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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" 'I decided to go to small towns and look for something interesting,' Bikel said. In Edenton, a town in North Carolina, she heard about seven people charged with child abuse at a preschool. "She then proceeded to reveal [in her documentary trilogy on "Frontline"] what turned out to be a small-town witch hunt....
"Bikel interviewed defendants, parents, defense lawyers, prosecutors and later jurors. The 'Innocence Lost' trilogy got the defendants acquitted and freed from jail.
" 'The fact that we fought for them, and were right, and managed to get seven people out of jail was astonishing, intoxicating,' she said. 'That's when I realized what power I had in television.' "
-- ๐…๐ซ๐จ๐ฆ "๐ˆ๐ฌ๐ซ๐š๐ž๐ฅ๐ข-๐€๐ฆ๐ž๐ซ๐ข๐œ๐š๐ง ๐ƒ๐ข๐ซ๐ž๐œ๐ญ๐จ๐ซ ๐Ž๐Ÿ๐ซ๐š ๐๐ข๐ค๐ž๐ฅ, ๐–๐ก๐จ๐ฌ๐ž ๐–๐จ๐ซ๐ค ๐…๐ซ๐ž๐ž๐ ๐Ÿ๐Ÿ‘ ๐–๐ซ๐จ๐ง๐ ๐Ÿ๐ฎ๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐‚๐จ๐ง๐ฏ๐ข๐œ๐ญ๐ž๐ ๐€๐ฆ๐ž๐ซ๐ข๐œ๐š๐ง๐ฌ, ๐ƒ๐ข๐ž๐ฌ ๐š๐ญ ๐Ÿ—๐Ÿ“" ๐ข๐ง ๐‡๐š๐š๐ซ๐ž๐ญ๐ณ [๐ฅ๐ข๐ง๐ค ๐›๐ž๐ฅ๐จ๐ฐ]
๐‡๐š๐ ๐Ž๐Ÿ๐ซ๐š ๐๐ข๐ค๐ž๐ฅ ๐ง๐จ๐ญ ๐๐ข๐ฌ๐œ๐จ๐ฏ๐ž๐ซ๐ž๐ "๐ฌ๐จ๐ฆ๐ž๐ญ๐ก๐ข๐ง๐  ๐ข๐ง๐ญ๐ž๐ซ๐ž๐ฌ๐ญ๐ข๐ง๐ " ๐ข๐ง ๐„๐๐ž๐ง๐ญ๐จ๐ง, ๐ฐ๐ก๐จ ๐ฐ๐จ๐ฎ๐ฅ๐'๐ฏ๐ž ๐ฌ๐จ ๐ฌ๐ฉ๐ž๐œ๐ญ๐š๐œ๐ฎ๐ฅ๐š๐ซ๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐๐ž๐ซ๐š๐ข๐ฅ๐ž๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ž ๐ซ๐ฎ๐ง๐š๐ฐ๐š๐ฒ ๐ฉ๐ซ๐จ๐ฌ๐ž๐œ๐ฎ๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง ๐จ๐Ÿ ๐ฌ๐ž๐ฏ๐ž๐ง ๐ข๐ง๐ง๐จ๐œ๐ž๐ง๐ญ ๐๐ž๐Ÿ๐ž๐ง๐๐š๐ง๐ญ๐ฌ?
๐‘๐ˆ๐, ๐Ž๐Ÿ๐ซ๐š. ๐˜๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ ๐ฆ๐จ๐ง๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ž๐ง๐ญ๐š๐ฅ ๐š๐œ๐ก๐ข๐ž๐ฏ๐ž๐ฆ๐ž๐ง๐ญ ๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ฏ๐ข๐ฏ๐ž๐ฌ ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ.
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2 months ago

1 CommentComment on Facebook

I was living in Virginia when all of this happened . I was in sick to hear that the most promenade people in my small town were in such a scandal.

"Thanks to the Chowan Herald's Vernon Fueston for his detailed look back at the Little Rascals Day Care case and his interview with Betsy Hester and Robin Couto, authors of 'Twenty-One Boxes: Robin's Story and the Tragedy of the Edenton Seven.'

"This book is a long-needed reexamination of what was undeniably the most significant event in 20th century Edenton โ€” however much some in the community want it forever forgotten. Not surprisingly, when Fueston reached out to some of those responsible for this nationally notorious wrongful prosecution, 'None wished to comment.'

"The true victims in Little Rascals were not the children, who were relentlessly nagged and manipulated by the prosecution's unqualified therapists, but Couto and her six fellow defendants. Perhaps 'Twenty-One Boxes' will move Edenton to acknowledge at long last this shameful episode in its history."

