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….
How to demonize ‘quite ordinary women’
Sept. 28, 2012
As mentioned last week, the preponderance of women among the Edenton Seven was one of many curiosities that apparently failed to burden the prosecution with second thoughts.
Mary DeYoung addresses the issue in “The Day Care Ritual Abuse Moral Panic” (2004):
“By the 1980s… research studies consistently found that child sexual abuse by women was a statistical rarity….To accuse (female day-care workers of ritual abuse), child-savers had the daunting challenge of fashioning folk devils out of quite ordinary women engaged in traditional women’s work, and then persuading the public that evil had lurked unnoticed for so long behind such homely facades…..
“The answer was simple: belief trumps gender. Women who are satanists do what no other women even imagine….”
Toppin’s interview notes: ‘Just a lot of extra paper’
Aug. 1, 2017
“In the McMartin case, the defense used videotapes of therapists’ interviews with the children to suggest that the idea of abuse had been implanted.
“[Ofra] Bikel says, ‘The authorities in North Carolina [in the Little Rascals case], who I know met with the McMartin prosecutors, learned from them that the therapists’ notes should just be summaries. They learned that if you want to win a case, it’s a bad idea to have tapes around.’
“The prosecution interviewer [Brenda Toppin] is shown testifying that she cannot say why her original interview notes were destroyed: ‘It’s just a lot of extra paper,’ she said.”
– From “Justice Abuse? ‘Frontline’ Documentary Takes Hard Look At A Small-town Scandal” by Bart Mills in the Chicago Tribune (July 20, 1993)
Junior Chandler faces 30th year in prison
April 4, 2016
Junior Chandler may be the last still-imprisoned victim of the “satanic ritual abuse” day-care panic.
Chandler was a driver for a Madison County, N.C., day care. The prosecutor alleged that Chandler, in the words of appellate attorney Mark Montgomery, “would drive off his route to a park by a river, strip the children of their clothes, troop them down to the river, put them in a rowboat, commit various sexual acts, put them back on the bus and take them home.”
Based almost exclusively on hearsay and no-longer-permissible expert “vouching,” Chandler was convicted in 1987 and sentenced to two life sentences. This month he will begin his 30th year behind bars for a crime that never happened.
Nancy Lamb takes up career in ‘quality control’
Feb. 27, 2012
“One (change made by District Attorney Frank Parrish) was the assignment of Assistant District Attorney Nancy Lamb as ‘Chief Assistant District Attorney,’ making one of her duties ‘quality control’ and noting she will only continue to ‘try cases as necessary.’ ”
– From the Outer Banks Voice (Feb. 14, 2012)
“Quality control”? That’s hardly a gift that evinced itself in Lamb’s frenzied, hysterical prosecution of the Edenton Seven.
But her removal from the courtroom should be reassuring to innocent defendants throughout the First Judicial District.