March 9, 2019

Pete Manning, 89, died Feb. 21 at his home in Edenton. Before retiring, Manning worked more than 50 years at the Chowan Herald, most prominently as publisher.

As prosecution of Edenton Seven lurched forward, members of the local “Believe the Children” cohort grew wary of the news media. Early on, however – before seeing themselves on “Frontline” — they had actually sought the spotlight.

Jack D. Grove, managing editor of the Herald, recalled that short-lived era to journalist David Loomis:

“I was approached by several influential businessmen who clouded up and rained all over me for putting a [Little Rascals] story on the back page. I said, ‘Go tell Pete Manning, don’t tell me.’ These businessmen, almost all parents of Little Rascals children, went into a closed-door meeting with Pete. We never again had a story anywhere but on the front page after that.”

Unfortunately, the Herald’s front-page coverage was painfully passive at best.

June 25, 2012

“I saw this woman in her 20s … accused of something like 2,800 charges of child sex abuse. Oh, I thought, well, that’s very odd….

“I thought, How can (Kelly Michaels) one woman, one young, lone woman in an absolutely open place like the child care center of the church in New Jersey that she worked for – how could she have committed these enormous crimes against 20 children, dressed and undressed them and sent – you know what it is to dress and undress even one child every day without getting their socks lost? – 20 children in a perfectly public place, torture them for two years, frighten and terrorize them, and they never went home and told their parents anything?… This did seem strange.”

– Dorothy Rabinowitz, recalling on C-SPAN the 1985 case that led to her Pulitzer-winning coverage of the ritual-abuse day-care mania

“This did seem strange.”

From the vantage of 2012, of course, such allegations seem not only “strange” but also patently incredible.

So why didn’t everybody – therapists, journalists, prosecutors, jurors – share Rabinowitz’s reasonable doubt?

How did such a grotesque misconception flourish?

Had skepticism really fallen that far out of fashion during the “Believe the Children” zeitgeist?

Nov. 4, 2011

“A mere suspicion of witchcraft justifies the immediate arrest and torture of the suspected person….

“A prisoner may be promised immunity or reduced punishment if he accuses his accomplices.”

– From “On the Demon-Mania of Witches” by Jean Bodin, French judge (1580)

Feb. 15, 2013

From a letter that the police chief in Manhattan Beach, Calif., sent to parents of children attending McMartin Preschool after the arrest of Ray Buckey on Sept. 7, 1983:

“This Department is conducting a criminal investigation involving child molestation…. The following procedure is obviously an unpleasant one, but to protect the rights of your children as well as the rights of the accused, this inquiry is necessary….

“Please question your child to see if he or she has been a witness to any crime or if he or she has been a victim.  Our investigation indicates that possible criminal acts include: oral sex, fondling of genitals, buttock or chest area, and sodomy, possibly committed under the pretense of ‘taking the child’s temperature.’  Also photos may have been taken of children without their clothing.  Any information from your child regarding having ever observed Ray Buckey to leave a classroom alone with a child during any nap period, or if they have ever observed Ray Buckey tie up a child, is important.

“Please complete the enclosed information form and return it to this Department in the enclosed stamped return envelope as soon as possible….”

“Please question your child….”

As would be demonstrated in McMartin, Little Rascals and dozens of other day-care ritual abuse cases, these four words ensured that anxious parents interrogated their children until they at last “revealed” stories of sharks, witches and murdered babies.

The chief’s letter showed his naïvete not only about the allegations of  “possible criminal acts” at McMartin, but also about the inevitable hysteria they would produce. “….Please keep this investigation strictly confidential,” he advised parents, “because of the nature of the charges and the highly emotional effect it could have on our community.”