Frontline is a presentation of the documentary consortium.
Tonight on Frontline, a disturbing portrait of a town divided.
A line has been drawn right down the middle, either on one side or you on the other.
And there is no crossing over.
There are the accusers.
Everything that I'm telling you is coming from my child.
Petsy participated and physically and sexually abused these children, just as Bob did.
And the accused.
I don't understand how anybody could think that that happened.
We had a real good day here.
The question in Edenton, North Carolina is, who is innocent and who is guilty?
In the bottom of my heart, I mean, I know they're guilty.
If the way my son was questioned and badgered is an indication of how the other kids were interviewed,
I don't find it difficult to believe these kids are now believing something happened that didn't.
Tonight on Frontline, Innocence Lost.
With funding provided by the financial support of viewers like you.
And by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
This is Frontline.
On the coast of North Carolina, on Albemarle Sound, is the town of Edenton.
Settled in the late 17th century, it's proud of its colonial past and its gracious way of life.
It's a conservative town, church-going, protective of its community.
Six thousand people live here.
Half white, half black.
But these days, a shadow has fallen over life in Edenton.
A shadow cast by an extraordinary legal case.
A felonies for which punishment upon conviction would be not less than life imprisonment
and possibly more than seven additional consecutive terms of life imprisonment.
That bail was originally set in...
Anything of significance that happens in Edenton is talked about here, over coffee and the morning paper.
We don't talk about it.
We just don't talk about it.
I just really not disgusted.
A lot of people are angry that it happened, upset that it could happen, you know, in their hometown.
I told you I couldn't talk about it.
And if you don't know why, then you haven't learned much about Edenton.
What they won't talk about is the case, a case that involves the leading families in the town.
These are long-standing families around here.
It's a small town.
I mean, if they grew up here and we grew up here and were the same age, you just know them.
They're the people who meet each other at their many cocktail parties and gatherings.
The parents who know each other.
The friends who play golf together.
That's a hard, hard thing for me.
Scott Privet, one of the defendants, lived right down the street.
His father was a Superior Court judge, and I played golf with him every day of my life.
Matter of fact, probably the only time I've ever come close to really, really being hurt was I was hit.
He hit me in the head with a putter when I was about 13 years old and my eye almost closed.
So I've known him very, very well growing up.
Defendant Scott Privet, son of a judge, was the president of the country club.
His co-defendant, Bob Kelly, was the golf pro.
He also ran a local plumbing business and helped his wife, Betsy, with her business.
Betsy, who grew up in Edenton, who everyone knew and everyone loved.
Lynn Layton also grew up in Edenton.
My earliest recollection of Betsy was in high school at the country club.
She was lifeguarding, and I would go out to lie out by the pool.
I remember wonderful conversations sitting on the side of the pool with our legs dangling in the water and talking and just laughing.
She was real witty.
Betsy was the type of person that you knew her for five minutes and you felt like you'd known her all of your life.
You could talk to Betsy and just tell her everything, all of your innermost feelings.
You could tell Betsy.
She was a good friend.
Fifty cents. No.
Unless you want a donut. Yes, darling.
Jane Mabry came to live in Edenton in the late 70s after she was married.
I enjoyed Edenton. It was restful. It was comfortable.
And I started to establishing support systems, reaching out to people,
trying to find people sort of to substitute for the mother and father and the siblings that I didn't have.
And one of those people was Betsy Kelly.
She was a good friend. She really was.
Betsy Kelly's sister is Nancy Smith.
We're better friends than we are sisters, I guess.
We did everything together. We shopped together. We ate lunch together.
Nobody quite appreciates my sense of humor like she does.
It's hard to, it's hard.
Sometimes I go to the phone even now and I think, well, I'll call and ask her about this or that.
It's hard.
Betsy and Nancy's father is Warren Twitty.
We're a family, a very close family.
You can imagine we're close in a lot of families.
Betsy was always the type, was a hung type.
She used to ride with me when she was a baby. Nancy never did.
But Betsy would get in my truck when I drove the truck or my wagon and she would go with me in.
She was an athlete in the family, which I was an athlete, and she was an athlete in the family.
We played basketball and we would just seem to be closer for some reason.
In 1987, Betsy turned to her father for help.
She wanted to expand the small daycare center she was running.
Betsy and Bob came to me and this is what they wanted to do and I came across this old bottling plant.
I did negotiate a deal to buy the bottling plant and that's when I designed it myself
and I thought it would be a future for them and something that they could have.
The former bottling plant that Warren Twitty bought and rented to his daughter
became the most prestigious daycare in Edenton.
It was called Little Rascals.
Today, the Little Rascals Daycare Center is at the heart of the case.
This is the place where it is alleged that Betsy Kelly and her husband Bob,
together with five other defendants, committed child sexual abuse.
Anything further?
The prosecution alleges that dozens of children, most of them between the ages of two and five,
were abused at Little Rascals.
