June 29, 2014

“(The Little Rascals Day Care center) is red brick, with plate glass windows on the front. The two-story structure is located on East Eden Street, amid mostly modest one-family homes, oaks, azaleas and crape myrtles, just a few blocks from the beautiful bay and downtown.

“The neighborhood is quiet now, but as the case unfolded during the last two years, journalists from time to time set upon the area, seeking eyewitnesses to the alleged incidents. Several residents recently told a visitor they had seen none of the alleged acts.

“For some, hindsight is powerful in the wake of the allegations. Lenora Smith, who lives next door to the center, voiced ‘surprise’ at the charges but does remember that ‘a few things I saw were kind of unusual.’

“What?

“Well, Robert Kelly owned a plumbing business, but ‘at times he stayed over there (at the day-care center) a lot,’ she said….

“Some people here admit to being a bit jumpy since the allegations surfaced.

“Debbie Jones said, ‘I get paranoid.’ Extending her hand, palm down, she made it tremble, saying: ‘I’m like this if I’m with my kids in a public place.’

“In a building on the town’s main thoroughfare, South Broad Street, a young boy who looked about 5 years old, bolstered her point. As he walked out of an office into a hall, apparently heading for the bathroom, he looked over his shoulder and said stoically to a woman: ‘If I don’t come back, call the police.’”

– From “Child Abuse Charges at Day-Care Center Divide Formerly Close-Knit Community” by Lee May in the Los Angeles Times (June 8, 1991)

June 3, 2014

“I want all of you to ask yourselves: If you were to find yourself in the unfortunate circumstance of being the victim of a crime, who would you want representing your interest in the criminal justice system?

“Would you want someone like me, with 30 years experience as a veteran prosecutor, a person who has prosecuted every kind of criminal case there is?

“Or would you want someone like my opponent, whose entire criminal experience comes as in the role of being a criminal defense attorney, defending criminals who commit crimes against the people of the 1st District?”

– Little Rascals prosecutor Nancy Lamb, now a candidate for district attorney, comparing herself – most favorably! – with incumbent Andrew Womble

Lamb won the Democratic nomination for DA in last month’s primary and will face Republican Womble in the general election. Although her campaign website boasts that she has been  “nationally recognized for her work with child abuse,” it somehow neglects to mention her star turn in one of the country’s most publicized “satanic ritual abuse” prosecutions. Fortunately, the five months between now and Nov. 4 should provide ample opportunity for her to address that issue.

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….

Feb. 6, 2012

Michele L. Zimmerman, now associate professor emeritus of psychiatric nursing at Old Dominion University, was one of four therapists who collaborated with prosecutors in interviewing Bob Kelly’s supposed victims.

Their teamwork is obvious in this clumsily coercive set-up by Zimmerman and District Attorney H.P. Williams Jr. (cited by Dr. Moisy Shopper, a St. Louis psychiatrist who reviewed interview tapes for the defense):

Zimmerman to 4-year-old boy: “Mr. Williams needs to know what he (Kelly) did to you to keep him in jail.”

Williams: “I’m in charge of the police. I decide who goes to jail.”

Last week I asked Zimmerman two questions: Do you still believe the Little Rascals defendants were guilty? Were the children actually abused?

Her response:

“Patient confidentiality laws do not permit me to comment on this case, as the therapist-client privilege still exists. It is not my role to comment on the defendants’ guilt or innocence, as that is the charge for the finder of fact.”

In fact, Zimmerman did comment publicly at least once in the aftermath of Kelly’s conviction: “There are people in Edenton who are still mad at one another because Person A did not tell Person B about the abuse.”

A final question, Ms. Zimmerman: What if Person A simply had nothing to tell?