{"id":2624,"date":"2016-07-22T06:01:16","date_gmt":"2016-07-22T06:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=2624"},"modified":"2016-07-22T02:06:30","modified_gmt":"2016-07-22T02:06:30","slug":"what-may-be-the-largest-child-sexual-abuse-trial-this-country-has-ever-seen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=2624","title":{"rendered":"\u2018What may be the largest child sexual abuse trial this country has ever seen\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: right;\">July 22, 2016<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFARMVILLE, N.C. \u2013 Farmville&#8217;s only courtroom has never played host to a felony trial. This week, the town&#8217;s 4,000 residents will watch a parade of jurors, lawyers, psychologists, parents and children converge on that courtroom. There, they will unfold what may be the largest child sexual abuse trial this country has ever seen: the trial of Robert F. Kelly Jr. of Edenton.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1152\" src=\"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/140120TwentyFive.jpg\" alt=\"140120TwentyFive\" width=\"100\" height=\"147\" \/>\u201cThe trial was moved to this one-blink community in Pitt County, 65 miles west of Edenton in Eastern North Carolina, because of pretrial publicity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut the spotlight will find Farmville, if not for the unprecedented number of sexual abuse indictments, then for the sordid nature of the charges. And if not for that, then for the impact\u00a0the trial \u2013 expected to last three to four months \u2013 could have on future large-scale child-abuse prosecutions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJury selection is scheduled to start today&#8230;.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><em>\u2013 From \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/articles.baltimoresun.com\/1991-07-22\/news\/1991203029_1_farmville-abuse-trial\" target=\"_blank\">Witnesses, jurors, lawyers mass for sexual-abuse trial<\/a>\u201d\u00a0by Knight-Ridder News Service in the Baltimore Sun (July 22, 1991)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In fact, the trial would last nine months, not three or four.\u00a0 Although prosecutors won initial convictions of both Kelly and Dawn Wilson, for whatever reasons \u2013 surely including the eye-opening effects of Ofra Bikel\u2019s \u201cInnocence Lost\u201d trilogy \u2013 the nation was spared \u201cfuture large-scale child-abuse prosecutions.\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>July 22, 2016 \u201cFARMVILLE, N.C. \u2013 Farmville&#8217;s only courtroom has never played host to a felony trial. This week, the town&#8217;s 4,000 residents will watch a parade of jurors, lawyers, psychologists, parents and children converge on that courtroom. There, they will unfold what may be the largest child sexual abuse trial this country has ever [&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-2624","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\/2624","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=2624"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2627,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2624\/revisions\/2627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}