Dec. 5, 2017

“The Manson Family’s ritualistic murders in 1969 triggered the ini4al stages of na4onal cult hysteria….

“Manson made hippies scary for awhile, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that ’70s horror movies featuring hooded devil covens, witches and the occult emerged shortly after he was convicted. Manson and his apostles triggered a frenzy pertaining to cults that would reach ridiculous new heights in the ‘80s with the ‘satanic ritual abuse’ allegations, which inspired their own exploitation movies as well….”

— From “How Exploitation Movies Exploited Charles Manson and Hippie Hysteria”
by Kieran Fisher at “Film School Rejects” (Nov. 25)

Feb. 3, 2012

Glenn Lancaster, a Raleigh pay-phone executive, played a key part in facilitating life-after-incarceration for both Bob Kelly and Scott Privott.

I asked Glenn to recall how he became involved in the Little Rascals case:

“I had lived in Windsor, about 20 miles west of Edenton. I knew some of the Little Rascals parents but none of the Edenton Seven.

“I hadn’t paid that much attention to the case, but the truth seemed pretty clear, especially when the prosecution couldn’t persuade even one of the seven to turn state’s evidence.

“After I moved to Cary, I saw a story about Scott in the News & Observer (in 1993). He had been in (the Chowan County) jail for more than three years with no trial in sight and a $1 million bond.

“I wrote Scott offering to send him magazines and to cover some gas money for his wife to visit, as she had moved to the Outer Banks. He put me in touch with a lady in Edenton, who told me about other supporters.

“I called Scott’s attorney and asked why he hadn’t tried to lower the bail. I told him we could cover $50,000 and I would give Scott a job and a place to live.

“When the attorney asked the judge to reduce the bond to $50,000, he agreed on the spot! Over the next few days, several people came to the Clerk of Courts office in Edenton and posted land and cash. One man from Washington, N.C., brought a $25,000 check. When it was all counted, they were still a few hundred dollars short. I was told the Clerk of Court reached into his own pocket and posted the difference.

“Everyone in the jail knew Scott was innocent, and as he left jail the staff shook his hand. Scott’s wife showed up to tell him she was now living with a UPS driver and he could not come to her home. A supporter loaded up a cardboard box of Scott’s jail property – 6 or 8 paperback books, a radio and the stack of clothes his wife had brought him – and delivered him to a hotel in Cary around 5 p.m. There I met and spoke to Scott for the first time.

“When we returned to the hotel two hours later to take him to dinner, he told me he had spent most of that time standing in the shower. It was the first time in over three  years he could set his own temperature and shower as long as he chose.”

July 7, 2019

For those seeking to understand the Little Rascals Day Care case one particularly intriguing question remains: How do the former child-witnesses, now well into their 30s, look back at their central role?

Do they believe today that their testimony was accurate? Or have they come to realize that those bizarre sexual accusations – as well as the accounts of sharks, spaceships and burning babies – were products of sheer fantasy? And that they had been relentlessly manipulated by the prosecution’s therapists?

Last month I sent letters to the Little Rascals witnesses in hopes that they would be ready to talk about their experiences. Here’s what I said:

“I apologize if this letter is unwelcome. For the past eight years I have been researching the Little Rascals Day Care case. I’m writing you because as a child you were a witness for the prosecution in Bob Kelly’s trial in 1991-92. The court records include a passage describing your testimony.

“I blog at littlerascalsdaycarecase.org, and I have worked with Duke Law School to build an archive on the case. My aim is to persuade the State of North Carolina to issue the Edenton Seven a statement of innocence similar to the one given the defendants in the Duke lacrosse case.

“I don’t know how you look back at your involvement in the case, and you are certainly under no obligation to tell me. But if you might be willing to share your recollections – however they might agree or conflict with your testimony – please contact me….”

In the decades since the “satanic ritual abuse” day care prosecutions few child-witnesses have chosen to step forward. One who did so – anonymously – looked back with sadness at the McMartin case: “It is my belief, after years of treatment centers and therapy, that nothing physical happened to me…. Mentally, well, that’s a different story. How about paying attention to the kids that were scarred from this therapy? Do you think that just because there was most likely no physical abuse that we didn’t still suffer?”

After receiving no responses to my letter, I asked Lee Coleman what he would advise those still-silent Little Rascals child-witnesses. Dr. Coleman, a Berkeley, Calif., psychiatrist, has testified in some 800 child sex-abuse cases, of which perhaps 100 involved day-care or preschool allegations. In this YouTube presentation he analyzes the McMartin Preschool case.

He replied to my request with this open letter (condensed) to the Little Rascals child-witnesses:

First, it is now recognized by all parties – prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys, academic students of memory and suggestibility in young children being interviewed for possible sexual abuse – that the methods used in Little Rascals had serious potential to influence memory, often creating a mental picture that to the child is indistinguishable from an actual memory of actual events.

This brings us to the very heart of my message to you, as you seriously consider whether justice may be served by your coming forth with what you remember of how you were interviewed and who you spoke to prior to the trial. Remember, it is not your memories of what did or didn’t happen at the school that is important, but your memories of how you were interviewed, and of who you spoke with during the time before the trial. This is the crucial time, and these are the crucial events, that any fair decision about the meaning of what you said during the trial can be best judged.

What I cannot stress enough is that if you testified to things that were not true, that was through no fault of yours, because such false testimony would be the fault of poor and suggestive interview methods, therefore neither lies, nor any indication of your sincerity as a child. If a child says things that he or she believes are true, because interview methods cause the child to accept ideas coming from interviewers rather than the child’s actual memory, then the fault lies with the interviewers and not the child.

To blame the child for misdeeds of poorly trained interviewers is, in my opinion, a kind of child abuse. I have testified about these issues hundreds of times, and most recently spoken about these issues as part of my continuing effort to bring understanding to our nation’s system of bringing justice to the area of sexual abuse of children. Such abuse, when it happens, calls for punishment of perpetrators and support of victims. When unprofessional conduct by prosecutors and their assistants causes children to be victims of suggestions that create false memories, this also calls for a better response from our society.

I thank you for taking the time to reconsider that time in your life and reconsider whether you might bring the best resolution to the efforts of Mr. Powell and others seeking justice in the Little Rascals Day Care case.

Sincerely,
Lee Coleman, MD

Nov. 28, 2012

“There is nothing that makes us feel so good as the idea that someone else is an evil-doer.”

– Robert Lynd, Irish essayist  (1879-1949)

The average Edentonian may have been too fearful and confused to feel good about demonizing the Edenton Seven – ah, but what a rush it must have given the cocksure therapists and prosecutors!