April 17, 2013

“One day you will stand before almighty God and be accountable for that which you have done here on Earth, and no amount of lies and manipulation, no ‘Frontline’ presentation will be able to hide the truth from him. He knows every sordid detail and I pity you for that.”

– From a statement read by Little Rascals parent Susan Small at the plea-agreement hearing of Scott Privott (June 16, 1994)

On the scale of responsibility for brutalizing the Edenton Seven, the panicked, misinformed parents may rank as least culpable. They were neither demagoguing public servants (the prosecutors) nor overreaching professionals (the therapists). Even so, Susan Small’s tirade seemed gratuitously vitriolic – as if her own beliefs might have needed reinforcing?

I asked Scott Privott what it felt like being on the receiving end that day in the courtroom.

“I almost got up and told her to shut the hell up and that I would let the state put me on trial,” he said. “I thought to myself that I was glad God would judge me and not her and her pathetic cohorts.”

Scott’s recollection of his earlier knowledge of Susan Small highlights the Lilliputian stage on which the sprawling Little Rascals drama played out:

“I was in college with Susan Small’s husband, Morris; in fact, Morris and I used to ride together from Edenton to Elizabeth City to attend classes at the College of the Albemarle. Susan was at the college too, but I didn’t know her that well. Morris was my banker at the time of my arrest.”

A third member of the car pool: Jay Swicegood, another accusing parent.

“I am not like some of those who’ve been falsely accused and hold no ill feelings,” Scott says. “I have plenty of ill feelings, and I do not for one moment wish them any good tidings.”

Idle thought: Might it mitigate Scott’s bitterness if someone – anyone! – who participated in putting him behind bars for three years and eight months had the courage to apologize?

Aug. 22, 2012

“They would have had to experience this or seen this. I know that for a fact. I know they didn’t make it up. I mean, I’m an intelligent person….

“I feel very sure in my heart and in my mind that this happened…. but not with Mr. Bob and not at the day care.”

– Betsy Kelly, demonstrating (in an interview taped by Officer Brenda Toppin, March 16, 1989) the pervasiveness of the impulse to “Believe the Children”

June 15, 2014

“Andrew Junior Chandler has been unjustly incarcerated in a North Carolina prison for 27 years, charged with a crime that almost surely never happened….

“Let’s hope that Gov. Pat McCrory will review the mistaken judgment of his misnamed ‘clemency office’ and correct this stain on the reputation of North Carolina justice.”

–From “Mass hysteria of sexual, satanic ritual abuse and a miscarriage of NC justice” by Dr. Allen Frances in the Raleigh News & Observer (June 15) text cache

Dr. Frances, professor emeritus of psychiatry at Duke University, once again steps forward to take responsibility for therapy’s Dark Ages, this time in the newspaper read daily by those state officials who have refused to grant relief to Junior Chandler.

Dec. 16, 2015

On this day 25 years ago: Bonds for Little Rascals employees Robin Byrum and Dawn Wilson are reduced to a still excessive $200,000 – Byrum’s from $500,000, Wilson’s from $880,000.

Byrum will be released four days later, Wilson not for eight weeks.

Because she went to trial and the jury returned a guilty verdict (eventually overturned), Wilson’s story is much better known.

But Byrum suffered her own coercive torture at the hands of prosecutors before charges were dropped in 1996.

Nineteen years old when she was arrested in January 1990, she spent almost a year in jail, leaving her 7-month-old baby in the care of her husband. Had she agreed to testify against Bob Kelly, she could have walked out a free woman – and mother.

In “Innocence Lost: The Plea” (1997), Byrum explained why she had been tempted by but repeatedly refused the prosecutors’ deal:

“…. I would not ever have to be separated from my child again. But then I’d have to live with the rest of my life that I (said I) did something when I didn’t do it.”