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….
A mother to fear at your day-care door
June 6, 2012
โThe Kellys decided to buy the day care center after a previous owner quit following a dispute with a mother (who) was upset that her son didnโt get cake at a party because he wouldnโt wear a bib, Mrs. Kelly said (in testimony at Bob Kellyโs trial).
โ The Associated Press, Feb. 11, 1992
What a coincidence โ Jane Mabry, the disgruntled mother who ran off the first day-care owner,ย is the very same disgruntled motherย who shut down the Kellys!
‘Capturing the Friedmans’ didn’t capture the Kellys
June 26, 2013
The suburban New York child sex abuse case documented in the Oscar-nominated โCapturing the Friedmansโ (2003) returned to the spotlight Monday, this time because of a review panelโs finding thatย Jesse Friedman had in fact been rightfully convicted.
Although the New York Times describes the Friedman case as having come โto symbolize an era of sensational, often-suspect accusations of child molestation,โ many aspects โ including the 1988 confessions of both the defendant and his father โ make it an outlier to the epidemic of day-care cases of that era.
The review panel itself emphasized this distinction, theย Associated Pressย points out:
โThe Friedman case has drawn comparisons to the 1980s McMartin Preschool scandal, but the investigators said they โwere in no way similar.โ In the McMartin case, the report noted, more than 200 preschool children described being sexually abused by teachers, but only after months of highly suggestive questioning by social workers working with prosecutors. The report noted in the Friedman case, the victims were more than twice as old as the McMartin preschoolers and many in the Friedman case disclosed abuse quickly.โ
Regardless, there are similarities, too. In an interview with theย Village Voiceย interview last month, Jesse Friedman had this to say about the young computer students who testified against him:
โWhen I was in prison, my hope always hung on the idea that, give it five or 10 years; once they get to college, once they’re actual adults, once they’re old enough to no longer be living at home with their parents in Great Neck, they will come forward and admit that they lied.
โWhen (journalist( Debbie Nathan came to visit me, she told me that most of the complainants in the McMartin case publicly affirm that they were raped and abused in the McMartin Preschool. Whereas that case has been thoroughly, completely vetted beyond all doubt that nothing happened. And yet the kids involved believe that they were abused. She said, โYou really can’t hang your hopes on the idea that the kids know that they lied and that nothing happened. Because they might very well think that something happened.โ “
Do the now-grown child-witnesses in the Little Rascals case โknow that they lied and that nothing happenedโ? Or does the shapeless memory of their supposed abuse remain forever sealed from self-examination?
Reality notwithstanding, ritual-abuse report lives on
Nov. 26, 2012
Although no mention of the notorious Report of the Ritual Abuse Task Force is to be found on the Los Angeles County Commission for Womenย web site, I was curious whether an original booklet might still be available.
Sure enough, a few weeks after I mailed my request to the commission a pristine copy arrived. The text is widelyย available online, but somehow the experience of holding and reading it is even… creepier.
โRitual abuse is a serious and growing problem in our community and in our nation…,โ it begins. โSociety is only just beginning to recognize the gravity and scope…. Parents need to be educated about the hallmarks of this abuse occurring in preschools and day care centers….
โThe ritual abuse in such an institutional setting is not incidental to its operation, but is in fact intrinsic, the very reason for the institutionโs existence….
โTo victimize and indoctrinate as many young children as possible, (ritual abusers) frequently function together in groups in the operation of preschools, day-care services and baby-sitting services, providing themselves access to children outside of their own families.โ
Even now, when the case for ritual abuse no longer draws a crowd, the Report of the Ritual Abuse Task Force continues to be cited respectfully, as in โHealing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Controlโ (2011), โIf the West Falls: Globalization, the End of America and Biblical Prophecyโ (2011) and โHealing the Soul after Religious Abuse: The Dark Heaven of Recoveryโ (2009).
What must it take to slay the ritual-abuse dragon โ a stake through the heart?
Defendants’ bond lowered to ‘only’ $200,000
Dec. 16, 2015
On this day 25 years ago: Bonds for Little Rascals employeesย Robin Byrumย and Dawn Wilson are reduced to aย still excessiveย $200,000 โ Byrumโs from $500,000, Wilsonโs from $880,000.
Byrum will be released four days later, Wilson not for eight weeks.
Because she went to trial and the jury returned a guilty verdict (eventually overturned), Wilsonโs story is much better known.
But Byrum suffered her own coercive torture at the hands of prosecutors before charges were dropped in 1996.
Nineteen years old when she was arrested in January 1990, she spent almost a year in jail, leaving her 7-month-old baby in the care of her husband. Had she agreed to testify against Bob Kelly, she could have walked out a free woman โ and mother.
In โInnocence Lost: The Pleaโ (1997), Byrum explained why she had been tempted by but repeatedly refused the prosecutorsโ deal:
โ…. I would not ever have to be separated from my child again. But then Iโd have to live with the rest of my life that I (said I) did something when I didnโt do it.โ
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