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….

‘Parent-experts’ found meaning where there was none

120406DeYoung April 6, 2012

“Parent-experts made a specific kind of sense of their children’s behaviors and emotions by retrospectively interpreting them as sequelae of day care ritual abuse rather than as reactions to familial stress, the vicissitudes of growing up or, for that matter, the stress of the investigation and the interrogations. ….

“Parent-experts testified that they never had reason to worry about their children’s behavior until they disclosed ritual abuse. Then, to the parent-experts, the tantrums, fears and sleep disturbances that once had looked like nothing more than normal growing pains were retrospectively interpreted….”

– From “The Day Care Ritual Abuse Moral Panic” by Mary De Young (2004)

Judge Marsh McLelland’s allowing parents to testify as experts about their children’s behavior was one of the key defects pointed out by the N.C. Court of Appeals in overturning the convictions of Bob Kelly and Dawn Wilson.

Child sex trafficking: 21st century’s moral panic?

130822Lee Aug. 21, 2013

“Some advocates have suggested secure facilities for America’s child sex trafficking victims…. Such facilities force troubled children into a system of care that may be just as exploitive as with a pimp/trafficker.

“Countless women continue to seek restitution for the sexual abuse by employees assigned to supervise them while in detention in the ’60s and ’70s – some of these women have children fathered by detention employees….

“So then why do we talk about secure facilities for child victims of sex trafficking? Because ‘sex is at issue’ in their victimization….

“Child sex trafficking is not the first social issue to create moral panic around physical and sexual abuse. In the ’80s, Satanic Ritual Abuse garnered self-proclaimed experts, national media attention, law enforcement mobilizations, federal funding, excitement and hysteria. By the ’90s official investigations produced no evidence of widespread conspiracies and only a small number of crimes were verified….”

– From “Residential Programs for America’s Child Sex Trafficking Victims: Secure or Non-Secure Facilities?” by Dr. Lois Lee, founder and president, Children of the Night, at Huffington Post (July 9, 2013)

Why we could see another Little Rascals case

Oct. 12, 2011

In the digital age more than ever before, no bad idea ever dies. Consider (neo)Nazism, creationism and vaccine-caused autism.

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, ritual sex abuse is still being promoted as a significant national peril.

The possibility of another episode of day-care hysteria – e.g., Little Rascals, McMartin, Fells Acres, Wee Care – has lessened but certainly not vanished. A repeat of history requires only an angry parent or two, an agenda-guided therapist and a fervid prosecutor.

Johnny Small freed, now deserves pardon of innocence

goldsborodailynews.com

Johnny Small

Sept. 14, 2016

“[Chris] Mumma said she intends to request a pardon for [Johnny] Small from Gov. Pat McCrory. In order for Small to be compensated for the years he spent in prison, he has to be exonerated of the charges on the grounds that he did not commit the crime. Under North Carolina law, the Industrial Commission can award exonerees $50,000 for each year spent in prison up to a maximum of $750,000. Exonerees also are eligible for job training and college tuition….”

– From “Johnny Small’s freedom makes some question if investigator should be charged” by F.T. Norton in the Wilmington Star-News (Sept. 9)

Let’s hope McCrory responds more willingly and humanely than he did in finally pardoning Henry McCollum and Leon Brown.

Case closed, Governor – no reinvestigation needed!