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A lawyer and a private investigator hired to help defend Chad Campbell say Satanism played a "major role" in two August murders in Palmyra for which Campbell is charged.
"There's no question that occultism had something to do with this case," said Logan Clarke, a Lake Arrowhead, Calif., private investigator hired by Campbell's parents.
Clarke said he had top medical examiners in Los Angeles looking over the autopsy reports and comparing the intensity of the stab wounds in an effort to prove that more than one person was involved in the stabbings.
"But clearly," Clarke said, "there had to be more people involved to set up a crime like this. A kid doesn't just decide that he's going to stab someone 40 times."
The murders only served to intensify what community officials say has been a hard fight to allay residents' fears about the suspected cult. Authorities last month called an informational session on Satanism that drew more than 1,200 people to Palmyr-Macedon High School.
"There have been a lot of rumors and a lot of signs that don't point anywhere," village trustee Dan Gilmore said.
But Clarke, who has been an expert witness on previous Satanism cases, said he thought the cult was a serious problem and that town officials should take it more seriously.