Nov. 2, 2014

“For District Attorney – Nancy Lamb: Two equally motivated and capable candidates, Democrat Nancy Lamb and Republican Andrew Womble, have mounted compelling political campaigns to claim the job of district attorney of the 1st Prosecutorial District.

“While both have strong credentials for practicing law and for public service, they are nevertheless significantly divided by experience. Lamb’s three decades as a practicing prosecutor is an overwhelming advantage for ensuring that the office of district attorney is guided with seasoned wisdom and trade knowledge.

“Additionally, Lamb’s long trial experience and prosecutorial insight is critically important to lead an office of assistant DAs….”

– From “Our View: TDA endorses Lamb….” in the Elizabeth City Daily Advance (Nov. 1, paywalled)

Although The Daily Advance gushes over Nancy Lamb’s “long trial experience and prosecutorial insight” and her “seasoned wisdom and trade knowledge,” the paper somehow neglects to offer even a single example.

How about the Little Rascals Day Care case?

But TDA apparently doesn’t consider Lamb’s nationally-notorious  courtroom star turn worthy of even a mention, either in its endorsement or – this belongs in journalism’s “Believe It or Not!” – in the 17 news stories it wrote about her campaign.

Oct. 11, 2011

In 1989 Bob Kelly was charged with 100 counts of child molestation.

In 1992 he was convicted and sentenced to 12 consecutive life sentences.

In 1995 his conviction was overturned and he was released from Central Prison.

“It was the best six years of my life,” he says of his time behind bars, “because it set me up for the rest of my life.”

When he walked out, Kelly was a man who had determined “never to feel ashamed, because I had nothing to be ashamed of.”

Today, remarried and retired at 63, he lives in a tidy suburban house just outside Sanford.

Perhaps the anger he still feels toward those who conspired to imprison him has been compartmentalized.

His attention goes to gardening (“500 pounds of tomatoes this year”), writing and visiting inmates, carving walking sticks out of old Christmas tree trunks, playing Sudoku, hitting golf balls and reading only those Westerns in which “the good guy always wins in the end.”

And he still cooks and cans the spaghetti sauce he once served every Friday at the Little Rascals Day Care Center.

“Freedom don’t ever get old,” he says.

March 29, 2013

“ELIZABETH CITY – Attorneys for the seven defendants in the Edenton child abuse case want to know what techniques were used to elicit accusations from the children…. Prosecutors don’t want to tell them….

“(District Attorney H.P.) Williams would not address a reporter’s questions about how the Edenton investigation was conducted….

“Mr. Williams declined to say how the Edenton investigation grew from complaints by three families to its current size. He declined to say how they communicated with parents or whether a letter was sent out.

“He would not discuss who had interviewed the children or what interview techniques had been used….”

– From “Prosecutors won’t discuss techniques” in the Raleigh News & Observer (Feb. 25, 1990)

Two decades later Williams, though no longer district attorney, was still “not in a position to talk about it.”

Coincidentally – or not – the Little Rascals story shared Page 2C with one noting that “Social workers are trying to determine why reported cases of child abuse and neglect in North Carolina jumped 27 percent in 1989, while cases nationally are expected to rise only 3 percent or 4 percent….”

A consultant with the state Division of Social Services observed that “Any time you get a radical increase in the number of complaints, you’re probably getting a number of complaints of questionable validity…..Folks who make those reports need to use some common sense.”

Nov. 30, 2011

“You have to start with the matter of probability. What every one of these (day care sex abuse) cases has in common is that no adult observer has actually seen a molestation in progress.

“Supposedly, these abuses are going on continually over a period of months. Almost always, they supposedly involve a number of adults and many children, with outsiders constantly walking in and out of these centers. Yet we have no corroborating eyewitnesses. None….

“Throughout it all, these children somehow always come home in the right shoes and socks and underpants. Do you have kids? Do you realize how hard it is to dress two kids in a hurry without some kind of mix-up, let alone 10 or 12 or 20 kids?”

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