I tried to go further than Ash and find out what copy Jeremy could have really had, and I went as far as contacting the actual author of the book, who unfortunately said this:

"There are  2  editions of Cults That Kill, a hardcover edition and a paperback version. Both were published in 1988 by Warner Books according to the copyright page. However in   2014 I took back the rights and re-published it myself on Amazon."

He attached pictures of the hardcover version (the one pictured above) and the paperback version (the black and purple one you see in the screenshot from Ash's website). Both were published in 1988 so... yeah, that was a fail!

At least I was glad to find that the Cults that Kill mention was factual (coming from the police report) and not another unsourced "fact" reported by The Jeremy Story. However, since I don't like to make posts about the Jeremy matter unless I really have something new to add, I'll give a little historical background as to why - I believe - Jeremy may have been interested in reading Cults that Kill and why the book was a success at the time. Because even though Ash, on his website, said that "[Jeremy] was also reading up on Satanism and Cults as many adolescents did in the past, and still do nowadays", I think there was something culturally bigger behind it.

The following research is the same one I made for a citation I put in PART 2 of No more "Later Days"... we ain't playing games around here!

Maybe you already knew about this, maybe you didn't... learning about history never hurts!

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I may come late to the party but I finished reading Cults That Kill and I took some notes. I also watched a couple of videos regarding the Satanic Panic (of which I spoke in Part 1) and crimes perpetrated by Satanic cults, and I did it because I wanted to find an answer to these questions I had:

1) Why was Cults That Kill seen by the school as controversial, when they found it in Jeremy's locker during one of the searches?

2) Why was Jeremy interested in reading a book like that?

3) Did the deer leg found in his locker have any connection to the book? If so, what was the point of that deer leg?

These are the questions I'll try to answer, as usual by citing my sources (the chapters or page numbers of Cults That Kill from which I got my info will be written between brackets). I would like to thank my friend and helper Epiphany for telling me some theories of hers which helped me build this article and also added a question to my list: 4) Was Jeremy involved in any way with Satanism? 

We'll start from the beginning.

I'll explain later why, I believe, the cross was on the left side of his body and not on the right one. For now, I'll just limit myself to reporting the question I had when I remembered about this, but to get you to understand my point, I need you to fill you in on some info. All the following info can be found in Cults That Kill.

Towards the beginning of the 80s, a book called Michelle Remembers was published. The book was the result of a cooperation between a psychiatrist and his patient who, through the practice of repressed memory recovery, remembered she had been abused by Satanists during her childhood (source). That sparked fear and paranoia among many which increased exponentially during the years: children who didn't know each other were telling therapists and police officers about the same brutal and horrifying stories of rituals, animal and human sacrifices and child sexual abuse perpetrated by groups of Satanists (Chapter 12). A couple of police officers started to notice symbols like inverted crosses and pentagrams on crime scenes, black candles, circles drawn on the ground with a triangle drawn to the side, and many more things which were different from the crime scenes they had seen before. They started taking notes and making their own manual about Satanic-related crime scenes and they tried to convince their bosses and colleagues that what was happening was real: they were the laughing stock of many for years, until similar cases started popping up all over the country and they started receiving dozens of phone calls by colleagues who wanted to know what they were looking at (Chapters 1-3).

Scandals about Satanic circles involving schools in prostituting children of unaware parents rose to the media (Chapter 12). The tv was talking about it, newspapers were talking about it (Chapter 10) and police officers were holding classes advising parents to look out for psychological and physical signs their children may have been involved with Satanism - they even advised to be on the lookout for heavy metal bands, which notoriously used Satanic drawings on the cover of their albums, and for the 'horn' symbol made by raising the index and the pinky finger, commonly associated with metal music and which, according to experts, was a symbol of the Devil (Chapter 11).

As you can read, the situation was spiraling out of control. Everybody was freaking out about Satanists hiding among the normal, Christian people (Chapter 9) and people were actually getting arrested because they were linked to crimes which were thought to be involved with Satanism (source).

