Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar
Satanic Hand Signals?
RECEIVED Wed., May 20, 2009
Dear Editor,
In reply to comments made on a recent Chronicle “Postmark” [April 10], Randy Noblitt never said anything about "robotic 'alters'" on the stand or anywhere else [“Believing the Children” News, March 27]. He did not treat the children. His only role was to help the prosecution travel through uncharted waters and manage the case in a way that reduced cross-contamination and kept things from taking on a hysterical edge or mirrored the unsuccessful outcome of the McMartin Preschool case. There was no mention by Randy of "satanic" abuse. One of the children alleged that he was told that Satan's arm bone was replacing his own left arm bone in a ritual, but he revealed that he peeked and saw they really hadn't done so.
After the trial, Randy was approached by a TV news program that had captured Dan Keller making suspicious hand signs as he entered the courtroom and asked Randy to look at them. He did and commented that Keller could have been signaling the victims to be silent. Somewhere there may be a videotape of that very brief interview.
In reply to comments made on a recent Chronicle “Postmark” [April 10], Randy Noblitt never said anything about "robotic 'alters'" on the stand or anywhere else [“Believing the Children” News, March 27]. He did not treat the children. His only role was to help the prosecution travel through uncharted waters and manage the case in a way that reduced cross-contamination and kept things from taking on a hysterical edge or mirrored the unsuccessful outcome of the McMartin Preschool case. There was no mention by Randy of "satanic" abuse. One of the children alleged that he was told that Satan's arm bone was replacing his own left arm bone in a ritual, but he revealed that he peeked and saw they really hadn't done so.
After the trial, Randy was approached by a TV news program that had captured Dan Keller making suspicious hand signs as he entered the courtroom and asked Randy to look at them. He did and commented that Keller could have been signaling the victims to be silent. Somewhere there may be a videotape of that very brief interview.
Pamela Noblitt
Marina del Rey, Calif.
Marina del Rey, Calif.
[News Editor Michael King responds: Pamela Noblitt's benign rewriting of her husband's role in the Keller case is unsurprising and unpersuasive. Here's a contemporary report, from Gary Cartwright's April 1994 Texas Monthly story, "The Innocent and the Damned": "Carol Staelin even speculated that it may not have been the Chaviers girl on the witness stand, but one of her programmed alters. Randy Noblitt, the Dallas clinical psychologist who was being paid $120 an hour to research satanic abuse for the state and another $140 to testify, had warned that this might happen. Satanists often use hand signals to control their victims, he said. What most people in the courtroom took to be the defendant’s running a hand down the side of his face, Noblitt interpreted as a signal that meant 'You saw nothing, you heard nothing, you will say nothing.' An Austin television station later ran a special report that showed Keller flashing a hand signal as he was led away from the courtroom. It looked like he was forming the letter C with his thumb and forefinger, and Noblitt told the TV reporter that this was a satanic message. In fact, Keller was saying hello to the boys in C Block, where he had been confined for the previous nine months."]
