Feb. 17, 2012
“The named children were sent to predominantly four therapists (Betty Robertson, Judy Abbott, Susan Childers and Michele Zimmerman).
“The therapists were not only overzealous and inadequately trained, but also proceeded in an unethical fashion with the children. Reporting frequently to the district attorney’s office, they provided more names of children and adults and more specific allegations of abuse. These were not spontaneous names and allegations, but data specifically and persistently introduced by the therapists. The personal and familial issues that the children brought into the so-called therapy were ignored….
“From my review of the therapists’ notes of the 17 children who testified, it was clear the therapists were not treating these children psychotherapeutically, but were agents of the prosecution in preparing children to testify falsely with credibility…..
“Significantly, those parents who took their children to therapists in other communities or avoided these four therapists had no allegations of sexual abuse and their children were symptom-free. In contrast, the children who provided stories of sexual abuse became increasingly symptomatic over time, and their behavior became more disturbed.”
– From “What I learned from the Edenton Little Rascals sex abuse trial” by
Moisy Shopper, M.D. (in the peer-reviewed journal Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 2009)
Dr. Shopper testified as an expert witness for the defense.