Now, in such a social freakout, would you imagine Jeremy going around in summer, maybe to the pool, happily and proudly displaying the tattoo of an inverted cross on his chest?

No, me neither. I mean, Jeremy was notorious for wanting to grab attention in any possible way, but I don't imagine him willingly putting himself up with such dangerous, unwanted attention. I believe he got that tattoo when he could easily hide it, but when exactly?

In 2013, my friend Epiphany managed to speak to a friend of Jeremy from Richardson High School. I was given permission to quote but not to release the full conversation or the name of this person, as Epiphany is unfortunately not in contact with them anymore and she's unsure wether they would be okay with having their name and full conversation released or not. 

Here's what Jeremy's friend said: "I don't know what they [Jeremy's tattoos] meant. He drew a devil on his chest. He showed that to me. I don't remember seeing his tattoos."

If she saw Jeremy's drawing on his chest, she must have seen the inverted cross tattoo as well. If she didn't see that tattoo, it must mean he got it at a later time, maybe during winter of 1990 and not fall. Or it could also be that she genuinely didn't remember (22 years had passed from Jeremy's death when this conversation took place).

So, a tattoo of an inverted cross and also Jeremy drawing, of all things, a devil on his chest in the middle of the Satanic Panic? And finding Cults That Kill, which talks about Satanism, in his locker? It could be a coincidence, or maybe not.

Oh right, on the cover of Cults That Kill. Sounds like a note from a kid who was easily influenced by what he was reading at the time, doesn't it?

7 is not a Satanic number to my knowledge, it wasn't mentioned in Cults That Kill unless we're talking about the seven Santeria gods, but Santeria is a hispanic and black religion so I don't think it had anything to do with Jeremy. Maybe the number 7 was just the date, December 7, who knows.

Becoming an atheist in a very conservative and Christian society like 1990 Texas must have felt like something really rebellious. Kids who go through a lot tend to reject the idea of God because they cannot believe there could ever be a God who, contrary to what religion teaches, just doesn’t care about the suffering of his own sons and daughters. They cannot accept the idea of constantly praying, begging, to a God to help them and see their life only getting worse: that’s when they come to the conclusion that God doesn’t exist. 

Now, when kids reject their family's religion during adolescence, they usually go through a phase in which they draw Satanic symbols or make Satanic remarks, but more because it feels rebellious than because there's actual meaning to it. I mean, I personally have yet to meet someone who stopped believing in god during adolescence and didn't draw a few pentagrams or inverted crosses on notebooks because it felt cool and rebellious. Again, kids will be kids. And that’s reason number two why Jeremy could have gotten interested in Satanism.

Reason number three, as you may have guessed yourself while reading the excerpts of Cults That Kill that I posted above, is that Jeremy must have felt welcome. If you’re someone who’s lost and angry at the world, begging anybody to just give you a little bit of love and attention, you’ll be delighted to read that there’s an actual religion in which you matter, in which you and your well-being come before everything else; a religion whose God could give you anything you demand (and not beg) for; a religion that everyone else fears and which could give you not only the respect, but also the attention you so badly crave for. And I mean, you’re a fifteen-year-old boy, wouldn’t you be delighted with the idea of getting the attention of girls for doing weird, occultist things? 

I personally believe this third reason is the strongest one, the one that convinced Jeremy to get interested in Satanism. But… was he just rebelling or did he actually convert from atheism to Satanism? Is there anything more that can make one think he did approach Satanism during his last months?

Yes, yes there is.

Why would Jeremy want to try a ritual? Well, for the reasons explained above: a lot of kids, from the "dabblers" category, approached (I’m using the past tense because I’m referring to the the book and the situation in the 80s/early 90s) Satanism from a situation of desperation: they felt powerless over their own lives, maybe they were even being bullied or mistreated by the people around them. They heard or read that some people believed that Satan could give them all they wanted, immediately, without having to beg, so they decided to give it a try and do a ritual themselves. It wasn't really out of malice, therefore, but out of desperation: I believe that's what went through Jeremy's mind when he decided to give Satanism a try. 

