The Canadian Origins Of Satanic Panic
/Part Two: Michelle Lied
By the mid 1990s, the fires of the Satanic Panic were cooling, but irreparable damage had been done. The scope of the harm is hard to put into exact numbers, but there had been tens of thousands of accusations globally. Each time a child spoke out about alleged satanic ritual abuse, the lives of the accused were torn apart, and most were left without recourse. After years in prison, some of the convicted had their charges overturned, but their lives would never return to how they once were.
Image courtesy of latercera
What about the couple that started it all? Michelle Smith and Lawrence Pazder set the Satanic Panic ablaze across the world with their grisly book about satanic ritual abuse Smith suffered as a child in her hometown of Victoria, B.C. Some of her claims were accusations that could be easily fact-checked. She claimed the satanic cult members who abused her were all initiated into the cult by cutting off a finger. A simple look around town for the fingerless folks could have been corroborated by any investigator. She claimed to have witnessed at least two murderers, and the dismemberment of six stillborn infants. Yet, there was no evidence of missing persons matching the descriptions Smith provided. No horrified post-partum women searching for their missing infants, either. Interviews conducted decades later found Smith was in school during times she alleged the abuse occurred.
How did she come to recover these memories in the first place? It was her psychiatrist (and eventual husband) Dr. Lawrence Pazder who pulled the memories out of her. She had been seeing him for a few years, but her mental health worsened after a miscarriage sparked nightmares. There weren’t many boundaries between doctor and patient. They eventually divorced their spouses and married each other. Across their media blitz, no one seemed to publicly question the ethics of a male psychiatrist marrying his younger female patient.
At the height of the panic, FBI agent Ken Lanning was assigned to investigate satanic ritual abuse. He attended one of the many talks Dr. Pazder gave to law enforcement. He noticed while Michelle’s abuse was widely discussed, she never spoke for herself. On one occasion, Lanning raised his hand and said, “when people ask, all this happened to Michelle; how come she doesn’t give the answer, she just turns to you?” Pazder gave a weak answer about how the recovered memories were still difficult for her to recall—something that didn’t prevent her from recounting them vividly for daytime talk shows.
Both the families of Pazder and Smith suffered in their own ways. Smith’s mother, who was at the centre of many of the abuse allegations, died years before the book came out. Her estranged father denounced her claims. Charyl, Smith’s sister, was equally horrified and vehemently denied the claims. She believes Michelle had a reason for lying: “she wanted Larry as her husband.”
Image courtesy of CBC
For Pazder’s ex-wife and daughter, their family was torn apart in other ways. “To us she was this stalker,” said Theresa, Pazder’s daughter with his first wife, Marylyn. Marylyn remembers Smith calling the house at all hours, always demanding to speak with Pazder. The longer he worked with Michelle, the more obsessed her became. He clearly saw himself as her saviour. In the book, Pazder describes himself as “lithe and athletic” and “warm, manly, soft-spoken.” The Smith family home was within walking distance from Pazder’s office. He never tried speaking with any of her surviving family members when the repressed memories surfaced, nor did he report anything to the local police.
Even after all the chaos, it seems the couple was allowed to disappear into relatively normal life once the panic began to lull. Their very successful lies had not yet been called into question, and it seems to this day, they were never truly held responsible for the damage they caused. When people were sent to jail, when court cases eventually fell apart, Smith nor Pazder were called to account for their role in the panic. There were plenty of lawsuits. Falsely accused satanic abusers sued the systems that failed them, often for millions of dollars--but the infamous pair who incited the panic were never called out directly in connection.
Pazder was paid a $342,000 USD advance for the book, which is the equivalent to more than 1.2 million dollars CAD in 2023. It’s unknown how much he collected in consulting fees, or any payment for the countless television and radio appearances. Dr. Lawrence Pazder died in 2004. Michelle Smith is still alive. She declines to participate in any interview requests from the media. Today, she reportedly lives in Victoria, B.C., where she claims the abuse began.
My name is Angie Mosher (she/her) and I'm a Professional Writing student at Algonquin College. I have a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing from UBC, and when I’m not writing, I’m playing video games, hanging out with my cats, or getting a new tattoo. I’m originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia, but have been living in Ottawa since 2017. I like shining a light on things otherwise left to rot in the corner. Let’s kick up some dust.
