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….
Therapist, prosecutor worked 4-year-old as tag team
Feb. 6, 2012
Michele L. Zimmerman, now associate professor emeritus of psychiatric nursing at Old Dominion University, was one of four therapists who collaborated with prosecutors in interviewing Bob Kelly’s supposed victims.
Their teamwork is obvious in this clumsily coercive set-up by Zimmerman and District Attorney H.P. Williams Jr. (cited by Dr. Moisy Shopper, a St. Louis psychiatrist who reviewed interview tapes for the defense):
Zimmerman to 4-year-old boy: “Mr. Williams needs to know what he (Kelly) did to you to keep him in jail.”
Williams: “I’m in charge of the police. I decide who goes to jail.”
Last week I asked Zimmerman two questions: Do you still believe the Little Rascals defendants were guilty? Were the children actually abused?
Her response:
“Patient confidentiality laws do not permit me to comment on this case, as the therapist-client privilege still exists. It is not my role to comment on the defendants’ guilt or innocence, as that is the charge for the finder of fact.”
In fact, Zimmerman did comment publicly at least once in the aftermath of Kelly’s conviction: “There are people in Edenton who are still mad at one another because Person A did not tell Person B about the abuse.”
A final question, Ms. Zimmerman: What if Person A simply had nothing to tell?
Chaplain writes memoir about supporting defendants
Nov. 21, 2011
Raymond Lawrence, the New York City chaplain who founded the Committee for Support of the Edenton Seven, was an attentive and often appalled observer at Bob Kelly’s trial. This passage is excerpted from a memoir now posted in its entirety on the Bookshelf:
“Among the more obscene performances I witnessed by the prosecution was a long argument that Robert Kelly had had vaginal intercourse with a five-year-old girl.
“On a screen about four feet square the prosecutor displayed a color slide the girl’s genitalia, with two adult thumbs shown pulling back the labia to display the hymen and vaginal opening. The hymen appeared fully intact, covering most of the vaginal opening. The prosecutor thus spent what I recall as hours arguing that the stretch marks in the hymen were evidence of adult penile penetration.
“I wondered why the defense attorney did not rise up and ask if this were Alice in Wonderland…. It was as if I had entered an alternate universe.”
That’s our case, and we’re sticking to it (cont.)
Feb. 1, 2012
The HBO documentary “Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory” surely deserves its Oscar nomination, although the only edge it holds over Ofra Bikel’s “Innocence Lost” trilogy of the ’90s is its happy-tears finale: the three defendants walking out of prison.
After much lawyering, the West Memphis Three in August accepted an Alford plea that allowed them to go free, while protecting the state of Arkansas from a wrongful-imprisonment suit and the national embarrassment of a retrial.
I had to laugh at this exchange from the ensuing press conference:
Reporter: “Will the state continue to investigate this case if additional information is brought forth, or is the case closed?”
Prosecutor Scott Ellington: “I have no reason to believe there was anyone else involved in the homicides of these three children but the three defendants who pled guilty today.”
Defense attorney Dennis Riordon: “Does anyone believe that if the state had even the slightest continuing conviction they were guilty that it would have let these men go free today?”
If H.P. Williams Jr., Nancy Lamb and Bill Hart were watching – unlikely, given the spotlight shone on unjust prosecution – no doubt they would have admired Ellington’s resolve in the face of reality.
He stood up to Trump mania – how will he fare with Prosecutors Club?
July 20, 2016
“Orr, a former state Supreme Court justice… angered party officials when he told a WRAL TV reporter that the nominee was ‘singularly unqualified to lead this country.’
State GOP Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse said Orr ‘hasn’t been a good Republican for a long time.’
“Orr said, ‘If I’d know there was some oath of loyalty, some code of omerta, where I couldn’t say anything against Trump, I probably wouldn’t have come.’”
– From “One NC delegate leaves GOP convention after criticizing Donald Trump” by Jim Morrill in the Charlotte Observer (July 19)
Orr’s willingness to break from the herd will be tested mightily in his efforts to undertake an external evaluation of the N.C. State Bar, which so eagerly finds ethics violations among innocence project lawyers but almost never among prosecutors….
Footnote: To the surprise of few, the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys supports restrictions on release of police body cameras and dashboard recordings.
