{"id":107,"date":"2012-01-02T23:38:12","date_gmt":"2012-01-02T23:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=107"},"modified":"2016-07-04T12:57:04","modified_gmt":"2016-07-04T12:57:04","slug":"you-believe-a-dozen-kids-just-made-up-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=107","title":{"rendered":"‘You believe a dozen kids just made up lies?’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jan. 2, 2012<\/p>\n

Next to \u201cWhy are you doing this?\u201d the question I\u2019m most often asked about Little Rascals is, \u201cSince the trial, what has happened with the kids?\u201d<\/p>\n

For those alleged child-victims who testified in day-care abuse cases, the need to forget, to deny and to stay silent must be strong indeed. Who wants to believe they were so misused by their parents, not to mention by therapists and prosecutors? Who can look unblinkingly at the grotesque truth and take it public? For many, given the well-documented power of suggestibility, it may simply be impossible.<\/p>\n

One exception was Kyle Zirpolo, who came forward in 2005 to apologize for his role in the\u00a0McMartin pre-school case<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"Last week, on the chance that an Edenton child might be ready to break ranks, I took out classified ads in the daily Elizabeth City Advance and the weekly Chowan Herald with this message:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you were a child or parent involved in the Little Rascals Day Care case of the early 1990s, I\u2019d like to hear from you….\u201d<\/p>\n

Thursday night I received a call from a woman who credibly identified herself as one of those children. She wouldn\u2019t give her name. She is 26 now, no longer living in Edenton, and she was not happy to see the ad. I felt obliged to tell her at the outset that I considered the defendants wrongly accused. Here\u2019s an edited version of her response:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s sad that you and others believe that. Here it is almost 2012, and I\u2019m still opening up the paper and seeing crap like this (ad). It\u2019s either that, or another bullshit book about our \u2018witch hunt.\u2019 And I know they study us and McMartin and Fells Acres in different colleges.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m haunted every single day, and I always will be, so long as those bastards are out there, getting to go about their business. I have a lot of emotions \u2013 hypervigilance, anger that I had to go through all that badgering (by the defense). My husband put away my files on the case because it bothered me so much.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember vividly what happened, and I\u2019ve told therapists. You believe a dozen little kids just got together and made up lies? There was physical evidence, things they couldn\u2019t put on TV.\u00a0 The whole situation was just crap.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before we hung up, she said she would consider sending me case materials that I would find persuasive. I appreciate her call and hope to hear from her again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jan. 2, 2012 Next to \u201cWhy are you doing this?\u201d the question I\u2019m most often asked about Little Rascals is, \u201cSince the trial, what has happened with the kids?\u201d For those alleged child-victims who testified in day-care abuse cases, the need to forget, to deny and to stay silent must be strong indeed. Who wants […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2538,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions\/2538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}