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.

May 4, 2012

“Written reports that contain statements such as ‘The child said that Mr. Bob told them secrets’ are meaningless.

“We need to know whether this was a spontaneous remark, whether this was prompted by an open-ended question (e.g., “What did Mr. Bob tell you?”), or whether this is merely the interviewer’s memory of the gist of a conversation in which the interviewer asked, ‘Did Mr. Bob ask you to keep secrets?’ and the child reluctantly may have replied, ‘Yes.’

“Some summaries of the interviews are written in such a way as to make one believe that children made spontaneous and detailed statements about sexual abuse. However in the few instances where we have transcripts of other interviews, it is clear that the child only responded ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a barrage of leading questions.”

– From “Jeopardy in the Courtroom: A Scientific Analysis of Children’s
Testimony” by Stephen J. Ceci and Maggie Bruck (1995)

Oct. 10, 2012

“This case arose during the height of the Child Sexual Abuse Hysteria of the 1980s and 1990s. The McMartin Preschool case, perhaps the most famous such case, was being tried in California at the same time this case was being tried in North Carolina. The prosecution team in this case was led by two members of the Attorney General’s staff who were to prosecute Robert Kelly four years later in the Little Rascals Day Care case.

“The state’s theory was that Junior Chandler, a bus driver for a county day care, would drive off his route to a parking area next to the French Broad River, strip the clothes off the toddlers, troop the naked children down to the river, put them on a rowboat, proceed to insert various objects into their anuses and vaginas, bring them back to the bus, put their clothes back on and deliver them home.

“This theory was the culmination of an investigation that began when one of the children came home one day and announced to her mother ‘we’ve been f***ing.’ Prior to that, there had been no indication of any problems with the children, the day care or Junior. However, fueled by the concern of anxious parents and well-meaning child advocates, this comment morphed into bizarre allegations of widespread sadistic abuse at the hands of several adults, including Junior….”

“Junior Chandler is serving his 26th year in prison, based largely on incredible claims from preschoolers, as elaborated upon and vouched for by six prosecution witnesses. Many defendants in this state have been awarded new trials for far less damaging testimony. Most of the victims of the Child Sexual Abuse Hysteria from around the country, Virginia McMartin, Kelly Michaels, Dale Akiki, Bob Kelly, the Amiraults, etc., have regained their freedom…. Junior Chandler deserves the same relief.”

– From Junior Chandler’s amended petition for writ of certiorari, denied last week by the North Carolina Supreme Court

April 11, 2012

“Almost always you find the kids are three or four years old.

“The two-year-olds are no good because they can’t speak well enough and are totally unreliable in what they do say. The five- and six-year-olds are already old enough to say, ‘He didn’t do that, lady, and nothing you say is going to convince me of it.’

“But threes and fours are perfect. After they’ve been worked over by a parent or zealous validator, they can be counted on because they believe it and will testify accordingly.”

– Dr. Richard A. Gardner, clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia
University, quoted in Playboy magazine (June 1992)