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….

Nancy Lamb has an explanation for everything

June 29, 2012

“One month after drawing national attention when she dismissed final charges involving the children at the day-care center, (Nancy Lamb) clings to her belief that Robert Kelly is a child molester….

“Still, she admits it’s not easy to explain why none of the defendants have turned against each other, even though they were offered deals by her office.

“ ‘You did have kind of a group dynamic going on where they did hang around together and support each other and encourage each other to hang tough,’ Lamb said.”

– From the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, July 2, 1997

Another child-witness, now grown, spills the beans

Sept. 8, 2015

“Jennifer (a pseudonym) reached out to me after seeing an interview I gave about the McMartin Preschool trial…. She said she had been involved in a similar case as a child and that her experiences with the police, the judicial system, and a series of therapists mirrored those of the McMartin children. Now an adult with a career and family of her own, she agreed to speak with me about her experiences during the trial and in the decades since….

“Jennifer’s experiences illustrate the consequences of the misguided ‘belief’ in children that so many therapists, parents, and cops professed during the 1980s….”

– From “Moral Panic and the Myth of Recovered Memory” by Richard Beck at Literary Hub (Aug. 18)

Although Beck presents more as a historian than a journalist, his interview with Jennifer is a significant addition to the sparse roster of recanting (or not) child-witnesses. Not surprisingly, her account offers numerous parallels not only to McMartin but also to Little Rascals:

“lots of phone conversations and meetings” among parents
an interviewer with “anatomically correct dolls”
her initial insistence that “nothing had happened”
“a tour of the jail” arranged by the therapist to assure her that the supposed molester was safely behind bars
her capitulation in the face of endless therapy sessions, leading her to “finally just start… making stuff up.”
the eventual overturning of her day-care teacher’s conviction

Might Jennifer’s coming forward, however tentatively, lead the way to more recantations by child-witnesses?

Parents ill-prepared to practice psychology

Nov. 28, 2011

“The Little Rascals case offers a trove of testimony illustrating how immersion into the popular psychology of sexual abuse gave parent-experts the terms and concepts to retrospectively interpret their children’s behaviors and emotions, and to do so with the ring of authority….

“One mother testified that once she had learned the psychology of sexual abuse, she realized her child’s denial that anything untoward had happened at the day care center actually was a sign that he had been sexually abused.”

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

Mumma victimized by prosecutor’s perverse priorities

newsobserver.com

Joseph Sledge

Jan. 16, 2016

“Joseph Sledge spent 37 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. At his trial, the state paid a lying snitch to testify against him. While he was in prison, (Jon David, the latest Bladen County district attorney) opposed the DNA testing that would eventually prove Sledge’s innocence. And when the long-delayed tests showed Sledge wasn’t the culprit, the state waited another two years to release him from prison.

“Now that Sledge is finally free, the only person being punished is the lawyer who fought to prove his innocence, Chris Mumma. On Thursday, the State Bar found that Mumma violated professional ethics by testing a water bottle for DNA without permission from its owner – all in an attempt to gain an innocent man his freedom against long odds. (The test of the water bottle was inconclusive and had no impact on the final outcome.)….

“In all the cases where Mumma has freed innocent people, no prosecutor has ever faced charges….Instead, the State Bar sent a message that lawyers who expose the system’s misdeeds could be subject to retribution….”

– From “Let’s punish lawyers who put innocent people in prison, instead of those who free them” by Kristin Collins at NC Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (Jan. 15)

Three years ago I took DA David at his word when he promised:

“I really see us as sharing the goal of making sure (Sledge’s) conviction rests on credible and substantial evidence. I’m going to go where the truth leads in this matter.”

I was naïve. As it turned out, David’s true passion wasn’t for exonerating an innocent man but for punishing his lawyer.