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….
‘The truth is not a smorgasbord….’
Sept. 16, 2013
“The prosecution-minded are careful to say that they do not believe everything a child says. For example, they do not believe 3-year-old Virginia’s statement that ‘Karen was cooked in a microwave.’
“But they do believe her when she says, ‘I helped my teacher put a playhandle in Karen’s heinie’ – even though one 3-year-old sodomizing another with a ‘playhandle’ an inch or 2 wide and not causing bleeding from a torn rectum is as unbelievable as cooking a child in a microwave.
“Accepting half a child’s statement and rejecting the other (death by microwave) is capricious: The truth is not a smorgasbord from which we can choose the facts we fancy and leave behind those we do not.”
– From “Magical Child Molestation Trials: Edenton’s Children Accuse” by Margaret Leong (1993)
What better credential than Little Rascals debacle?
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.
Did jurors really believe ‘poop in the spaghetti’?
Jan. 25, 2015
Q: You said that Mr. Bob made spaghetti at the day care…. Now, when did Mr. Bob say that there was poop in the spaghetti?
A: After we, um, ate it.
Q: All right. Did – did you ever have to eat poop at the day care?
A: No.
Q: Okay. Did anybody try and make you eat poop at the day care?
A: Yes.
Q: Who?
A: Mr. Bob.
Q: Tell me about it.
A: I don’t remember it.
Q: You don’t remember it?
A: No.
Q: Well, how do you know Mr. Bob tried to do it?
A: What?
Q: Did somebody tell you about it?
A: No.
Q: Okay. Well, then tell me how Mr. Bob tried to make you eat poop.
A: Um, he told me, um, to eat it.
Q: Okay. Where was it?
A: I forgot.
Q: You forgot. Well, was it in Ms. Shelly’s room?
A: No.
Q: Was it in the kitchen?
A: Yes.
Q: Okay. Well, did he make other kids eat poop while you were there?
A: Yes.
Q: Okay. Well, um, what happened when they ate it?
A: I don’t know.
– From defense attorney Jeffrey Miller’s cross-examination of a child witness in the trial of Bob Kelly
This exchange represents only a tiny fraction of the 7-year-old girl’s testimony, which stretched over two days and included similarly incoherent references to Kelly and other defendants having raped her, urinated in her mouth, threatened to kill her parents, sodomized her with pencils and sewing needles, taken her on boat and truck rides, forced her to witness the killing and burial of babies and small animals…..
How funny and trivial such childish imaginings would seem, if only the jury’s gullibility hadn’t sent Kelly to prison for six years. “The children were convincing,” insisted rogue juror Dennis T. Ray.
Toppin’s interview notes: ‘Just a lot of extra paper’
Aug. 1, 2017
“In the McMartin case, the defense used videotapes of therapists’ interviews with the children to suggest that the idea of abuse had been implanted.
“[Ofra] Bikel says, ‘The authorities in North Carolina [in the Little Rascals case], who I know met with the McMartin prosecutors, learned from them that the therapists’ notes should just be summaries. They learned that if you want to win a case, it’s a bad idea to have tapes around.’
“The prosecution interviewer [Brenda Toppin] is shown testifying that she cannot say why her original interview notes were destroyed: ‘It’s just a lot of extra paper,’ she said.”
– From “Justice Abuse? ‘Frontline’ Documentary Takes Hard Look At A Small-town Scandal” by Bart Mills in the Chicago Tribune (July 20, 1993)
