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 โ 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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Todayโs random selection from the Little Rascals Day Care archives….
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Todayโs random selection from the Little Rascals Day Care archives….
‘And believes to this day she was molested….’
Oct. 7, 2013
โToday (in 2001), few contend that the interview techniques used at the outset of theย Fells Acresย child abuse investigation, in 1984, were proper and reliable. Middlesex County (Mass.) prosecutors admitted to appellate judges in the 1990s that those techniques โ characterized by repeated suggestive questioning about molestation despite initial avowals by the children that nothing of that kind occurred โ would not be employed today.
โIn 1998, Superior Court Judge Isaac Borenstein ruled that under current Massachusetts law, the manner in which the Fells Acres children were first interrogated would have constituted grounds to have the case dismissed.
โThat questioning included hundreds of taped episodes such as this:
- Pediatric interviewer (Susan J. Kelley): โDid the clown touch you?โ
- Child witness: โNo. …โ
- Interviewer: โYou said the clown took your clothes off. …โ
- Child: โYeah. …โ
- Interviewer: โWhat happened?โ
- Child: โWell, nothing really.โ
- Interviewer: โDid the clown touch … Will you show me if the clown touched any part of you?โ
- Child: โNo, he didn’t touch me.โ
โThe child interviewed in the above example testified against Gerald Amirault at his 1986 trial, and believes to this day that she was molested by an โevil clown.โ โ
โ From โMemories questioned, but victim still certain of โevilโ…. Studies say kids can be easily ledโ by Tom Mashberg in the Boston Herald (July 8, 2001)
So what happens to the professional prospects of a โpediatric interviewerโ whose ludicrously biased questioning led to the conviction of not only Gerald Amirault, but also his mother and sister?ย In the short term, Susan J. Kelley had to endure even her prosecutorial allies disavowing her โsuggestive techniques.โ
Soon, however, Kelleyโs career was back on track,ย unimpeded by the tragedy wrought by her blindered incompetence. She has never apologized…. although herย lengthy current resumeย does omit mention of her role in the day-care ritual-abuse hoax, either as a prosecutorial interviewer or as anย academic apologist.
Lessons from a Windshield Pitting Epidemic
March 9, 2012
โThisย (Breezy Point Day School) caseย sounds like the Windshield Pitting Epidemic….
โIn the early 1950s, people in the Tacoma-Seattle area began to notice little pits in the windshields of their cars. Rumors started โ Martians were landing, it was from nuclear fallout.
โWell, it turns out those pits were always there โ they are in every windshield โ but no one noticed them until there was anxiety about nuclear testing. For the first time, they were looking at their windshields instead of through them….
โAnxiety makes things take on a different meaning.”
โ Mass hysteria specialist Gary Small, psychiatrist at UCLA School of
Medicine, quoted in Philadelphia magazine (April 1991)
Maybe those day-care crimes just never happened?ย
Jan. 22, 2018
โSex offenders have a relatively low rate of committing the same sex crime after being released from prison. Yet policymakers often base policies on rearrest rates or the fear that sex offenders are more likely than other convicted criminals to commit the same crime after release….โ
โ From โJustice Alitoโs misleading claim about sex offender rearrestsโ by Michelle Ye Hee Lee in the Washington Post (June 21, 2017)
As far as Iโve been able to tell, not a single one of the defendants in the Little Rascals, McMartin, Fells Acres, Wee Care, etc., cases has been accused of later sexual offenses โ or had been accused of earlier offenses. How could the serial perpetrators of such outrageous crimes possibly have avoided recidivism for a quarter-century?
Was it really Dawn Wilson who ‘had no character’?
March 12, 2012
After reading thousands of pages of Little Rascals coverage, shouldnโt I have become inured to the prosecutionโs gratuitous brutality?
Not yet.
On August 11, 1993, Dawn Wilson, serving a life sentence for child sexual abuse, went back to court to seek release under house arrest. In six days she would give birth to her second child.
Nancy Lamb and Bill Hart couldโve responded with any number of temperate legal arguments against her release. Instead….
โShe made a quite irresponsible decision in 1992 to become pregnant early in her trial,โ Lamb said. โShe was thinking only of herself….โ
โDawn Wilson… simply has no character…,โ added Hart. โIs she the kind of mother figure who ought to be bonding with a second out-of-wedlock child?โ
Judge Marsh McLelland granted Wilsonโs request, but delays in paperwork and payment of a $250,000 bond kept mother and son in womenโs prison another month.
In 1995 the N.C. Court of Appeals overturned her conviction.ย And then of course the prosecutors rushed to apologize to Dawn Wilson for their disgraceful vilification.
1 CommentComment on Facebook
I was living in Virginia when all of this happened . I was in sick to hear that the most promenade people in my small town were in such a scandal.