Deaths of Tate Rowland and Terrie Trosper

Three years after the suicide of her younger brother, Terrie Trosper, age 27, was found deceased in her bed on the morning of May 31, 1991. The first autopsy of Trosper by pathologist Dr. Ralph Erdmann showed that Trosper had died as a result of choking on her own vomit.

After Trosper's death, the rumors were reignited after Darwin Wilks, the older brother of Ray Wilks, attempted suicide by an Elavil overdose—the same drug found in Trosper's blood. On July 27, 1991, Rowland's body was exhumed due to the circulating allegations. Though Rowland's body was too decomposed to make conclusive statements about the hanging as a suicide, there were levels of Elavil found in his remains, and the coroner claimed to have been seventy percent sure that the death was a result of homicide. Trosper's body was also exhumed in late October, and the second autopsy, performed in December, revealed contusions on her thigh as well as evidence that she had been smothered to death.

On the evening of July 26, 1988, the body of seventeen-year-old Tate Rowland was discovered hanging from a horse apple tree on a dirt road outside of Childress, Texas by his friend, Chad Johnston. At 6 p.m., Johnston came to Rowland's house, where he told Rowland's father and stepmother, Brenda, that he had witnessed Tate hang himself. The three rushed to the tree where Chad had witnessed the suicide, and Rowland's father, Jimmie, cut him down from the tree. According to Johnston, he and Rowland had been drinking beers outside their truck near the tree; he claimed that he had walked to the other side of the truck to throw a beer can away, and when he returned, he witnessed Rowland hang himself with the rope.

Rumors surrounding the possibility of a Satanic cult being involved in the deaths began at Tate Rowland's funeral. According to the family, an unknown woman entered the chapel during Rowland's funeral, leaving before its conclusion; additionally, a male in attendance was reportedly chanting the word "suicide" during the funeral. According to the district attorney, there were also eyewitness reports of strangers attempting to pick up children from the local schools in the fall of 1988, and multiple phone calls were received each day by the police department claiming Rowland had been murdered due to his affiliations with a Satanic cult.

In November 1988, fifteen-year-old Ray Wilks, a peer of Rowland's, was arrested for drunkenly crashing a car into a utility pole. At his booking, Wilks claimed to have been a member of the rumored Satanic cult, and also claimed to have witnessed Rowland's death. According to Wilks' father, however, he couldn't have witnessed Rowland's death, as he was in a juvenile detention center the night of the hanging.

The deaths of Janson Tate Rowland (November 7, 1970 – July 26, 1988) and Terrie John Trosper (February 27, 1964 – May 30, 1991), two siblings in Childress, Texas, occurred in 1988 and 1991, respectively. Their deaths, though ruled a suicide and an accident, were one of several cases attributed to the Satanic panic that occurred in the United States in the late 1980s.