There are 29 children that are named in the indictments involving these seven defendants.
For almost two years, friends, parents, and family members have been following every stage of the proceedings.
But no one has done so more than Betsy Kelly's sister Nancy and Betsy's best friend Jane.
They follow every motion.
They're at every hearing.
But they sit on different sides.
Jane behind the prosecution.
Nancy with the defense.
Today, Jane says that she had a premonition that this would happen.
Nancy believes that Jane initiated it.
It all started two and a half years ago with the opening of the new daycare center
and what seemed a minor incident involving Jane's son Joel.
Joel was then four years old and attending Little Rascals.
The first week that Betsy Kelly and Bob Kelly opened their new Little Rascals at their new location,
I walked home with my son Joel and he said,
Please don't make me ever go back there, Mommy.
I was slapped.
And at that moment, I knew that life would never be the same again.
And I'm not really sure why.
But if I couldn't trust a daycare owned by my best friend for my child to be safe in,
then I knew that I probably wouldn't be able to trust much of anything else.
God is great. God is good. Let us thank him for our food.
By his hands we all are fed.
People took slapping initially as not being a particularly important cause for concern.
But it's symptomatic.
Did I foresee anything like sexual abuse?
In retrospect, I always felt that there would be something that was going to happen that would be traumatic
simply because I felt everything was so calm and tranquil.
One by one they take me back to the days when...
But soon nothing would be calm and tranquil anymore in Edenton.
Behind the Southern friendliness and gracious manners, rumors began to spread.
Rumors that something had happened to the children at the town's best daycare center.
Rumors of physical abuse.
Rumors of sexual abuse.
I heard about the case from Bob and Betsy.
I walked in the door to carry my children in one morning,
and Bob met me at the door with his arms folded.
He said, I have something to tell you.
I said, what?
He said, well, I've been accused of abusing a child.
I said, Bob? Physical abuse?
He said, no, sexual abuse.
I felt like all of the air had just been sucked out of me.
I hugged him. I wanted to console him.
Bob, what can I do for you?
I'm so sorry. I don't believe this.
I just can't believe this is happening to you.
I'm so sorry.
Bob cried.
I was just in shock from what I heard.
Who could be doing this to Bob and Betsy?
It was my first thought. These wonderful people.
And I remember I was standing there beside another mother,
and both of us sort of looked at each other and thought,
well, this is just a bad joke, you know,
that somebody's playing against him.
This is some way to get at him, you know,
for something that if they had a grudge against him, I don't know.
I asked him who would make this ridiculous charge.
And I laugh now, and it's all so ironic.
But I was very shocked.
And none of it made any sense.
Things like this don't happen here.
And I can't stop this jukebox in my mind.
Betsy Kelly's sister, Nancy,
sometimes helped out at the daycare center.
At the very beginning, parents did exactly what I did as a parent.
We went, oh, there's something terribly wrong here.
I'm misunderstanding. This will all work out.
Don't worry about it.
People brought food to the daycare.
People sent flowers.
People sent letters, wonderfully supportive letters and cards,
and said this is all something terrible, misunderstanding.
It will work out. Don't worry.
Keep your chin up.
Then, and how Betsy did this, I will never know.
Then every morning between 630 and 8 o'clock,
the phone would begin to ring.
And an irate parent would say everything they ever wanted to say to anyone,
to her, to Betsy on the phone,
and tell her that their children wouldn't be back to the daycare that day or ever again.
They told her what they thought of Betsy's heritage,
of Bob's state of mind,
and what they hoped would happen to them in the near future.
And she dealt with that every morning from 630 until 8 o'clock,
and then she went to the bathroom and cried real hard and washed her face
and took care of the children who came.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
It was still not clear what the case against Bob involved.
The investigation had gone from social services to the police department
and then to the county's district attorney, H.B. Williams.
Consider that to be too pertinent here.
Chris Bean, the most prominent lawyer in Edenton, had been hired to represent Kelly.
In late January of 1989, someone made a complaint to the Department of Social Services
that there was child abuse.
During that period of time, of course, there were no charges.
And I was representing him in the sense of we were trying to determine
just really what the nature of these allegations were.
We heard rumors around town, of course,
and people in town stopped speaking to Kelly.
They stopped speaking to me because I was their lawyer.
I think they stopped speaking to Grace because she was my wife during that period of time.
And we were just really trying to find out some specifics,
but we were never able to find out any specifics.
While Chris Bean was trying to find out specifics,
he and his wife began to notice that they were losing their friends.
People who had been our friends for years who would not even look at us, would not speak to us.
Grace even went to one of our friends and said,
What's wrong? What's the matter?
And she said, Nothing. Nothing's the matter.
But it was obvious.
It was obvious that something was wrong and she wouldn't tell me.
And said, Oh, everything's fine, but continue not to speak to me.
And that's very confusing.
And it hurts.
Jim Baker is an airline captain.
