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….
Therapists ‘overzealous… inadequately trained… unethical’
Feb. 17, 2012
“The named children were sent to predominantly four therapists (Betty Robertson, Judy Abbott, Susan Childers and Michele Zimmerman).
“The therapists were not only overzealous and inadequately trained, but also proceeded in an unethical fashion with the children. Reporting frequently to the district attorney’s office, they provided more names of children and adults and more specific allegations of abuse. These were not spontaneous names and allegations, but data specifically and persistently introduced by the therapists. The personal and familial issues that the children brought into the so-called therapy were ignored….
“From my review of the therapists’ notes of the 17 children who testified, it was clear the therapists were not treating these children psychotherapeutically, but were agents of the prosecution in preparing children to testify falsely with credibility…..
“Significantly, those parents who took their children to therapists in other communities or avoided these four therapists had no allegations of sexual abuse and their children were symptom-free. In contrast, the children who provided stories of sexual abuse became increasingly symptomatic over time, and their behavior became more disturbed.”
– From “What I learned from the Edenton Little Rascals sex abuse trial” by
Moisy Shopper, M.D. (in the peer-reviewed journal Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 2009)
Dr. Shopper testified as an expert witness for the defense.
How much like Penn State were day-care cases?
Jan. 11, 2012
“It’s worth remembering, in the 1980s we had a whole spate of false accusations of… sexual abuse of children. The McMartin Preschool, all those supposed satanic cults in day care centers, turned out to be false…. It’s worth it to remind people of that.”
– Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, interviewed on CNN (Nov. 15) about the Penn State case
In fact, deep distinctions separate Penn State and the “multi-victim, multi-offender” – MVMO, in the sex-crime argot – accusations typified by McMartin and Little Rascals.
Since 1995, Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance has investigated 40 alleged MVMOs at 24 locations around the world. Number of substantiated instances of ritual abuse: zero.
According to its research, “Any criminal acts were non-ritual abuse by a single perpetrator… Almost all the crimes with which people were charged never happened.”
Regardless, Toobin’s reminder is a welcome counterpoint to the Judge Nancy Grace school of instant verdicts.
Veteran journalist bought into Believe the Children
Oct. 4, 2014
Among those journalists who fell for the “satanic ritual abuse” storyline, none fell harder than Civia Tamarkin.
She not only stage-managed an embarrassingly credulous episode of “Nightline,” but also testified earnestly at a Believe the Children convention alongside Little Rascals prosecutor H. P. Williams Jr. and supposed ritual-abuse survivor Laura Buchanan (““ was told that a surveillance device would be inserted into my brain….”).
In 1993 Tamarkin delivered a lengthy address on “Investigative Issues in Ritual Abuse Cases” to the Fifth Eastern Regional Conference on Abuse and Multiple Personality in Alexandria, Va.
Like Ross Cheit two decades later, she had no trouble detailing numerous flaws in the prosecution of McMartin and other ritual abuse cases but inevitably came up frustrated in her search for a smoking gun or two. Most striking, after recounting all her journalistic fault-finding, was her unquestioning gratitude to SRA snake-oil theoreticians Roland Summit and Bennett Braun for “(taking) the time to teach me what they could.”
Prior to her affiliation with Believe the Children, Tamarkin had reported commendably for Time, People and the Chicago Sun-Times and had coauthored a book with Chicago educator Marva Collins.
More recently, she has directed a documentary on the aftermath of a soldier’s death in Iraq….
So what happened in the 1990s? How did an experienced reporter lose her skepticism in the face of “ritual abuse” claims?
I’ve asked Tamarkin what she was thinking then – and what she believes today – but haven’t received a response.
Nancy Lamb goes mum but ‘has the most to answer for’
March 7, 2012
“The one voice we most want to hear is that of Assistant District Attorney Nancy Lamb, who went after the Little Rascals defendants with the righteousness of an avenging angel.
“In refusing to speak with ‘Frontline,’ Lamb’s silence is devastating. She has the most to answer for.”
– Michael Blowen of the Boston Globe, reviewing “Innocence Lost: The Verdict”