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 – 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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Little Rascals Day Care Case
This Facebook page is an offshoot of littlerascalsdaycarecase.org, which addresses the wrongful prosecution of the Edenton Seven and other such victims.
Meanwhile in Edenton....
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Allies for our cause!
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The courts have a long history of capriciously pulling the rug out from under Junior's appeals, but maybe this time....
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Today’s random selection from the Little Rascals Day Care archives….
Edenton anything but eager to make amends for Little Rascals
Feb. 11, 2019
“Such stories aren’t proudly passed down from one generation to the next. Unlike some small Southern towns,
which often ignore the troublesome elements of their past, Batesburg-Leesville (the two towns merged in 1993) has embraced [Isaac] Woodard’s tragedy and tried to make amends….”
– From “A cop gouged out a black vet’s eyes. 73 years later, the SC town confronts it”
by Brian Hicks in the Charleston Post & Courier (Feb. 7)
If ever there was a small Southern town committed to ignoring the “troublesome elements” of its past, it is Edenton, North Carolina. Not a hint of the Little Rascals Day Care case – surely the most significant news event of 20th century Edenton – mars the civic memory.
‘Overwhelming power’ in the worst possible hands
Dec. 23, 2011
“Many appalling results of the recovered-memory movement of the 1970s and ’80s arose from … unexamined views of memory – occurrences like the false accusations of employees of children’s care centers… Such fantasies have often been encouraged as reliable memories by doctrinaire therapists and have sometimes resulted in prison sentences and ruined lives for innocent fathers, mothers, kin, teachers and devoted caretakers.
“The documentary films made by Ofra Bikel … are meticulous and frightening accounts of such fantasies and their overwhelming power in the hands of the cruelest, most self-deluded and most easily panicked among us.”
– From “Ardent Spirits” by the late Reynolds Price (2009)
Nancy Lamb has an explanation for everything
June 29, 2012
“One month after drawing national attention when she dismissed final charges involving the children at the day-care center, (Nancy Lamb) clings to her belief that Robert Kelly is a child molester….
“Still, she admits it’s not easy to explain why none of the defendants have turned against each other, even though they were offered deals by her office.
“ ‘You did have kind of a group dynamic going on where they did hang around together and support each other and encourage each other to hang tough,’ Lamb said.”
– From the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, July 2, 1997
DA acknowledges junk science in arson conviction
Dec. 17, 2015
“Three men convicted of murder by arson for a 1980 fire in Brooklyn (were) exonerated on Wednesday….
“What carried the three men into prison was not reliable evidence of an intentionally set blaze, but rather an arson investigation that was more like shamanism than science, rooted in hunches and folklore and disconnected from the dynamics of actual fires. Like the comparisons of bite marks, hair and handwriting, it was a forensic practice that had the authority of white-coat laboratory science but virtually none of its rigor….”
– From “Between Guilt and Innocence, an Evolution in Fire Science”
by Jim Dwyer in the New York Times (Dec. 16)
Hats off to District Attorney Ken Thompson, who moved to vacate the three convictions, citing “circumstantial evidence, outdated science and the testimony of a single, wholly unreliable witness….”
Columnist Dwyer is reminded of a statue at the University of Pennsylvania Law School depicting a mythological Chinese beast believed to have the ability to tell the guilty from the innocent by butting them. Inscribed on its base: “Slow and painful has been man’s progress from magic to law.”
“Slow and painful” indeed. Ask Junior Chandler, who has been imprisoned since April 17, 1987, for committing the magical crime of “satanic ritual abuse.”