FX
Warning: This story contains descriptions of sexual abuse.
Faye Yager was unable to protect her young daughter from being sexually abused by her father, and she responded by dedicating her life to creating an underground network for women striving to shield their kids from such heinous cruelty—work that brought the issue of incestuous rape and molestation of children into the national spotlight, and ostensibly saved numerous girls from danger. She was also a vigilante who believed that many of her wards had been subjected to demonic rituals, thus adding fuel to the “Satanic Panic” fire of the 1980s, and she likely aided some individuals whose progeny were not the victims they claimed to be. Children of the Underground is thus a portrait of a woman—and an issue—with no easy answers, shining a spotlight on a legacy defined by contradictions and complications.
Whether Yager was a saint or a sinner is the question at the core of FX’s five-part docuseries Children of the Underground (August 12), and directors Gabriela Cowperthwaite and Ted Gesing’s tale turns out to be inherently messy, even if concrete certainties do exist. Few people, for example, have doubts about the sincerity of Yager, who embarked upon her mission due to her own harrowing personal experiences. Raised in a rural West Virginia enclave, Yager married Roger Jones at age 17 and had a daughter, Michelle, shortly thereafter. When, one morning, she discovered her spouse standing before Michelle, trying to cajole the girl into fondling his erect penis, Yager snapped. Nonetheless, even when Michelle developed an STD from Jones’ sexual assaults, the courts did nothing to address this brutality, and—after Yager’s husband tried to get her committed to a psychiatric hospital—a judge actually gave Jones full custody of Michelle.