Oct. 26, 2012
“As in the McMartin case, the North Carolina ‘experts’ dismissed absurd elements of the children’s stories and fixated on the guilt of the caretakers.
“When a child put two dolls together, it counted as evidence; when he claimed that Miss Dawn cooked him in the microwave, he was taken to be speaking figuratively.”
– From “Day Care, Satanism and ‘Therapy’” by Alexander Cockburn in the Los Angeles Times (Sept. 5, 1991)
Oct. 24, 2012
“Indeed, at a time when the (Los Angeles County) Board of Supervisors has been meeting just five floors below the (Ritual Abuse) task force to dismantle county health care programs, lay off part-time employees and cut all other services because of a severe budget shortfall, some are questioning whether the group – and particularly its obsession with poisoning – is not just a little frivolous.
“One county employee suggested that the task force has not been disbanded because it is ‘one of the few that actually make money.’ Since 1989, the task force – made up of therapists, alleged victims and religious leaders – has sold a handbook that outlines the telltale signs of ritual abuse. More than 17,000 copies of the handbook have been sold at $1 apiece, more than enough to offset the costs of the task force.”
– From the Los Angeles Times, December 1, 1992
Early on, the task force handbook –“Ritual Abuse: Definitions, Glossary and the Use of Mind Control” – played a significant role in inflaming fear of ritual abuse.
By 1992, however, the last charges in the McMartin case had been dropped, and skepticism about ritual abuse was finding its voice. (But not among Little Rascals prosecutors – Bob Kelly had just been convicted and Dawn Wilson was being tried.)
Today the Los Angeles County Commission for Women website makes no mention of its onetime task force.
Oct. 22, 2012
In the Dark Ages of social science – the 1980s, give or take a few years — unfounded concepts were treated as received truth: satanic ritual abuse (later recast as sadistic ritual abuse), multiple personality disorder (later, dissociative identity disorder), repressed memory syndrome.
On what possible grounds did California clinical psychologist Catherine Gould determine that satanic ritual abuse was indicated by a child’s “Refusal to eat red or brown food” or “Fear of closets and small spaces” or “Preoccupation with cleanliness”? Did this crazy quilt of symptoms come to her in a hallucination.
Regardless, Gould’s list, widely photocopied, contributed to parental panics at day cares across the country. After all, she was “a licensed psychologist specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of adult and child victims of ritual abuse”!
So just how reliable an authority was Catherine Gould? Well, it was she who first claimed the Los Angeles County Ritual Abuse Task Force was being poisoned with diazinon.
Later, according to the Associated Press, “She said her blurred vision and failed memory weren’t psychosomatic, but she admitted she never visited a doctor to be tested for the pesticide.”
Problems Associated with Doctors
Fear of doctors
Fear of injections, blood tests
Fear of removing clothes
Toiletting/Bathroom Problems
Bathroom avoidance, toileting accidents
Preoccupation with cleanliness
Preoccupation with urine and feces
Ingestion of urine and feces
Family Problems
Fear of death of parents, siblings, pets
Separation anxiety
Avoidance of physical contact
Threatens or attacks parents, siblings
Sexual Problems
Age-inappropriate sexual knowledge
Fear of touch
Excessive masturbation
Sexually provocative behavior
Vaginal or anal pain
Relaxed anal sphincter,enlarged vaginal opening
Venereal disease
Emotional Problems
Rapid mood swings
Resistance to authority
Hyperactivity, poor attention span
Anxiety
Poor self-esteem
Withdrawal
Regression and babyish speech
Flat affect
Nightmares, night terrors
Learning disorders
Problems Associated with Colors
Fear of colors red and black
Preoccupation with color black
Problems Associated with Death
Fear of dying, preoccupation with death
Play and Peer Problems
Destroys toys
Death, mutilation, confinement themes in play
Inability to engage in fantasy play
Problems Associated with Supernatural
Fear of ghosts, monsters, witches, devils
Preoccupation with wands, spirits, magic potions, curses, crucifixes
Odd songs and chants
Preoccupation with occult symbols
Fear of attending church
Other Fears and Strange Beliefs
Imaginary friends
Fear of police, strangers, bad people
Fear of violent films
Fear of aggressive animals
Fear of cemeteries, mortuaries, churches
Fear of something foreign inside body, e.g. bomb, devil’s heart
Downloaded Oct. 22, 2012 from http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~kquach6/common.html
Oct. 19, 2012
“The backlash spewed from the guilty verdicts in the Little Rascals Day Care case have (sic) been painful and difficult to hear and live with. Those of us who advocate for the rights of children often feel that the gains made on their behalf over the past few years are eroding under falsehoods propagated by individuals who’s (sic) motives are undetermined.”
