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.
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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….
….Is APSAC finally ready to apologize to wrongfully prosecuted victims?
Oct. 22, 2016
“At APSAC’s June Colloquium, Paul J. Stern gave a presentation that clearly acknowledged your organization’s role in fostering the ‘satanic ritual abuse’ day-care panic of the 1980s and early ’90s.
“Mr. Stern, a prosecutor and longtime APSAC official, was only illuminating from the inside a reality long recognized among virtually all respected professionals and academics.
“I am writing today to request that the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children formally renounce its advocacy of the ‘satanic ritual abuse’ myth and apologize to its victims. The ‘misguided ideas’ cited by Mr. Stern not only supported wrongful prosecutions and incarcerations, but also profoundly misled children, parents and the public.
“The reputation of APSAC will remain tainted as long as it fails to make amends for this seminal part of its history. If the International Association of Chiefs of Police can apologize for ‘the actions of the past and the role that our profession has played in society’s historical mistreatment of communities of color,’ then surely APSAC can similarly mitigate the damages caused by its own actions.”
– From a letter I sent to Dr. Janet Rosenzweig, executive director, American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children
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).
What? ‘A hotel that doesn’t take American Express?’
May 17, 2013
From Betsy Kelly’s comments at the ceremony awarding Ofra Bikel the 2007 John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism:
“I stand before you tonight because of Ofra Bikel. She spent many hours with my family and with some of the most hurtful and hateful people. She turned many (viewers) around to believe in the truth. The day she walked into my life I had somebody to hold onto… and she opened the door and she led me out…..”
From Nancy Smith Barrow’s comments:
“I thought: She comes from another planet, she doesn’t speak Southern, what can she do?
“I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to climb into that hole we were in…
“Ofra took us where we were, where hell was raining down, where people who have known us since we were born would cross the street not to meet us….
“Ofra, I owe you for the most precious thing in my life (my sister), you brought her back…..”
From Ofra Bikel’s comments:
“I was this close to not doing (‘Innocence Lost’). I said (to assistant Rachel Dretzin), ‘Are you crazy? What are we going to do in a little town with a little hotel that doesn’t take American Express?’…. Anyway, we went, and the first day I realized we were staying….
“The whole country was awash in sexual abuse stories, but there was nothing less likely than for Edenton, North Carolina, to be involved in this satanic conspiracy… The town was calm on outside but seething on the inside with these rumors of terrible sexual abuse, started by one kid, then three kids, then 10 kids, then 80 and then close to a hundred… until they decided to close the list….
“(After the last Little Rascals charges were dropped) I was left with two very strong feelings: how many things can go wrong in the justice system…. and what a powerful tool we had in our hands with the television documentary….”
For maximum notoriety, avoid Chowan County
July 10, 2013
Although some consider Little Rascals the East Coast version of the McMartin case, according to Google’s nGram Viewer it comes in a distant second in prominence.
Not even eight hours of “Innocence Lost” could make up for McMartin’s having been tried first and for its having been situated in Southern California rather than in Eastern North Carolina.