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.
On Facebook
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....
This content isn't available right now
When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it's been deleted.0 CommentsComment on Facebook
Allies for our cause!
This content isn't available right now
When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it's been deleted.0 CommentsComment on Facebook
The courts have a long history of capriciously pulling the rug out from under Junior's appeals, but maybe this time....
This content isn't available right now
When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it's been deleted.0 CommentsComment on Facebook
Click for earlier Facebook posts archived on this site
Click to go to
Today’s random selection from the Little Rascals Day Care archives….
National borders were no barrier to panic
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)
Panics fade, ‘leaving in their wake bewilderment’
April 8, 2013
“The panic over satanic ritual abuse in the United States… subsided rather abruptly, as panics usually do, whether they are individual or social. They are like an acute anxiety attack – absolutely absorbing while in course and then suddenly gone, leaving in their wake bewilderment, fear of confronting the causes of the panic, and bafflement about what just happened….
“But traces of its presence can be found without much difficulty in the child abuse and neglect (CAN) literature. The panic, and the way CAN personnel had contributed to it, made the field more self-reflective and self-questioning. CAN practitioners had been shocked by the spectacle of their colleagues battling one another in courtrooms… unable to distinguish between real events of abuse and mass hysteria over alleged satanic abuse.”
– From “Childism: Confronting Prejudice Against Children” by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl (2012)
“More self-reflecting and self-questioning” may describe the current generation of child abuse professionals, but those who did such unspeakable damage in the 1980s and ’90s remain wedded to their junk science.
New York Times remembers McMartin case
March 12, 2014
“Really now, teachers chopped up animals, clubbed a horse to death with a baseball bat, sacrificed a baby in a church and made children drink the blood, dressed up as witches and flew in the air – and all this had been going on unnoticed for a good long while until a disturbed mother spoke up?”
– From “The Trial That Unleashed Hysteria Over Child Abuse” by Clyde Haberman in the New York Times (March 9, 2014)
Big thanks to Retro Report for its eye-reopening essay and 13-minute video recalling the seminal McMartin Preschool case. Also mentioned are Little Rascals and other “criminal cases of dubious provenance” from the moral panic.
Although the road to public exoneration for the Edenton Seven remains long and uncertain, this attention from the Times is welcome indeed.
NC GOP’s one weird trick for justice reform
Feb. 11, 2016
“Significant criminal justice reforms (are needed) to minimize the chances of wrongful prosecution in the future.
“Some might dismiss such goals as a liberal utopian ideal, but criminal justice reform is being embraced nationwide by tea party conservatives. Why? Because few things exemplify the overreach of an all-too-powerful government (better) than one that yanks away an individual’s freedom without legal justification….
“Conservatives in the heavily Republican Texas legislature have embraced some of the most far-reaching criminal justice reforms in the country….”
– From “Shame and joy behind 149 exonerations” in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Feb. 7 editorial)
And how is North Carolina’s own heavily Republican legislature taking up the cause of criminal justice reform? With the piously labeled Restoring Proper Justice Act, (text cache), which both conceals information on the drugs used for capital punishment and repeals a law requiring a physician be present. Sponsoring Rep. Leo Daughtry railed against “roadblocks in front of the death penalty (that) have stopped us from using the punishment” for the past decade.
Had Daughtry had his way, death row inmates Henry McCollum and Leon Brown would long since have been executed – instead of exonerated and then pardoned by the same governor who blithely signed the Restoring Proper Justice Act into law.
