In the quiet farmlands of Ohio, 1985, the devil was said to walk among them. Sheriff James Telb believed he had uncovered a vast Satanic network — one that stretched across churches, daycares, and police stations. He spoke of hundreds of cultists, blood rituals, and children taken in the night. Television cameras descended. Paranoia ignited. Neighbors turned on neighbors.

But when the sheriff ordered his men to dig — no bodies were found. No cult. No proof. Just a trail of ruined lives, false confessions, and a town swallowed whole by hysteria. This is the story of how fear became evidence, how moral panic replaced truth, and how the Satanic Panic spread like wildfire through America’s heartland.

From the false prophets to the believers, this episode unravels the machinery of madness that powered a generation’s darkest obsession.

Ritual Rewind explores the haunted corners of the 1980s — where true crime, cults, and the occult collide.

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Sources:

-- Digging Up Devils: The Search for a Satanic Murder Cult in Rural Ohio

https://a.co/d/bTZr1r3

-- The Toledo Blade

https://www.toledoblade.com/