Nov. 5, 2012

“When five-year-old Allison’s parents begin to see a change in her behavior at home, they seek professional help for her. They find that Allison and other children have been ritually abused at a day care center. Thus begins Allison’s recovery….”

– From “Don’t Make Me Go Back, Mommy: A Child’s Book about Satanic Ritual Abuse” by Doris Sanford  (1990)

Who knows how many lucky youngsters found this colorfully illustrated hardback under the Christmas tree? (More than 7,000 copies made it into print.)

Although Sanford credits herself with “months of intensive research into the nature and practice of satanic ritual abuse,” her dedication to “Patti Hills, Survivor…. We honor you, Patti! ” suggests she relied heavily on a Portland, Oregon, therapist “who claims to be… a witness to human sacrifice” (Willamette Week, Oct. 22, 1997). Also consulting: Lauren Stratford, author of the discredited baby-breeder memoir “Satan’s Underground.”

In 1993, “Don’t Make Me Go Back, Mommy” helped advance a notorious ritual-abuse case against a Spring Valley, Calif., child-care volunteer. The mother of one of Dale Akiki’s supposed victims admitted under cross-examination that she had read the book to her daughter, and it likely made the rounds of other parents. (After more than two years behind bars and a seven-month trial, Akiki was found not guilty of all charges.)

Eventually, however, “Don’t Make Me Go Back, Mommy” would become a target of appropriate (and sometimes hilarious) ridicule.

April 13, 2015

D. Marsh McLelland, judge in the trials of Little Rascals defendants Bob Kelly and Dawn Wilson, died last month in Burlington. He was 94.

This laudatory obituary in the Greensboro News & Record barely mentions the most consequential case in McLelland’s career – “He was brought out of retirement by the state’s chief justice to hear the Little Rascals Day Care child sex abuse case….” – and this one in the Burlington Times-News mentions it not at all.

Had McLelland stayed retired, the prosecution of the Edenton Seven might well have been derailed early on.

The judge originally assigned to the case, L. Bradford Tillery, stepped down under pressure from Deputy Attorney General Bill Hart. Mark Montgomery, Bob Kelly’s appellate attorney, explains why:

“Hart did not like the way Tillery was handling the case.  The final straw was when Tillery ordered Hart to turn over the State’s interviews of those kids who were not the subject of indictments.  He did not order them given to the defense, as he should have done, but Tillery was going to look through them himself.  If he had, he would have seen that most of the kids at the day care, including Hart’s adoptive daughter, had said nothing happened and the jury would have heard about that.

“To prevent that, Hart filed motions accusing Tillery of being biased against the State. Rather than punishing Hart, Tillery took himself out of the case to avoid any appearance of partiality.  Enter McLelland.

“Because Tillery had already ordered the interviews turned over to the court, that was a done deal.  But McLelland never looked at them.  I stumbled across them in the exhibit room of the courthouse and informed the Court of Appeals in my brief.  The failure of the State to turn over to the defense the interviews of kids who said nothing happened was one of the grounds for a new trial for Bob.”

Tillery clearly was stung by Hart’s ploy: “I have served as a judge of Superior Court for over 20 years, and I never found it necessary to take such a step…. Neither have I ever been made to feel before that one side or the other considered me to be not only an adversary but also fair game …. for reckless assertions.”

If only Tillery had responded not by resigning but by sanctioning Hart for withholding evidence.

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, “They know who I am and why I walked into their lives and stayed awhile. They remember.” Of course she also “stayed awhile,” 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 isn’t living under the thumb of prosecutors.

July 3, 2013

“(Nancy Lamb) is aware of the naysayers, those who say she ran a witch hunt, gleaning hundreds of charges against (Bob) Kelly and his staff from the children’s accounts, which included trips aboard spaceships.

“ ‘You have to look at the big picture,’ she said. ‘You have to know that there are fantastic elements in children’s accounts of abuse, while they also say things that are quite believable.’ ”

“And believe she did….”

– From “How hard it is to say, ‘Enough’ ” by columnist Nicole Brodeur in the News & Observer (May 28, 1997)

What self-serving speciousness. Could there be a better example of failing “to look at the big picture” than Lamb’s focusing on only those fragments of the children’s manipulated testimony that supported her case?