His work took him in and out of his home in Edenton.
There was a period for a few weeks or a month or I don't know what the time frame was
that there were names being bandied about the town of people involved here.
And I said to myself, Now, wait a minute, this is getting ridiculous.
I said, You could just go out and say anything.
I could walk out on the street and say someone's name and say, Did you know that?
And all of a sudden, the next day it would go full circle.
It would stay in the loop and come around the loop and come right back at me.
And it was so easy to start something.
And I said, This is nonsense to have this kind of nonsense being talked around here
and dragging in all of these names, these preposterous names.
And I said, I just think we should not discuss this type of thing
and be careful what kind of names you're bringing up because it serves no useful purpose.
It was in this atmosphere of rumor and speculation
that Chris Bean represented Bob Kelly at the first court hearing.
The probable cause hearing was scheduled for April the 25th.
And on the date of that probable cause hearing,
the district attorney and one of the police officers advised me
right before we entered court for the hearing
that my son had been named as one of the children who had been sexually abused.
And they told me that the reason they were telling me
is that a grandmother of another child who had named my son
had told them that unless I was told and this grandmother was going to tell me herself
that I was a father first and a lawyer second.
And I was shaking, just really devastated by it
and had to go into the courtroom and represent him with that information.
And then it was shortly after that that I talked to the grandmother
and then withdrew from the case and confronted Bob with what had been said.
Did you believe it right off the bat?
Well, I didn't know what to believe.
I guess it's the lawyer's worst nightmare that you could ever have, almost.
I understand that they had this information from January that my son had been abused.
But they hadn't told me in those three months period of time, had all that opportunity,
but yet they were telling me minutes before we walked into the courtroom.
So I didn't know what to think.
I didn't know if they were just saying that to throw me completely out of kilter
before we had to go in the courtroom or just what.
So at that point, of course, I withdrew from the case.
He came out to my parents' home to let them know that he could not represent Bob and why.
He was very honest, very forthright.
Betsy was not here, although she was living here at the time.
She was not here.
And when we got home that night, I happened to be with her.
We got home that night and mother and daddy told us what had happened.
She called Chris and he invited us to his office to discuss it that evening even.
So we went into town.
And when Chris told her why he would have to withdraw his services from Bob,
it all sort of just hit her in the face.
She began to realize that this was not going to stop.
It was going to spread to every part of everywhere.
And that everybody that she knew was going to be drug into this.
It was a wonderful moment to be perfectly honest.
And as I've told Chris, I had a great deal of trouble him taking the case.
Jane Mayberry, who knew she was being blamed by Betsy's family for starting the rumors, felt vindicated.
I guess I was concerned as I told him.
I said, Chris, you believe those lies that they were telling about me.
I mean, you know that I could make this up.
How could anybody believe somebody would make it up about a friend?
But see, what I realize now is it was much easier to believe that I had made this up
than it was to believe that the people that you thought were taking good care of your children,
Bob and Betsy Kelly, could be doing this to your children.
I think that once one or two of those people who had so much faith in the daycare
started to believe it, that it just went like wildfire.
Everybody accepted that something was going on.
By April 1989, the investigation led to the arrest of Bob Kelly.
Bob continued in his plumbing business until he was arrested.
We were able to post bond.
More charges appeared, and Bob was arrested the second time.
Second time we could not post bond.
We couldn't make it.
We didn't have anything else to sell.
So Betsy closed up the house, moved in with Mom and Dad, she and Laura.
And on the first day of September, they came and arrested her.
Did they say why?
They said that she had done these things too.
And if they weren't sure about that, they were sure of the fact that she knew Bob did them.
So they had her either way.
So they came out here.
They came out to my parents' home and arrested her out of the shower
and handcuffed her and put her in a patrol car
and took her to town where she sat for hours in the police station
while parents paraded past her and looked at her
and called other parents to come down and look at her.
Why?
I don't know why.
I don't know why.
Betsy's arrest was quickly followed by the arrest of her co-workers.
Robin Byram worked with two and three-year-olds at the daycare center,
but her name hadn't been connected with the case until now.
She was arrested on 21 charges, returned on Monday by the Chawan County grand jury.
One count of conspiracy, eight counts of first degree sex offense,
11 counts of indecent liberties, and one count of crime against nature.
And new charges against the daycare's owners.
Almost 100 new counts against Bob Kelly.
26 new charges against his wife, Betsy Kelly.
49 new counts against video store owner Willard Scott Privet.
And four new counts each against former daycare workers
Catherine Dawn Wilson and Shelly Alice Stone.
I will tell you that all seven people are charged with conspiracy
and they're charged together.
Between January and September 1989, the prosecution's case expanded radically.
Of course, the allegations began in January,
and with that one child, that child had made most of the disclosures by that time.
By February, of course, it was three children.
And, you know, the length of time varies with each child.
By September, there were so many more children involved
that a special prosecutor was added, Bill Hart.
