the house was actually set up...and I lived there 13 years.

I know if I am obsessing about something while awake, the topic is often in my dreams (currently it is my mother in a much more advanced state, where she is getting lost and I am trying to find her or we are having very weird conversations; when l was pregnant or caring for infants, I dreamed of losing them or finding lost children so starved that when I picked them up they melted through my hands...very disturbing).  

I can easily see if I had been obsessing over whether or not I had done something horrific, if I had wondered if it was possible that I didn't remember doing it but did it anyway, had visualized myself doing it to see if it even made sense (I am a visual thinker, when worried about car accidents I keep flashing to seeing myself swerved into oncoming cars, for example, and therefore in one sense have many memories of causing a car accident when no such thing actually happened) and very important, if the people I relied on for reality checks, such as my family, were telling me I had done that very thing, that eventually I might believe I had done them and even remembered myself doing it.  

For example, I don't remember watching a movie, I didn't  remember the content of that movie when I am very good at remembering what I have seen usually (have watched it since then), but my family insists I watched it with them.  I really don't know since I consider it possible they are confusing movies.  They have described where I sat and that I ate popcorn and they repeated some of my comments.  When they first told me, I had nothing come to me visually.  So does that mean no actual memories because I didn't see it or the Am-bien didn't allow them to set and if so, have I since I recovered them or are they imposed?  After accepting I likely have watched it and visualizing the scene as they described it, I do get "memories" of the experience, but have no clue if actual memory or imagined due to the extensive descriptions and persuasions I was given.  Is there any way to test if what I 'remember' now is an actual memory or an imposed one?  Don't think so as there was nothing unusual to check.

Edited October 25, 2018 by Calm

[cinepro]

15 hours ago, Abulafia said:

1. An assumption that any link with Barbara Snow means all subsequent info from the children, now adults, is suspect to an impossible degree.

2. You're  ignoring continuously that the only details the kids admitted to Snow was the abuse of the babysitter and her 2 male accomplices. 

3. One female child told her mother about the Miles and about her dad.  She did NOT tell Snow initially.

4. The perpetrator admitted in a taped interview at John Hopkins that the Miles, the babysitter and his friend Dan were involved in the sex ring.  

1. Yes, with all that we know about Snow, that is a fair assumption.  If someone talks with her, as far as I'm concerned any claims they subsequently make involving abuse should be disbelieved unless they can be corroborated by a reliable and untainted source.

2. First, I don't consider Marion Smith a reliable reporter of what was said when and to whom.  Second, I don't know what you mean.  Even if we just take Smith's word for it, she says:

Quote

As our grandchildren’s therapy continued, the circle of perpetrators widened to include **** and Brenda Miles. **** was a counselor to Bishop Gasser and our son-in-law Bill was the financial clerk. Brenda was the daughter of Apostle Russell Nelson.

3. See above.  Also, there's no rule that all information introduced by Snow would only be "remembered" by the child in a therapy session.  It would be entirely possible for Snow to mention something in a therapy session and then have the child "remember" it and tell someone else outside of the session.  Let's review Snow's notes and the recordings of the sessions so we can see exactly what information she was introducing to the children, and when she didn't.

4. If you read the transcript of the conversation Marion says she had with Bill, it's very leading and the information is being introduced by the interviewer, not Bill.  This is very problematic.  And remember, it's being told from the perspective of someone who believed these things were actually happening.  But comments like this raise a huge red flag for me:

Quote

Perhaps Bill had little memory of many of his actions as he apparently was highly dissociative. No new information was really received by us.

Another key principle that needs to be remembered is it was also possible for false memories to be given to the accused.

This is a good article about that:

False memories and false confessions: the psychology of imagined crimes

Quote

In 2015, Shaw set out to discover if she could implant detailed memories of committing a crime in people's minds, as a proxy for understanding how real-world false confessions arise. To do that, she used an updated version of Loftus's shopping-centre experiment. With her former PhD adviser Stephen Porter, a forensic psychologist at the University of British Columbia, Shaw recruited 60 student participants, splitting them into two groups. The first was told they'd experienced an event as teenagers, such as an injury, a dog attack, or losing a large sum of money. The second was told they'd committed a crime, such as assault or theft, as teenagers. To make the memories more convincing, Shaw wove in autobiographical information from the participants' parents - such as where they were living, and the name of a friend that the participant had at the age they'd supposedly committed the crime.

After the initial meeting, none of the participants could recall the false memory. But every night for three weeks, they were encouraged to spend a few minutes visualising the event. Adding some social manipulation, Shaw told them most people can recall memories, but only if they try hard enough.

Shaw recalls the moment she realised her experiment was working. An important cue that a false memory is taking hold is the richness of the reported detail: "I had a participant who was doing my guided imagery exercise; it seems so trivial but she said, 'Blue sky, I see a blue sky.' It showed that she was buying into the idea of actually experiencing this event and was accessing a memory, as opposed to her imagination. Those were the kinds of details that ended up being the foundation for the event itself."

The combination - a seemingly incontrovertible story backed up by real autobiographical details, visualisation and performance pressure - resulted in 70 per cent of participants generating a rich false memory of the event. Previous implantation studies had rates of 35 per cent. Unexpectedly, participants were as receptive to the false memories of committing crimes as they were to the emotional ones, Shaw says, despite the assumption that people would find it harder to believe they'd acted criminally in the past.

(Emphasis added)

So yeah, when you tell me they were giving Bill drugs and telling him he had done stuff like this and then he seemed to remember doing it, I'm not really convinced.  Especially when exchanges like this happen:

 

Quote

MARION: How did it all get started?

BILL: I can't. ..I haven’t been able to come up with those things and I expend an inordinate time trying to put things together...and have come with hypothesis from the beginning...(stops)

MARION: But not memories?

BILL: Correct.

Give it time, Bill.  Keep talking to Marion, and the memories will come.

Edited October 25, 2018 by cinepro

[katherine the great]

8 hours ago, Abulafia said:

Yeah, I get that. I really do. But you still need to explain no 4.

The possibilities are endless. He may have been passing the buck. He may have been the type of person who is susceptible to suggestion (easily hypnotized), or #4 can be explained by #1. I don't know the man and he may or may not have abused all these children but if he did, he was a very messed up person and throwing other people under the bus with him would not surprise me at all. I am interested in the other group of people who made accusations against him. (the people from the Mt Olympus neighborhood). Were they completely untouched by Barbara Snow or by any information out there at the time? If so, I would consider that good evidence that he was a predator.