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

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.

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Today’s random selection from the Little Rascals Day Care archives….


 

This just in: La. theater killings rooted in ‘ritual abuse’!

150726HouserJuly 26, 2015

“A look at America’s underbelly indicates more than a ‘random’ killing (at a Lafayette, La., movie theater). Eight signs point to John Russell Houser possibly being subjected to programmed satanic ritual abuse (SRA) mind control…..”

– From “Eight Louisiana Shooter Satanic Ritual Abuse Links” by Deborah Dupré at Before It’s News (July 24)

Among those “eight signs”:

  • “Houser’s Thursday night (July 23) shooting coincides with the (July 20) three-year anniversary of James Holmes opening fire at a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado.
  • “Many SRA survivors experience a difference in their normal day-to-day life one to two weeks before any major ritual celebration. These are marked on SRA calendars….. Between July 20-27, SRA-mind-controlled individuals prepare for… a blood sacrifice.”
  • “Houser moved to Lafayette in early July, officials say. July 1 on the SRA calendar is designated as ‘Demon Revels Blood (Druids sexual association with demons. Any age. Female).’ The two people Houser murdered were each females…. In SRA, males dominate….”

Hard to believe, isn’t it, that the mainstream media have failed to pursue such an obvious explanation….

Practicing therapy ‘on the basis of sheer myth’

Jan. 5, 2014

140105Reich“Probably the main reason for the growth of false charges of (sexual) abuse has been the recent proliferation of abuse specialists and therapists, many of whom lack any knowledge of mental illness or the workings of memory. These specialists believe fervently that many of the difficulties experienced by the people who consult them are due to sexual abuse that, if it isn’t remembered, can be jogged into memory by various recovery techniques.

“For decades, therapists of various kinds have put forward one unproved theory after another to explain personal unhappiness, dissatisfaction or serious psychological dysfunction. Earlier, as (Michael) Yapko points out (in “Suggestions of Abuse: True and False Memories of Childhood Sexual Trauma”), they focused on the ‘inner child,’ the ‘dysfunctional family’ or ‘co-dependency’; now it’s sexual abuse….

“In 1992, Mr. Yapko gathered data from more than 860 therapists across the country about the roles they think suggestion and memory play in therapy, especially in the dredging up of repressed memories of sexual abuse. ‘It is not an exaggeration,’ he concludes, ‘to say that many therapists appear to practice their profession on the basis of sheer myth….’ ”


– From “
The Monster In the Mists” by Walter Reich in the New York Times (May 15, 1994)

Edenton Seven can’t wait forever for exoneration

Sept. 1, 2014

The recent deaths of Little Rascals figures Patricia Kephart Hart (obituary cached here) and C. Harvey Williams remind me that the clock is ticking on the defendants as well. (Patricia Kephart, mother of one of the potential child-witnesses, dated and later married Assistant Attorney General Bill Hart; Williams was Edenton police chief.)

Others who have since died include Kirk Osborn, appellate lawyer for Dawn Wilson, and Bradford Tillery, the judge originally assigned to the case.

Let’s hope that none of the Edenton Seven, still awaiting exoneration from the state, shares the fate of Connie Tindall of the Wilmington 10.

Ritual-abuse therapists, meet UFO debriefers

120622SiegelFeb. 13, 2013

“Can we say beyond a shadow of a doubt that any day-care operators in the country are innocent? No. Can we say that those who claim they were abducted by UFOs were not? No.

“(That) is not a frivolous comparison. The methodology used by therapists on the children is the same methodology used by UFO debriefers. The debriefers ask, Did you see a light? The therapists ask, Did you get taken to a secret tunnel? The debriefers ask, Did you feel a probe by the aliens? The therapists ask, Did Mr. Bob stick a knife in your vagina?

“When people, even fully functional members of their communities, regurgitate what they have been told about space probes, we call them lunatics. When children, after constant prodding, regurgitate what they have been told about intimate probes, we put people in prison.”

– From “Abusing Justice, in the Name of Children” by Ed Siegel in the Boston Globe (Sept. 8, 1995)