There are 90-some children that have been involved in therapy
and have disclosed some form of abuse.
We made the decision to stop bringing charges
or to only bring charges involving the children we thought at that point
were old enough, emotionally stable enough, verbal enough
to be able to go into a courtroom and actually testify in front of a jury
in front of a defendant and be cross-examined by a defense attorney.
It would be an understatement to say this small northeastern North Carolina town
is scandalized by the little rascal daycare case,
by the terrible things that are supposed to have happened to children here,
and by the number of supposedly trusted people who are accused.
In all, the seven defendants are charged with 429 separate criminal offenses.
Betsy Kelly, fondling children,
placing her finger in children's anuses and vaginas,
having intercourse with her husband in front of children,
inserting pencils, sticks, and scissors into children's genitals,
photographing abuse, and more.
Bob Kelly, raping and sodomizing children,
having intercourse with co-workers in front of the children,
inserting a knife into the anus of a child,
putting his penis in children's mouths, and more.
Scott Privet, raping a child,
tying children up and holding a knife to their faces,
having sex with Bob Kelly in the presence of children,
forcing children to have intercourse with each other, and more.
Robin Byram, touching and fondling children,
inserting scissors into the vaginal opening of a child,
forcing children to urinate and defecate on each other,
being nude in front of children, photographing abuse, and more.
Don Wilson, having intercourse, oral and anal sex with Bob Kelly
in front of the children, and forcing children to participate,
inserting a play hammer into a child's anal opening, and more.
Two other women, Shelly Stone and Darlene Harris,
are also charged with multiple counts.
They were released on bail.
Sometimes when you just can't,
you can't live in the land of reality anymore,
it all gets too scary and too confusing.
Just for a little bit, you let yourself wonder,
what if, where did it all go wrong?
And I know that if Jane's son, Joel,
had not been slapped in Little Rascal's daycare,
that I would have my sister, Laura would have her mom,
we'd have our family, and our lives would be moving forward.
It has been over two years since little Joel allegedly misbehaved
and was slapped by Bob Kelly at Little Rascal's.
But Jane remembers it as if it were yesterday.
I just felt like that my world had crumbled,
and it was a feeling.
It doesn't lend itself easily to being defined by words,
but walking up Oakham Street, which is outside our house,
from Little Rascal's, which is the next street
from where we're sitting now,
I knew that life as I knew it would never be the same.
Life for Nancy and her family would never be the same either
from that day on.
Betsy's friend, Jane, showed up at the daycare center that day,
expecting Betsy to be very contrite
and expecting her to apologize profusely.
Betsy didn't do it.
And we had a very bad scene.
I was crying and weeping and saying,
how could this happen?
At the time, still thinking it was an accident,
but knowing I could never bring Joel back down there
unless he understood that adults can make mistakes
and they can rectify them, and that was never done.
And somehow in my mind, I picture her going back to her house
as I've known her to do on other issues and just seething.
And the more she thought about Betsy not groveling
and apologizing, the madder she got.
And she came to the daycare a second time
looking for an apology,
looking for more than she got the first time,
giving Betsy a second chance.
And poor Betsy didn't take that one either.
This was September.
In October and November, I spent a lot of time praying,
ruminating, thinking something's not right.
It was just like this gut feeling.
There's something not right.
By then, Joel had been out of the daycare for two months
and had not been asked back.
I was hoping that both Bob and Betsy would realize
that losing Joel was a loss,
mainly because he was my son and Betsy and I were friends.
Her husband Mike also became involved.
James was the one on the front line up to that point,
and it was about time for me to do something to confront.
So I went on down there telling them that I was concerned
about the slapping, that we had not talked about it
to anyone else at that point,
but that I was going to consider myself free to talk about it
from that point on.
I was simply being honest with them about what we were going to do.
Betsy came back and said,
will you tell Jane to go ahead and talk about me behind my back
all she wants?
That was about the end of it.
If Betsy had been different and acted differently that day
and had been more magnanimous and said,
oh, I'm so sorry and we really want Joel back,
I would have bought it.
And I'm not so sure that I would have been where I was
when this whole investigation broke.
I could very well have been her advocate.
She knew what legal steps to take.
She knew that legally physical abuse,
which is what she thought she was justified in charging,
wasn't going to close the daycare.
One incidence wasn't going to do it.
Another parent evidently stumbled into Betsy's friend,
and Betsy's friend knew how to take what this other parent was
talking about and use it, and she did.
My understanding is this one particular mother I talked to
was concerned in our talking, it raised some more red flags,
and she pursued it and found that it wasn't a physical abuse
that was taking place, but that it was sexual abuse.
And that's what precipitated the investigation
by the social services.
What exactly precipitated the first investigation?
What the child said and under what circumstances?
The prosecution is keeping to itself until the trial.
What the trial may not reveal is what role Jane had
in the first investigation.
Nancy has no doubts.
