Nov. 8, 2014

“In the summer of 1989, I accepted my first job at a daily paper when The Daily Advance hired me to cover a two-county beat – Chowan and Perquimans. When I arrived, Bob Kelly had just been arrested and charged in about a dozen cases. My editor told me about it, almost in passing, and said, ‘You might want to keep an eye on it.’ I did, and for the next two years it consumed my life.

“I was 24 years old with a wife of two years and no children. I had no experience reporting on police and courts and was very naive as to how the system worked. As the case expanded I became convinced of the defendants’ guilt. Their lawyers wouldn’t let them talk and they were hard to reach in jail. Prosecutors were also tight-lipped, but some of the parents couldn’t stay that way.

“For two years all I had to go on were the stories of parents and what I believed to be a mountain of evidence in the hands of prosecutors. Shortly before Bob’s trial began, three important things happened. I finally got to interview two of the defendants (Robin Byrum and Scott Privott). Their stories were very convincing and I was no longer certain of their guilt. I was also promoted to an editing position and was no longer actively reporting on the case. I was in charge of the reporters who would. Also at this time the ‘Frontline’ show came out, pretty much blowing the lid off the prosecution’s case.

“As Bob Kelly’s trial unfolded, I found that the prosecution had little to no evidence. My faith in the case was weakened and I was surprised when Bob was convicted. Then another defendant (Dawn Wilson) fell and Bob’s wife Betsy Kelly pleaded no contest. That upset me because I was convinced she was innocent and I wanted her to fight and prove it.

“At this point in my life, I had become a parent and soon my first marriage would end. I returned home to Colorado but continued to follow the case from afar. I was happy when the convictions were overthrown and the other charges dropped. As a parent I could now see and understand that what was normal childhood behavior was being grossly misinterpreted as signs of child sex abuse.

“In hindsight, I feel bad for everyone involved in the case. Both sides went through hell. Most of all, though, I feel for the children. Their lives were altered and family and community dynamics changed by forces beyond their control and beyond reason.”

– Joe Southern, recalling his experience covering the Little Rascals case for the Elizabeth City Daily Advance

This 1991 piece, reprinted in a Del Rio, Texas, paper, seems to be reporter Southern’s lone Little Rascals story to survive online. He is now managing editor of The Sealy News in Sealy, Texas.

More recently, the Daily Advance has shown far less interest in the case – well, none, actually – or in Nancy Lamb’s responsibility for pursuing and prolonging it.

Dec. 10, 2014

“More than a decade ago, I wrote about the McMartin preschool case, and other satanic ritual child abuse accusations that turned out to be false. Back then, the slogan many supporters of the accusations brandished was, ‘Believe the Children.’ It was an antidote to skepticism about real claims of child abuse, just as today, ‘Believe the Victims’ is a reaction to a long history of callous oversight of rape accusations.

“ ‘Believe the Victims’ makes sense as a starting presumption, but a presumption of belief should never preclude questions. It’s not wrong or disrespectful for reporters to ask for corroboration, or for editors to insist on it. Truth-seeking won’t undermine efforts to prevent campus sexual assault and protect its victims; it should make them stronger and more effective.”

– From “Reporting on Rape” by Margaret Talbot at newyorker.com (Dec. 7)

Given the prosecution’s strategic secrecy, the pursuit of corroboration in the Little Rascals case presented an enormous challenge. But news coverage could been far more skeptical and revealing – perhaps even game-changing. The editor of the News & Observer certainly thought so.

Dec. 12, 2017

“Sadly, we’ve grown accustomed to gross miscarriages of justice in cases involving minorities and the indigent. Appalled as we are by such legal travesties we rationalize it as the consequences of traditional bigotry.

“But there is no racial component to the Little Rascals case. There isn’t even much of a class component, since the defendants and their accusers were for the most part, equals. With the exception of a couple jurors, all the characters are white and comfortably middle-class.

“Neither is there any effect of drug abuse or any other kind of aberrant psychology.

“If anything, the Little Rascals case is a study of female/maternal vengeance, since the Kellys’ foremost accusers were Betsy Kelly’s friends, the mothers of the children entrusted to her care. Likewise the vast majority of court-appointed therapists and counselors were female, as was the most prominent of the three prosecutors.

“The story is a riveting study of mass psychosis, of the willingness, ability and need of well- educated, civilized people to believe something in the face of a near total absence of logic and extraordinary cruelty to friends and neighbors….”

– From “A ‘Frontline’ documentary on child abuse hysteria shows how good TV can be” by Brian Lambert in the Saint Paul Pioneer Press (May 27, 1997)

Jan. 2, 2012

Next to “Why are you doing this?” the question I’m most often asked about Little Rascals is, “Since the trial, what has happened with the kids?”

For those alleged child-victims who testified in day-care abuse cases, the need to forget, to deny and to stay silent must be strong indeed. Who wants to believe they were so misused by their parents, not to mention by therapists and prosecutors? Who can look unblinkingly at the grotesque truth and take it public? For many, given the well-documented power of suggestibility, it may simply be impossible.

One exception was Kyle Zirpolo, who came forward in 2005 to apologize for his role in the McMartin pre-school case.

Last week, on the chance that an Edenton child might be ready to break ranks, I took out classified ads in the daily Elizabeth City Advance and the weekly Chowan Herald with this message:

“If you were a child or parent involved in the Little Rascals Day Care case of the early 1990s, I’d like to hear from you….”

Thursday night I received a call from a woman who credibly identified herself as one of those children. She wouldn’t give her name. She is 26 now, no longer living in Edenton, and she was not happy to see the ad. I felt obliged to tell her at the outset that I considered the defendants wrongly accused. Here’s an edited version of her response:

“It’s sad that you and others believe that. Here it is almost 2012, and I’m still opening up the paper and seeing crap like this (ad). It’s either that, or another bullshit book about our ‘witch hunt.’ And I know they study us and McMartin and Fells Acres in different colleges.

“I’m haunted every single day, and I always will be, so long as those bastards are out there, getting to go about their business. I have a lot of emotions – hypervigilance, anger that I had to go through all that badgering (by the defense). My husband put away my files on the case because it bothered me so much.

“I remember vividly what happened, and I’ve told therapists. You believe a dozen little kids just got together and made up lies? There was physical evidence, things they couldn’t put on TV.  The whole situation was just crap.”

Before we hung up, she said she would consider sending me case materials that I would find persuasive. I appreciate her call and hope to hear from her again.