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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Little Rascals Day Care Case
This Facebook page is an offshoot of littlerascalsdaycarecase.org, which addresses the wrongful prosecution of the Edenton Seven and other such victims.
Meanwhile in Edenton....
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Allies for our cause!
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The courts have a long history of capriciously pulling the rug out from under Junior's appeals, but maybe this time....
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Today’s random selection from the Little Rascals Day Care archives….
Sex-abuse journalism raises ‘strange question’
Nov. 9, 2012
“Did I recognize that child sex abuse existed and was a serious problem? reporters would ask. A strange question, that. The discussion of no other crime would require such a disclaimer. Journalists who have written about false murder charges are seldom asked to provide reassurance that they know murder is a bad thing, and it really happens.”
– From “No Crueler Tyrannies: Accusations, False Witness and Other Terrors of Our Times” by Dorothy Rabinowitz (2003)
From Trump to Pizzagate, Internet is geyser of malinformation
Dec. 7, 2016
“If you do a Google search right now for ‘McMartin preschool tunnels,’ you will be inundated with ‘studies’ and ‘reports’ that ‘prove’ the tunnels did exist, and that the lurid fictions prompted out of the children by ambitious social workers were therefore true. Nothing dies on the Internet, not even the most arrant lunacy….
“One of [Donald Trump’s] primary surrogates, Scottie Nell Hughes, told an NPR panel that ‘There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts.’ But we have not ‘entered’ an age of post-truth politics. We’ve been living in it for years. The Executive Branch of the government just has been slow to catch up. Now, it’s right there with the rest of us, god help the country. We’re all just the children of McMartin now. We’ll say anything we’re told until we come to believe it ourselves.”
– From “America Was Always a Nation of Conspiracy Theorists. Now, They’re Simply More Dangerous: Lessons from Pizzagate” by Charles P. Pierce in Esquire (Dec. 5)
Little Rascals: A ‘travesty of justice’ for the ages
June 20, 2012
“The Little Rascals case still remains the greatest travesty of justice I’ve ever been associated with or seen or even heard about… since like 1960.”
– Joe Cheshire, attorney for Bob and Betsy Kelly (Triangle Business Journal, 1998)
Why would prosecutors let ‘monster’ walk?
Jan. 18, 2012
“One way or another, justice has failed miserably in the agonizing case of the Little Rascals Day Care…. Last week, eight years after launching an investigation into possible sex abuse at the center, prosecutors announced they were dropping all charges against those who worked at the center.
“That means one of two things:
“(1) Either the defendants originally charged with hundreds of allegations of sex abuse in the 1980s are going to go virtually unpunished for their unspeakable deeds; or
“(2) Those same defendants have been badly treated by an overzealous prosecution team that broke all the rules of fairness in winning flawed guilty verdicts….”
– Editorial in The Charlotte Observer, May 29, 1997
So was that “overzealous prosecution team” simply blindered true believers, or did they realize early on their case was rotten to the core?
Defendant Scott Privott, who pled no contest and was released on probation after spending more than three years in prison, cuts through to the truth when he asks:
“Why did they offer me a plea? You know, if I’m supposed to be the monster that they said I was, if I did these crimes that they said I did, why would they offer me a plea?”
Why indeed, H.P. Williams?… Nancy Lamb?… Bill Hart?