July 15, 2016

“When you once believed something that now strikes you as absurd, even unhinged, it can be almost impossible to summon that feeling of credulity again. Maybe that is why it is easier for most of us to forget, rather than to try and explain, the Satanic-abuse scare that gripped this country in the early ’80s – the myth that Devil-worshipers had set up shop in our day-care centers, where their clever adepts were raping and sodomizing children, practicing ritual sacrifice, shedding their clothes, drinking blood and eating feces, all unnoticed by parents, neighbors and the authorities….”

– From “The Devil in The Nursery” by Margaret Talbot in The New York Times (Jan. 7, 2001)

Sept. 9, 2013

“According to court records, one of the state-recommended therapists, Judith Abbott, showed a five-year-old girl drawings of satanic symbols (a horned mask, inverted crosses and a peace symbol described on the drawing as the ‘Cross of Nero’) in an effort to uncover instances of devil worship. ‘Mr. Bob’ was wearing one of those, the child said, according to a note Abbott wrote on the drawing of the mask.

“The same child had begun her therapy complaining that Mr. Bob gave hard spankings; after biweekly sessions for six months she was ‘remembering,’ according to Abbott’s typed therapy notes, ‘oral penetration by a penis, vaginal penetration by a brown felt-tipped pen and witnessing the murder of human babies.’

“Abbott explains the delay in eliciting this material by saying that the children had been terrified into silence. ‘When you break down the child, you own their spirit.’ she says. ‘It’s like Helter Skelter, Charles Manson.’ ”

– From “The Demons of Edenton” by Lisa Scheer and Edward Cone in Elle magazine (November 1993) Download article here

A proven effective way to “break down the child”: Subject her to six months of Abbott’s biweekly “therapy” sessions.

Jan. 6, 2012

“Innocence Lost” aired too late to save the Edenton Seven, but its influence in deflating the nation’s ritual-abuse bubble is hard to exaggerate. Shock and outrage – and considerable ridicule of North Carolina justice – followed each of the three episodes.

Walter Goodman’s 1993 New York Times review pointed to “the likelihood that no crime was committed, unless convicting innocent people counts as a crime.”

“To say this tragic farce has resembled a hysterical witch hunt,” Phil Kloer wrote in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution in 1997, “is to demean witch hunts.”

July 2, 2012

Perhaps the prosecution’s most influential expert witness during the 1992 trial of Bob Kelly was psychologist Mark Everson, director of the Program on Childhood Trauma and Maltreatment in UNC Chapel Hill’s department of psychiatry.

Here’s how Everson responded to a defense expert’s testimony that children are suggestible and should not be repeatedly interviewed: “It’s kind of naïve. It’s the kind of statement you really wouldn’t make if you worked with these kids.”

In a Charlotte Observer interview 10 years later, Everson seemed unmoved by the continuing wave of scientific research exposing the fallacy of “Children don’t lie.” He said he found it hard to believe that every Little Rascals child-witness had been badly interviewed and confused: “There’s so much smoke there, it’s hard to imagine there’s no fire.”

Where there’s smoke there’s fire?

Good lord. I wasn’t surprised to hear such naivete from a juror – “Something must have happened,” one told Ofra Bikel — but from a respected UNC faculty member whose opinion influenced whether Bob Kelly would be convicted and imprisoned?

Last week I emailed two questions to Everson at his Chapel Hill office:

– Have you changed your mind?

– How much credence do you give researchers such as Ceci and Bruck who have demonstrated the unreliability of child-witnesses?

I’ve yet to hear back.

But it’s hard to optimistic about a possible reassessment when Everson continues to choose Kathleen Coulborn Faller as his most frequent coauthor.