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Hey everyone, I'm Natalie Robamed, co-host

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of Infamous, a podcast about America's

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biggest scandals. Right

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now, Infamous is telling the story of

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Kelly Michaels and the satanic panic.

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It's a complicated, wild tale about

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memory,

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Satanism, and how one woman

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was sentenced to 47 years in

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prison for the worst crimes imaginable,

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only to be exonerated. Here's

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a sneak preview from my co-host, Vanessa

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Gregoriotis. This is a

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story about good and evil. It's

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about the spiritual battle that all

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of us may be engaged in every

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moment of every day, to

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do the right thing or what we think

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is the right

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thing, to protect those

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who are good and innocent

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from those who are evil. We

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are in a spiritual battle every second, but

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we decide every moment what kind of person we're going to be, what

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kind of choices we're going to make, are we going

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to add to the misery of the world, are we going to try to

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minimize it, are we going to

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do what's right? We're making decisions

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all the time. I'm sitting with Kelly

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Michaels. We're in her

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kitchen nook, near a photo

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of one of her seven children playing

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soccer.

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And she has thought a lot about good

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and evil, perhaps more than

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most people. For reasons that

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will become clear in a little bit.

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Actually,

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all human beings are kind of caught in it, which is a Tolkien.

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If you ever read any of his books, they're all hobbits,

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believe it or not.

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She's talking about J.R.R. Tolkien,

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the legendary author of Lord of

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the Rings and The Hobbit. You

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see, Kelly believes that most of us

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are hobbits. If you haven't seen the

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movies or read the books, hobbits

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are the ruddy, homely, shyer folk

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who aren't looking for adventure or big

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ideas, but just want a regular,

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ordinary life.

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What

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about breakfast? I've already had it. We've

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had one yet. What about Jack and breakfast?

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Hobbits are more concerned with beer and

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finding someone to fall in love with and

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their next delicious meal than

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ideas of evil. In

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Lord of the Rings, this evil takes

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the form of Sauron, which

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is, this is how he's

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portrayed, an all-seeing

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eye of fire.

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This entity, this eye of fire,

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wants to take over

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Middle-earth, wants everything.

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He did not hear it, he said. The Hobbits could contend

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with the will of Sauron. Evil

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is the absence of good. Evil is the absence

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of truth, the absence of love, the absence

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of mercy, the absence of beauty.

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There's always been like this small, weak

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few that like own and run everything

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and run the peasants, which most of us are peasants.

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Just trying to survive, like have family, raise kids,

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try to have a good life, and then there's like some heroic

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people to battle against, people that would

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reduce people to slaves, reduce people to

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ants that don't have any value. And

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then most of us are caught in the middle within these forces.

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History is mainly made by a small

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percentage of really bad people

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versus a handful of heroic, good people,

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and the middle is like kind of getting pushed

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around by both sides.

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Sometimes, Kelly thinks, the regular

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second breakfast eating folk, the

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Hobbits, can get swayed

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by evil forces.

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They say you can get people to believe

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anything if you keep repeating it enough times. It's

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in, as Solzhen says, the line between good

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and evil runs between, not between cultures

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or sexes or political parties,

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it runs between every human heart, and

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it's a cliché, but there is truth to that, you know.

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And which side of that line you're on

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can have very real consequences?

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that have nothing to do with the fictional

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world of Lord of the Rings. For

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Kelly Michaels, that would mean going to prison,

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and even more than that, becoming a pariah,

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being cast out of civil society.

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This woman, in this breakfast nook,

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became the definition of absolute

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evil. If

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you want to hear more, it's all on the podcast

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Infamous. Listen to Infamous wherever

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you get your podcasts.