Nov. 16, 2011
“The Little Rascals defendants never wavered in their contention that the allegations were untrue. Not one testified against the other, even though prosecutors commonly offer leniency to accused people in exchange for damning testimony.
“If the defendants were so depraved that they in fact sexually abused small children wholesale, how is it that none was tempted to ‘tell all’ to save his or her hide?”
– From an editorial in the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot (June 2, 1997)
Nov. 14, 2011
Raymond Lawrence, then director of chaplains for Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York, attended Bob Kelly’s trial on several occasions and founded the Committee for Support of the Edenton Seven.
This passage is excerpted from a memoir I asked him to write for littlerascalsdaycare.org:
“One Monday morning on arriving at my office I noted a special delivery overnight package in my mail pile. Just as I walked in, my secretary buzzed me to say I had a long distance call asking whether I had opened the package. I told her to get the number and I would call back.
“Instead, the caller said he would call back. I assumed it was the kind of crank call which often comes to chaplains.
“When I finally turned to the special delivery package, I found inside cashier’s checks made out to various defendants in an amount of about $450,000.
“Finally the donor called back, but he didn’t want his name disclosed to the secretary or anyone else. He felt the case was a witch hunt, and he was in solidarity with the accused. He was a businessman who had made a fortune in the emerging computer industry. A year later he gave another $300,000.
“When I flew to Ohio to meet him, he told me he had a terminal illness, and some years later he died. He was a humble, unassuming man. I was in awe of his sensitivity and generosity.”
Nov. 11, 2011
“The first case to raise alarms about predators in nursery schools was that involving the McMartin preschool in Manhattan Beach, California…. In 1983, a woman named Judy Jones charged that 25-year-old Ray Buckey, a teacher and grandson of the school’s founder, had sodomized her two-year-old son.
“(Jones) was an alcoholic and subsequently diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.
“After her charge against Buckey (who was acquitted in 1990 along with his mother and school owner Peggy McMartin Buckey), she went on to make the same allegations against a member of the U.S. Marine Corps who had, she said, sexually assaulted her dog.”
– From “No Crueler Tyrannies: Accusation, False Witness and Other Terrors of Our Times” by Dorothy Rabinowitz (2003)
When Rabinowitz, a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, the judges cited her series on unjustified child-abuse prosecutions.
Nov. 9, 2011
“Fear recaptured the 9-year-old, much as it had six years ago when last he left Bob Kelly’s day care. Lingering fears gripped many of Kelly’s victims when the appellate court overturned his 99 guilty verdicts…. A week later, the little boy is still too frightened to ride his bike around the block….
“We forget the victims – unless we live with them. Our wounds from media distortions heal. Our memories of Kelly’s manipulation of ‘the system’ fade. But the genuine fears of our sons and daughters persist.
“What would you do if you knew your little ones had been sexually abused? Would you seek justice? Would… you be able to endure the years of trauma and persecution? We implore our fellow North Carolinians to ponder those questions…. Join us in requesting that the North Carolina Supreme Court uphold these verdicts.
“If the court denies the opinions of two separate juries that found both (Kelly and Dawn Wilson) guilty, the innocent victims will be under attack again. Do helpless child victims forget the brutality of rape, sodomy and crimes against nature? A more significant question is: Do we in North Carolina want to pry those agonizing details from them once more?
“True, many are old enough to realize that Bob Kelly can’t work his threatened evil to kill their families. But others still draw pictures of their visions of safety: pictures of heaven and guardian angels because they say, ‘I know Mr. Bob won’t be in Heaven.’
“We must take a stand against re-victimization of the innocent. Don’t interrupt the healing that is emerging in these courageous young ones. Refuse to allow the media to create a ‘circus’ in our noble state. Child sexual abuse can no longer be allowed or excused in North Carolina.”
– From a letter to the editor of the (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot, signed by 17 parents of children involved in the Little Rascals case (May 14, 1995)
Buried in the Edenton parents’ heartfelt plea to the N.C. Supreme Court (which would soon agree with the Court of Appeals’ overturning the convictions of Kelly and Wilson) is this profoundly revealing question: “Do we in North Carolina want to pry those agonizing details from them once more?”
If only those details had not been pried from the children in the first place….
Nov. 7, 2011
Last week I mentioned a misleading characterization on the website of the Raleigh personal-injury law firm Brent Adams & Associates:
“A highly publicized case occurred in coastal North Carolina almost 30 years ago. Making national headlines, the Little Rascals Day Care Center was run by a husband-and-wife team, Bob and Betsy Kelly…. The Little Rascals abuse case involved 90 children who all required extensive therapy sessions.”
After I asked that the passage be removed, instead this sentence (along with a Wikipedia link) was added:
“The convictions were later overturned by the NC Court of Appeals and all charges were dropped.”
