Just like the Salem Witch trials, we had people accuse relatives, friends, and sometimes strangers of horrific abuse, and yet no physical evidence was provided, just hazy memories pieced together. I think we all better start being super nice to our neighbors and children, lest one day, they too, will point the finger at us of abuse through their recovered "memories."
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Everyone dies but not everyone gets to live.
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It's hard to understand why these waves of mass hysteria (which are a part of what sociologists call "collective behavior") seem to be actually necessary in a society.
Right now there are public service announcements on many TV stations warning the audience that "one in five teenagers has been sexually solicited" on the internet, the idea being that there are a horde of "internet predators" out there preying on our children. A link is provided -- something like www.cybertip.com -- so you can report any suspicious activities on the part of that neighbor you don't get along with. He may be investigated and, who knows, if the investigators dig around in his closets and on his hard drive long enough they may find something illegal.
The claim that "one out of five" children have been sexually solicited on the internet is based on a single study, which I've read, and I'm a sociologist. It's not a bad study but by its nature it's weak. By its own definitions, if an 18-year-old boy asks a 17-year-old girl for a date, it counts as a sexual solicition. I got into it a little more in a review of The Julie Posey Story.
The name of the movie covering the McMartin Preschool trial and starring James Woods is "Indictment."