June 19, 2013
The Little Rascals parents insisted their children had “disclosed” mostly on their own, rather than a result of persistent interrogation. But this live interview, in the giddy moments after Bob Kelly’s convictions (April 22, 1992), suggests a different pattern:
CNN: How did you find out this happened? You were apparently the first parents to realize something was terribly wrong.
Mark Stever: Kyle, our son, told us in his own way, just different things, like ‘Mr. Bob doesn’t do it anymore. He does it to the other children.’
Audrey Stever: We knew he had a secret, and we knew it happened at nap time, but he couldn’t tell us what it was, and to escape talking about it he would say, ‘Oh, he doesn’t do it anymore, Mommy.’
CNN: And how did you finally bring it out of him exactly what he said had been happening?
Audrey Stever: Well, I approached a friend (Brenda Toppin) who was the investigating officer in the case… and things kind of went from there.