{"id":2080,"date":"2016-04-06T00:31:44","date_gmt":"2016-04-06T00:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=2080"},"modified":"2016-07-03T19:34:11","modified_gmt":"2016-07-03T19:34:11","slug":"most-people-thought-i-had-lost-my-damn-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=2080","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Most people thought I had lost my damn mind\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_2082\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2082\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2082\" src=\"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/160405Letter.jpg\" alt=\"Portion of Dee Swain\u2019s Jan. 12, 1993 letter to Attorney General's Office on \u201cthe startling similarities of the Little Rascals case and the Salem\u201d witch trials of 1692-93.\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/160405Letter.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/160405Letter-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2082\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Portion of Dee Swain\u2019s Jan. 12, 1993 letter to Attorney General Office on \u201cthe startling similarities of the Little Rascals case and the Salem\u201d witch trials of 1692-93.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">April 5, 2016<\/p>\n<p>At a time when the Little Rascals claims were exposing widespread gullibility, a gritty band of doubters \u2013 e.g., <a href=\"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=180\">Raymond Lawrence<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=366\">Glenn Lancaster<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=1070\">Jane Duffield<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=206\">Doug Wiik<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=912\">Susan Corbett<\/a>\u00a0and Dee Swain \u2013 was desperately working to keep the defendants from being crushed by public opinion and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=1484\">prosecutorial coercion<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As treasurer for the Committee to Support the Edenton Seven, Swain distributed donations to defendants, facilitated the lowering of Scott Privott\u2019s exorbitant bond and wrote an epic four-page (single-spaced!) letter educating the attorney general\u2019s office on the errors of its ways.<\/p>\n<p>How was it that a propane dealer in Washington, N.C., could see through the fog that engulfed so many professionals?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was obvious to me right away that it was hysteria,\u201d he says. \u201cI didn\u2019t get involved until after (Bob Kelly\u2019s) conviction \u2013 I had thought surely the jury would see through it&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve always been a skeptical person, someone who stands outside the box&#8230;. Most people thought I had lost my damn mind, defending \u2018child molesters\u2019&#8230;. I got anonymous phone calls&#8230;.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Swain is surprisingly generous to those who bought into the \u201csatanic ritual abuse\u201d stories elicited by prosecution therapists: \u201cThere aren\u2019t any villains. They all acted in good faith. They were on a mission. They were going to be heroes&#8230;.. You could see it all in \u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds\" target=\"_blank\">Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds<\/a>\u2019 (by Charles Mackay, 1841).\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And why does he think none have stepped forward a quarter century later to recant? \u201cWhat they did was too terrible to admit to themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1707\" src=\"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/LRDCC20.jpg\" alt=\"LRDCC20\" width=\"132\" height=\"20\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>April 5, 2016 At a time when the Little Rascals claims were exposing widespread gullibility, a gritty band of doubters \u2013 e.g., Raymond Lawrence,\u00a0Glenn Lancaster,\u00a0Jane Duffield,\u00a0Doug Wiik,\u00a0Susan Corbett\u00a0and Dee Swain \u2013 was desperately working to keep the defendants from being crushed by public opinion and prosecutorial coercion. As treasurer for the Committee to Support the [&hellip;]<\/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-2080","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\/2080","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=2080"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2330,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2080\/revisions\/2330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}