More Bad Press for Satanists

Bruce Kent Williams, the mayor of Centerton, Arkansas, has revealed that despite the fact that he's been living a quiet life for thirty years, he is, in fact, Pastor Don LaRose, a Baptist minister who went missing in the mid-'70s, leaving his wife and children behind. As a pastor, he says he was teaching a course on Satanism that stoked the anger of local Indiana Satanists who forced him to submit to brainwashing and electric shock or they would kill his family. He says the Satanists destroyed his identity, and he took on the name of Bruce Kent Williams, a man who died in a car crash in 1958. He realized his true identity after taking a truth serum injection under unknown circumstances. However, he also ran a website about Pastor Don LaRose's disappearance, which LaRose's family discovered and used to track down Williams. If this whole story seems a bit fishy to you, it is. Turns out LaRose kidnapped himself and blamed it on Satanists once before--kind of a trial run before his eventual disappearance. As Williams, he has remarried. While charges of fraud and bigamy are sorted out, might we take a moment to remember the real victims here? When will Satanists stop being blamed for outlandish movie-of-the-week crimes they didn't commit? And when will they stop dressing like idiots? More details here and here.