She took it and directed this parent to the correct
legal channels that would blow this thing sky high.
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Music playing.
While Edenton tried to resume normal life,
the legal proceedings dragged on.
By December 1990, Betsy Kelly, 35 years old,
had been in jail for over a year,
unable to make her bond set at $1 million.
Her husband, Robert Kelly, 42, had been in jail for 20 months.
His bond set at $1.5 million.
Their 7-year-old daughter, Laura,
had been in the care of Betsy's sister, Nancy.
Scott Privet, 41, had been in jail for over a year.
His bond set at $1 million.
His wife had continued to live and work in the area.
Dawn Wilson, 25, had been in jail for over a year.
Unable to meet her bond set at $880,000.
Her 3-year-old daughter was being raised by her parents.
By December, Robin Byram, 20, had been in jail for almost a year.
Her bond set at half a million dollars.
Her 19-month-old son was being cared for by her husband.
Two defendants, Shelly Stone and Darlene Harris,
have been out on bail.
Music playing.
However much life went on in Edenton,
the case was on everyone's mind.
People talked.
It's a small town where everyone knows everyone else.
A town with one main street
where everyone knows everyone else's children.
A town where when someone talks, other people listen.
And that's how many of the parents
first found out their children might be involved.
One friend came by herself to tell me that she knew
that our son had been named by seven other children.
She wouldn't come to me without knowing for sure
and without having found out to be positive
before she came to me with that information.
I had made a phone call fairly early on
when the first allegations came out to one of the mothers
and asked her if she was certain beyond any doubt
that something happened at that daycare.
Could she tell me that?
And she said, yes, I have no doubt.
And I had respected her enough.
And I knew there was something.
I just didn't know.
And I thought perhaps Annie had seen something.
And it never occurred to me that she may have been involved.
Why didn't you ask your son?
We asked our son.
And we know now in retrospect,
having researched on these kinds of things,
that the first reaction of the victim is going to be denial.
And he denied it.
He denied it before that.
I had asked him just very briefly to get his reaction
without putting things into his head.
And we believed him,
just like everybody else believed their child.
Lisa Baker did not believe her child when she denied it.
Lisa was convinced something had happened at the daycare.
Well, after you get over the shock and the realization
that something has happened,
I became very obsessed with having to know exactly what happened.
I had to know what happened to her.
I'd go down to the police department
and see what I can get from them.
And in the course of a criminal investigation,
they can't divulge that, and they never have.
But it was a drive in me
and I just had to play out.
And I pushed my little one and pushed her
until she just had to close up.
I want to ask you a real hard question.
I'm told that many children deny that they were abused,
and the parents didn't see any signs of abuse either.
Is it possible that if you let the children alone
that they would be all right?
I'm going to say no.
I think things would have...
There were things that were...
She had lots...
My child had lots of anger before she opened up.
There were lots of violent temper tantrums.
And things that she was keeping bottled up
that had to come out.
And they were coming out
and really violent temper tantrums.
And I really didn't know where they were coming from.
He slept on the floor.
He started out coming into our bedroom
about five times a night.
And he would be so afraid to go in his room.
And I just thought this was something normal
for a two-and-a-half, three-year-old child.
But this continued on for ten months,
and he would be absolutely petrified.
In order to draw their children out,
the parents were encouraged by the police and the prosecution
to send their children to therapists.
The therapists they recommended
talked to over 90 children
and psychologically evaluated them.
Nearly all of them, it was decided, needed treatment.
And over the next year,
almost all of them would disclose details of sexual abuse.
It was a long process,
and we took her to be evaluated.
And it took about ten months before she felt comfortable
and safe enough to indicate
that there was something that had happened there.
He wouldn't tell me for a long time,
but finally, after going through therapy,
it eventually came out.
Once the children got into therapy
and started working it out,
it didn't come right away.
It took quite a while.
But once it started, it was just devastating.
Because of the upcoming trial,
none of the parents were allowed to discuss
what the children actually said.
But whatever was said,
the parents were convinced.
There is not one hair on my body
that even has a doubt.
I am completely positive
they did this.
I've seen and heard enough of my little girl
and seen her reactions
and her nightmares and so forth.
Now, I have no doubts.
Sadly, I have no doubts.
Brenda Ambrose has no doubts either,
even though believing her child
is more difficult for her than for most parents.
Because while her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Nicole,
was allegedly being abused,
Brenda was right next door,
taking care of other children.
Brenda was a full-time worker
in the Little Rascals Day Care Center.
Right up until the time they closed,
I still didn't believe it happened.
I mean, I worked there every day.
Something like that would have happened.
I would have seen it.
But it happened.
I've got to say it happened from my own experience
with having my daughter and everything.
I've got to say that it did happen.
But if the court of law asked me,
did it happen, I would have to say,
I didn't see anything,
because I didn't see anything.
I knew Bob for about 10 years.
I worked with his father-in-law.
