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 – 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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Little Rascals Day Care Case
This Facebook page is an offshoot of littlerascalsdaycarecase.org, which addresses the wrongful prosecution of the Edenton Seven and other such victims.
Meanwhile in Edenton....
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Allies for our cause!
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The courts have a long history of capriciously pulling the rug out from under Junior's appeals, but maybe this time....
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Today’s random selection from the Little Rascals Day Care archives….
Second thoughts from a ‘ritual abuse’ prosecutor?
Aug. 17, 2014
“I’m not comfortable commenting on any of them at this point in time.”
– Lael Rubin, formerly the lead prosecutor in the McMartin Preschool case, declining to say whether she still thinks the defendants were guilty
That’s not the only eyebrow-raiser in this recent 30-years-after piece by a Los Angeles TV station.
Rubin contends that “The strongest evidence, the physical evidence, the medical evidence, I think was very significant.” But Kevin Cody, who logged more hours in the courtroom than any other journalist, confirms my impression that the prosecution actually produced “zero medical evidence of abuse.”
Finally, Rubin credits the McMartin case with improvements in the interviewing of children: “The criminal justice system, interviewers and police, law enforcement are much more concerned about eliciting information from children, as opposed to giving them clues.”
This is disingenuous. Like John E. B. Myers, Kee MacFarlane and Sylvia Gillotte – Rubin tips her hat to progress but refuses to take the logical next step: admitting the injustices issuing from those McMartin-style interrogations.
North Carolina’s bull market in hysteria
Sept. 19, 2012
“The rumor has traveled like a Halloween ghost – from Wilson to Coats to Apex to Raleigh.
“Perplexed law enforcement agencies statewide have been fielding inquiries for weeks about stubborn – but unfounded – rumors of a plan by unidentified Satan worshipers to kidnap and sacrifice children.
“The most common variation is that a satanic cult plans to abduct one or more blond-haired, blue-eyed children between the ages of 2 and 5 for a human sacrifice on Halloween.
“‘All these parents of blond-haired, blue-eyed children are frantic,’ said Detective R.C. Couick of Garner. ‘I’ll bet I’ve received 500 phone calls from mothers saying they were going to dye their children’s hair.’
“Sheriff Freddy W. Narron of Johnston County said rumors seem to have started after a local newspaper printed articles about Satanic cults.”
– From “Rumors of satanists kidnapping children are tough to snuff out” (News & Observer of Raleigh, October 28, 1989)
What fertile ground North Carolina, circa 1989, provided for hysteria about 2- to 5-year-olds. The sheriff of Johnston County seems to have summoned considerably more skepticism about farfetched rumors than the Little Rascals prosecutors. Within three months of the Halloween panic all of the Edenton Seven had been arrested.
Can Edenton squeeze in one more historical marker?
Nov. 27, 2014
“Of the dozen or so historical markers clustered in the town of Edenton, only one – recognizing novelist Inglis Fletcher – postdates the 1800s.
“The North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Committee now has the opportunity, 25 years after the first arrest in the Little Rascals case, to add to that number a 20th Century event inarguably significant in the legal and social history of not just North Carolina but also the nation.”
– From my application proposing “history on a stick” recognition for the Little Rascals Day Care case
The marker committee, composed of historians from four-year colleges across the state, will meet in December to decide which pending applications meet its criteria.
DA Williams to jury: Don’t consider the source
Feb. 20, 2013
“Don’t focus on the question, focus on the answer.”
– District Attorney H. P. Williams, urging jurors to ignore the leading questions that therapists asked child-witnesses to elicit accusations against Bob Kelly
“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”
– The Wizard of Oz