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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Today’s random selection from the Little Rascals Day Care archives….
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Today’s random selection from the Little Rascals Day Care archives….
What white people believed that black people doubted
Oct. 14, 2014
“(Bob) Kelly’s father-in-law, Warren Twiddy, says that blacks are the only people in Edenton who still treat him like a human being.
“One black woman, calling the whole episode a Salem witch hunt, told me she was so ashamed she had removed the Edenton license plates from her car.”
– From “Nursery witch hunt” by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Sunday Telegraph of London (Aug. 3, 1993)
The chilling body count of ‘personality-driven’ prosecutors
July 11, 2016
“This week Harvard Law School’s Fair Punishment Project issued a report detailing the legacies of five of the nation’s deadliest prosecutors, and (Joe Freeman) Britt was among them. The report highlights what it calls ‘personality-driven capital sentencing,’ which leads overzealous prosecutors with a flair for courtroom theatrics and a desire for personal fame to pursue death sentences at disproportionate rates….
“This personality-driven system means that a death sentence often says less about the severity of the defendant’s crime, than it does about the prosecutor’s enthusiasm and courtroom skills. Personality-driven prosecutions can also lead to wrongful convictions, when prosecutors making winning cases a higher priority than seeking justice….
“Britt often cut corners to win. Appellate courts found that Britt committed misconduct in 14 of his capital cases, the new report shows. His offenses included hiding evidence that might have proven defendants innocent and making inflammatory and improper statements to jurors….
“When they were exonerated by incontrovertible DNA evidence, Britt did not even have the heart to admit his mistake. Instead, he continued to loudly proclaim their guilt….”
– From “NC ‘deadliest prosecutor’ valued winning over justice, new report shows” by Kristin Collins at NC Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (June 30)
I shudder to speculate what might have happened in Edenton had North Carolina sanctioned capital punishment for child sex abuse. The Little Rascals prosecutors, most strikingly Nancy Lamb, bore many of the “personality-driven” characteristics seen in a Joe Freeman Britt:
- “A flair for courtroom theatrics and a desire for personal fame”? Check.
- “Hiding evidence that might have proven defendants innocent”? Check.
- “Inflammatory and improper statements to jurors”? Check.
- “Continued to loudly proclaim their guilt”? Check…..
Texas physician, DA show how to admit injustice
Jan. 8, 2014
“Among the atrocities that Frances and Dan Keller were supposed to have committed while running a day care center out of their Texas home: drowning and dismembering babies in front of the children; killing dogs and cats in front of the children; transporting the children to Mexico to be sexually abused by soldiers in the Mexican army; dressing as pumpkins and shooting children in the arms and legs; putting the children into a pool with sharks that ate babies; putting blood in the children’s Kool-Aid; cutting the arm or a finger off a gorilla at a local park; and exhuming bodies at a cemetery, forcing children to carry the bones.
“It was frankly unbelievable – except that people, most importantly, a Texas jury, did believe the Kellers had committed at least some of these acts. In 1992, the Kellers were convicted of aggravated sexual assault on a child and each sentenced to 48 years in prison….
“(Today) after multiple appeal efforts and 21 years in prison, the Kellers are finally free….
“The doctor who provided the only physical evidence that any sexual assault had taken place recanted his testimony. Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg agreed that their conviction should be overturned, allowing the Kellers to be released while their appeals move through the courts….
“Their release may also finally mark the end to one of the strangest, widest-reaching, and most damaging moral panics in America’s history.”
– From “The Real Victims of Satanic Ritual Abuse” by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie at Slate.com
What a day-brightener – spotting McRobbie’s thorough tracking of the Fran and Dan case atop Slate magazine’s home page.
Yes, miracles do happen – a Texas doctor recanting his testimony, and a DA agreeing the convictions should be overturned.
But as long as Junior Chandler remains imprisoned in North Carolina, it’s way too soon to “finally mark the end” to the ritual abuse panic.
The toxic legacy of phony scholarship
July 17, 2013
“Some reports of day care abuse suggest threats and verbal coercion to be particularly severe. (David) Finkelhor et al. (1988), for example, reported that in day care abuse, perpetrators threatened harm to the child in 41% of cases, harm to the child’s family in 22% of cases and threatened to kill a child’s pet in 12%. (Susan J.) Kelley, Brant and Waterman (1993) added that threats in these cases were most likely to involve harm to the victim or their family. (Kathleen Coulborn) Faller (1990) notes that in addition to death threats against the victim or their family, a further frequent threat was to implicate the victim.”
– From “Women Who Sexually Abuse Children” by Hannah Ford (2006)
So much so wrong in so few words!
Finkelhor, Kelley and Faller – among their era’s most prolific researchers in child sexual abuse – have never retracted their false claims. And despite epochal advances in social science, author Ford in 2006 cites their work without qualification, thus extending its influence to another generation.
Notable also: As does fellow fantasist Susan J. Kelley, Finkelhor uses statistics to lend authority to his alternate universe. How many “perpetrators… threatened to kill a child’s pet”? Not 10 percent, not 11 percent, but “12 percent” – who could doubt such exactitude?
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