July 22, 2016

“FARMVILLE, N.C. – Farmville’s only courtroom has never played host to a felony trial. This week, the town’s 4,000 residents will watch a parade of jurors, lawyers, psychologists, parents and children converge on that courtroom. There, they will unfold what may be the largest child sexual abuse trial this country has ever seen: the trial of Robert F. Kelly Jr. of Edenton.

“The trial was moved to this one-blink community in Pitt County, 65 miles west of Edenton in Eastern North Carolina, because of pretrial publicity.

“But the spotlight will find Farmville, if not for the unprecedented number of sexual abuse indictments, then for the sordid nature of the charges. And if not for that, then for the impact the trial – expected to last three to four months – could have on future large-scale child-abuse prosecutions.

“Jury selection is scheduled to start today….”

– From “Witnesses, jurors, lawyers mass for sexual-abuse trial” by Knight-Ridder News Service in the Baltimore Sun (July 22, 1991)

In fact, the trial would last nine months, not three or four.  Although prosecutors won initial convictions of both Kelly and Dawn Wilson, for whatever reasons – surely including the eye-opening effects of Ofra Bikel’s “Innocence Lost” trilogy – the nation was spared “future large-scale child-abuse prosecutions.”

Nov. 2, 2011

Post on hidden mysteries.org (1995):

“Aside from the children and their parents, others are deeply disappointed by the N.C. Supreme Court’s decision not to (overturn) the reversals by the Court of Appeals.

“Superior Court Judge Marsh McLelland, who heard the Little Rascals case the first time, wrote in a letter to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court: ‘Your refusal to review the Kelly and Wilson reversals by the Court of Appeals is legally and morally reprehensible.’

“Once more, the Edenton children find themselves as much on trial as their alleged perpetrators, if not more so.”

ANN EARLE

Letter to the editor of the News & Observer of Raleigh (May 16, 1996):

“As a psychotherapist who treats many child victims and adult survivors of sexual and ritual abuse… I am incredulous that so many people support Robert F. Kelly….

“There is ample historical and anthropological evidence that ritual abuse has existed for centuries…. Unfortunately, day care centers are optimal settings for such perpetrators.

“If there is indeed a ‘witch hunt’ going on, it’s actually aimed at abused children and those who advocate for them.”

ANN EARLE, C.C.S.W., B.C.D.

Chapel Hill

Letter to the editor of the News & Observer of Raleigh (June 4, 1997):

“Investigators should not ask leading questions, of course, but even if they did it is difficult to imagine how a young child could come up with graphic details of sexual activity if nothing happened. Child sexual abusers and pornographers routinely incorporate fantasy to entice children to cooperate and render them less believable if the child ever tells.

“Why are journalists so quick to believe alleged abusers and discount sexual abuse allegations by children?”

ANN S. EARLE

Chapel Hill

Letter to the editor of the News & Observer of Raleigh (January 15, 1999):

“In reality, false allegations of sexual abuse by preschool children are rare.

“I have spent three years researching and editing a book on ritual abuse allegations. Ample evidence supports the existence of such abuse in day care centers, in spite of how bizarre it may sound.

“Robert Kelly was found guilty by a jury of his peers in a lengthy trial. This verdict was overturned only on a technicality.

“Finally, there is obviously significant evidence to charge Kelly in a case unrelated to Little Rascals (charges dropped eight months later). We should consider these facts before concluding that the alleged abuses at Little Rascals were due to a ‘hysteria’ fueled by a ‘rumor mill.’ ”

ANN EARLE, C.C.S.W., B.C.D.

Chapel Hill

As these comments suggest, certainty in the pervasiveness of ritual abuse extended well beyond those therapists directly involved in the Little Rascals case.

Did Ann Earle, a board member of the International Council on Cultism and Ritual Trauma, ever change her mind? If so, she seems not to have shared the news.

Sept. 3, 2012

Since its creation by the General Assembly in 2006, the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission has considered more than 1,100 innocence claims, three of which resulted in exonerations.  This is from a letter I wrote the Innocence Inquiry Commission requesting that it take up the case of the Edenton Seven:

“I am fully aware that my request falls outside the letter of your mandate. It is of such importance, however, that I believe consideration by the Commission would be both just and appropriate.”

And this is from the response I received from Kendra Montgomery-Blinn, executive director:

“By law the Commission is only permitted to consider claims arising from current convictions. We cannot consider cases in which the conviction was vacated, even if the claimants were not fully exonerated.

“I am familiar with the (Little Rascals) case as I studied it both in college and in law school. In fact, I cited the case in the brief for a 2007 Commission hearing….

“I am sorry that the Commission cannot be of further assistance. The only other option I am aware of is a Gubernatorial pardon. The surviving defendants from the Wilmington 10 case have recently applied for pardons.

“Thank you for contacting the Commission and for continuing to bring attention to this important case and the subject of wrongful convictions. I am proud that North Carolina is first in the nation to have a state-run innocence commission.”

Another door to exoneration is closed, however sympathetically. Others remain.

Footnote: The hearing Ms. Montgomery-Blinn mentions grew out of a 2001 case in Pitt County. Henry Reeves had been convicted of taking indecent liberties with his 6-year-old daughter, Marquita. This passage in the Innocence Commission’s investigative statement caught my eye:

“Barbara Hardy (the child’s mother and the defendant’s wife) stated that when Marquita came out of her sessions with Dr. (Betty) Robertson, Marquita would have gum or little presents, and Marquita would state ‘Look what she gave me for getting the questions right.’

“Mrs. Hardy said that she tried to tell Dr. Robertson that Marquita was a people pleaser  and may say things just to be rewarded, but Dr. Robertson said, ‘I believe it happened, and it’s going to court.’

“It is important to note that Dr. Robertson…. provided therapy and evaluations to 23 of the children in (the Little Rascals) case….”

Still rewarding possibly-abused children for “getting the questions right”?  Did Betty Robertson learn nothing from the 23 false positives she reported in Edenton?

Jan. 11, 2013

“Chris Bean (Bob Kelly’s lawyer until becoming involved as a child-witness parent) told me that when the townspeople first saw the documentary, they thought it was OK and that nobody thought my film had personally misrepresented them.

“But then, he told me, the firestorm of national attention began and people were writing to the mayor, to the townspeople, to many of the families I interviewed, and it was like a house of cards, you know. It all came tumbling down on them.”

– Ofra Bikel, quoted in the Newark Star-Ledger (July 18, 1993)

“The only woman who never complained after the first film,” Bikel said, was Jane Mabry – Patient Zero in the rumor contagion.