I knew Betsy, Nancy, the whole family.
And I didn't think it was true.
And Nicole talked about it.
Nicole talked about it
after she started going to psychology.
She'd be sitting in front of the TV
and come right out with it and start talking about it.
People just don't know.
I mean, there's a lot of people out there
that their children have been through it
and they don't even know it, I'm sure.
And the people that have gone through it,
I never thought I'd have to go through it.
I never thought any of us would have to go through it.
Not our little girl.
Our little girl wouldn't be involved
in nothing like that, not around here.
And not around the place where you were?
That's right, not there.
Of all places, not there.
You were there.
That's right. I was there every day.
Except for lunch.
And there was a couple of days
when I had doctor's appointments
or something like that.
I still lay in bed at night right now
thinking about how they could have done it.
How could they have done it with me
right there in the room across the hall?
So what do you feel now?
What do you believe?
Do you believe that all those people
who knew molested these children?
I tell you, I don't know what to believe.
You know, I don't know what to believe.
I don't know who to trust, who not to trust.
It's just like me and Alan
talked about it after it happened.
You know, of all the people that we would have
let Nicole stay with, we would have let Nicole
stay with Bob and Betsy and Laura, the little girl.
I mean, we would have trusted them.
And if we would have trusted them
and we thought they were such good people
and turn around and find this out,
you know, who do you trust?
Trust had been broken.
Edenton seemed the same.
But it was not.
A line has been drawn, basically.
You're sort of right down the middle.
And you're either on one side
or you're on the other.
There is no crossing over, as far as I'm concerned.
And I believe I'm speaking
for everyone I know.
I don't believe that
anyone who is suspected
of being a
sexual molester of children
could be accepted in any
part of this community.
Suspected.
Brenda Ambrose
is suspected.
Brenda, who believes that her own
daughter was sexually abused,
she is suspected because she worked
at Little Rascals.
You walk into a
place, a room where a meeting is going on
about what has happened
in a little town of Edenton and a little
Rascals daycare.
As a matter of fact,
the last meeting that me and Alan went, or before that
that I went to, there was a man up there
that said he wouldn't rest until everybody
was in jail.
Everybody that was involved with the
daycare was in jail.
Including you? Including me, everybody.
Everybody that worked there.
Whether you worked there three weeks or
eight months or two years.
Nancy, Betty?
Huh? That means Nancy?
Yeah, anybody.
Anybody that was involved
that worked there should be
in jail. That's what he said.
Betty Ann Phillips
also worked at Little Rascals.
Her son Daniel was also
allegedly abused there.
Now, she is also suspected.
When you walk into a store or restaurant,
then you're always scanning
the crowd. You're always looking
and on the watch out for what people are going to say
or how they're going to look at you or
what they're going to do with their children when they see you.
And, you know,
in several cases, when I've been walking
down the street pushing my baby in his stroller,
then parents will actually
snatch their children up and yell at
me, don't touch my child. Although,
you know, you probably already have touched my child.
Don't you touch my child. And, you know,
people out on the streets are listening to this.
Are they being cruel?
It's so immature
that they're not being cruel.
I mean, they're making themselves look
ridiculous.
But, yeah, they're trying to be cruel.
The best they know how.
What is your life like now?
I just do what I have
to do with my daily work and buy
my own business and come home.
Warren Twitty is Betsy Kelly's
father.
People don't come in my office like they used to.
They want to come out and have a chat with me.
I ask my opinion.
In politics or anything.
I used to be very active in local
politics.
But I don't get asked to participate
in anything since this has come up.
I used to go to McDonald's
for breakfast a morning or sit and have coffee.
But that whole group now,
they don't even want to speak to me or have
anything to do with me. So I had to change where
I went and I go to Hardee's mornings for
my coffee with Mr. Midgett, who is my
office manager.
And we sit and talk.
Things are no easier for Alice Twitty,
who for the last 20 years has been a court
clerk in Edenton.
She sits across the room from the files
which contain the criminal charges against
her daughter and son-in-law.
When I decided at the beginning
of this incident that
if I were going to
keep working,
then I would have to deal with this.
I would have to handle
because it's a part of the job.
I think you know when
you're being isolated.
We're just off the list.
You want to put it bluntly.
We're just off the list.
You want to put it bluntly.
Because people are not
inviting you
because it may be
they just don't want
to be with you.
Because it could have
repercussions.
Is going to church any help?
Well, that's funny.
Pardon me.
Cut it out.
I can't do it.
I mean this
has just been a very
bad experience for us.
And fortunately
in our lives
we've not had to deal with
this
these type things.
And so this was totally new.
All of this.
Anything involved in it.
Anything pertaining to it.
We just never had to deal with this
or this type thing.
It's been
a tough road.
I'll try.
Churches
have been very difficult for me.
Well, I have been
a superintendent at Sunday School.
I've been on board of ushers.
I've been a Sunday School teacher.
