June 23, 2014

“The emphasis has got to be on the crime. Once you start using labels like satanic, sadistic or ritualistic, then you’re immediately raising a red flag…. Law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, mental health professionals and especially the general public begin to back off, because it’s so hard to believe these things happen…. We emphasized rape, sex offense, indecent liberties, crimes against nature…Those were the crimes that Bob Kelly was convicted of, those are what the jury heard evidence of….

“We let the defense attorneys bring out the sadistic and ritualistic….”

– From District Attorney H. P. Williams Jr.’s address to “From Heartbreak Through Healing: Facing the Reality of Sexual and Ritual Abuse of Children,” the first national convention of Believe the Children (April 2-4, 1993, in Arlington Heights, Ill.)

I transcribed Williams’ cautionary prosecutorial advice from audiotapes, so I can only imagine the scene on the speakers’ dais he shared with not only one of the Little Rascals mothers, but also Laura Buchanan, author of “Satan’s Child: A Survivor’s Story That Can Help Others Heal from Cultic Ritual Abuse.”

What must have Williams been thinking as Buchanan earnestly recalled that:

“We stood poised with knives in an incomprehensible world where children killed children….  Permitted to live until age four (my sister) was sacrificed by my parents…. My final programming, as a teenager, occurred on an autopsy table in the coroner’s office. A surgical procedure was staged and through a small incision in my scalp I was told that a surveillance device would be inserted into my brain. The supposed implant would be used at national headquarters to continuously monitor my thoughts. For decades the programming was extremely effective. Until the age of 44, I had no idea that my parents practiced satanism….”

With Bob Kelly and Dawn Wilson locked away, and the overturning of their convictions still two years away, DA Williams was riding high. But surely he must have experienced the slightest frisson of doubt when he saw Buchanan’s patent insanity being swallowed whole by the same audience that so enthusiastically applauded his case against the Edenton Seven.

May 2, 2012

“Ironically, the children are indeed being sexually and emotionally abused by the therapists, officials and medical personnel who are supposed to be protecting them, and they often develop long-term symptoms as a result, including anxiety, insecurity, insomnia, nightmares, fear of strangers, depression, rages, obsession with death and suicidal impulses.

“These, of course, are then taken as proof that the original suspected abuse did, indeed, take place.”

– From “Victims of Memory: Sex Abuse Accusations and
Shattered Lives” by Mark Pendergrast (1996)

Sept. 8, 2014

“The aging prison population represents a national human-made epidemic decades in the making. …

“Our current trajectory is economically infeasible and morally untenable….

“Although there is no commonly agreed-upon age at which an incarcerated individual is ‘old’ – definitions range from 50 to 65 – it is clear that the number of people in prison requiring significant age-related medical care will continue to rise at a substantial rate. From 1995 to 2010, the U.S. prison population aged 55 or older nearly quadrupled….

“On average, it costs approximately twice as much to incarcerate someone aged 50 and over ($68,270) than a younger, more able-bodied individual ($34,135)….

“The elderly in prison also demonstrate a greater risk of injury, victimization, ailing health, and death than their younger counterparts….

“The phenomenon of accelerated aging, which can be attributed to the prevalence of environmental stressors coupled with a lack of access to holistic healthcare, means that the body of an incarcerated 50-year-old has a ‘physiological age’ that is 10 to 15 years older….

“The stated objectives of incarceration would suggest that correctional spending should be allocated among demographics in proportion to their public safety risk and potential for behavioral change.

“Aging adults in prison have the lowest recidivism rate and pose almost no threat to public safety. Nationwide, 43.3 percent of all released individuals recidivate within three years, while only 7 percent of those aged 50-64 are returned to prison for new convictions….”

– From “The High Costs of Low Risk: The Crisis of America’s Aging Prison Population” prepared by the Osborne Association (July 2014) (Hat tip, the New York Times)

Today is Andrew Junior Chandler’s 57th birthday. He has been in prison since he was 29 years old. Even if he were guilty – which he clearly is not – how can the State of North Carolina justify his continued incarceration?

Nov. 30, 2011

“You have to start with the matter of probability. What every one of these (day care sex abuse) cases has in common is that no adult observer has actually seen a molestation in progress.

“Supposedly, these abuses are going on continually over a period of months. Almost always, they supposedly involve a number of adults and many children, with outsiders constantly walking in and out of these centers. Yet we have no corroborating eyewitnesses. None….

“Throughout it all, these children somehow always come home in the right shoes and socks and underpants. Do you have kids? Do you realize how hard it is to dress two kids in a hurry without some kind of mix-up, let alone 10 or 12 or 20 kids?”

– Dr. Richard A. Gardner, clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, quoted in Playboy magazine (June 1992)