Mills
Jan. 12, 2018
“[Bob Kelly’s] defense contended that the children’s allegations were just the responses of suggestible youngsters eager to please the interrogators who were urging them to disclose abuse. [Interviewed in “Innocence Lost: The Verdict”,] one mother whose child did not disclose abuse is seen heaping scorn on the police and social services interrogation of her child:
” ‘They constantly asked him the same thing over and over again, and they would rephrase it…. They talked to him, it had to be an hour and a half or so before we interrupted and they wanted to continue talking to him. I would guess the same questions were asked five or six times.’
“This mother’s recollection is one of the few clues to the police methods in this case. Police and prosecutors declined to cooperate with ‘Frontline.’ All of the investigative notes and tapes were destroyed, and the only source material available at trial was after-the-fact summaries….”
– From “Justice Abuse? ‘Frontline’ Documentary Takes Hard Look At A Small-town Scandal” by Bart Mills in the Chicago Tribune (July 20, 1993)
