June 15, 2014

“Andrew Junior Chandler has been unjustly incarcerated in a North Carolina prison for 27 years, charged with a crime that almost surely never happened….

“Let’s hope that Gov. Pat McCrory will review the mistaken judgment of his misnamed ‘clemency office’ and correct this stain on the reputation of North Carolina justice.”

–From “Mass hysteria of sexual, satanic ritual abuse and a miscarriage of NC justice” by Dr. Allen Frances in the Raleigh News & Observer (June 15) text cache

Dr. Frances, professor emeritus of psychiatry at Duke University, once again steps forward to take responsibility for therapy’s Dark Ages, this time in the newspaper read daily by those state officials who have refused to grant relief to Junior Chandler.

April 22, 2013

“Lecturing recently, I mentioned the American witch-hunts of the 1980s and 1990s. When the audience looked puzzled, I explained that I was referring to the Satanic Panic of those years, the wave of false charges concerning ritual child abuse and devil cults that made regular headlines in the decade after 1984. The explanation helped little.

“Even people who had lived through those years, who had been following the media closely, had precisely no recollection. Lost in memory it may be, but the Satanic Panic needs to be remembered, if only to prevent a renewed outbreak of this horrible farrago. And when better than in the 30th anniversary of the affair’s beginning?

“It all started in southern California, in Manhattan Beach, in the Fall of 1983….”

– From “Remember the Satanic Panic” (Jan. 9, 2013) by Philip Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor University, on Real Clear Religion

I share Dr. Jenkins’ concern about public memory, of course.

Which are more worrisome – those who have no recollection at all of cases such as McMartin and Little Rascals, or those who have forgotten they all were hoaxes?

May 13, 2013

“On January 20, (1989, Audrey) Stever met with (social workers) David McCall and Grenda Costin, who told Ms. Stever that there was going to be an investigation into the day care. They also suggested to Ms. Stever that they put Kyle in therapy (and) that ‘they thought something was going on’ at the day care.

“On January 21, (Brenda) Toppin, Ms. Costin and Mr. McCall came to interview Kyle at his home. Ms. Stever prepared Kyle by telling him that he needed to be a ‘police helper’ to help figure out why the children at the day care were sad.”

– From brief for Bob Kelly before N.C. Court of Appeals (1994)

“As an initial social services investigator in the Robert Kelly case, I believe justice was served with this verdict…. A Salem-style witch-hunt did not occur, and a perpetrator of crimes against children was justly convicted. A significant battle in the war against child sexual abuse was fought and won in Edenton….”

–From “Crimes Against Children: A Guide to Child Protection for Parents and Professionals featuring the Little Rascals Day Care Sex Scandal” by David E. McCall (1995)

I asked McCall if he still believes justice was served in Little Rascals. “I stand on my original substantiation of abuse by Robert Kelly,” he said. “I was not involved in the investigation of the others charged.”

He said he went into the case with “significant training” in investigating abuse, adding that “If you ever want a child interviewed to find the truth, I really feel like I’m pretty good at that.”

McCall later left social work and now sells real estate in Edenton.

Nov. 14, 2012

“Prosecutors building these high-profile cases well understood the problems posed by the strange charges and the fantasy-riddled narratives of the child plaintiffs. How could they make credible to jurors the extraordinary prowess of defendants who could assault whole classes of preschoolers daily, dressing and undressing 20 or more, all accomplished in a half hour’s time, in a busy school, with no one noticing, no child ever sent home with mismatched socks?…

“Jurors had to be given a reason that 4-year-olds could be raped with butcher knives that left them uninjured, could be tied naked to trees and raped in broad daylight….

“The state’s solution lay with their experts – witnesses who could explain and render such mysteries comprehensible.”

– From “No Crueler Tyrannies: Accusation, False Witness and other Terrors of Our Times” by Dorothy Rabinowitz (2003)

Ah, those invaluable mystery-solving experts – such as Eileen Treacy of the Kelly Michaels trial, Kee MacFarlane of McMartin and of course Mark “Where there’s smoke….” Everson of Little Rascals.

What would prosecutors have done without them? (Probably, a helluva lot less harm.)