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....
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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….
Prosecutorial arrogance – it’s forever!
March 1, 2016
“It would be hard to imagine a more glaring judicial conflict of interest than the one the Supreme Court considered in a case out of Pennsylvania on Monday.
“In 1986, Terrance Williams was convicted of killing a man named Amos Norwood with a tire iron when he was 18. Prosecutors in the Philadelphia district attorney’s office sought the death penalty, and got it….
“A state court found that the prosecutors had lied, and vacated Mr. Williams’s sentence. But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously reversed that ruling. The court’s chief justice at the time, Ronald Castille, wrote a concurring opinion criticizing the lower court’s ruling for ‘condemning’ the prosecutors.
“The problem was that Mr. Castille himself led the district attorney’s office when it prosecuted Mr. Williams, and personally authorized seeking the death penalty in that case…. Nevertheless, he refused to recuse himself from Mr. Williams’s case….”
– From “Should a Judge Rule on His Own Case?” editorial in the New York Times (Feb. 29)
Meanwhile in North Carolina, prosecutors yet again show great interest in maintaining their conviction rate and little if any in ensuring justice has been done (text cache).
It’s not too late to exonerate, Mr. Attorney General
Jan. 20, 2014
“Eighteen months ago I petitioned Attorney General Roy Cooper to issue a statement of innocence for the Edenton Seven.
“ ‘In 2001 Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift signed a resolution proclaiming the innocence of the victims of the Salem Witch Trials. In time, such victims of the ritual-abuse day-care panic as the Edenton Seven will surely receive similar exoneration. Why not now? Why not in North Carolina? This is an opportunity to demonstrate moral leadership on a national scale.’ ”
“Cooper has yet to respond.”
– From “Like Salem’s ‘witches,’ it’s time for NC to exonerate the Edenton Seven,”
my Jan. 19 op-ed column in the News & Observer (cached here) on the 25th anniversary of the first Little Rascals sexual abuse complaint.
Yet another cousin to ‘satanic ritual abuse’: unverified ‘gang-stalking’
June 13, 2016
“…A large community of like-minded people on the internet who call themselves ‘targeted individuals,’ or T.I.s…. is organized around the conviction that they are victims of a sprawling conspiracy to harass thousands of everyday Americans with mind-control weapons and armies of so-called gang stalkers. The goal, as one gang-stalking website put it, is ‘to destroy every aspect of a targeted individual’s life.’…
“An internet search for ‘gang-stalking’… turns up page after page of results that regard it as fact. ‘What’s scary for me is that there are no counter sites that try and convince targeted individuals that they are delusional,’ said Dr. Lorraine Sheridan, co-author of perhaps the only study of gang-stalking. “They end up in a closed ideology echo chamber.’”
– From “United States of Paranoia: They See Gangs of Stalkers” by Mike McPhate in the New York Times (June 10)
The T.I. phenomenon is new to me, but the proliferation of true believers sounds all too familiar. And my own Google alert continues to turn up page after page of supposed validation of “satanic ritual abuse.”
Not surprisingly, T.I. and SRA hang out in the same rationality-resistant neighborhoods. This is a promo for a recent conspiracy podcast:
“Meet David and Patty: David was raised in a Satanic cult under MK Ultra mind control. Patty is being burned with plasma lasers and having her thoughts extracted without her consent. We talk about electronic harassment, microchipping, breathable nanotechnology, mind control, sex kitten programming, project Monarch, brain mapping, gang stalking, voice to skull technology (V2K), and Satanic ritual abuse. And we find out how much it costs to build your own laser at home….”
Abuse primer was big seller for county
Oct. 24, 2012
“Indeed, at a time when the (Los Angeles County) Board of Supervisors has been meeting just five floors below the (Ritual Abuse) task force to dismantle county health care programs, lay off part-time employees and cut all other services because of a severe budget shortfall, some are questioning whether the group – and particularly its obsession with poisoning – is not just a little frivolous.
“One county employee suggested that the task force has not been disbanded because it is ‘one of the few that actually make money.’ Since 1989, the task force – made up of therapists, alleged victims and religious leaders – has sold a handbook that outlines the telltale signs of ritual abuse. More than 17,000 copies of the handbook have been sold at $1 apiece, more than enough to offset the costs of the task force.”
– From the Los Angeles Times, December 1, 1992
Early on, the task force handbook –“Ritual Abuse: Definitions, Glossary and the Use of Mind Control” – played a significant role in inflaming fear of ritual abuse.
By 1992, however, the last charges in the McMartin case had been dropped, and skepticism about ritual abuse was finding its voice. (But not among Little Rascals prosecutors – Bob Kelly had just been convicted and Dawn Wilson was being tried.)
Today the Los Angeles County Commission for Women website makes no mention of its onetime task force.