Rascals case in brief
In the beginning, in 1989, more than 90 children at the Little Rascals Day Care Center in Edenton, North Carolina, accused a total of 20 adults with 429 instances of sexual abuse over a three-year period. It may have all begun with one parent’s complaint about punishment given her child.
Among the alleged perpetrators: the sheriff and mayor. But prosecutors would charge only Robin Byrum, Darlene Harris, Elizabeth “Betsy” Kelly, Robert “Bob” Kelly, Willard Scott Privott, Shelley Stone and Dawn Wilson โ the Edenton 7.
Along with sodomy and beatings, allegations included a baby killed with a handgun, a child being hung upside down from a tree and being set on fire and countless other fantastic incidents involving spaceships, hot air balloons, pirate ships and trained sharks.
By the time prosecutors dropped the last charges in 1997, Little Rascals had become North Carolina’s longest and most costly criminal trial. Prosecutors kept defendants jailed in hopes at least one would turn against their supposed co-conspirators. Remarkably, none did. Another shameful record: Five defendants had to wait longer to face their accusers in court than anyone else in North Carolina history.
Between 1991 and 1997, Ofra Bikel produced three extraordinary episodes on the Little Rascals case for the PBS series “Frontline.” Although “Innocence Lost” did not deter prosecutors, it exposed their tactics and fostered nationwide skepticism and dismay.
With each passing year, the absurdity of the Little Rascals charges has become more obvious. But no admission of error has ever come from prosecutors, police, interviewers or parents. This site is devoted to the issues raised by this case.
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Todayโs random selection from the Little Rascals Day Care archives….
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Todayโs random selection from the Little Rascals Day Care archives….
โMindhunterโ series misguided in choice of role model
Oct. 19, 2017
โThough โMindhunterโ at times seems like a fictitious nightmare, the new Netflix series is very much rooted in reality. Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) is based on real-life FBI agent John E. Douglas, and Dr. Wendy Carrย (played by Anna Torv) is based on Dr. Ann Wolbert Burgess, a pioneer in the treatment of trauma and abuse victims….
โThe character molded after Burgess helps Ford and his partner legitimize their research with her sociological and science-backed knowledge….โ
โ From โThe Influential Trailblazer Who Inspired Mindhunter’s Dr. Wendy Carrโย by Kelsey Garcia at Popsugar (Oct. 16)ย
Yes, itโs just a TV character. But the depiction of Ann Wolbert Burgess as a trustworthy source of โscience-based knowledgeโ should appall anyone who recalls her national prominence in igniting the โsatanic ritual abuseโ day care panic.
Most grievous for the Little Rascals defendants, it was Burgess who led a three-day conference in Kill Devil Hillsย just months before Bob Kellyโs arrest. The agenda: learning how to spot child molesters operating day-care facilities.
She has never apologized.
‘Parents too trusting’? No, magazine too gullible
May 1, 2013
โFor several years… during which innocent people, many of whom were themselves the parents of young children, were sent to prison, the press by and large went along. โThe horrors may only have started with sodomy, rape, oral copulation, and fondling,โ Newsweek confidently reported of the McMartin allegations in April 1984….
โTime’s account noted that a horse was slaughtered in front of the toddlers to intimidate them into silence, but the magazine neglected to ask how this messy procedure was accomplished without detection in a busy preschool in the middle of town, where parents and teachers came and went throughout the day. โParents,โ Time chided, โwere too trusting, assuming that separation anxiety was the reason their children cried when dropped off at school.โ
โBy the late โ80s, then, the notion that many, many day care workers went into the field only to sate their Sadean lusts for small children, and that schools were places fraught with sexual โstranger danger,โ and that childish innocence was under unprecedented assault from the forces of evil, had sufficient credibility to darken the nightmares of mothers and fathers across the country.โ
โ From โAgainst Innocence: The truth about child abuse and the truth about childrenโย by Margaret Talbot in The New Republic (March 15, 1999)
โBy the late โ80s…โ indeed โ exactly when the initial allegations were made in the Little Rascals case.
Whatever happened to Kelly’s ex-lawyer? This….
Nov. 8, 2013
While we await Gov. McCroryโs decision on whether to promote Nancy Lamb toย district attorney, another key figure in the Little Rascals prosecution is stepping aside.
From the Elizabeth City Daily Advance:
EDENTON โ Judge Chris Bean, chief district court judge in the 1st Judicial District, does not plan to seek re-election to another term.
Bean, who has been a judge for more than two decades, said recently he plans to step down when his current term ends in December 2014.
โI have been doing this for 20-some years,โ Bean said. โIt has been a fascinating career.โ
Unmentioned by Judge Bean (or by the Advance, which seems to have purged Little Rascals from its memory)ย is his deeply prejudicialย testimonyย against former client Bob Kelly.
Bean and Lamb have continued to share an immunity to just consequences. (Compare the enormity of the Little Rascals prosecution with the penny-anteย misconductย that typically brings about disbarment in North Carolina.)
Only their innocent victims โ the Edenton Seven, the child witnesses โ paid a price, and it was a high one indeed.
Supposed debunking of moral panic is itself spurious
May 10, 2014
โThe failure to obtain convictions (in the McMartin Preschool case) combined with massive press coverage during and after, which โtaughtโ the American public various โlessonsโ about child sex abuse, from child suggestibility to the notion that one must guard against โhysteriaโ on such issues.
โThe Witch-Hunt Narrativeย (by Ross Cheit) examines the evidence in the McMartin case as well as other widely reported cases, and gathers other sources on the phenomenon, to conclude that the McMartin case and reporting led to a paradigm of treating charges of abuse as a witch hunt rather than legitimate. This book goes a long way to debunk the paradigm, because there was compelling evidence for conviction….โ
โ From โBook of the Weekโ by Marci Hamilton atย Hamilton and Griffin on Rights
Are we now witnessing the beginning of a belated backlash to the backlash over the โsatanic ritual abuseโ prosecutions? Contrary to Professor Hamiltonโs enthusiastic review, Ross Cheitโs 544-page tome is riddled with inaccuracies, distortions and a shocking number of crucial omissions. Fortunately Debbie Nathan and the National Center for Reason and Justice have responded withย a devastating point-by-point refutationย โ about which more later….
Update: I asked Hamilton, who teaches at Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School, Yeshiva University, to read Nathanโs piece and reconsider. Her response: โWe will have to agree to disagree.โ
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