Oak Hill (Keller) case: day-care operators declared actually innocent after a satanic-ritual-abuse conviction
Request a correction or replyDisposition and response
Material that narrows or disputes the record
Appellate history
2017-06-01
Travis County DA's Declaration of Actual Innocence (2017); $3.4 million state compensation.
Record class
Separate register
Evidence status
Official finding
Authority role
prosecutors, investigators and therapists acting on satanic-ritual-abuse panic, the wrongly accused (survivors of the miscarriage)
Organization
No organization assigned
Archive classification
This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.
A therapist and prosecution expert built the case explicitly around satanic-ritual-abuse theory, eliciting fantastical child allegations with no physical corroboration that a later actual-innocence review found had no evidentiary basis.
- Violent occult ideology or sacrifice
- Other spiritual authority or belief
Evidence structure
Proceedings
2017-06-01 · charges dismissed; declared actually innocent (2017); $3.4M compensation
Travis County / Texas courts (Declaration of Actual Innocence). Fran and Dan Keller were convicted in 1992 of sexually abusing a child based on escalating, physically impossible satanic-ritual-abuse allegations elicited via suggestive questioning, and sentenced to 48 years. They were released in 2013 after their medical expert recanted and prosecutorial nondisclosure emerged; in 2017 the Travis County District Attorney declared them actually innocent, dismissed all charges, and the state paid $3.4 million in compensation.
Documented coercion mechanisms
- satanic-ritual-abuse panic ideology
- coercive/suggestive child-interview techniques
Cited record
Sources
- national broadcaster court reporting final disposition 'Texas couple cleared of satanic abuse claims to get $3.4 million', CBS News (2017).
Reports the Kellers' declaration of actual innocence and $3.4 million compensation after the satanic-ritual-abuse conviction was found baseless.
Source provenance
Source access and integrity log
This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.
- Source and tier basis
- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-couple-cleared-of-satanic-abuse-claims-to-get-3-4-million/ Corpus classification: national-broadcaster-court-reporting; evidentiary role: final-disposition. SHA-256 225a0f314a69a67d423d119510d96a8bf59959e3744512ebda8b7fa511909272
- Retrieval
- 2026-07-20 · Preserved
- Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
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Related record
Related cases · False ritual-abuse accusation and miscarriage of justice
- 1994 · West Memphis, Arkansas, USA West Memphis Three: satanic-panic prosecution and the wrongful conviction of Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley
- 1990 · Manhattan Beach, California, USA McMartin Preschool: the longest US criminal trial ends with no convictions after satanic-ritual-abuse allegations collapse
- 1986 · Kern County (Bakersfield), California, USA Kern County ritual-abuse prosecutions: dozens convicted, most convictions later overturned
- 1995 · Wenatchee, Washington, USA Wenatchee 'sex ring': mass arrests on tens of thousands of charges, most convictions later overturned
- 1997 · Edenton, North Carolina, USA Little Rascals Day Care: all convictions vacated after satanic-ritual-abuse allegations
- 1991 · South Ronaldsay, Orkney, Scotland, UK Orkney child-abuse scandal: official inquiry finds the satanic-abuse removals fundamentally flawed
- 1990 · Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England, UK Rochdale satanic-abuse case: government-commissioned inquiry finds organised satanic abuse a 'myth'
- 2016 · San Antonio, Texas, USA San Antonio Four: four women exonerated after a 'satanic ritual' junk-science conviction