Nov. 22, 2013

“Gov. Pat McCrory has appointed the Albemarle’s chief public defender – and a member of the governor’s political party – to complete the term of the late Frank Parrish as district attorney in the 1st Prosecutorial District.

“Interim District Attorney Nancy Lamb said she was informed Monday that McCrory had chosen Andrew Womble to complete Parrish’s term…

“Lamb, who had sought the permanent appointment, said she knew she faced an uphill climb.

“ ‘I accept this decision for what it is, the partisan prerogative of a Republican governor,’ Lamb said. ‘I knew that as a registered Democrat that an appointment by this governor would be a long shot.’

“Lamb said she plans to complete a 30-year career as a prosecutor in the 1st Prosecutorial District on Feb. 28.

“ ‘I am proud of the job I have done representing the citizens of this district, especially victims of crime,’ she said.”

– From “McCrory appoints Womble DA” in the Elizabeth City Daily Advance (Nov. 18) 

Thus are dashed my hopes that Lamb would be facing the voters next year and perhaps having to answer for her prosecution of the Edenton Seven.

Instead, she will be clearing off her desk and then presumably joining her husband, the wonderfully named Zee B. Lamb, who has just taken a new job in Nash County.

March 8, 2013

“Over 15 years ago, a number of children were sexually abused while attending three different day care centers sponsored by military services…

“This is the fourth follow-up interview with parents of 42 (of those) children….

“(In 1984 children at West Point day care) reported that the perpetrators wore masks and black robes. Pencils and fingers penetrated vaginas and rectums. Children were threatened with harm to themselves and their parents if they told that they witnessed the abuse of other children….

“After extensive investigation, the federal prosecutor declined to bring the case to trial due to the young ages of the children and the fragility of their memories….

“One lingering source of distress for the parents was that two of the criminal cases (Presidio and West Point) fell apart. It seemed to them as if reporting the abuse did not matter. This also added to the mystery of conspiracy that surrounded these two cases….”

– From “Children’s Adjustment 15 Years After Daycare Abuse” by Ann Wolbert Burgess and Carol R. Hartman (Journal of Forensic Nursing, Summer 2005)

Although Burgess’s career-making wrongheadedness isn’t news, I was still surprised to find her clinging to the ritual abuse hoax as recently as 2005. Prosecutors’ cases “fell apart”? – must be a “conspiracy”!

But it was Burgess, after all, whose conclusion that children in the West Point case had been ritually abused (with the obligatory “masks and black robes”) compelled the government to settle a civil suit by parents for $2.7 million. To acknowledge her error would require quite an “Oops!” wouldn’t it?

Footnote: I’ve got a previous commitment, but if you’re in Nashua, N.H., today, you can see Burgess honored by the American Psychiatric Nurses Association.

May 5, 2015

“Its members are, it’s claimed, drawn mainly from a school and church in Hampstead (a North London suburb). They are said to wear shoes made of baby skin, to dance with the skulls of dead babies and to sexually abuse young children. But the (satanic ritual) cult doesn’t exist. The claims are, according to a High Court Judge, ‘baseless’ and those who have sought to perpetrate them are ‘evil’….

“Why, after a police inquiry and a family court judgment which unequivocally rubbished the notion of satanic abuse in Hampstead, are the allegations still proliferating on the Internet and being spread all over the world? We hear from the supposed cult members who have had their personal details and photographs published online and received death threats. And we ask about the welfare of the two children at the centre of it all who were coerced into fabricating the fantastical story….”

– From “The Satanic Cult That Wasn’t” by Melanie Abbott on BBC Radio (April 23)

This half hour of BBC coverage skillfully demolishes every iota of the Hampstead claims, but of course facts aren’t what engage the eagerly gullible. Since video of the 8- and 9-year-old siblings telling their concocted horror stories was uploaded onto YouTube, it has been watched more than 4 million times.

Feb. 11, 2019

“Such stories aren’t proudly passed down from one generation to the next. Unlike some small Southern towns,
which often ignore the troublesome elements of their past, Batesburg-Leesville (the two towns merged in 1993) has embraced [Isaac] Woodard’s tragedy and tried to make amends….”

– From “A cop gouged out a black vet’s eyes. 73 years later, the SC town confronts it”
by Brian Hicks in the Charleston Post & Courier (Feb. 7)

If ever there was a small Southern town committed to ignoring the “troublesome elements” of its past, it is Edenton, North Carolina. Not a hint of the Little Rascals Day Care case – surely the most significant news event of 20th century Edenton – mars the civic memory.