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….
‘The truth is not a smorgasbord….’
Sept. 16, 2013
“The prosecution-minded are careful to say that they do not believe everything a child says. For example, they do not believe 3-year-old Virginia’s statement that ‘Karen was cooked in a microwave.’
“But they do believe her when she says, ‘I helped my teacher put a playhandle in Karen’s heinie’ – even though one 3-year-old sodomizing another with a ‘playhandle’ an inch or 2 wide and not causing bleeding from a torn rectum is as unbelievable as cooking a child in a microwave.
“Accepting half a child’s statement and rejecting the other (death by microwave) is capricious: The truth is not a smorgasbord from which we can choose the facts we fancy and leave behind those we do not.”
– From “Magical Child Molestation Trials: Edenton’s Children Accuse” by Margaret Leong (1993)
City sidewalks, busy sidewalks: An upbeat dispatch from the DNC
Sept. 7, 2012
Having met with less than overwhelming interest earlier in the week in front of the bustling Charlotte Convention Center, I narrowed my focus.
Thursday I situated my “Exonerate” placard at the entrance to the peripheral and unhurried Crowne Plaza hotel, convention headquarters for the North Carolina Democratic Party, and our message was well received (except for an overly territorial security guard).
Not only did several delegates express support for the Edenton Seven, but also a dozen or so more took cards with the site address. And I was able to bend the ears of reporters from Greensboro, Rocky Mount and the Outer Banks, as well.
Yes, the delegates are mostly ordinary folks, not influential officials – I didn’t see Gov. Perdue – but I’m grateful they will take home a greater awareness of this shameful injustice, still unaddressed, in their own state.
When adversarial system doesn’t lead to justice
May 26, 2016
“I would like to see more cooperation between prosecutors and defense attorneys in their efforts to achieve justice, particularly when there is a credible post-conviction claim of innocence. The overloaded, underfunded, and often inefficient adversarial system doesn’t have to be the approach when common sense and a shared interest in justice can more quickly address injustices for the convicted and victims of crime.
“Prosecutorial conviction integrity units around the country have made that clear, but the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys seems to be encouraging less cooperation, not more.”
– Christine Mumma, quoted by the North Carolina Advocates for Justice
Mumma, of course, has famously endured the wrath of prosecutors whose autocracy she challenged.
You can like the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys on Facebook.
Or not.
Faller, Everson resist trend toward skepticism
Sept. 24, 2012
The February 2012 special issue of the Journal of Child Sexual Abuse is devoted entirely to “Contested Issues in the Evaluation of Child Sexual Abuse Allegations.”
Ritual-abuse holdouts Kathleen Coulborn Faller and Mark D. Everson use the issue to vigorously push back against calls for greater diagnostic skepticism.
The object of their displeasure is “The Evaluation of Child Sexual Abuse Allegations: A Comprehensive Guide to Assessment and Testimony” (2009), edited by the late Kathryn Kuehnle and Mary Connell. Contributors to the Kuehnle-Connell volume advocate more reliance on forensic science and less on “unverified methods or conjecture” of the kind that enabled prosecution of the Edenton Seven. By contrast, Everson and Faller can be counted on to stretch the bounds of prosecution-worthy evidence, from finding “clinical usefulness” in anatomical dolls to granting universal credibility to child-witnesses.
From Everson’s response in the journal:
“Many critics of current forensic practice (emphasize) specificity over sensitivity…. Specificity (minimizing inclusion of false cases) and sensitivity (maximizing inclusion of true cases) are counterbalancing indices of decision accuracy. Favoring specificity over sensitivity means that overdiagnosing (child sexual abuse) is considered a more serious concern than failing to substantiate true cases of abuse….”
Yes, I’ll admit it: I consider the perils of overdiagnosis – putting innocent people in prison – much worse than those of underdiagnosis – letting a possible abuser go free, at least temporarily. However much Everson and Faller might wish otherwise, our system of justice does stipulate “reasonable doubt.”