March 9, 2019

Pete Manning, 89, died Feb. 21 at his home in Edenton. Before retiring, Manning worked more than 50 years at the Chowan Herald, most prominently as publisher.

As prosecution of Edenton Seven lurched forward, members of the local “Believe the Children” cohort grew wary of the news media. Early on, however – before seeing themselves on “Frontline” — they had actually sought the spotlight.

Jack D. Grove, managing editor of the Herald, recalled that short-lived era to journalist David Loomis:

“I was approached by several influential businessmen who clouded up and rained all over me for putting a [Little Rascals] story on the back page. I said, ‘Go tell Pete Manning, don’t tell me.’ These businessmen, almost all parents of Little Rascals children, went into a closed-door meeting with Pete. We never again had a story anywhere but on the front page after that.”

Unfortunately, the Herald’s front-page coverage was painfully passive at best.

July 2, 2012

Perhaps the prosecution’s most influential expert witness during the 1992 trial of Bob Kelly was psychologist Mark Everson, director of the Program on Childhood Trauma and Maltreatment in UNC Chapel Hill’s department of psychiatry.

Here’s how Everson responded to a defense expert’s testimony that children are suggestible and should not be repeatedly interviewed: “It’s kind of naïve. It’s the kind of statement you really wouldn’t make if you worked with these kids.”

In a Charlotte Observer interview 10 years later, Everson seemed unmoved by the continuing wave of scientific research exposing the fallacy of “Children don’t lie.” He said he found it hard to believe that every Little Rascals child-witness had been badly interviewed and confused: “There’s so much smoke there, it’s hard to imagine there’s no fire.”

Where there’s smoke there’s fire?

Good lord. I wasn’t surprised to hear such naivete from a juror – “Something must have happened,” one told Ofra Bikel — but from a respected UNC faculty member whose opinion influenced whether Bob Kelly would be convicted and imprisoned?

Last week I emailed two questions to Everson at his Chapel Hill office:

– Have you changed your mind?

– How much credence do you give researchers such as Ceci and Bruck who have demonstrated the unreliability of child-witnesses?

I’ve yet to hear back.

But it’s hard to optimistic about a possible reassessment when Everson continues to choose Kathleen Coulborn Faller as his most frequent coauthor.

Sept. 14, 2016

“[Chris] Mumma said she intends to request a pardon for [Johnny] Small from Gov. Pat McCrory. In order for Small to be compensated for the years he spent in prison, he has to be exonerated of the charges on the grounds that he did not commit the crime. Under North Carolina law, the Industrial Commission can award exonerees $50,000 for each year spent in prison up to a maximum of $750,000. Exonerees also are eligible for job training and college tuition….”

– From “Johnny Small’s freedom makes some question if investigator should be charged” by F.T. Norton in the Wilmington Star-News (Sept. 9)

Let’s hope McCrory responds more willingly and humanely than he did in finally pardoning Henry McCollum and Leon Brown.

Case closed, Governor – no reinvestigation needed!

March 21, 2016

“Once again advocates of the much discredited Satanic Abuse Panic are making claims of widespread child abuse across Britain.

“Scotland appears to have become caught up in a nationwide frenzy of superstitious irrationality. This moral panic exhibits typical clichés of sensationalist psychology. In England, the case of Carole Myers/Felstead – whose family were falsely accused of an endless variety of insane criminal acts – has comprehensively demonstrated that the existence of Satanic Cults preying on vulnerable children is a myth created on the therapist’s couch…. Real victims of abuse are being let down by focusing on this nonsense.”

– From “Recent Satanic Abuse Claims in Scotland” by the British False Memory Society (March 10)

For whatever reason, the UK seems especially resistant to having its fingers pried from the myth of “satanic ritual abuse,” which migrated from the States in the late ’80s.