I've been a department head.
And no one in the
church except the preacher has been to this
house.
I should have come up
for reelection on the usher board and I
was not asked.
We go
because it's our church.
I'll always
go.
It's a sad
life.
It's something I never thought
that I would
ever have to handle.
But apparently
I do have to handle it.
And I'm trying
to do that.
They all try.
Here I am.
How are you today sir?
Very well thank you.
Run away.
Run away.
Where is
baby? Where is
baby? Here
I am. Here
I am.
Sylvia Davidson had opened her daycare
the same week that Betsy Kelly opened
hers.
Run away.
And it happened that little rascals affected
her too.
There have been several times where
I've thought about closing now.
The only thing is
is where do these children go?
Run away.
Run away.
You think about it every day.
You think about the fact that it could
potentially
have been you.
And that's
a scary thought to think that
your livelihood hangs
on the balance like that.
Wait just a minute.
There's a fear factor there
of being questioned at anything that you do
or say.
We in the beginning became very
cautious
on the way that we hug
children. Children need hugs
and kisses and that should not
deter us from
giving those.
It does.
In a lot of ways it is a quiet, tranquil little town.
Unfortunately that
quiet tranquility
is the part that
is covering up
a lot of sadness, a lot of pain, a lot of
anger.
How in the world
will I ever be able to undo
all the damage, clear the
monsters, erase all those
ghostly memories that a five-year-old
could endure for months and months
alone?
Fearful in her kindergarten class
to close her eyes at nap time.
Fearful that someone will touch
her where she was always told
was private to her.
What went through her mind
when upon being rescued at five o'clock
when I said
hug them and tell them you had a nice
day.
They made me a part of all of this.
I then
became a victim also.
A mother can't help feeling
guilty. You put your children into a
situation, a dangerous
situation, unknowing.
And you can't help
feel guilty.
During the time that I was having
to know what had happened, I
became so obsessed with it that I
neglected a lot of
things.
Annie's older sister was going
through a very difficult time also.
And even with a marriage, that was neglected.
We've had some bad times. She's had some
hard days that I just kind of had to
remove myself and go for a long bike
ride because
she was so caught up.
My job
requires a hundred percent. Of course any good job,
any person that does a good job requires a hundred percent
but I think mine especially so
because when I'm sitting in the cockpit of a
jet airplane 37,000
feet over the Rocky Mountains with 140
people strapped behind me, I can honestly tell
you I do not think about my
daughter's trauma.
I guess for that reason I've been able to
dismiss myself from a lot of it.
I needed him to share my frustration
and my anger.
And he, he
did not always do that.
I was in a rage.
I was mad.
I was
disappointed, felt like
been betrayed.
I just
can't explain it.
I just
went crazy.
I left, I left the house.
I left.
He left us in a situation
where we should have pulled together. He should have been
there with me and Nicole
because we both needed him.
If we ever needed him, we needed him then.
And
I was bitter,
real bitter that he would
leave, leave us
alone like that
and not be there for us.
And
like I said, he
dealt with it his own way.
He didn't talk to me. He didn't deal with it
with me.
It was like I was an outsider.
You know, he could talk
about it to other people, but he couldn't talk
to me about it.
And
he was scared, you know,
after this, he was scared of how to
to be towards Nicole.
I mean, you know, before
daddy gave Nicole a bath, you know,
and he was scared.
He was scared of, you know,
how she would react, even though that was her daddy.
You know, it was all
different then, you know.
It was like she wasn't our little
girl anymore, you know.
She was, but she wasn't. She wasn't the same
child that,
you know, do you understand what I'm saying?
She is completely different.
Aren't they pretty?
Betsy and Bob Kelly's daughter,
Laura, eight years old,
is also a different child now.
Do you know
that that was taken at three
o'clock? Laura has a problem with being angry.
She's very angry
and she just doesn't know who to be angry
with. She
has had her whole
world taken away from
her, everything that she
knows and understands
has either been forcibly
removed from her or sold
or packed away.
When you were about two weeks old.
About a month ago, Laura began
to call me mommy
and call Jimmy daddy.
And the first time
she did it, we were standing
in the kitchen and I remember I was
cutting an apple for their school
after school snack
and I whirled around and I said, I'm not
your mommy.
And it scared her and I
felt terrible after I'd done it, but that's very
important to me. I am not her mother.
Look, this is your mom.
That's when she was going to her prom.
She has a mother who
loves her very much.
Who's coming back
to be her mommy and Laura's got
hold on to that just like the rest
of us do.
She carried flowers. Look in there she is again.
Isn't she pretty?
Nancy is raising
Laura together with her own two children.
Ten year old Leslie
and six year old Judson
who with Laura
was also allegedly abused
at the daycare center.
Cut off by
their friends, they only have each other
waiting for Betsy to return home.
Betsy, who
they say could not have done any of the things
she is accused of.
