\u201cI remember that Barbara Fleischman, a dear friend who had moved to North Carolina from Bucks County, called to let me know that the child abuse contagion had reared its head in Edenton.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving been deeply affected by my personal experience, I felt the need to reach out. I read about Raymond Lawrence\u2019s formation of the Edenton Seven committee, and after several discussions with him and Dee Swain (a fuel dealer in Washington, N.C.) I was truly inspired to do what I could. I was gratified to find individuals who would fight the injustice being perpetrated upon the Kellys.<\/p>\n
![\"111214Wiik\"](\"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/111214Wiik.jpg\")
\u201cThe eventual outcome in Little Rascals was the correct one, but the damage done to many individuals was enormous. We all have a list of heroes in our lives, and Bob Kelly and Dawn Wilson certainly were added to mine. Both stood firm in speaking truth to a community that lacked leadership in politics and law enforcement….<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Edenton case and my own were just two of many produced by the 1980s culture. It happened in Salem 300 years ago, and it will happen again some day.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo why did my child care business survive, when so many others didn\u2019t?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had the exact same claims of horrors perpetrated against children. We had the same media coverage that initially proclaimed \u02bbChildren don\u2019t lie.\u02bc We had the same overzealous child abuse investigators from the county Department of Children and Youth Services. We had the identical mass hysteria.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we also had leadership! District Attorney Alan Rubenstein was a seeker of justice, not political gain. He conducted a long, expensive criminal investigation, one that branded the parents\u2019 and children\u2019s claims as false and reckless.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d also be remiss if I didn\u2019t mention my employees and our parent community, who all knew nothing had happened at Breezy Point. They went on camera, wrote letters to editors and participated in several large meetings answering all questions about our school.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy experience lasted five or six years, caused lots of heartache and did much financial damage. However, Breezy Point Day School still opens at 7 a.m. and closes at 6 p.m. every day and is still filled with several hundred happy children, parents and staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a shame Bob and Betsy Kelly chose Edenton, North Carolina, to open a child care business and not Bucks County, Pennsylvania.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u25cf \u00a0 \u25cf \u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n
Later this week I\u2019ll post excerpts from the DA\u2019s 1990 investigative report, along with a few of his recollections (he\u2019s now a judge).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dec. 14, 2011 Among the leaders of the Committee for Support of the Edenton Seven was Doug Wiik, whose own Breezy Point Day School in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, had just been cleared of similar abuse accusations. I asked him to compare the two cases. \u201cI remember that Barbara Fleischman, a dear friend who had moved […]<\/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-206","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\/206","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=206"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2544,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions\/2544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}