-- From my letter to the editor published July 29 [link below]
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3 months ago

Pathology professor Ed Friedlander weighs in [๐ฅ๐ข๐ง๐ค ๐ข๐ง ๐œ๐จ๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ž๐ง๐ญ๐ฌ] on the prosecution of Junior Chandler:
"The children at first all agreed that nothing had happened, but they were grilled for days until they told the zealots what they wanted to hear. Mr. Chandler was accused of taking the children to a place under a bridge, molesting them in a boat that no one could find, with Pinocchio as his accomplice, and then getting them back to school on time. This is beneath ridiculous, but he was tried in a circus, with 'experts in Satanic abuse' from New York and people waving signs, 'Believe the children!' "
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4 months ago
 

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Todayโ€™s random selection from the Little Rascals Day Care archives….


 

Board couldn’t see Betsy Kelly ‘minus her publicity’

Sept. 13, 2013

โ€œI am urging you to treat Elizabeth Kelly as you would treat anyone else with the same case file.ย  I am asking you to demonstrate that we are all โ€˜equal under the law.โ€™ย  Any other inmate with the same sentence and clean record would have been eligible for parole the minute she walked through the gates of the prison…. I am appealing to you not to withhold that which she would otherwise likely receive — minus her publicity, minus the rhetoric of politicians.ย  I am imploring you not to deal more strictly with her than with others simply because she is Elizabeth Kelly.โ€

โ€“ From a letter to the North Carolina Parole Commissionย by Jane W. Duffield of Raleighย  (April 5, 1994)

The Parole Commission proved unable or unwilling to consider Betsy Kellyโ€™s case โ€œminus her publicity, minus the rhetoric of politicians.โ€ Bill Hart, vengeful over her unwavering insistence that she was innocent, reneged on aย plea agreementย not to contest her release, and the Parole Commission obediently sent her back for seven more months of wrongful imprisonment.

Charles Manson set stage for fear of hippies, then of witches

Fisher

Dec. 5, 2017

โ€œThe Manson Familyโ€™s ritualistic murders in 1969 triggered the ini4al stages of na4onal cult hysteria….

โ€œManson made hippies scary for awhile, but I donโ€™t think itโ€™s a coincidence that โ€™70s horror movies featuring hooded devil covens, witches and the occult emerged shortly after he was convicted. Manson and his apostles triggered a frenzy pertaining to cults that would reach ridiculous new heights in the โ€˜80s with the โ€˜satanic ritual abuseโ€™ allegations, which inspired their own exploitation movies as well….โ€

— From โ€œHow Exploitation Movies Exploited Charles Manson and Hippie Hysteriaโ€
by Kieran Fisher at โ€œFilm School Rejectsโ€ (Nov. 25)

 

LRDCC20

Prosecution kept its eye on the (wrong) target

Dec. 28, 2011

โ€œThroughout the trial, prosecuting attorneys (in the Little Rascals case) repeatedly pursued their hunches without an apparent desire to test an alternate theory. This resulted in a rather spectacular false admission by 6-year-old Andy, who had been a 3-year-old at the time of the alleged sexual abuse by Bob Kelly.

111228Ceciโ€œ โ€˜Prosecutor: Do you remember a time where you ever had to do anything to Mr. Bobโ€™s hiney with your mouth?

โ€œ โ€˜Andy: No, maโ€™am.

โ€œ โ€˜Prosecutor: Do you remember telling Dr. Betty that one time you had to lick Mr. Bobโ€™s hiney? Did that happen? Did you ever have to do that, that you didnโ€™t want to do it?

โ€œ โ€˜Andy: Yes, maโ€™am.โ€™

โ€œIn reality, the prosecutor had made a mistake, thinking that the charge was that Andy had sodomized Bob Kelly, rather than the other way around. The state dropped this charge after it realized Andy had admitted to the wrong charge.

โ€œThis ought to have sensitized the prosecution to the very real dangers of pursuing a single hypothesis in the relentless manner we have described, but unfortunately it did not appear to have done so.โ€

โ€“ From โ€œJeopardy in the Courtroom: A Scientific Analysis of Childrenโ€™s Testimonyโ€
by Stephen J. Ceci and Maggie Bruck (1995)

‘Yawning gaps in evidence’? Sounds familiar

Nov. 7, 2012

โ€œMass hysteria always makes perfect sense when we are trapped in it. It can take decades โ€“ or even longer โ€“ before the crazed irrationality of a particular episode shows itself for what it was.โ€

โ€“ From โ€œWhen Mass Hysteria Convicted 5 Teenagersโ€ in The New York Times (October 27)

Thanks to a new documentary by Ken Burns, the Central Park Five โ€“ all convicted of a widely publicized 1989 rape and beating โ€“ will soon return to the spotlight. According to the Times,
Burns depicts โ€œthe forces that led citizens, politicians, the media and the criminal justice system to brush past yawning gaps in the evidence in the case.โ€

Beyond a shared year on the timeline of wrongful prosecutions, these urban teenagers, black and Hispanic, seem to have borne few similarities to the Edenton Seven. But I could never readย  theย  words โ€œyawning gaps in evidenceโ€ without thinking of a Little Rascals prosecution built almost entirely on the resolutely manipulated, deceitfully paraphrased testimony of children.