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….
Parents’ gullibility ‘grounded in anxiety’
Nov. 25, 2011
โIn the prototypical witch hunts in Europe and in the Massachusetts colony, the accused were often scapegoats for some calamity โ disease, bad harvests, the birth of a deformed child.
โIn the witch hunts of the โ80s, there was no such injury to be avenged or repaired. There was, however, a psychological need to be fulfilled. Our willingness to believe in ritual abuse was grounded in anxiety about putting children in day care at a time when mothers were entering the work force in unprecedented numbers.
โIt was as though there were some dark, self-defeating relief in trading niggling everyday doubts about our children’s care for our absolute worst fears โ for a story with monsters, not just human beings who didn’t always treat our kids exactly as we would like; for a fate so horrific and bizarre that no parent, no matter how vigilant, could have ever prevented it.โ
โ Margaret Talbot, writing in The New York Times Magazine, Jan. 7, 2001
‘Satanic ritual abuse’ in Sodom? Of course!
Oct. 7, 2015
โSodom Laurel was first namedย Revere, and is still Revere on topographical maps, but I seldom hear anyone call it anything but Sodom. (Madison County nativeย Dellie Nortonย said) she had heard that years ago, when logging first came to the region, there were numerous logging camps and a lot of men away from home, with money and time on their hands. Violence and promiscuity were rampant. Dellie had heard that a preacher, upon arriving in Revere and having seen the residents firsthand, remarked โYou people are just like a bunch of Sodomites.โ The name stuck.
โLately, partly for religious reasons and, of course, the negative connotations of the name Sodom, some community members have started using the name Revere again…. But also times have changed โ the community is quieter than it used to be โ Revere seems a more apt description of the place.โ
โ From โSodom Laurel Albumโย by Rob Amberg (2002)
I guess it fits that a defendant unfortunate enough to be charged with โsatanic ritual abuseโ would also be unfortunate enough to have his hometown known as Sodom โ a coincidence surely snickered about in the culturally hostile courtroom in Asheville where Junior Chandler was convicted.
Coincidentally, the district attorney in a Hendersonville ritual abuse prosecution infamously ranted aboutย Michael Alan Parkerโsย having resided in โSodom and Saluda.โ (The jury bought his Bible-pounding, but Saludansย werenโt pleased.)
Move along, ‘Frontline,’ nothing to see here
June 12, 2013
โWe received only one call, from a gentleman in Massachusetts, and he said he felt sorry for the whole community and wished us well. It was business as usual, except for all the damn reporters.
โI donโt see why this thing has to be tried again. Itโs been through the judicial system, and I just don’t know what โFrontlineโsโ agenda is.
โThe town is not divided or in turmoil or any of that stuff theyโre saying about it.โ
โ Edenton Town Manager Anne Marie Kelly (no relation to Bob Kelly),ย reacting to โInnocence Lost: The Verdictโ (as quoted in โSex-case documentary stirs up Edenton again,โ News & Observer, July 22, 1993)
Prosecutors grudgingly loosen grip on Bob Kelly
May 22, 2012
Fifteen years ago today: Claiming they want to spare their child-witnesses from another round of testimony, prosecutors drop the last Little Rascals charges against remaining defendants Bob Kelly and Dawn Wilson.
Nancy Lamb is referring to the children when she says, โThey know who I am and why I walked into their lives and stayed awhile. They remember.โ Of course she also โstayed awhile,โ as an uninvited guest from hell, in the lives of the Edenton Seven.
Kelly remains on the hook for an unrelated sexual abuse charge filed more than a year earlier.
Finally, on Sept. 23, 1999, that charge too will be dropped, and for the first time in a decade he isnโt living under the thumb of prosecutors.
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