Rascals case in brief
In the beginning, in 1989, more than 90 children at the Little Rascals Day Care Center in Edenton, North Carolina, accused a total of 20 adults with 429 instances of sexual abuse over a three-year period. It may have all begun with one parent’s complaint about punishment given her child.
Among the alleged perpetrators: the sheriff and mayor. But prosecutors would charge only Robin Byrum, Darlene Harris, Elizabeth “Betsy” Kelly, Robert “Bob” Kelly, Willard Scott Privott, Shelley Stone and Dawn Wilson – the Edenton 7.
Along with sodomy and beatings, allegations included a baby killed with a handgun, a child being hung upside down from a tree and being set on fire and countless other fantastic incidents involving spaceships, hot air balloons, pirate ships and trained sharks.
By the time prosecutors dropped the last charges in 1997, Little Rascals had become North Carolina’s longest and most costly criminal trial. Prosecutors kept defendants jailed in hopes at least one would turn against their supposed co-conspirators. Remarkably, none did. Another shameful record: Five defendants had to wait longer to face their accusers in court than anyone else in North Carolina history.
Between 1991 and 1997, Ofra Bikel produced three extraordinary episodes on the Little Rascals case for the PBS series “Frontline.” Although “Innocence Lost” did not deter prosecutors, it exposed their tactics and fostered nationwide skepticism and dismay.
With each passing year, the absurdity of the Little Rascals charges has become more obvious. But no admission of error has ever come from prosecutors, police, interviewers or parents. This site is devoted to the issues raised by this case.
On Facebook
Little Rascals Day Care Case
This Facebook page is an offshoot of littlerascalsdaycarecase.org, which addresses the wrongful prosecution of the Edenton Seven and other such victims.
Meanwhile in Edenton....
This content isn't available right now
When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it's been deleted.0 CommentsComment on Facebook
Allies for our cause!
This content isn't available right now
When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it's been deleted.0 CommentsComment on Facebook
The courts have a long history of capriciously pulling the rug out from under Junior's appeals, but maybe this time....
This content isn't available right now
When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it's been deleted.0 CommentsComment on Facebook
Click for earlier Facebook posts archived on this site
Click to go to
Today’s random selection from the Little Rascals Day Care archives….
‘The most innocent man I have ever defended’
May 23, 2012
Experienced trial lawyers can’t afford to dwell on lost cases. Sometimes that’s quite a challenge:
“Robert Fulton Kelly…. was the most innocent man I have ever defended and the most victimized criminal defendant in the state’s history. He taught me that under certain circumstances madness can rule the day and overcome everything that is right and just.”
– Gerald Beaver (North Carolina Lawyers Weekly, 2010)
Did replay of Salem prove human progress is ‘myth’?
April 5, 2014
“Outside of science, progress is simply a myth.… In science the growth of knowledge is cumulative. But human life as a whole is not a cumulative activity; what is gained in one generation may be lost in the next.”
– From “Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals” (2002) by John Gray, British political philosopher
An arguable proposition, certainly – but how else to explain the widespread acceptance of day-care ritual-abuse claims 300 years after the Salem Witch Trials? As noted by sociologist David G. Bromley, this chronic failure to learn-and-remember makes inevitable yet more moral panics – whatever their specifics.
And how else to explain this just-published revisionist history?
How ‘Innocence Lost’ changed one viewer’s life
March 16, 2016
“Thank you for providing a site to keep this tragedy alive…. I was a daycare/preschool owner/administrator for 20 years ending in 1995. The primary reason I retired early was watching (“Innocence Lost”) on PBS and realizing anyone at any time could accuse me of abuse lies and my life and career would have been ruined….”
– From a letter from a Wisconsin reader
Such fears were not unfounded, of course – or uncommon.
Prosecutors claimed to see ‘coherent package’
July 11, 2012
“And what did Doctor (Mark) Everson say what to look for? A coherent package that’s consistent. You look at the behavior and what the child says…. He talked about sexual acting out, coaxing sexual behavior, masturbation, fears, and anxieties. New fears that come up that aren’t developmentally appropriate for a child that age, such as a fear of men or a particular man, changes in their personality caused by stress like regressive behavior, bed wetting, clinginess, thumb sucking.
“And as I name these, I hope that you are sitting there remembering how many of these children so far have had these kinds of behaviors.”
– From prosecutor Nancy Lamb’s closing argument in the trial of Bob Kelly
“… What could be expected for ritually abused children? That vexing question prompted everyone involved in the McMartin Preschool case to look for symptoms, and in their urgency, to mistake normal developmentally-based behaviors, quirky idiosyncrasies and even the iatrogenic effects of intimidating interviews for sequelae of ritual abuse. In this nascent moral panic, the widely circulated ‘symptom lists‘ transformed messy subjectivity into embodied and interpretable texts….”
– From “The Day Care Ritual Abuse Moral Panic” by Mary DeYoung (2004)
To day-care ritual-abuse prosecutors, what Nancy Lamb called “these kinds of behaviors” embraced everything from bed-wetting to hyperactivity to eating disorders. No dot went unconnected.
Contrary to such handy lists, however, numerous studies have found no “coherent package” of symptoms of child sexual abuse.