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 โ 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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Todayโs random selection from the Little Rascals Day Care archives….
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Todayโs random selection from the Little Rascals Day Care archives….
All molesters, please gather now on E. Eden Street
June 15, 2012
โHow did such a large group of child molesters assemble? This is not New York, this is Edenton, North Carolina.โ
โ Edward B. Simmons,ย making his closing argumentย on behalf of Dawn Wilson (Jan. 14, 1993)
Montaigne and St. Augustine, of course, were never DAs
Jan. 27, 2012
In โThe Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability Before Pascalโ (2002), James Franklin points out that Montaigne opposed witch trials for their lack of evidence.
โI am of St. Augustineโs opinion,โ Montaigne wrote, โthat โโฏโtis better to lean towards doubt than assurance, in things hard to prove and dangerous to believeโ….
โAfter all, โtis setting a manโs conjectures at a very high price, upon them to cause a man to be roasted alive.โ
‘Overwhelming power’ in the worst possible hands
Dec. 23, 2011
โMany appalling results of the recovered-memory movement of the 1970s and โ80s arose from … unexamined views of memory โ occurrences like the false accusations of employees of childrenโs care centers… Such fantasies have often been encouraged as reliable memories by doctrinaire therapists and have sometimes resulted in prison sentences and ruined lives for innocent fathers, mothers, kin, teachers and devoted caretakers.
โThe documentary films made by Ofra Bikel … are meticulous and frightening accounts of such fantasies and their overwhelming power in the hands of the cruelest, most self-deluded and most easily panicked among us.โ
โ From โArdent Spiritsโ by the late Reynolds Price (2009)
Why the panic ‘needs to be remembered’
April 22, 2013
โLecturing 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.
โEven 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?
โIt all started in southern California, in Manhattan Beach, in the Fall of 1983….โ
โ From โRemember the Satanic Panicโ (Jan. 9, 2013) byย Philip Jenkins,ย Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor University, onย Real Clear Religion
I share Dr. Jenkinsโ concern about public memory, of course.
Which are more worrisome โ those who have no recollection at all of cases such as McMartin and Little Rascals, or those who have forgotten they all were hoaxes?
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