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….
X-factor in child-witnesses’ accounts: TV
Aug. 9, 2013
“(One) area of uncertainty is the extent to which sexual knowledge is learned by young children through exposure to either explicit or sexually suggestive materials on television, video and movies. Studies indicate that children watch from 14 to 23 hours of television a week with the highest level among preschoolers. About a third of them do so without parental involvement in what they watch.”
– From “Evidence Issues and ‘Lessons’ from State v. Kelly: Litigation of Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse” by Jeffrey L. Miller and W. Michael Spivey, presented at the 6th annual North Carolina Criminal Evidence Seminar, UNC School of Law (April 16, 1993)
Among the “suggestive materials” that aired during the early days of the Little Rascals allegations: “Do You Know the Muffin Man?”
High school students introduced to ‘Innocence Lost’
June 10, 2016
It’s heartening to see that, 25 years later, “Innocence Lost” is still shining light on the wrongful prosecution of the Edenton Seven – and for a younger audience! This is a note from Judy Griffin, a teacher at Hamilton High School in Michigan, who recently rediscovered Ofra Bikel’s eight-hour masterpiece:
“I want you to know how helpful it is (to have “Innocence Lost” available online). I teach in a resource room English class. The kids have no cognitive issues, but reading is a tremendous struggle. When they can receive the information through really good videos like this one, we can cover some great information.
“We start by reading Edward R. Murrow’s introduction to ‘This I Believe.’ Then the students create digital versions of their own. After that, they view ‘Good Night, and Good Luck.’ They have just learned about McCarthyism at this point in U.S. History, so it is fresh in their minds.
“We move then into The Crucible. The students are then asked to compare this to ‘Good Night, and Good Luck.’ They read ‘Why I wrote The Crucible’ by Arthur Miller.
“At the conclusion, we talk about how these hysterias are repeated and actually happened even prior to Salem. I introduce the Day Care scandal, and was thrilled to find the original ‘Frontline’ episodes. I had seen it when it aired!
“They are now researching various aspects of the hysteria. Some are looking at ‘satanic ritual abuse,’ some are looking at how hysteria spreads, some are researching what happened to the various defendants, and some are looking at the causes. We emphasize that this is not unique to any of these situations, and the point of this all is to show how vulnerable societies are to hysteria….”
In Guilford County, a DA who paid attention
Nov. 27, 2015
“We cannot bring criminal prosecutions based upon what we think the facts might be, out of our love for animals or in response to public pressure. Down that road lies the wreckage of the Duke lacrosse case, the Little Rascals Day Care case and other prosecutorial misadventures…..”
– District Attorney J. Douglas Henderson, explaining his dismissal of animal cruelty charges against the former director of the Guilford County (N.C.) Animal Shelter
An animal shelter isn’t a day care center, euthanasia isn’t “satanic ritual abuse” and Henderson’s decision hasn’t met with unanimous community support, but how encouraging to see a DA who seems to have learned appropriate lessons from two of the state’s most notorious “prosecutorial misadventures.”
McCrory fosters NC’s own costly moral panic
May 29, 2016
“It’s easy to whip people into a frenzy over a moral panic (such as ‘satanic ritual abuse’ in the 1980s). All you do is tell people there’s a vast segment of humanity that wants to prey on their children. You tell them that these predatory people aren’t like us – they’re outsiders with different values. And you make sure that the talking heads on TV keep the story alive.
“Is it possible that a moral panic could happen today?
“Just ask Gov. Pat McCrory, who has cost his state millions of dollars defending a law that allegedly protects North Carolina children from transgender bathroom-goers – a statewide crisis that suddenly popped into existence during an election year, conveniently enough.
“Moral panics still exist, and they’re still absurd. The only difference is, they’re a lot more expensive than they were back in the ’80s.”
– From “History warns us to beware of ‘moral panic’ ” by Ben R. Williams in the Martinsville (Va.) Bulletin (May 27)