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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Today’s random selection from the Little Rascals Day Care archives….

Two historic sites, two wildly different outcomes

CBS; Google

At left, the Eden Street building shortly after Little Rascals closed; at right, the building in 2008.

June 3, 2013

In the aftermath of the McMartin Preschool case in California, the building was razed and the site probed for secret tunnels.

In the aftermath of the Little Rascals Day Care case in Edenton, the building was turned into the East of Eden Spa and Kuttin Up Salon.

Both Nancy Smith Barrow and her daughter have been customers at the spa. “It truly was a strange experience to go back in,” she says.

DA Williams to jury: Don’t consider the source

130220Oz Feb. 20, 2013

“Don’t focus on the question, focus on the answer.”

– District Attorney H. P. Williams, urging jurors to ignore the leading questions that therapists asked child-witnesses to elicit accusations against Bob Kelly

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”

– The Wizard of Oz

When Betsy Kelly was released from jail, much persecution still lay ahead

Oct. 9, 2016

Five days after her bond was reduced from $1.8 million to $400,000, Betsy Kelly is released from jail.

140120TwentyFive In January 1994 Kelly would accept a plea of “no contest” and a sentence of seven years in prison. Since she had already served two years and two weeks in jail, she became eligible for parole almost immediately. But Assistant Attorney General Bill Hart, angry over her unwavering insistence that she was innocent, reneged on a plea agreement not to contest her release, and the Parole Commission kept her imprisoned another 10 months.

The prosecution used excessive bail as a sledgehammer on the lives and freedom of Betsy Kelly and the other Little Rascals defendants:

Bob Kelly, $1.5 million (later reduced to $200,000 – after his conviction was overturned – then $50,000 )
Scott Privott, $1 million (reduced to $50,000)
Shelley Stone, $375,000
Dawn Wilson, $880,000 (reduced to $200,000)
Robin Byrum, $500,000 (reduced to $200,000)
Darlene Harris, $350,000

What outrageous conditions! Did Hart, H. P. Williams Jr. and Nancy Lamb fear that the defendants would flee to Argentina? That they would prowl the town’s playgrounds in search of new victims? No, these obviously out-of-reach amounts surely had no purpose but to coerce confessions. How shocked and disappointed prosecutors must have been that not one of the defendants, though crushed financially, succumbed.

‘Mindhunter’ series misguided in choice of role model

popsugar.com

Garcia

Oct. 19, 2017

“Though ‘Mindhunter’ at times seems like a fictitious nightmare, the new Netflix series is very much rooted in reality. Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) is based on real-life FBI agent John E. Douglas, and Dr. Wendy Carr (played by Anna Torv) is based on Dr. Ann Wolbert Burgess, a pioneer in the treatment of trauma and abuse victims….

“The character molded after Burgess helps Ford and his partner legitimize their research with her sociological and science-backed knowledge….”

– From “The Influential Trailblazer Who Inspired Mindhunter’s Dr. Wendy Carr” by Kelsey Garcia at Popsugar (Oct. 16)

Yes, it’s just a TV character. But the depiction of Ann Wolbert Burgess as a trustworthy source of “science-based knowledge” should appall anyone who recalls her national prominence in igniting the “satanic ritual abuse” day care panic.

Most grievous for the Little Rascals defendants, it was Burgess who led a three-day conference in Kill Devil Hills just months before Bob Kelly’s arrest. The agenda: learning how to spot child molesters operating day-care facilities.

She has never apologized.