April 4, 2016

Junior Chandler may be the last still-imprisoned victim of the “satanic ritual abuse” day-care panic.

Chandler was a driver for a Madison County, N.C., day care. The prosecutor alleged that Chandler, in the words of appellate attorney Mark Montgomery, “would drive off his route to a park by a river, strip the children of their clothes, troop them down to the river, put them in a rowboat, commit various sexual acts, put them back on the bus and take them home.”

Based almost exclusively on hearsay and no-longer-permissible expert “vouching,” Chandler was convicted in 1987 and sentenced to two life sentences. This month he will begin his 30th year behind bars for a crime that never happened.

Jan. 9, 2012

Perhaps the most inexplicable of the prosecution’s targets was 40-year-old Scott Privott, owner of an Edenton video store and shoe repair shop.

Son of a district court judge, he served as president of the local country club. No evidence ever surfaced to support the rumor that Privott’s video store was a hub for child pornography or to counter his claim never to have even set foot on the Little Rascals premises. According to the prosecution, children at the day care identified him as a perpetrator.

In April 1993 his bail was reduced from $1 million to $50,000, and he was released on bond from Chowan County Jail. Fourteen months later, Privott accepted the state’s offer of a plea of no contest, still insisting on his innocence, and received a sentence of time served with an additional five years probation.

He says he has been happily married for 14 years and doesn’t want to reveal where he now lives. I asked him to share some recollections about the case:

“Bob and I were more acquaintances than close friends. I played golf with him when he was the pro. Bob rented movies from my store, and he and many others would come by and have coffee and just talk. In fact, many of the accusing parents rented movies from me. (Bob Kelly suspects Privott may have been drawn into the case when Kelly’s truck was seen parked in front of the video store.)….

“In jail I spent the time reading and watching TV. We weren’t allowed newspapers, so I wasn’t sure what was being written about the case…. At times it was hard to keep my spirits up. I had gallbladder surgery and recuped at Central Prison in Raleigh and at McCain (Correctional Hospital in Raeford, closed in 2010)….

“Jail had just a walled-in area for outside activity, but at McCain I enjoyed being able to walk around the yard with others awaiting trial…I was in “safekeeping” and actually met some intelligent, thoughtful people. I never had any problems, as the majority knew the entire LRDC case was a farce….

“My wife came on Sundays, but as the years rolled on the visits were less and less, and then I noted a change I had been kind of expecting. She brought my mother with her, and in the later years she stood back and kind of let the visits be between mother and son. It turned out she had met someone new in her life. She didn’t have the nerve to tell me, but I figured it out….”

March 2, 2012

In 1995 John Money, professor emeritus of medical psychology and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University, asked:

“What happens to these kids who have been programmed to believe a delusion?…. What on earth are we doing to this generation of children who are carrying the lies for us?”

For those alleged child-victims who testified in day care abuse cases, the urge to forget and to stay silent must be strong indeed. Who wants to believe he was so misused by his own parents, not to mention by therapists and prosecutors? Who wants to summon the courage to look back at the ugly truth and to take it public?

One exception was Kyle Zirpolo, who came forward in 2005 to apologize for his role in the McMartin Pre-school case.

Dec. 5, 2017

“The Manson Family’s ritualistic murders in 1969 triggered the ini4al stages of na4onal cult hysteria….

“Manson made hippies scary for awhile, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that ’70s horror movies featuring hooded devil covens, witches and the occult emerged shortly after he was convicted. Manson and his apostles triggered a frenzy pertaining to cults that would reach ridiculous new heights in the ‘80s with the ‘satanic ritual abuse’ allegations, which inspired their own exploitation movies as well….”

— From “How Exploitation Movies Exploited Charles Manson and Hippie Hysteria”
by Kieran Fisher at “Film School Rejects” (Nov. 25)