"This inmate is innocent. There has never been any credible evidence that he led a satanic cult that murdered 25 babies. There has never been any credible evidence that he abused his children. Paul Ingram is simply the victim of Washington State’s most successful witch-hunt." Tom Grant 10

Ingram attended the Church of Living Water. They taught two religious concepts that were to cause him incredible problems later:

	That Satan can cause a person to commit terrible acts, and then wipe their memory clean afterwards
	That any memories that he recovered would be accurate. God would prevent him from recovering false memories.

Over time, with the use of sleep deprivation and interview techniques verging on hypnosis, the interrogators convinced Ingram that he suffered from multiple personality and had repressed the memories of the abuse. He believed that he had brought up his daughters to always tell the truth. He concluded that he must be guilty, but that Satan had wiped the memory from his mind. During the interrogation, he confessed how he might have done these terrible crimes, but maintained that he had no memory of having actually done them.

At various times during the interrogation, he recovered images of killing a cat and murdering a prostitute.

Various sources report that:

	His daughters recalled that her mother Sandy had taken a relatively passive role in the abuse.
	Erica allegedly recalled details of Satanic ceremonies in which 6 to 8 month old babies or fetuses were sacrificed. She remembered being being forced to have sex with animals while her mother joined in. She believes that she was present at 850 Satanic rituals which included about 25 infant sacrifices. She recalls becoming pregnant, being tied down to the table, aborted with a coat hanger. She recovered a memory of watching the Satanists chop up the fetus and eat it. But she was unable to remember any of the words to the Satanic chants, or even whether she stood or sat during the almost 1000 rituals.
	Julie and Erica both recalled having become pregnant and having abortions. They claimed that they had scars all over their body from the years of abuse.
	Julie accused one of her father's friends, Jim Rabie of abusing her. She was unable to recall any tattoos or scars on his body. But Jim has a "rope like, 3 inch [wide] keloidal [large, red] scar" across his chest - the result of a massive electrical shock that nearly killed him 20 years earlier. Julie said that she never changed clothes in the school locker room and always wore a T-shirt over her bathing suit, because she was so self-conscious about her scars. A medical exam showed no evidence of abortions and no marks on either daughter except for Ericka's small scar which was caused by an operation to remove an ovarian cyst (some sources say inflamed appendix).
	Julie had told her mother that the father's assaults had ended five years earlier. After having been informed about the statute of limitations, she changed her story, and told police that the last assault was three years previous.
	Ericka had originally said that the abuse ended in 1975. But she later told police that she had caught the STD from her father in 1987.
	Paul confessed to cutting the bleeding heart out of a live cat, to killing a prostitute in Seattle in 1983, and to being involved in the Green River killings. The Green River Task Force studied Paul’s statement, but found nothing that matched the facts of the case. 10
	The sisters drew maps of Ingram's back yard where they remembered the bodies of the sacrificed victims were buried. The police excavated the yard but found no evidence of bodies or of disturbed earth. 10
	At one point, a forensic archaeologist, Dr. Mark Papworth, said to Undersheriff Neil McClanahan that there was no evidence: "On this one occasion I said, 'Neil, there’s no evidence. None at all. Zero.' And he said to me. 'If you were the devil would you leave any evidence?' and, I, my hair stood on end and I realized at that point there was no talking to him beyond that and I excused myself." 10

The prosecutors hired Dr. Richard Ofshe to help them with the case. Dr. Ofshe is a world-class memory researcher, and a specialist in the tactics of coercion. He has studied Chinese Communist brainwashing techniques and recruitment methods of political groups and religious sects. He began to suspect that Ingram was delusional. Ofshe designed a test: he confirmed with Ingram's son and two daughters that at no time had their father forced them to have sex with each other. He asked their father whether he had done such an act. He also denied it. Dr. Ofshe then asked him to go back to his cell and think about it. Ingram did this. He entered a trance-like state, generated a detailed scenario about how he might have forced his children to have sex with each other, composed a multi-page confession, and signed it. ₈ This convinced Dr. Ofshe that Ingram was delusional.

There is a second independent proof that Ingram's recollections were not real memories. When he described one of the abuse scenes, an interrogator asked him what time the rape took place. In his mind, he "zeroed in" on one of the perpetrator's arms and read the time off of his watch dial. Data simply cannot be obtained from old memories in this way. (Recall an event last year where many people were present; now try to zero in on someone's watch and read the time). Ingram's "memories" were simply fantasies created to satisfy the interrogators; they were unrelated to real events.

The prosecution wisely decided to ignore all of the Satanic evidence and simply charge Ingram with 6 charges of rape. Including the Satanic abuse would probably cause the prosecution credibility problems. Ingram entered a plea of guilty in order to minimize his daughters' pain. He was convinced that he must have abused them as they described, even though his memories were unclear. He did not want to force them to go through the emotional strain of a trial.

The prosecution proudly proclaimed that they had uncovered "the first ritual abuse investigation that has been confirmed by an adult offender involved directly with the offenses in the nation's history". Jim Rabie and Ray Risch, two of his poker friends, were released from jail after having been incarcerated for 158 days. Charges against them were dropped. The reason given was that Ingram's two daughters were too traumatized to testify. The men still live in Olympia, but many of the townsfolk considered them to be guilty. Jim Rabie had a business in which he supplied lobbying services in support of law enforcement; it went bankrupt.

Unfortunately, by the time that Dr. Ofshe issued his report which showed that these memories were false, Ingram had already confessed to the crimes. When Ingram finally figured out that his "memories" were of events that did not happen, he attempted to reverse his plea. But laws in Washington state prevent a person from changing a guilty plea.

Paul Ingram has written several letters to his church: the Church of Living Water. He asked them to meet with members of the Ingram Organization which is trying to have him released from prison. He allegedly has not received a reply.

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