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 โ 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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Todayโs random selection from the Little Rascals Day Care archives….
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Todayโs random selection from the Little Rascals Day Care archives….
What movie may doubt, book surely doesn’t
June 11, 2015
โIn (the upcoming movie)ย Regression, Ethan Hawke plays a detective investigating accusations by a woman against her father. Thereโs a twist: The father has admitted wrongdoing, though he has no recollection of what happened โ and a psychologist is summoned to help him recover his memories….
โThe trailer is opaque in its rendering of what crime the father may have committed, but itโs probably meant to echo the Satanic witch hunts that gripped parts of America in the 1980s and early โ90s….ย The daughterโs haunting memories include โchanting,โ โrobesโ and a โblack maskโ….
โSo itโll be interesting to see (director Alejandro) Amenรกbarโs take inย Regression: Does he present the case as a real, Satanic experience that actually occurs within the world of the story, or will the film be a larger commentary on the horrific fallout of unfounded hysteria?
โHereโs hoping itโs the latter…. Weโll find out whenย Regressionย opens in August.โ
โ From โEthan Hawke and Emma Watson Battle Satan (Maybe) in the Trailer forย Regressionโ
by Aisha Harris at Slate (June 10)
Also arriving in August โ but much less ambiguously: โWe Believe The Children: A Moral Panic in the 1980sโ by Richard Beck. According to aย starred reviewย in Publishers Weekly, โBeck marshals extensive research into an absorbing dissection of a panic whose tremors still affect us today.โ
โThey constantly asked him the same thing over and over again….โ
Jan. 12, 2018
โ[Bob Kellyโs] defense contended that the children’s allegations were just the responses of suggestible youngsters eager to please the interrogators who were urging them to disclose abuse. [Interviewed in โInnocence Lost: The Verdictโ,] one mother whose child did not disclose abuse is seen heaping scorn on the police and social services interrogation of her child:
” โThey constantly asked him the same thing over and over again, and they would rephrase it…. They talked to him, it had to be an hour and a half or so before we interrupted and they wanted to continue talking to him. I would guess the same questions were asked five or six times.โ
โThis mother’s recollection is one of the few clues to the police methods in this case. Police and prosecutors declined to cooperate with โFrontline.โ All of the investigative notes and tapes were destroyed, and the only source material available at trial was after-the-fact summaries….โ
โ From โJustice Abuse? โFrontline’ Documentary Takes Hard Look At A Small-town Scandal” by Bart Mills in the Chicago Tribune (July 20, 1993)
Esteemed psychiatrist analyzes Trump โ and Junior Chandler
Sept. 18, 2017
Allen Frances, professor emeritus of psychiatry at Duke University, has been generating lots of attentionย with his provocative and important new book, โTwilight of American Sanity: A Psychiatrist Analyzes the Age of Trump.โ
What better time to look back at Dr. Francesโs 2014 call to correct the โegregious injusticeโย committed by the State of North Carolina against Junior Chandler.
For maximum notoriety, avoid Chowan County
July 10, 2013
Although some consider Little Rascals the East Coast version of the McMartin case, according to Googleโsย nGram Viewerย it comes in aย distant secondย in prominence.
Not even eight hours of โInnocence Lostโ could make up for McMartinโs having been tried first and for its having been situated in Southern California rather than in Eastern North Carolina.
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