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Wenatchee, Wash., the "Apple Capital of the World," is rocked by a 1994 police probe into a pedophile ring called "The Circle" resulting in 43 parents being jailed and dozens of children being put in foster care, but none of it actually happened.
2021
The Doggett family moves to Wenatchee, WA to build a better life when, suddenly, parents Mark and Carol end up on trial accused of molestation. The key witnesses against them? Their own children. Serving as the prism into the first wave of arrests, the Doggetts unknowingly plant the seeds for what will become an alleged, extraordinary underground child sex ring called 'The Circle.'
Pentecostal pastor Roby Roberson is among the first to recognize that innocents are being railroaded in Wenatchee's "Happy Valley." But when he sets out to fight on their behalf, his church congregation is targeted, Roby and his wife are arrested, and the Roberson's only child goes on the run to avoid the law.
With the sex ring fully constructed and the townsfolk in peril, "The Serpent" explores the man behind the investigation, Wenatchee sex crimes detective Bob Perez. Incredibly, his troubled, nine year-old foster daughter, Donna Everett, becomes the impetus for the wild accusations that unfold. Donna, now 40 years-old, tells her gut-wrenching story for the very first time, revealing the shocking evolution of the lies, and the lives destroyed.
Foster parent Bob Devereaux is targeted by forces at Child Protective Services seeking revenge for a previous altercation. Revealing the classism and dysfunction lurking beneath the town's "Happy Valley" façade, "The Sin Eaters" introduces the heroic CPS whistle-blowers who break from the herd to speak out against the injustice and horrifying retaliation that follows by their superiors.
The tide finally begins to turn with the Sims, a family who attended Roby's church and were arrested and coerced in an effort to implicate their pastor. Having seen the fates of the others, the Sims refuse to cooperate, mortgaging everything they have to pay for outside counsel, who obliterates the prosecution's case. "The Circle" is breaking.
The emancipators arrive just in time in the form of outside media, and their relentless reporting attracts the attention of the Innocence Project. After obtaining counsel, the accused are finally released one by one over a period of time, attempting to salvage their families and lives. But while most are exonerated, there is no accountability, and justice is never served upon the real perpetrators - the system.
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