Dec. 14, 2012

“Lamb, Nancy and Bill Hart. ‘Pointers on multi-victim, multi-perpetrator cases.’ American Prosecutors Research Institute 1992. Attorneys who prosecuted Little Rascals case offer advice regarding mass molestation cases.”

 – Description of an 18-page how-to booklet that surely should be filed under “fantasy” or “horror” – if copies existed at all.

Unfortunately, all seem to have vanished from libraries as well as from booksellers. When I requested a copy from the National District Attorneys Association, parent of the research institute, I was told, “We only serve prosecutors, not (even) other lawyers. But… we haven’t been able to find it. So at this point, we could not even provide it to a prosecutor.”

Oct. 15, 2017

“Remember, [this fictional child sex abuse trial] happened during an odd time in criminal justice, when the public was convinced there were satanic cults all over the country.

“I attended a forensic psychology conference in the early ’90s, and I heard a so-called expert describe vast networks of these cults abusing children and even sacrificing babies. She claimed that a quarter of her patients were survivors of ritual abuse.

“All around the country there were criminal trials going on…. Unfortunately, many weren’t based on facts but on fear and superstition.”

–  Dr. Lawrence Zucker, a character in “I Know a Secret,” the latest Rizzoli and Isles thriller from Tess Gerritsen 

That conference sure sounds like the actual one at Kill Devil Hills that preceded Bob Kelly’s arrest by just months.

And the “so-called expert”? Well, here’s how Debbie Nathan and Michael Snedeker described Ann Wolbert Burgess in 2001 in “Satan’s Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a  Modern American Witch Hunt”: “promoter of the use of children’s drawings to diagnose sexual abuse, developer of the idea of the sex ring, participant in developing the case that imprisoned the Amirault family and currently a researcher into the traumatic aftereffects of ritual abuse.”

July 31, 2015

“Since February, 2008, on Wikipedia’s page on ‘Satanic Ritual Abuse,’ Wikipedia’s staff has been suppressing and deleting credible posts from credible sources (including my posts – I am a licensed California psychologist) that have documented substantial criminal and psychological evidence of criminal ritual abuse, and instead has completely discounted the existence of ritual abuse.

“As of July 27, 2009, Wikipedia’s page on ‘Satanic ritual abuse’ begins as follows: ‘Satanic ritual abuse (SRA, sometimes known as ritual abuse, ritualistic abuse, organised abuse, sadistic abuse and other variants) refers to a moral panic that originated in the United States in the 1980s, spreading throughout the country and eventually to many parts of the world, before subsiding in the late 1990s.’

“Wikipedia has now escalated its censorship of all information supporting the existence of ritual abuse by blacklisting four important websites about ritual abuse on July 18, 2009….”

– From a post by Ellen Lacter at her End Ritual Abuse website in which she recounts her repeated but unsuccessful attempts (cached) to budge Wikipedia editors from their stubborn rationality. (Holocaust deniers are similarly non grata.)

Supposed experts such as Lacter do still command an audience, however shrunken from the giddy days of the moral panic. This recent article quotes her as suggesting the motivation behind the Louisiana theater killings might have been “to gain power, transfer power, and strengthen and share in the power of Satan and demons…”

Jan. 25, 2012

I’ve heard again from the anonymous caller who responded to my ad in the Elizabeth City Advance addressing children involved in the Little Rascals case.

The caller reiterated her certainty that she had been sexually abused by Bob Kelly, but – to my shock – she expressed doubts about the degree of involvement of other defendants, especially the young women who worked at the day care.

“I don’t hold any grudges against them,” she said. “I think he made them do whatever they did – it wasn’t on their own.”

Why then would these women choose to stay imprisoned, when testifying against Bob Kelly would’ve won them instant freedom?

“They were scared of him,” she said.

Does that seem probable? Or even conceivable?

Robin Byrum, 19 when she was arrested, spent almost a year in jail before her bond was reduced from $500,000 to $200,000. Meanwhile, her husband took care of their 7-month-old son.

In “Innocence Lost: The Plea” (1997), Byrum explained why she had been tempted by but repeatedly refused the prosecutors’ deal: “…. I would not ever have to be separated from my child again. But then I’d have to live with the rest of my life that I (said I) did something when I didn’t do it.”