Dec. 31, 2014

“Dear Mr. Powell:

“At their meeting on December 16, the members of the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Advisory Committee… voted unanimously not to approve a marker (in Edenton recognizing the Little Rascals Day Care case).

“Your nomination was among 17 on the agenda (only five met with approval)…. In short, the committee felt that the case was too recent – with too many people affected by it living in the area. They felt that much more time needed to pass before the subject could be judged by history and considered for a marker. One suggestion was that it might be considered 25 years after the deaths of those convicted…..”

– From a letter rejecting my application for a “history on a stick” marker for the Little Rascals case

I respect the committee’s reasoning, even though I doubt I’ll be around when it’s ready to reconsider – in what, 2075?

June 21, 2013

From blog commenter Mike:

“I’d seen the ‘Frontline’ episodes long ago, before I moved to North Carolina. I was surprised to learn, when I recently revisited the case, that this travesty happened in a state I love.

“For historians who might want to get a taste of what it was like to live in Salem in the late 17th century (or, to invoke a less well-known era, Germany of the 15th century), this staggering case would serve them well…. The unrepentant prosecutors, ignorant ‘therapists’ and others who ruined the lives of the defendants must not be allowed to be forgotten.”

Mike’s reference to the infamous Malleus Maleficarum, published in 1484 by two German friars to squelch skepticism about the existence of witchcraft, is painfully apt. Just substitute “satanic ritual abuse” for “witchcraft,” and – poof! – up in smoke go five centuries of the ascent of man.

Sept. 8, 2015

“Jennifer (a pseudonym) reached out to me after seeing an interview I gave about the McMartin Preschool trial…. She said she had been involved in a similar case as a child and that her experiences with the police, the judicial system, and a series of therapists mirrored those of the McMartin children. Now an adult with a career and family of her own, she agreed to speak with me about her experiences during the trial and in the decades since….

“Jennifer’s experiences illustrate the consequences of the misguided ‘belief’ in children that so many therapists, parents, and cops professed during the 1980s….”

– From “Moral Panic and the Myth of Recovered Memory” by Richard Beck at Literary Hub (Aug. 18) 

Although Beck presents more as a historian than a journalist, his interview with Jennifer is a significant addition to the sparse roster of recanting (or not) child-witnesses. Not surprisingly, her account offers numerous parallels not only to McMartin but also to Little Rascals:

• “lots of phone conversations and meetings” among parents
• an interviewer with “anatomically correct dolls”
• her initial insistence that “nothing had happened”
• “a tour of the jail” arranged by the therapist to assure her that the supposed molester was safely behind bars
• her capitulation in the face of endless therapy sessions, leading her to “finally just start… making stuff up.”
• the eventual overturning of her day-care teacher’s conviction

Might Jennifer’s coming forward, however tentatively, lead the way to more recantations by child-witnesses?

Sept. 29, 2015

“Thomas Quick was the name adopted by Swedish petty criminal and drug addict Sture Bergwall, who under ‘recovered memory’ therapy, confessed to raping, killing and even eating more than 30 victims (during the 1970s and ’80s).

“These were supposedly reenactments of ‘recovered memories of sexual abuse’ he had experienced as a child.

“Extraordinarily compelling in the dock as a witness to his own ‘crimes’ (which he had never committed), he was convicted of eight murders. He had trawled newspapers for unsolved killings and convinced the Swedish police that he was responsible – even though he never led them to a single body.

“In 2008, his ‘confessions’ were shown to be untrue and by 2013 the last of his convictions was overturned. The Swedish government has ordered an inquiry into this devastating failure of its justice system. There will be lessons in it for our own (British) authorities.”

– From “Is the therapy that brings out false memories behind VIP abuse claims?” by Dominic Lawson in the Daily Mail  (Sept. 20)

How about that – a government that wants to examine “the devastating failure of its justice system”! If the State of North Carolina ever felt such an urge, I think I could come up with a case or two that meet that description….