Laurel Rose Willson (August 18, 1941 – April 8, 2002) was an American author. She authored books as Lauren Stratford alleging Satanic ritual abuse (SRA), and later assumed the guise of a Holocaust survivor as Laura Grabowski. The general theme of her writing, from adolescence, was horror fiction, often violent and sexual, in which she was the victim. She had one sister, five years older, named Willow Nell. A gifted musician from a young age, Willson learned to play the piano, clarinet, and flute. After college, Willson worked as a public-school music teacher. She later resided in Bakersfield, California, for a number of years, becoming known within evangelical Christian churches there as a vocalist and pianist.

She made allegations that she was psychologically and physically tortured from the age of four until her early twenties. In a book, she claimed that her adoptive mother allowed a laborer to rape her at six years old in lieu of paying for services, and by the age of eight she was supposedly forced into pornography and bestiality.

Willson's older sister, in a signed affidavit, noted:<blockquote>My parents were devout Christians. They were both active members of the Bible Presbyterian Church in Tacoma. Both of them were fully committed to the Lord Jesus Christ. My sister and I were raised in a very sheltered, strict Christian home. There was no place in our home for anything remotely occult or pornographic. My mother continues as a dedicated Christian&nbsp;...</blockquote>

Satanic ritual abuse allegations

Under the name "Lauren Stratford", Willson wrote three books, the most infamous of which was Satan's Underground, purporting to tell a true story of her upbringing as a baby breeder (for sacrifices) in a satanic cult. Willson had also claimed to have firsthand knowledge of high-profile cases of alleged Satanic ritual abuse (including the child abuse cases in Kern County, where she resided), but her claims were dismissed by investigators as unreliable and fabricated.

Willson, along with Michelle Smith (co-author of the inauthentic memoir Michelle Remembers), was featured on an episode of Oprah Winfrey's eponymous show in 1989, where Winfrey touted both stories as being unimpeachable fact.

An investigation by Bob and Gretchen Passantino and Jon Trott in the Christian magazine Cornerstone discovered Stratford's real name and family background, and that her stories of abuse were false. In interviews with Willson's family and former associates, it was revealed that Willson had a long history of mental illness and making false allegations of abuse. She repeatedly threatened suicide and practiced self-mutilation and was reportedly hospitalized over forty times.

Cornerstone found no evidence that she had ever been pregnant, and when initially posed questions to her publisher, were told that they had documentation to prove the claims. The authors eventually determined that the publisher had done nothing to verify the allegations.

After her books were withdrawn from sale, Willson legally changed her name to Lauren Stratford.

She was also briefly involved in the McMartin preschool trial, claiming to have witnessed and stopped the abuses. She also claimed to have been involved in an ongoing lesbian relationship with Virginia McMartin. She claimed to be a victim of the infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, alleging experiments had rendered her infertile and the chemical injections blinded her eyes irrevocably. When pressed for specifics regarding her time at the camps, she was unable to provide dates, times or names. Wilkomirski (real name Bruno Grosjean) later was revealed to be neither Jewish nor a Holocaust survivor, aiding in the exposure of Willson as a fraud.

See also

  • Misery literature
  • Wilkomirski syndrome
  • Robert Passantino
  • Marie Sophie Hingst

References

<!--Graduated, per Cornerstone article-->