Hidden away in the deep dark woods of the Chattahoochy National Forest

was once an isolated mansion that was the object of terror to most of the people

who lived in the small town of Somerville, Georgia, a terror that

lingers to this day.

In the early 1980s, there were rumors of strange things taking place at that house.

Occult rituals, devil worship, human sacrifice, and worse.

It was the beginning of an era that would hold all of America in its terrible grip.

It's since been dubbed the satanic panic.

Much like what happened at a little town called Salem in 1692,

Hysteria seized the country on a much larger scale.

The panic was spread by fundamentalist Christians,

radical religious groups,

television talk shows,

and many otherwise well-intentioned people

who feared that a vast underground network

of devil worshipers was infiltrating the country.

They claimed that sickness were spreading their evil message through rock and roll

music, or kidnapping and abusing children, and might even be responsible for murdering

thousands of people who went missing every year. Those missing persons

they believed had fallen victim to satanic cults who use them for blood sacrifices to the devil.

The evidence for such an underground was obvious, they claimed,

and pointed to a handful of murders carried out by delinquents in black t-shirts,

...