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.
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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....
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Allies for our cause!
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The courts have a long history of capriciously pulling the rug out from under Junior's appeals, but maybe this time....
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Today’s random selection from the Little Rascals Day Care archives….
What was learned from Little Rascals debacle?
July 19, 2013
“…There should be lessons here, lessons about the risks in cases so emotional that they take on a life of their own; lessons for prosecutors who need to use their considerable investigative resources to learn, and not to crusade; lessons about the price in credibility paid by a judicial system in which defendants who are not rich are up against tremendous odds….
“The Little Rascals case…. has wasted many years of many lives. The greater waste will be if nothing is learned from it.”
– From “Case dismissed” (News & Observer editorial, May 28, 1997)
Dennis Rogers: Who has the courage to make amends?
Dec. 21, 2013
As noted here and here, News & Observer columnist Dennis Rogers was among the too-few voices of skepticism about the Little Rascals case. Today Rogers is mostly retired, but he continues to lament the state’s failure to take responsibility for its willful prosecution of seven innocent defendants:
“North Carolina has a sad reputation for misguided justice. There is no better example than the plight of the Edenton Seven. The government destroyed lives and families in its fevered rush to find wrong where there was none.
“It takes political courage to right painful and embarrassing wrongs from 25 years ago. The case of the Edenton Seven offers those who would claim the mantle of leadership in our state an opportunity to demonstrate that they are the kind of people we need in Raleigh.
“Silence in the face of such obvious injustice is cowardice.”
Brent Adams & Associates, clean up your act
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.
What might’ve been: Nancy Lamb at the multiplex
May 30, 2015
Ofra Bikel’s eight hours of “Innocence Lost” were surely powerful, but the narrowness of PBS’s audience limited their impact. What if the Little Rascals Day Care case had also inspired a major theatrical release? What if several million moviegoers had watched the dramatic nobody-dunnit even as the real-life Edenton Seven were languishing in jail or standing trial?
For a brief moment, that seemed possible.
Kurt Luedtke, screenwriter for the ’80s hits “Out of Africa” and “Absence of Malice,” was outraged after seeing the initial “Innocence Lost” in 1991. “You can’t hold people that long without presenting the evidence,” he told the Charlotte Observer.
Now retired and living in Michigan, Luedtke recalls his “indignation mounting and (thinking) I had to do something about the preposterousness of what was going on….”
Alas, his idea apparently made it no further than a preliminary meeting in New York with Bikel and “Frontline” founder David Fanning: “I can’t remember why we didn’t go forward; maybe I had another job.”