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.
On Facebook
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....
This content isn't available right now
When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it's been deleted.0 CommentsComment on Facebook
Allies for our cause!
This content isn't available right now
When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it's been deleted.0 CommentsComment on Facebook
The courts have a long history of capriciously pulling the rug out from under Junior's appeals, but maybe this time....
This content isn't available right now
When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it's been deleted.0 CommentsComment on Facebook
Click for earlier Facebook posts archived on this site
Click to go to
Today’s random selection from the Little Rascals Day Care archives….
Officer Toppin sure had an eye for ‘red flags’
July 24, 2013
“(Edenton police officer Brenda) Toppin, who conducted the first interviews of children allegedly abused at the center, testified that ‘In the early interviews, I had very few children disclosing to me…. Most of the children were not telling me specifically about Mr. Bob.’
“ ‘Red flags,’ however, caused her to continue her questioning. The ‘red flags’ included children being tense when the subject of the day-care center was mentioned, she said, and not talking to her as normal children would.”
– From the Associated Press (December 4, 1991)
It doesn’t take much reading between the lines to see Brenda Toppin’s persistence in the face of “very few children disclosing to me” or her overreaction to those absurdly vague “red flags.”
A surviving fragment of tape laid out even more saliently her abusive interview technique. Read for yourself a transcript of one of Toppin’s interviews with a child. The transcript entered the court record during the appeals process.
Separate disciplinary panel needed for prosecutorial excesses
Jan. 20, 2016
“The Jan. 15 editorial ‘The limits of zeal’ contrasted the penalty given Christine Mumma with the absence of rebuke to prosecutors for the ‘massive failure’ that kept her client wrongfully imprisoned for more than 36 years.
“It is not enough simply to point out this shameful disparity. The public embarrassment resulting from the hearing should move the North Carolina State Bar to empower a separate disciplinary panel to deal only with prosecutorial excesses. Such a panel would not lack for business.”
– From “A Panel for Prosecutors,” my letter to the editor of the News & Observer (Jan. 19) (text cache)
It’s not too late to exonerate, Mr. Attorney General
Jan. 20, 2014
“Eighteen months ago I petitioned Attorney General Roy Cooper to issue a statement of innocence for the Edenton Seven.
“ ‘In 2001 Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift signed a resolution proclaiming the innocence of the victims of the Salem Witch Trials. In time, such victims of the ritual-abuse day-care panic as the Edenton Seven will surely receive similar exoneration. Why not now? Why not in North Carolina? This is an opportunity to demonstrate moral leadership on a national scale.’ ”
“Cooper has yet to respond.”
– From “Like Salem’s ‘witches,’ it’s time for NC to exonerate the Edenton Seven,”
my Jan. 19 op-ed column in the News & Observer (cached here) on the 25th anniversary of the first Little Rascals sexual abuse complaint.
If anyone deserves pardon, why not Edenton Seven?
May 30, 2012
Is the case for pardoning the Wilmington 10 any more compelling than that for pardoning the Edenton Seven?
As the N&O’s Bruce Siceloff points out, “Somebody firebombed Mike’s Grocery, a white-owned store in a black Wilmington neighborhood, during three days of racial violence in February 1971. When firefighters and police came to put out the blaze, somebody fired shots at them.”
In Edenton, by contrast, no crime was committed, making exoneration all the more challenging: There’s no alternative “somebody” to point to.