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.
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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....
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Allies for our cause!
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The courts have a long history of capriciously pulling the rug out from under Junior's appeals, but maybe this time....
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Today’s random selection from the Little Rascals Day Care archives….
Was it really Dawn Wilson who ‘had no character’?
March 12, 2012
After reading thousands of pages of Little Rascals coverage, shouldn’t I have become inured to the prosecution’s gratuitous brutality?
Not yet.
On August 11, 1993, Dawn Wilson, serving a life sentence for child sexual abuse, went back to court to seek release under house arrest. In six days she would give birth to her second child.
Nancy Lamb and Bill Hart could’ve responded with any number of temperate legal arguments against her release. Instead….
“She made a quite irresponsible decision in 1992 to become pregnant early in her trial,” Lamb said. “She was thinking only of herself….”
“Dawn Wilson… simply has no character…,” added Hart. “Is she the kind of mother figure who ought to be bonding with a second out-of-wedlock child?”
Judge Marsh McLelland granted Wilson’s request, but delays in paperwork and payment of a $250,000 bond kept mother and son in women’s prison another month.
In 1995 the N.C. Court of Appeals overturned her conviction. And then of course the prosecutors rushed to apologize to Dawn Wilson for their disgraceful vilification.
‘There are no profiles in courage out there’
April 25, 2016
“Prosecutors wield extraordinary, unparalleled, and unchecked power. ‘They alone decide who to prosecute for criminal offenses, what charges to bring against them, and what punishments to seek,’ as the National Registry (of Wrongful Convictions) says. ‘In practice, that power extends to convicted defendants as well. If a sitting prosecutor asks the appropriate court to vacate the judgment and dismiss the charges against a defendant … it will happen.’
“But this requires political will. And too often, the will is not there. As (Keith Hampton, attorney for Fran and Dan Keller) notes, convincing a prosecutor that an injustice has happened can be a tough pull: ‘Unless you have DNA – unless you get the DA completely cornered – there are no profiles in courage out there,’ he says.
“Still, the number of exonerations in cases where no crime was actually committed are on the rise – so at least in some jurisdictions, individuals aren’t forever left in the kind of limbo in which the Kellers find themselves. The National Registry includes 540 exonerations in no-crime cases, including 51 exonerations in child sex abuse ‘hysteria’ cases (including Bob Kelly and Dawn Wilson)….”
– From “Convicted of a Crime That Never Happened: Why Won’t Texas Exonerate Fran and Dan Keller?” by Jordan Smith at the Intercept (April 8)
There was good reason children weren’t eager to accuse
Aug. 31, 2012
“Children don’t just come running out of their houses screaming, ‘I’ve been molested!’”
– Assistant attorney general Bill Hart, justifying to the Associated Press (Dec. 31, 1989) why the prosecution’s serial allegations were taking so many months to come to light.
In a case typified by overstatement, Hart’s excuse for delay proved to be a most revealing understatement. Those children resisted mightily and at length before being manipulated into “screaming, ‘I’ve been molested!’”
Edenton anything but eager to make amends for Little Rascals
Feb. 11, 2019
“Such stories aren’t proudly passed down from one generation to the next. Unlike some small Southern towns,
which often ignore the troublesome elements of their past, Batesburg-Leesville (the two towns merged in 1993) has embraced [Isaac] Woodard’s tragedy and tried to make amends….”
– From “A cop gouged out a black vet’s eyes. 73 years later, the SC town confronts it”
by Brian Hicks in the Charleston Post & Courier (Feb. 7)
If ever there was a small Southern town committed to ignoring the “troublesome elements” of its past, it is Edenton, North Carolina. Not a hint of the Little Rascals Day Care case – surely the most significant news event of 20th century Edenton – mars the civic memory.