In the Name of Satan

by Wensley Clarkson

A lovely teenage girl's final goodbye...

"I love you and I'm going to bed," were the last words Elyse Pahler ever said to her parents. But she would never dream again, for the pretty blond 15-year-old was about to begin a walking nightmare that would end in her grisly stabbing murder.

Three depraved schoolboys' deadly fantasies ...

Later that night Elyse slipped out of her parent's house for a bit of forbidden fun. She never suspected that three local boys - two of whom rode the school bus with her - were outside in the dark waiting...waiting to perform a human sacrifice - in the name of Satan.

An unspeakable atrocity that stunned a nation ...

The DA claims that teenagers Royce Casey, Jacob Delashmutt, and Joe Fiorella - all in a band called Hatred - believed they had found the ultimate offering to make to the Prince of Darkness. They would sacrifice an innocent young girl, a virgin. Prosecutors say the three boys dragged a terrified Elyse to a deserted area they believed was the devil's altar, where, after being drugged, and attacked, she died of multiple stab wounds.

For eight months Elyse's body lay hidden in a eucalyptus grove until an unexpected tip to police revealed the ghastly crime. In The Name of Satan is an unthinkable American tragedy, a horrifying voyage into deepest evil imaginable.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction

216 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published February 15, 1998

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poorly written, sensationalism without substance. The victim of this crime deserves better than a ham-fisted polemic about the supposed threat of Satanism in America TM. I hate to break it to the author, but Slayer fans who kill people aren't the public face of a worldwide network of Satanic human sacrifice aficionados. They're just Slayer fans who kill people. Really. I swear.

[☯Meera☯ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel as if the author gave up halfway through the book and decided to prolong the whole thing by adding why people worship Satan.

20% actual story
40% choppy sayings from friends
40% why people worshipped Satan.

[Zee · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book sets a record for me: I've never wanted to give 0 stars as a rating until now.

Cue the ranting.

After finishing this book I can't figure out whether it was supposed to be creative nonfiction, a crack news article that turned into a book on accident, or an essay by an old man who was trying to prove just how outdated he is.

Here are my complaints.

1. The book spends at least 40 pages citing Slayer specifically as the reason "youngsters" sacrifice virgin females and have sex with their corpses.

2. They never state the outcome of when the family sues Slayer.

3. They wait until somewhere near chapter fucking 20 to give key evidence like, oh yeah, the defendants raped her corpse. They just make references to it that don't make any sense.

4. Heaven forbid you call anyone under the age of 25 anything other than youngster or youths. Apparently words like teenager, young people, young men, young adult, boy, person, child, human being, defendant, perpetrator, or any other pronoun just doesn't exist in your vocabulary.

5. How to write sentences paragraphs of scene as according to this book: Adverb, youth weak-verb adjective-used-as-noun adverb. But, youngsters (insert sentence that has nothing to do with the last sentence, probably saying that anyone with a vagina is afraid of anyone who listens to Slayer, and only people who hage penises listen to Slayer), double adverb."

6. Somewhere around page 150 the author gives up on the story completely and spends the next 50 pages talking about why people kill others and why teenagers pretend to worship Satan but aren't actually worshipping Satan.

7. According to this book only middle class white people are allowed to worship Satan. Apparently it's as racially exclusive as a country club or winning an Oscar.

8. I still haven't figured out what the thesis is here besides don't listen to metal or you'll want to sell your soul and murder 15 year olds

9. There's a good 30-50 pages, total, where the author blatantly says that the guys who murdered someone and slept with her corpse were on crystal meth, and in the next paragraph says that meth doesn't make people crazy, Slayer does, complete with quotes from Slayer lyrics.

10. I cannot accurately describe what a piece of shit this book is. It's an absurd farce with about as much reality as an episode of Judge Judy.

[Fishface · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is one of the crime cases that contributed to the Satanic Panic; Clarkson wrote it so early in the development of the story that it almost qualifies as an instant paperback. (Or maybe it does qualify.) He gives the reader as much as he can without actually interviewing any of the dramatis personae in the case, if that gives you an idea. This was an important moment in the Nineties demonic-crime craze, but if it changed any laws or the official approach to the investigation, defense or prosecution in cases like these, it was too early to know about it at the time the book went to press.

[Allison · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had never heard of this story - 3 boys attacked a classmate as a "sacrifice" to Satan. Her body wasn't found until a year or so later, at which point one of the boys confessed to everything. There were so many opportunities to pull the reader in and explore the rationale of these psychos, but the author seemed to have another agenda. The last third of the book focused on the heavy metal music the boys listened to and a bit of psychology about what leads people to kill. Not very interesting; it really dulled the impact of what happened to the poor young girl they decided to torture.

[Jim · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disappointing. This fellow was in such haste to capitalize on a sesationalist case that he wrote and printed the book before the trials were over. Consequently, you're not exactly sure of many details of the case and you are left wondering about the outcome. He does offer some useful insight into teenage "satanism" in the latter pages, but this is insufficient to redeem the book.

[Justine Torres · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book jumped around too much, which caused a lot of confusion. It left things unanswered and there wasn't much focus on the "satanism" the title suggests. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this book.

[Sabrina Rutter · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book several years ago. I can't really remember how much I liked it or if I didn't. I do remember that it was really sad.

[Donna Humble · Rating 1 out of 5]

Once again Wensley Clarkson has rushed to write a book before the accused murderers go to trial. I also got the feeling that he fleshed out the page numbers by offering quote and supposition about Satanism. I will not be buying any more of this author's book.

[Ana · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book was written before the trial was over(?)

[leah kenn · Rating 2 out of 5]

almost dnf it 💁‍♀️

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is okay if you have nothing else to read.

[Angela · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you really enjoy true crime books I would not recommend this book. It seemed to jump from place to place and lacked a lot of detail.

[Andy Hamilton]

teens kill some slut for Slayer.