March 17, 2015

“Warren Twiddy, 68, father of defendant Betsy Kelly, said he’s been ‘shunned, blocked out’ by some residents and nearly run out of his church.”

– From “Trial rips fabric of community” by Mark Mayfield in USA Today (March 20, 1992)

“Twiddy sold his insurance business and exhausted his retirement savings to pay his daughter’s legal fees. Old friends, he says, won’t even say hello on the street. Clients canceled policies after his daughter was indicted.”

– From  “Town’s pain is revived by TV film” by Andrea Stone in USA Today (July 22, 1993)

“Twiddy admits… some bitterness toward his neighbors, who ignored him at church and at the country club.

“ ‘Before, the bulletin board was full with places we were supposed to be up ’til Christmas,’ he said. ‘After this, nothing, buddy.’ ”

– From “Talk of new trial makes Edenton shudder” by Carol D. Leonnig in the Charlotte Observer (Sept. 10, 1995)

“Our need to matter and our need to belong are as fundamental as our need to eat and breathe. Therefore ostracism – rejection, silence, exclusion – is one of the most powerful punishments that one person can inflict on another.

“Brain scans have shown that this rejection is actually experienced as physical pain, and that this pain is experienced whether those that reject us are close friends or family or total strangers, and whether the act is overt exclusion or merely looking away….”

– From a delanceyplace.com summary of “The Pain of Exclusion” by Kipling D. Williams in Scientific American (January/February 2011)

The misery caused by wrongful prosecution of the Little Rascals case extended far beyond courtrooms and jail cells. Defendants’ family members such as Betsy Kelly’s father endured many years in a hell of ostracism.

Warren Twiddy died in 2012. He was 89.

Aug. 24, 2012

My EDENTON7 license plate recently caught the eye of a former Little Rascals Day Care parent who left Edenton.

Although Maria – a pseudonym, as she still has family back home – withdrew her daughter from Little Rascals in 1989 after less than two months, it was because of outside circumstances, not because of any dissatisfaction with the care received. “It was a normal day care, clean and quiet,” she says.

The torrent of ritual-abuse rumors started soon after.

She was unsure what to make of it all until a former classmate, Dawn Wilson, was caught up in the dragnet. “Dawn had sat in front of me in high school,” she recalls. “She was quiet and shy, but she opened up to me about wanting to have a baby. She was a loving person. When I heard her name mentioned, I knew right then it couldn’t be true.”

Maria worked at Hardee’s, where she found it “painful to watch” Betsy Kelly’s parents, Warren and Alice Twiddy,  being ostracized by their Wednesday-morning coffee klatch. “They were respected people…. She was the clerk of court. It was like she couldnt believe the town was doing this to her.”

Maria’s most surprising observation: “I think PBS (“Frontline”) changed the minds of a lot of people in Edenton. They saw how the gossip and innuendo had worked.”

July 31, 2013

“Have you ever stopped to consider what the statistical odds must be against the following allegations made by the prosecution? How could the following all be true?

“1. That seven child abusers would somehow all show up at the Little Rascals Day Care during the same time period.

“2. That out of these seven alleged abusers not one had any record of any sexual misbehavior in their past.

“3. That out of all seven of these alleged abusers not one was found to be in possession of any child pornography or other suggestive materials.

“4. That with multiple-hundreds of alleged abuses claimed to have taken place, not one single piece of ‘hard’ evidence was ever found. Nor was there a single adult witness to any behavior even suggestive of abuse.

“5. That out of all seven of these alleged abusers, not one would be willing to testify against the others in return for easier treatment.”

– From a Feb. 22, 1994, letter sent to prosecutors and the press by Jeffrey Keimer of Portola Valley, Calif.

These are questions that occurred to someone following the Little Rascals case from 3,000 miles away. Too bad they seem not to have occurred to so many prosecutors, therapists, parents, reporters and jurors. Up close, was the “ritual abuse” narrative simply too mesmerizing?

Oct. 15, 2012

“German television and the press (especially the tabloids) dwelled on McMartin with almost the same intensity as did the U.S. media….The impact was predictable: an immediate, steep increase in the number of abuse claims by children and their parents….

“In the city of Muenster…. children (at a Montessori school) accused persons totally removed from the setting, including taxi drivers, and talked about coffins, mortuaries, trap doors, chaining and secret subterranean vaults. The panic spread to other schools.

“Finally, the (Montessori) investigation, which lasted from 1990 to 1993, resulted in dismissal for lack of evidence. A key role was played by a level-headed psychologist who submitted an analysis of the children and their parents forming a ‘group mind’ that had evolved through mutually reinforcing suggestion.

“A warning for the modern world: When analyzing children’s allegations, we also must analyze the role of the modern mass media, not only within national boundaries….”

– From “Witch-Children: From Salem Witch-Hunts to Modern Courtrooms”  by Hans Sebald (1995)