Oct. 29, 2015

“You have to be … inventive to brand yourself as a Halloween capital – extending a one-night affair into a monthlong celebration and inviting hundreds of thousands of visitors into your streets – when for centuries you were known as the community that put innocents to death for witchcraft. How did Salem, Mass., repackage a tragedy as a holiday, appointing itself ‘Witch City’ in the process?…

“About 200 years after the trials, a Salem silversmith issued a souvenir spoon, featuring a witch holding a broomstick. Other mementos followed. It was difficult to hit the right note: The Salem-based Parker Brothers company issued, then quickly discontinued, a witchcraft card game…. When Arthur Miller visited Salem in 1952, he discovered the subject was taboo….

“Meanwhile the city fell on hard times…. As if by magic, a different kind of enchantment arrived in the form of the ABC sitcom, ‘Bewitched.’ It seemed that an ancestor of Samantha, the main character, had been convicted of witchcraft during the trials….

“In Samantha’s wake, Salem recast its inglorious past, or at least some version of it…. The city transmuted its secret shame into its saving grace. In 1982 it introduced ‘Haunted Happenings,’ later extending the holiday into a four-week festival. ‘Salem owns Halloween like the North Pole owns Christmas,’ The Boston Globe declared….  Halloween is to some extent year-round in Salem, where you might well bump into a goblin in a sandwich shop in July.

“Three hundred years after the trials, Salem unveiled an elegant, understated memorial to the victims. Three hundred and thirteen years after the trials, it unveiled a gleaming statue of the ‘Bewitched’ star, Elizabeth Montgomery, on a broom. Not everyone liked the idea: A former historic district commissioner clucked that one might as well plant a likeness of Colonel Klink at Auschwitz. But the 1992 memorial was arguably not itself possible without ‘Bewitched.’ It isn’t easy to commemorate an atrocity. ABC’s domestic goddess had both laundered and folded the history….”

 – From “First, Kill the Witches. Then, Celebrate Them.” by Stacy Schiff in the New York Times (Oct. 24)

Edenton may lack the springboard of a popular sitcom, but this 1993 letter writer foresaw the tourism potential of remembering the Little Rascals case.  Proposals for a statue – or a spoon – anyone?

June 18, 2014

“I was disappointed to see that one of the most celebrated cases of this time was mentioned in (Ross Cheit’s) book but not analyzed. The Little Rascals case from Edenton, N.C., was the focus of a documentary by well-known filmmaker Ofra Bikel, whose reputation was challenged by her film, ‘Innocence Lost.’

“Bikel opined that the owners of the Little Rascals Day Care center were railroaded by children who made wildly incredible claims. For example, Bikel showcased the testimony of a little girl who said she’d been molested on a spaceship. When asked on cross-examination whether the spaceship was ‘real,’ the child said ‘yes.’ Bikel omitted crucial context on that. On re-direct examination about the spaceship the little girl explained that the day care center had taken the kids to a carnival and that the child had been molested on one of the spaceship rides.

“That particular story isn’t in this book, but it is packed with many like it. Even the most skeptical reader will find it difficult to deny that they were snookered by the media coverage to some extent, which means someone owes an awful lot of abused children an apology.”

– From “ ‘Witchhunt Narrative’ Retells ’80s Day Care Abuse” by Wendy Murphy at WeNews (May 23, 2014)

If you know Wendy Murphy from her frequent appearances on cable news channels, variously labeled as “legal expert,” “former sex crimes prosecutor” or “victims advocate,” then you aren’t surprised to see her so confidently weigh in on Cheit’s book. Neither are you surprised to see her so casually disdain the facts of the case. Take, for instance, her analysis of the Duke lacrosse case: “I never, ever met a false rape claim, by the way. My own statistics speak to the truth.”

See also “Why Cable News Never Punishes Liars” by Alex Pareene at Salon (Aug 12, 2010) and “The Wendy Murphy File”at Durham-in-Wonderland (Dec. 31, 2006).

So Ofra Bikel’s “reputation was challenged” by “Innocence Lost”? What does that mean? The same “Innocence Lost” that led to her winning a John Chancellor Award, a duPont-Columbia Award and an Emmy?

Murphy then cherry-picks the spaceship anecdote as if the child’s having earlier visited a carnival somehow confirms that she “had been molested on one of the spaceship rides.”

Was the carnival similarly responsible for Witness A’s testifying that Kelly put a candle and a burning flower stem in his “number two”…. that he was on a tugboat with Kelly…. that Kelly tried to shoot an apple off another child’s head….that he and the other child were hung up in a bag in a tree?….

And was it responsible for Witness B’s testifying that Kelly made him put a Magic marker in another child’s butt… that Kelly tried to push him onto a fire in the woods…. that he saw a lion and a “real bear” in the woods…. that Betsy Kelly ran around the day care brandishing a knife?…..

And what about Witness C’s testifying that Kelly put his gun in her mouth…. that Kelly gave her pills that made her sleepy….. that another day-care worker beat four babies until blood came out of their eyes?….

Must have been some carnival.

Aug. 10, 2015

Since I undertook this blog in 2011, I’ve been waiting for a mass-market book that recalls the “satanic ritual abuse” day-care era with authority, insight and thoroughness.

“We Believe the Children: A Moral Panic in the 1980s” comes pretty darn close to meeting that standard. (I do wish author Richard Beck had addressed the significant post-panic contributions of Richard Noll and Allen Frances.)

I’ll be posting excerpts from the book and later an interview with Beck.

Meanwhile, I’ve been pleased to see the reviews in the news media – so far, all largely appreciative.

 “…This book does a devil of a job correcting… all the lies and self-deceptions, so credulously believed in the 1980s….”

– From “Child Abuse Cases Endure as Lessons in Hysteria” by Mark Oppenheimer in The New York Times (Aug. 6)

“ ‘We Believe the Children’ should serve to remind us of the dangers of the ‘we must believe the victim’ mindset in the case of any criminal offense. A faith-based pursuit of justice can lead to a miscarriage of justice.”

 – From  “What Fueled the Child Sex Abuse Scandal That Never Was?” by Lizzie Crocker at the Daily Beast (Aug. 3)

“ ‘We Believe the Children’ reveals the various combinations of ignorance, venality, arrogance and zealotry that characterized the major players who fueled the moral panic.”

– From “A Very Model Moral Panic” by Carol Tavris in the Wall Street Journal  (Aug. 7)

Here also is a radio interview with Beck and – inevitably – a response from witch-hunt denier Ross Cheit.

Sept. 9, 2013

“According to court records, one of the state-recommended therapists, Judith Abbott, showed a five-year-old girl drawings of satanic symbols (a horned mask, inverted crosses and a peace symbol described on the drawing as the ‘Cross of Nero’) in an effort to uncover instances of devil worship. ‘Mr. Bob’ was wearing one of those, the child said, according to a note Abbott wrote on the drawing of the mask.

“The same child had begun her therapy complaining that Mr. Bob gave hard spankings; after biweekly sessions for six months she was ‘remembering,’ according to Abbott’s typed therapy notes, ‘oral penetration by a penis, vaginal penetration by a brown felt-tipped pen and witnessing the murder of human babies.’

“Abbott explains the delay in eliciting this material by saying that the children had been terrified into silence. ‘When you break down the child, you own their spirit.’ she says. ‘It’s like Helter Skelter, Charles Manson.’ ”

– From “The Demons of Edenton” by Lisa Scheer and Edward Cone in Elle magazine (November 1993) Download article here

A proven effective way to “break down the child”: Subject her to six months of Abbott’s biweekly “therapy” sessions.