March 13, 2015

“In this this arena of Recovered Memory Therapy and treatment of DID, therapists will simply imitate what sounds exciting or innovative without assessing the scientific value of the procedure. At times there appears to be little awareness of or concern with the professional literature.

“At a (1995) conference sponsored by a group dealing with ritual and cult abuse, there was an aversion to and a quick dismissal of major studies, including (those by David) Ceci….

“It is troubling that an entire panel had never heard of his well-known research.”

– From “The Death of Psychotherapy: From Freud to Alien Abductions” by Donald A. Eisner (2000)

Nov. 22, 2013

“Gov. Pat McCrory has appointed the Albemarle’s chief public defender – and a member of the governor’s political party – to complete the term of the late Frank Parrish as district attorney in the 1st Prosecutorial District.

“Interim District Attorney Nancy Lamb said she was informed Monday that McCrory had chosen Andrew Womble to complete Parrish’s term…

“Lamb, who had sought the permanent appointment, said she knew she faced an uphill climb.

“ ‘I accept this decision for what it is, the partisan prerogative of a Republican governor,’ Lamb said. ‘I knew that as a registered Democrat that an appointment by this governor would be a long shot.’

“Lamb said she plans to complete a 30-year career as a prosecutor in the 1st Prosecutorial District on Feb. 28.

“ ‘I am proud of the job I have done representing the citizens of this district, especially victims of crime,’ she said.”

– From “McCrory appoints Womble DA” in the Elizabeth City Daily Advance (Nov. 18) 

Thus are dashed my hopes that Lamb would be facing the voters next year and perhaps having to answer for her prosecution of the Edenton Seven.

Instead, she will be clearing off her desk and then presumably joining her husband, the wonderfully named Zee B. Lamb, who has just taken a new job in Nash County.

May 21, 2012

Lee Coleman, a Berkeley, Calif.,  psychiatrist and co-author of “Has a Child Been Molested?” (2000), served as a consultant to the Little Rascals defense.

“When I examined the terrible interviewing methods,” he recalls, “it quickly became obvious that (Little Rascals) was like the McMartin and Kelly Michaels cases: a complete fabrication.”

How does Dr. Coleman account for therapists’ and prosecutors’ “unwillingness to see what was in front of their faces”?

“[(McMartin therapist) Kee MacFarlane became a national figure by claiming to know how to talk to kids to help them describe abuse. There followed a cadre of young, bushy-tailed professionals who saw themselves as the good guys of a movement. They were glamorous and self-righteous, and they had nothing left to think with. What if a child hadn’t been molested? They never thought about it….

“Then they led meetings across the country, where they taught their system to others, who applied it locally…”

Dr. Coleman’s characterization captures precisely the origin of the Little Rascals allegations, in which a seminar led by “sex rings” alarmist Ann Burgess attracted prosecutor H.P. Williams, therapist Judy Abbott and police dispatcher Brenda Toppin.

Feb. 3, 2017

“Recall that after the 1970s there ensued a decade of moral panic over child sex abuse – including so-called satanic ritual abuse. Off-camera in The Exorcist [1973], the possessed Regan performed a Black Mass. In a film shot in the 1980s, her role in such satanic proceedings would have been quite opposite. In the mythology of that decade, the child is never a demon; the child is a victim of demons (i.e., pedophiles, satan-worshiping or not).

“Importantly, the tales of satanic ritual abuse that roiled the 1980s were nonsense, since discredited – as fantastical as any account of demonic possession. Yet they were believed, often beyond a reasonable doubt….”

– From “Fear of Children: What ‘The Exorcist’ Makes Us Confront” by Julia Yost at First Matters (Oct. 31, 2014)