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….
Which candidate cares about wrongful convictions?
April 8, 2016
“North Carolina’s attorney general (Roy Cooper) should set up a group to investigate claims of wrongful convictions to prevent more innocent people from being in prison, the head of the state NAACP said Thursday.
“The Rev. William Barber also called on Gov. Pat McCrory to establish a task force to recommend ways to strengthen protections against wrongful convictions….”
“Cooper’s office said a meeting was held with Barber and representatives of the NAACP: ‘We look forward to working with them to address systemic issues in the criminal justice system.” Cooper also wants more money for N.C. Innocence Inquiry Commission, which has been involved in releasing eight innocent men.
“McCrory’s office didn’t… respond to Barber’s comments….”
– From “NAACP: Attorney General should review wrongful convictions” by Martha Waggoner of the Associated Press (March 24) (text cache)
The latest addition to the long list of questionable North Carolina convictions comes from Gaston County (thank you, Elizabeth Leland of the Charlotte Observer). Least surprising sentence in Leland’s series: “The prosecutors who tried the case declined to be interviewed.”
‘If somebody killed a rabbit at my day care…’
April 12, 2013
In January 1993, supporters of the Edenton Seven held a press conference in Hertford to demand that North Carolina authorities bring to an end – in the words of Raymond Lawrence – “this continuing social catastrophe.”
Also speaking out were Doug Wiik of Langhorne, Pa., a day care owner who survived a close call with the mania, and Susan Corbett, director of a day care in Richmond, Va.
Ms. Corbett’s contribution also included weekly letters to Dawn Wilson while she was imprisoned and gifts for her baby at Easter.
Now retired, Ms. Corbett says she recognized immediately that the Little Rascals charges were preposterous: “There was no question in my mind. If somebody killed a rabbit at my day care, everybody in town would know it in 24 hours.”
So why did so many others succumb?
“I think people uncomfortable with sexuality bought into it more easily. The Bible Belt, the right wing and a perverted, anti-sexual stage of feminism all came together…. And the world of social work was being sold a bill of goods at that time – all that crap with (anatomically correct) dolls.”
Prosecutorial arrogance – it’s forever!
March 1, 2016
“It would be hard to imagine a more glaring judicial conflict of interest than the one the Supreme Court considered in a case out of Pennsylvania on Monday.
“In 1986, Terrance Williams was convicted of killing a man named Amos Norwood with a tire iron when he was 18. Prosecutors in the Philadelphia district attorney’s office sought the death penalty, and got it….
“A state court found that the prosecutors had lied, and vacated Mr. Williams’s sentence. But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously reversed that ruling. The court’s chief justice at the time, Ronald Castille, wrote a concurring opinion criticizing the lower court’s ruling for ‘condemning’ the prosecutors.
“The problem was that Mr. Castille himself led the district attorney’s office when it prosecuted Mr. Williams, and personally authorized seeking the death penalty in that case…. Nevertheless, he refused to recuse himself from Mr. Williams’s case….”
– From “Should a Judge Rule on His Own Case?” editorial in the New York Times (Feb. 29)
Meanwhile in North Carolina, prosecutors yet again show great interest in maintaining their conviction rate and little if any in ensuring justice has been done (text cache).
Shame links Edenton with other ‘ritual abuse’ sites
Oct. 11, 2015
“Satanism lacks a (Jim) Jones or (David) Koresh. Satanism has no Jonestown, no Waco, no Kool-Aid, no casual point of reference.
“This is because Satanic cults, as imagined in popular culture, do not exist.
“Still, some places across the country – West Memphis, Arkansas; Manhattan Beach, California; Edenton, North Carolina; Austin, Texas – belong to a brotherhood of cities united not by the stunned, silent grief of a tragedy like Waco’s, but by the shame of having left innocent families’ lives in ruin in the fervent pursuit of an imaginary evil….
“The ‘Satanic Panic’ of the 1980s and early ’90s was arguably even more frightening than a typical cult precisely because of this lack of a central figure or place; anybody could have been involved, and nobody was above suspicion….”
– From “Conviction of Things Not Seen: The Uniquely American Myth of Satanic Cults” by Dan Shewan at Pacific Standard (Oct. 8)