Aug. 19, 2016

The jury is empaneled in Farmville, N.C., where Bob Kelly’s trial has been moved because of pretrial publicity in Edenton.

Dennis T. Ray would turn out to be a major mischief-maker both inside and outside the jury room. Ray read aloud from a contraband Redbook article on how to identify child molesters,  disobeyed the court’s instruction not to visit the alleged crime scenes, reported that a jailhouse snitch had shared personal knowledge of Kelly’s guilt and displayed a supposed “magic key” referred to by several child witnesses.

Unfortunately, Judge Marsh McLelland told defense attorneys he didn’t consider Ray’s rogue behavior – or that of a second juror, who dramatically revealed during deliberations that he himself had been abused as a child – to be a “tremendous problem.”

At least three jurors would later express deep doubts about the guilty verdict.

Roswell Streeter, at 28 the youngest juror, would write:

“I’ll say this to the last day of my life, that the evidence that came through the courtroom did not prove that Bob Kelly committed any kind of sex abuse.” He told “Frontline” he had felt intimidated and confused.

Mary Nichols was suffering from advanced leukemia,  and Marvin Shackelford had suffered two heart attacks. Both acknowledged afterward that worries about their health had moved them to vote guilty simply to cut short deliberations and go home. It had been nine months since the trial began.

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)

Sept. 7, 2012

Having met with less than overwhelming interest earlier in the week in front of the bustling Charlotte Convention Center, I narrowed my focus.

Thursday I situated my “Exonerate” placard at the entrance to the peripheral and unhurried Crowne Plaza hotel, convention headquarters for the North Carolina Democratic Party, and our message was well received (except for an overly territorial security guard).

Not only did several delegates express support for the Edenton Seven, but also a dozen or so more took cards with the site address. And I was able to bend the ears of reporters from Greensboro, Rocky Mount and the Outer Banks, as well.

Yes, the delegates are mostly ordinary folks, not influential officials – I didn’t see Gov. Perdue – but I’m grateful they will take home a greater awareness of this shameful injustice, still unaddressed, in their own state.

June 15, 2012

“How did such a large group of child molesters assemble? This is not New York, this is Edenton, North Carolina.”

– Edward B. Simmons, making his closing argument on behalf of Dawn Wilson (Jan. 14, 1993)