– From “Little Rascals Day Care Center Case: The Bitter Lesson, a Healthy Reminder” by Judith Steltzner Abbott (1994)
If the editors of the Journal of Child Sexual Abuse set aside six pages in hopes therapist Judy Abbott might respond thoughtfully to the Little Rascals “backlash,” they were surely disappointed. Instead, she dodged reality with platitudes and self-congratulation.
Of course, even to acknowledge the concerns of her falsehood-propagating critics (the ones with “motives undetermined”) might have put at risk her nomination for the Distinguished Women of North Carolina Award.
Oct. 17, 2012
“Little Rascals is a most important case, because it demonstrates how the mind set of interviewers can be transmitted to the children and persuade them to disclose events that never happened. A San Diego grand jury which investigated child abuse observed:
Of particular interest is the information received about the Little Rascals case in North Carolina. Eighty-five percent of the children received therapy with three therapists in the town; all of these children eventually reported satanic abuse. Fifteen percent of the children were treated by different therapists in a neighboring city; none of (these) children reported abuse of any kind after the same period of time in therapy.
“In effect, the Edenton (multiple victim, multiple offender) case was a real-life replication of the type of laboratory experiment that could never be done for ethical reasons:
The probable result would be that close to 100% of the test group and about 0% of the control group would reveal ritual abuse.”
– From “Ritual abuse cases in day care centers” on ReligiousTolerance.org, (Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance)
Oct. 15, 2012
“German television and the press (especially the tabloids) dwelled on McMartin with almost the same intensity as did the U.S. media….The impact was predictable: an immediate, steep increase in the number of abuse claims by children and their parents….
“In the city of Muenster…. children (at a Montessori school) accused persons totally removed from the setting, including taxi drivers, and talked about coffins, mortuaries, trap doors, chaining and secret subterranean vaults. The panic spread to other schools.
“Finally, the (Montessori) investigation, which lasted from 1990 to 1993, resulted in dismissal for lack of evidence. A key role was played by a level-headed psychologist who submitted an analysis of the children and their parents forming a ‘group mind’ that had evolved through mutually reinforcing suggestion.
“A warning for the modern world: When analyzing children’s allegations, we also must analyze the role of the modern mass media, not only within national boundaries….”
– From “Witch-Children: From Salem Witch-Hunts to Modern Courtrooms” by Hans Sebald (1995)
Oct. 12, 2012
The exoneration of Willie Grimes warms my heart, and not just because the 66-year-old parolee has become “Free at last!” after a 1987 rape conviction in Hickory.
As often lamented on this site, prosecutors such as those in the Little Rascals case simply refuse to acknowledge, much less take responsibility for their mistakes.
In the Grimes case, however, District Attorney Jay Gaither told the Innocence Inquiry Commission panel, “The State cannot argue any conclusion other than for innocence in the case of Willie Grimes,” then rested the state’s case and sat down.
Afterward, he explained that “In this week’s presentation of evidence we counted no less than 35 pieces of evidence and testimony in support of innocence…. The fact that the three-judge panel was so emphatic in its conclusion and decision only strengthens the confidence I have in our decision.”
But Gaither went even further, on camera and rebroadcast by WSOC-TV: “On behalf of the district attorneys of North Carolina, I want to offer an apology to Willie Grimes.”
Yes – an apology!
