The Devil You Know: Inside Satanism's Darkest Cases

Two documentaries titled *The Devil You Know* offer conflicting portraits of Satanism in America—one rooted in genuine crime, the other in mass delusion.

## VICE TV's Satanic Slayings

VICE Studios' six-part series focuses on Pazuzu Algarad, a self-proclaimed Satanist in Clemmons, North Carolina, whose real name was John Lawson. He legally changed it to Pazuzu Algarad, borrowing the demon's name from *The Exorcist*, and created a house of horrors that attracted outcasts and troubled youth.

The Clemmons residence became notorious for extreme behavior: self-harm, drug use, orgies, defecation on floors, and Satanic symbols including pentagrams. Behind this chaos lay murder. In 2015, police discovered two bodies buried in the backyard—Joshua Wetzler and Tommy Welch. Algarad and two of his fiancées were charged with first-degree murder. His mother also faced charges related to the deaths.

After Algarad's arrest, authorities deemed the house unfit for human habitation and demolished it in April 2015. The series features journalist Matt Gillespie reflecting on the case's moral complexity, stating his belief in "bad things in this world" alongside "capacity for goodness in all people."

## The Satanic Panic Epidemic

The CBC podcast series, also called *The Devil You Know* and hosted by Sarah Marshall, takes a radically different approach—examining the Satanic Panic that gripped America from the 1980s through the 1990s. This was mass hysteria on an unprecedented scale: unfounded fears of Satanic cults, devil worship, brainwashing, and baby sacrifices that destroyed families and imprisoned the innocent.