It was a real-life scene from a made-for-TV film – the kind sensationally advertised as “too important to miss” – as newly elected Lucas County Sheriff James Telb explained to a media throng that he was digging up a weedy lot in rural Spencer Township in search of the remains of as many as 75 victims of a Satanic cult ritual.
Based on tips from informants, Lucas County Sheriff’s deputies began the two-day excavation of four sites on the property at about 10 a.m. on June 20, 1985, with a backhoe to unearth the layers of dirt, a bulldozer to clear the debris, and a camera to document everything.
Though the big dig turned out to be a big bust, the sheriff and deputies returned to the site two weeks later for another hours-long search, only this time they opted not to inform the media in advance of their digging plans. Law enforcement found clothes, an aluminum jug, a “birthday card with a red devil on it,” and what appeared to be the remains of a wooden cross -- but no human remains.
The lieutenant who supervised the final dig defended the fruitless excavations.
“These sources were very firm about where they thought we should dig,” Lt. Kirk Surprise told The Blade. “The information was very solid.”
The Blade did note that after the final search, Surprise was more skeptical of the information, but that he declined to say the informants were wrong.
Those digs weren’t the only time the Lucas County Sheriff’s Office failed to find evidence of that rumored murderous occult, which, they were told, had been conducting human sacrifices since about 1969.
Hours before the June 20 excavation, Sheriff Telb’s deputies raided a Springfield Township home believed to be the residence of the Satanic cult’s leader, Leroy Freeman.
Mr. Freeman, 59 at the time, had been charged with stealing his granddaughter, Charity, who had been missing since she was 7. Neither Mr. Freeman nor Charity had been seen in the two-and-a-half years before that morning’s raid.
The deputies expected to find clues to Freeman’s Satanic cult activities and, perhaps, to his granddaughter’s disappearance. Instead, they found a mother, Patricia Litton, and her five children, along with a Bible, a Raiders of the Lost Ark poster, two Ozzy Osbourne albums, two blank cassette tapes, and an animal bone, all of which were confiscated.
The Littons also had a goat in their backyard, which, she told The Blade, the deputies eyed suspiciously until she explained to them that it was only a pet, and had no connection to Devil worship.
As for the epilogue to this story from summer, 1985: No bodies or remains were ever found. The Littons filed a $1.5 million suit against Sheriff Telb weeks after the raid; he continued to serve as Lucas County Sheriff for 28 years. Charity Freeman was found four years later living with Mr. Freeman in Huntington Beach, Calif. There’s no record of what became of the pet goat.
Go to thebladevault.com/memories to purchase more historical photos taken by our award-winning staff of photographers, past and present, or to purchase combinations of stories and photos.
First Published October 28, 2019, 10:00 a.m.