Although the Grimes conviction occurred long before Gaither took office in 2002, DAs often feel compelled to defend even their predecessors’ performance. As former New York prosecutor Bennett Gershman has observed, “The prosecutor can’t do anything that undermines the public’s confidence in the prosecutor’s office. Once the public begins to doubt that prosecutors convict guilty people – that there may be mistakes in the system – that undermines confidence in the prosecutor….”
Gaither took the opposite approach. “You don’t just brush off 24 years of a man’s life and go on,” he told me Wednesday. “A series of events denied Mr. Grimes a fair trial. Closure was required.
“I wanted the public, as well as Mr. Grimes, to know that we weren’t just beat down, but that we were actually sorry.” (Click Gaither’s picture above to watch the broadcast that includes video of the courtroom apology.)
Also notable is how Gaither framed his apology: “I was speaking not so much for district attorneys as individuals, as for the State of North Carolina…. Only 44 of us have that right to say ‘The state says….’ ”
In this case, that right was admirably used. Would that it happened more often.
Oct. 10, 2012
“This case arose during the height of the Child Sexual Abuse Hysteria of the 1980s and 1990s. The McMartin Preschool case, perhaps the most famous such case, was being tried in California at the same time this case was being tried in North Carolina. The prosecution team in this case was led by two members of the Attorney General’s staff who were to prosecute Robert Kelly four years later in the Little Rascals Day Care case.
“The state’s theory was that Junior Chandler, a bus driver for a county day care, would drive off his route to a parking area next to the French Broad River, strip the clothes off the toddlers, troop the naked children down to the river, put them on a rowboat, proceed to insert various objects into their anuses and vaginas, bring them back to the bus, put their clothes back on and deliver them home.
“This theory was the culmination of an investigation that began when one of the children came home one day and announced to her mother ‘we’ve been f***ing.’ Prior to that, there had been no indication of any problems with the children, the day care or Junior. However, fueled by the concern of anxious parents and well-meaning child advocates, this comment morphed into bizarre allegations of widespread sadistic abuse at the hands of several adults, including Junior….”
“Junior Chandler is serving his 26th year in prison, based largely on incredible claims from preschoolers, as elaborated upon and vouched for by six prosecution witnesses. Many defendants in this state have been awarded new trials for far less damaging testimony. Most of the victims of the Child Sexual Abuse Hysteria from around the country, Virginia McMartin, Kelly Michaels, Dale Akiki, Bob Kelly, the Amiraults, etc., have regained their freedom…. Junior Chandler deserves the same relief.”
– From Junior Chandler’s amended petition for writ of certiorari, denied last week by the North Carolina Supreme Court
Oct. 8, 2012
“Even those (ritual-abuse day-care cases) that resulted in acquittals… reflect hundreds of children and their family members referred to counseling.
“Many families were limited to a handful of approved counselors, who also helped police and prosecutors by eliciting testimony from the children. One must wonder what these counselors counsel these children about, particularly in cases in which allegations were later proved to have come from them rather than from the children – and considering that the children began showing symptoms of abuse only after disclosing – the reverse of abused children’s usual responses to counseling.”
– From “Assessing the Costs of False Allegations of Child Abuse: A Prescriptive” by Susan Kiss Sarnoff (IPT Journal, 1997)
What a calamitous exploitation of the children – but what a canny career move for the therapists!
Oct. 5, 2012
Because today’s North Carolina Supreme Court decision on Junior Chandler’s appeal comprised three separate parts, I didn’t fully comprehend it.
“Is this good news or bad?” I emailed Mark Montgomery, Junior’s appellate lawyer.
“The worst,” he replied. “We’re out of court.”
Yes, this is the worst – the absolute, inexcusable, shameful worst.
The justices have denied Junior Chandler, probably the last still-imprisoned victim of the multiple-offender, multiple-victim ritual-abuse day-care panic, his final chance for a new trial. After 25 years behind bars – more than all the Little Rascals defendants combined! – he faces only more of the same.
If I were a lawyer, maybe I could understand how the North Carolina Supreme Court arrived at its decision.
How it was unmoved by Junior’s feeble representation early on.
How it was uninterested in the epochal progress made in limiting expert testimony.
How it was all too eager to find petty justifications for validating a prosecution rotten at the core.
But probably not.