May 18, 2018

“Despite the acquittal in [the McMartin Preschool case], the hysteria kept raging there and nationally; mainstream news still gave it credence, police still made arrests, prosecutors still prosecuted, and true believers among psychologists and psychiatrists (and their clients) still believed and proselytized, often with a government imprimatur….

“In a small town in Tidewater North Carolina, children testified that a satanic cult operating a day care center had ritually abused them – and taken them in hot-air balloons to outer space and on a boat into the Atlantic where newborns were fed to sharks; several people were sentenced to long prison terms and served time before their convictions were overturned or charges dismissed.”

– From “Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History” by Kurt Andersen (2017)

The ripples from McMartin were even more pronounced in Edenton, after prosecutors brought back from California a crucial lesson: Conceal, obscure or destroy the therapists’ notes that would reveal how relentlessly the child-witnesses had been manipulated.

Dec. 30, 2015

Where things stand at year’s end in the obscure but still hopeful world of littlerascalsdaycarecase.org:

– Junior Chandler continues to wait for a decision from the Duke Wrongful Convictions Clinic on whether to take up his case. On April 15 he will begin serving his 30th year in prison.

– North Carolina’s most recent two governors and its current attorney general all have ignored my appeals for a “statement of innocence” for the Edenton Seven. Might the approaching election offer opportunities at least to publicly frame the question?

– Professional journals are still refusing to publish retractions for the articles they published supporting the existence of “satanic ritual abuse” in the nation’s day cares.

– The Internet remains a poisonous cornucopia of authoritatively rendered misinformation. This is from a message board exchange I happened on earlier this month:

“I have heard the rumors that there are a large number of satanists who abuse their children in satanic rituals. I have heard even more about the illuminati having orgy parties like the one in ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ where they rape children on an altar and then kill them in a sacrifice to Satan and then drink their blood. But I have no idea of knowing if any of this is actually true and if it is true how common it is….”

“These stories are true, for the most part. I met a young woman through my pro-life apostolate who had had several abortions – not of her own choice. She had been a prisoner of these satanists (her parents were involved in it) who had her impregnated with the precise purpose of the ritual sacrifice of abortion…..”

The only surprise here is the qualifier “for the most part” – among SRA believers, only absolute gullibility is allowed….

–  Finally, thanks to all those who have expressed support for the wrongfully prosecuted defendants in the “satanic ritual abuse” era. Let’s hope 2016 cracks the door to the exoneration they so profoundly deserve.

Feb. 22, 2017

“[When Rich Rosen, Theresa Newman and Jim Coleman began planning the state’s first innocence project], not everyone agreed their work was worth doing. To many… colleagues, in North Carolina and across the country, the letters they were reading were no more than acts of desperation: There was zero chance these inmates were innocent, only that they had nothing to lose by filing paperwork. The American criminal-justice system had always trivialized its own chances at convicting anyone wrongly, feeling certain – as lawyer Christine Mumma no longer could – that protections at trial made that outcome impossible….”

– From “A Justice Startup” by Benjamin Rachlin in “Innocent: The Fight Against Wrongful Convictions,” a Time special edition

Rachlin’s piece is excerpted from “Ghost of the Innocent Man: A True Story of Trial and Redemption,” to be published in August.

April 11, 2014

“It may be hard for you to own the fact that you were duped by therapists and prosecutors, as well as misled by your own naivete about childhood sexuality. While it may be difficult now to acknowledge your five-year-long wrong, it will be far worse if your children have to do it for you, and far worse for you and your children to have history indict you as an unrepentant bearer of these terrible false accusations.

“A place for you in history is already assured. What history finally writes about you now depends on you….”

– From “An Open Letter to the Accusing Parents in the Little Rascals Child Abuse Case” by Raymond J. Lawrence in Contra Mundum (Oct. 1, 1993)

Will even one Edenton parent ever heed Lawrence’s call to “to undo this elaborate fabrication that has caused years of suffering to so many”? What would it take to remove the blinders, to accept responsibility and to separate yourself from the true believers?