Still, we can assume he didn't believe too much in all that, otherwise I think we would have heard of more people telling about him and Satanism (unless they wanted to protect him in some way):

Also, of all things he could have chosen for a ritual, he chose an animal leg, which, in the world of Satanism, holds very little if zero power, and that could be another indicator that he wasn't really serious about it. 

I really have no idea how Jeremy got that leg - maybe he found it somewhere, maybe he or a friend went hunting (he did lie to people saying he had been given a pistol, for hunting, some time in December 1990) or maybe he bought it in some kind of shop, maybe a butcher's or something.

The fact that he had the leg hanging in his locker in plain sight makes me think he wasn't planning on using it any time soon, and that, maybe, all he really wanted was for people to see it and think he was a Satanist, so they would either admire him or leave him alone. Which reminds me of…

Which reminds me of when Jeremy lied about having Confederate Hammerskin friends in order to scare off kids who were giving him a hard time. I imagine he used Satanism in this regard, too, also because if you're an atheist, like some people stated he was, and which means you just can't believe there is a god, you can't really believe in Satan either, can you?

Another thing that got me thinking is that thirteen is a number mentioned in Cults That Kill (Chapter 8), and it's the number of people who are usually present during a Satanic ritual. However, I wouldn’t stretch things that far, since there are several theories as to why Jeremy had a number 13 tattooed on his left hand but no certain one. The Jeremy Story said that when the boy was arrested in December 1990, the police noted his arm tattoo. You would think they would also mention the tattoo on his hand if they saw it, yet they didn’t, so maybe Jeremy got it at a later time? Who knows. Again, the source is The Jeremy Story, so take it with a grain of salt.  

Anyway, I do know of a tattoo that Jeremy got before September 1990, and that's his arm tattoo, which apparently (source is The Jeremy Story) was on the left side of his body. 

Cults That Kill said:

I... don't really think Jeremy got his tattoos on the left side of his body because it was a reference to Satan or whatever (there could be a million reasons why), but I do think the inverted cross on his left chest was there for that reason. 

Regarding Jeremy’s beliefs, I personally theorize that, like a lot of teenagers, he got interested in Satanism because it was a forbidden topic. I also think he approached it during the last months or weeks of his life because his mental health was getting much worse and on one side, he really wanted to believe he could magically gain power over his own life; but on the other side, being an atheist he didn't really believe in it so the least he could do was to pretend he was a Satanist in order to scare off some people, or maybe look cooler in the eyes of some others.

As always, I try my best to show you my reasoning and hypothesis, you are always welcome to speculate and tell me your personal interpretation of the facts, I would be interested in reading it.

Was there any truth behind the Satanic Panic or was it all just fake?

Well, there is proof that there were people actually attempting rituals, kidnapping and sexually abusing children and whatnot. The point is, these cases were much less than what the media made it out to be, and most of the time actual Satanists had nothing to do with those cases. In fact, Cults That Kill explains that Satanism was just an excuse for a lot of criminals and abhorrent individuals to do horrible stuff and not have the police investigate on the matter too much, because every religion (Satanism included) in America is protected by the First Amendment, which grants freedom of religion. Furthermore, you have to consider the fact that a lot of people tend to use religion as a moral lifeboat - for instance, someone who kills somebody in the name of Satan may not feel as guilty as they would if they had killed a person for no reason; in the same exact way some Christian people feel justified in telling horrible things to other people ("Being gay is against nature, you're going to hell") because apparently their religion justifies it.

As for children confessing to having been victims of Satanic rituals, some cases were certainly true, unfortunately, but others were just children being suggested the answer by therapists and policemen interrogating them, and not telling the story on their own.

So, in short: the Satanic Panic was a real phenomenon with a real basis. It spiraled into a proper panic because of the influence of the media and people wanting to see connections that often weren’t even there - like thinking that AC/DC stands for Anti Christ Devil Child. 

And no, I wish I made that one up.

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