May 8, 2013

“We just had all kinds of rumors. Everybody in town was involved in it, with this one pointing fingers, that one pointing fingers. My telephone was ringing right steady….

“We really didn’t know what we had. I had a police officer who works as a secretary (Brenda Toppin) who deals with this type case, and she had right much training but nothing like she needed. So we had problems right from the start.”

– Edenton Police Chief Charles Harvey Williams, recalling for a North Carolina House committee how his 15-person department struggled to sort out allegations about the Little Rascals Day Care center (April 23, 1991)

Toppin has been variously described as a secretary and a dispatcher in Edenton’s 15-person police department – she may well have been both. Regardless, she seemed utterly unaware how far in over her head she was interviewing children about supposed ritual sex abuse.

Aug. 28, 2014

“ASHEVILLE, N.C. – After more than 20 years behind bars, Michael Alan Parker, 57, walked past the barbed wire gates of Craggy Correctional Center and looked out at the mountain skyline on Tuesday morning.

“Convicted of sexually abusing his three children in a 1994 trial charged with allegations of Satanism, Parker was freed after Superior Court Judge Marvin Pope ruled Monday that the medical evidence would no longer be interpreted as proof of sexual abuse. Pope vacated Parker’s sentence and dismissed the charges against him….

“Parker was first jailed in February 1993, when he and several codefendants were accused of abusing Parker’s three children in and near their home in Saluda, N.C.

“At trial in 1994, Parker’s children testified in graphic detail about abuse that prosecutors labeled ritualistic. The 9-year-old girl testified that she had been sexually abused in a garage behind their home. She said a fire was burning inside a circle made of rocks, and she heard people chanting in soft voices.

“In an emotion-charged atmosphere, then-Assistant District Attorney Mike Edwards called the trailer park where the family lived ‘Sodom and Saluda’ and quoted the Bible in his statements to the jury….”

– From “Henderson County man walks free after 20 years in prison“ by Renee Bindewald in the Spartanburg (S.C.) Herald-Journal

Congratulations are in order for Mr. Parker and his appellate lawyer, Sean Devereux, who had labored doggedly (and often pro bono) on his behalf since 1999.

The similarities to Andrew Junior Chandler’s case are obvious, although the “Sodom and Saluda” allegations in the Parker case were rooted in domestic turmoil rather than in the way-too-familiar day-care fantasy. Most notable is Judge Pope’s recognition that the type of medical validation of abuse presented at trial has been persuasively discredited –  see also, the physician’s recantation that set Fran and Dan Keller free.

Will Pope’s decision prove to be an aberration? Or does it presage the breakthrough Junior Chandler has for so long been denied?

tessgerritsen.com

Gerritsen

Oct. 15, 2017

“Remember, [this fictional child sex abuse trial] happened during an odd time in criminal justice, when the public was convinced there were satanic cults all over the country.

“I attended a forensic psychology conference in the early ’90s, and I heard a so-called expert describe vast networks of these cults abusing children and even sacrificing babies. She claimed that a quarter of her patients were survivors of ritual abuse.

“All around the country there were criminal trials going on…. Unfortunately, many weren’t based on facts but on fear and superstition.”

–  Dr. Lawrence Zucker, a character in “I Know a Secret,” the latest Rizzoli and Isles thriller from Tess Gerritsen 

That conference sure sounds like the actual one at Kill Devil Hills that preceded Bob Kelly’s arrest by just months.

And the “so-called expert”? Well, here’s how Debbie Nathan and Michael Snedeker described Ann Wolbert Burgess in 2001 in “Satan’s Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a  Modern American Witch Hunt”: “promoter of the use of children’s drawings to diagnose sexual abuse, developer of the idea of the sex ring, participant in developing the case that imprisoned the Amirault family and currently a researcher into the traumatic aftereffects of ritual abuse.”

naacpnc.org

Rev. William Barber

April 8, 2016

“North Carolina’s attorney general (Roy Cooper) should set up a group to investigate claims of wrongful convictions to prevent more innocent people from being in prison, the head of the state NAACP said Thursday.

“The Rev. William Barber also called on Gov. Pat McCrory to establish a task force to recommend ways to strengthen protections against wrongful convictions….”

“Cooper’s office said a meeting was held with Barber and representatives of the NAACP: ‘We look forward to working with them to address systemic issues in the criminal justice system.” Cooper also wants more money for N.C. Innocence Inquiry Commission, which has been involved in releasing eight innocent men.

“McCrory’s office didn’t… respond to Barber’s comments….”

– From “NAACP: Attorney General should review wrongful convictions” by Martha Waggoner of the Associated Press (March 24) (text cache)

The latest addition to the long list of questionable North Carolina convictions comes from Gaston County (thank you, Elizabeth Leland of the Charlotte Observer). Least surprising sentence in Leland’s series: “The prosecutors who tried the case declined to be interviewed.”