Better. A lot better. But the remaining reference to “90 children who all required extensive therapy sessions” is still exactly 90 children away from being accurate.
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)
Nov. 2, 2011
Post on hidden mysteries.org (1995):
“Aside from the children and their parents, others are deeply disappointed by the N.C. Supreme Court’s decision not to (overturn) the reversals by the Court of Appeals.
“Superior Court Judge Marsh McLelland, who heard the Little Rascals case the first time, wrote in a letter to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court: ‘Your refusal to review the Kelly and Wilson reversals by the Court of Appeals is legally and morally reprehensible.’
“Once more, the Edenton children find themselves as much on trial as their alleged perpetrators, if not more so.”
ANN EARLE
Letter to the editor of the News & Observer of Raleigh (May 16, 1996):
“As a psychotherapist who treats many child victims and adult survivors of sexual and ritual abuse… I am incredulous that so many people support Robert F. Kelly….
“There is ample historical and anthropological evidence that ritual abuse has existed for centuries…. Unfortunately, day care centers are optimal settings for such perpetrators.
“If there is indeed a ‘witch hunt’ going on, it’s actually aimed at abused children and those who advocate for them.”
ANN EARLE, C.C.S.W., B.C.D.
Chapel Hill
Letter to the editor of the News & Observer of Raleigh (June 4, 1997):
“Investigators should not ask leading questions, of course, but even if they did it is difficult to imagine how a young child could come up with graphic details of sexual activity if nothing happened. Child sexual abusers and pornographers routinely incorporate fantasy to entice children to cooperate and render them less believable if the child ever tells.
“Why are journalists so quick to believe alleged abusers and discount sexual abuse allegations by children?”
ANN S. EARLE
Chapel Hill
Letter to the editor of the News & Observer of Raleigh (January 15, 1999):
“In reality, false allegations of sexual abuse by preschool children are rare.
“I have spent three years researching and editing a book on ritual abuse allegations. Ample evidence supports the existence of such abuse in day care centers, in spite of how bizarre it may sound.
“Robert Kelly was found guilty by a jury of his peers in a lengthy trial. This verdict was overturned only on a technicality.
“Finally, there is obviously significant evidence to charge Kelly in a case unrelated to Little Rascals (charges dropped eight months later). We should consider these facts before concluding that the alleged abuses at Little Rascals were due to a ‘hysteria’ fueled by a ‘rumor mill.’ ”
ANN EARLE, C.C.S.W., B.C.D.
Chapel Hill
As these comments suggest, certainty in the pervasiveness of ritual abuse extended well beyond those therapists directly involved in the Little Rascals case.
Did Ann Earle, a board member of the International Council on Cultism and Ritual Trauma, ever change her mind? If so, she seems not to have shared the news.
Oct. 31, 2011
“A highly publicized case occurred in coastal North Carolina almost 30 years ago. Making national headlines, the Little Rascals Day Care Center was run by a husband-and-wife team, Bob and Betsy Kelly…. The Little Rascals abuse case involved 90 children who all required extensive therapy sessions.”
Shouldn’t a prominent North Carolina firm of trial lawyers know better than to solicit clients with such a misleading characterization?
Do Brent Adams & Associates really believe all those children – or any of them – “required extensive therapy sessions”?
I have asked that this paragraph be removed from the firm’s website – no response yet.
Oct. 28, 2011
“If the defendants were guilty, the prosecution failed.
“If the defendants were innocent, the prosecution failed.
“The prosecution failed at everything but taking years from people’s lives, ruining their reputations, breaking up their marriages, dividing the people of a small town, wasting more than $1 million of the taxpayers’ money and smearing North Carolina’s reputation.”
– Editorial in the Wilmington Star-News, September 27, 1999
Oct. 26, 2011
“Many of the investigators in the Little Rascals case (seem to have been) poised to find allegations of sexual abuse.
“The seeds of this case may have been sown in the spring of 1988, months before the first allegations of child sexual abuse…. At a 3-day conference in the Outer Banks town of Kill Devil Hills, law enforcement and social services workers convened to learn about the dangers of child molesters operating day-care facilities.
“The seminar was co-sponsored by a counseling group and assisted by Judy Abbott, a social worker who would become one of the most active therapists for the child victims in this case. The featured speaker was Ann Burgess, editor of the book ‘Child Pornography and Sex Rings’ (1984).
“Also attending were H. P. Williams, who would co-prosecute the case, and Brenda Toppin, the Edenton police officer who was first to interview most of the children in the case and to advise parents of their abuse.”
– From “Jeopardy in the Courtroom: A Scientific Analysis of Children’s
Testimony” by Stephen J. Ceci and Maggie Bruck (1995)