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….

Lamb not only unrepentant prosecutor facing voters

141024Coakley Oct. 24, 2014

“As Middlesex County (Mass.) district attorney, (Martha) Coakley defended the convictions of Fells Acres day-care center operator Violet Amirault and her two children, Gerald Amirault and Cheryl Amirault LeFave. The Amiraults are now widely recognized as victims of the mass national hysteria in the 1980s over supposed child sexual abuse in day care centers….

“In 2000, as the case against the Amiraults had all but collapsed, Coakley opposed the 5-0 decision by the Massachusetts Governor’s Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute Gerald Amirault’s sentence. To this day, Gerald lives with an ankle bracelet and strict probationary conditions, despite a growing number of people who recognize not only that he committed no crime, but that no crime was committed….”

– From “When Prosecutors Seek Higher Office, Questions Often Remain” by defense attorney Harvey Silverglate at Forbes (Oct. 22)

“Coakley… refuses to acknowledge what any rational person should know, that once again (after the Salem witch trials) Massachusetts had indulged in irrational hysteria. Just what we need, a governor who can’t admit she made a mistake….”

– From “Struggling to find the truth behind all the political rhetoric” by Barbara Anderson in the Eagle-Tribune of North Andover, Mass. (Oct. 19)

At the same time voters in Massachusetts will be be deciding whether to elect Martha Coakley governor, those in the First Judicial District of North Carolina will be deciding whether to elect fellow “satanic ritual abuse” prosecutor Nancy Lamb district attorney. Lamb may share with Coakley not only the inability to “admit she made a mistake,” but also the appetite for higher office.

An encore for ritual abuse panic? ‘You can bet on it’

120518Wood May 18, 2012

“Discredited child-sex rings like McMartin actually may not be a bogeyman of the past. Some parents, therapists and child-protection professionals continue to believe ritual sex abuse took place at McMartin preschool.

“ ‘In 10 to 15 years, there will be an attempt to rehabilitate the ritual abuse scare,’ says (James Wood, psychologist at the University of Texas El Paso). ‘You can bet on it.’ ”

– From “Who Was Abused?” by Maggie Jones in the New York Times (Sept. 19, 2004)

We believe them, we believe them not….

Oct. 26, 2012

“As in the McMartin case, the North Carolina ‘experts’ dismissed absurd elements of the children’s stories and fixated on the guilt of the caretakers.

“When a child put two dolls together, it counted as evidence; when he claimed that Miss Dawn cooked him in the microwave, he was taken to be speaking figuratively.”

– From “Day Care, Satanism and ‘Therapy’” by Alexander Cockburn in the Los Angeles Times (Sept. 5, 1991)

Good sense proved no match for gossip

Nov. 18, 2011

“Gossip serves to fill up the vacuum of many people’s lives. It adds spice and excitement ….

“ ʻI would never have imagined it,ʼ say the neighborhood people. ʻIt looked like such a nice, friendly, reputable school, and all the while we didn’t know what terrible things were going on in there. They sure were clever. They really kept it quiet for a long time.

“ ʻWhen those kids came out, I never thought that they had just eaten feces, drunk urine and were beaten with whips.ʼ ”

– From “Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited” by Richard A. Gardner (1991)