Sept. 30, 2013

Death noted: District Attorney Frank Parrish, 64, who succeeded H. P. Williams Jr. in prosecuting the Edenton Seven.

By the time Parrish took office in 1994, Little Rascals had become almost entirely a Nancy Lamb production. Whatever Parrish actually believed, the prosecutors’ code demanded that he continue to insist that the case was concrete-solid.

But as a growing body of scientific evidence called into question the testimony of child witnesses in ritual-abuse cases, Parrish had to decide how to respond to the overturning of the convictions of Bob Kelly and Dawn Wilson. “I’ve gotten an awful lot of guidance, none of it solicited,” he told the Charlotte Observer. “(Research) does not play a part, nor should it. That’s as if because there’s research about the unreliability of eyewitnesses, I should dismiss or not retry an armed robber.”

By 1997 Parrish and Lamb could no longer delay dropping the last Little Rascals charges. And who now might succeed Parrish as district attorney? Unfortunately, you won’t be surprised.

Dec. 5, 2012

As noted previously, my requests for retraction to Nursing Research and Child Abuse & Neglect went nowhere. But I found a spark of interest at a third journal, Relational Child & Youth Care Practice.

As well I should have – in 1990, RCYCP (then known as the Journal of Child and Youth Care) published not just a single article affirming the existence of day-care ritual abuse but an entire special issue.

“In the Shadow of Satan: The Ritual Abuse of Children” included “A Case of Multiple Life-Threatening Illnesses Related to Early Ritual Abuse” by Rennet Wong and Jock McKeen, “Ritual Child Abuse: A Survey of Symptoms and Allegations” by  Pamela S. Hudson and “Satanic Ritual Abuse: A Cause of Multiple Personality Disorder” by George A. Fraser.

My request for retraction elicited this response from RCYCP:

“…. Carol Stuart and Grant Charles, Editors of RCYCP… have agreed that a statement in the next issue about the original article and the wrongful prosecution of these defendants would be appropriate.  Could you please provide… a draft of what you think is appropriate, ensuring correct names, etc. Our editors will then review and finalize and confirm any questions or issues with you.”

Boy, was I excited! This is what I proposed:

“In 1990 the Journal of Child and Youth Care (now Relational Child & Youth Care Practice) published a Special Issue entitled ‘In the Shadow of Satan: The Ritual Abuse of Children.’

“All five articles in the issue were based on the writers’ erroneous belief in ‘satanic ritual abuse,’ a moral panic that led to wrongful prosecutions against day cares in the United States, Canada and elsewhere during the 1980s and 1990s.”

A few days later I received this change of plan from RCYCP:

“We have carefully reviewed the 1990 Special Issue… and found no reference to the Edenton Seven or the Little Rascals Day Care. As such, our editors will not be printing a retraction.”

Of course, I responded:

“The Little Rascals and McMartin cases were but two manifestations of the moral panic of satanic ritual abuse. In the 1980s and early 1990s, numerous similar, if less publicized, prosecutions occurred across North America and as far as New Zealand and Germany.

“All these cases were rooted in the belief affirmed and promoted in the Special Issue….

“Little Rascals and McMartin are mentioned only indirectly, but my request for a retraction addresses – as does the issue – the entire false concept of satanic ritual abuse.
“I hope this clarification will move the editors to reconsider.”

So far, it hasn’t.

May 27, 2013

Recent revelations about billionaire David Koch’s influence on the airing of an unflattering PBS documentary bring to mind how UNC-TV showed similar deference to the accusing parents in the Little Rascals case.

Although a roundtable arranged by New York station WNET to follow the Koch-critical “Park Avenue” excluded filmmaker Alex Gibney, that discussion at least offered viewers a range of viewpoints about income inequality.

By contrast, in 1993 UNC-TV director Tom Howe said he agreed with parents that “Innocence Lost: The Verdict” was unbalanced and barred defense attorney Mike Spivey from participating in the discussion afterward. (I requested a copy of the program, but the station said it was unable to find one.)

In 1997, UNC-TV gave prosecutor Nancy Lamb and parent Susan Small time on “North Carolina NOW” to discuss the decision to drop the last charges in Little Rascals. “Both responded with long, rather unfocused answers,” Current magazine observed, “and the interview concluded without a single follow-up question….”

Feb. 28, 2014

As noted by Gary Greenberg, Richard Noll’s disappeared history of psychiatry and satanic ritual abuse “singles out two psychiatrists – Bennett Braun and Richard Kluft – who were instrumental in giving legitimacy to the SRA accounts. They helped change the DSM to make Multiple Personality Disorder (thought to be caused by the abuse) seem more common, they started the International Society for the Study of Multiple Personality and Dissociation, and they founded a journal called Dissociation….”

If the SRA era was psychiatry’s Wild West, then Braun and Kluft were… who? Butch and Sundance? Or Frank and Jesse?

In “Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Sciences of Memory” (1995) philosopher Ian Hacking pointed out an editorial in Dissociation in which Kluft “pleaded for moderation, but…  acknowledged that powerful emotions were at work. He also raised the stakes by printing a comparison that I find rather odious. He noted that one party refers to Nazis and the Holocaust, asking, ‘Should he or she be silent, emulating the “good Germans” who did not speak out about the atrocities in their midst, and by his or her silence become a facilitator?’”

Despite such overheated comparisons, and his ludicrous estimates of an epidemic of  “multiples,” Kluft at least claimed “moderation”  – not so Braun, whose excesses in patient treatment led to suspension of his Illinois medical license, closure of his hospital MPD unit and at least four out-of-court settlements, one for $10.6 million.

Today he practices in obscurity, while Kluft concentrates on stifling publication of incriminating journal articles.