If you knew Betsy
that's so foreign
to her personality and I'll tell you something
else that's foreign is this
garbage that Bob did
these things and Betsy knew about it.
If you knew
my sister like I know
my sister
that's just inconceivable.
She would not
have been able to do
anything.
But tell
me, tell
my dad, tell somebody.
Even if
physically for some God forsaken
reason she couldn't do anything physically
to stop him if
she saw this.
She would have told
somebody.
She's the kind of person that when something's
wrong it's got to be straightened out.
Right then she has no
patience, none.
That is not a virtue.
If she's going to be late somewhere she's not going.
If her hair doesn't look right
it's going to look right before she goes out
the door. If something is not
right you are going to stop
whatever you're doing and fix it.
Right then.
It is not going to go on another week
and well maybe it'll straighten itself out.
No.
No.
Betsy
has been in jail for over 20
months.
Do you understand what it is
that you're being accused of?
Only
when I see it on paper
and I read what they're saying that I
supposedly did to these children it's
a horrifying reality
that someone actually could
think that someone would do that.
No, I don't understand
what it's all about.
It's something that
you read
about or you hear about
and it's one of those
horrible things that you think
it's kind of like cancer.
You just can't even say it
and you don't want to even believe that it
exists and then
when you wake up one day and it's
your life you try
real hard but I
don't understand. I don't understand
how anybody could think
that that happened.
No.
I felt
sorry for Betsy.
Poor Betsy.
She was probably abused by Bob, physically abused
by Bob and was made to stay in
this terrible marriage
and she just covered up for him.
Poor Betsy.
It wasn't poor Betsy. Betsy participated
and partook
and physically and sexually abused
these children just as
Bob did.
How do you know?
My daughter tells me.
Everything that I'm telling you
is coming from my child
and I know what
my daughter told me.
That was a very
hard pill to swallow.
Betsy
is such an easy
person to like
and is such a believable person
and I believed in Betsy
and I liked Betsy so much
and it truly was
devastating when my child revealed
this to me.
It was
harder to take
than the sexual abuse that had happened
to my child
knowing that my friend, one of
my very good and dear friends had done this
to her.
I've tried to look at it from a parent's point of view
if Laura came
to me and said that this had happened
to her.
I really don't
I've tried to understand the anger that I would
feel and
how I would
react but I can't
understand the way
that they handled it.
That not a single one came
to me and said this is what
my child has told me and I don't
understand what's going on. Will you help me?
No one ever confronted
me with anything. I wanted to
go to Betsy the next
day after my daughter
volunteered her information to me
and have her
look at me face to face
in my eyes
and just
see her reaction
to
me. Why didn't you do it?
Really I didn't want
to give her the satisfaction
of seeing my hurt.
I really think she's such
a malicious person
that she probably would have gotten
a lot of self satisfaction after seeing
me totally devastated.
In the months she's been in prison
Betsy's friends
have become her accusers.
When the day I was
arrested the day before I talked
to people a lot
different people
and there were certain people
that wouldn't talk to me anymore
but I mean it was the people
that now are on the other
side were very friendly.
Very open. We talked.
We had lunch together. We did
a lot of things together
and now it's like where
are those people?
You just want to walk up to them and say
you know who are you
now?
The Betsy I knew
either never existed or has
died.
She's just not
the person that I knew.
She's someone else. I buried the
other Betsy.
I love Betsy like a friend.
It was very hard to
turn this love into a hate.
Because I
can truly say that
I despise Betsy.
No? No yes.
Yes.
When I look at Betsy I hate Betsy.
For Diller Dixon
the issues are clear.
When you come home and
little Johnny or little
Susie in a quaint setting like
this tells you
what has happened to them
at that point
there is nothing
that becomes even remotely
close to being
as important as
that.
It can take a normal
family which we all think we are
quaint little town.
It can take a community
and it can take you inside
and just absolutely
make it
indescribable
what it can do to you internally.
Today
of her former friends
there are very few people who will come to
Betsy Kelly's defense.
Debbie Forrest is one.
She left Edenton to start a restaurant
business in Charlotte.
Her son
had attended Little Rascals.
I cannot
believe that any of these kids were
in any way harmed.
Why are you so sure?
Well I was probably
unique in that I worked full time
and a lot of the moms there didn't.
They worked part time or their kids were there
and of course they got a break to be with the younger children
or just to get a break from the kids.
And my schedule was awful.
They never knew what time my son was dropped off.
They never knew what time he'd be picked up.
My husband was an insurance agent.
He did a lot of business
in the evenings and the early morning.
Someone might pick up Frankie at one o'clock in the
afternoon, three o'clock in the afternoon
or I might call and say would you drop him off on your
way home? I won't make it in time.
Our hours were just ridiculous.
They would never
have had any idea when I was
coming or going. I frequently
would get two hours in the afternoon and go pick him up,
wake him up from nap time and
go have lunch and spend a little bit
of time with him.
And all that time, 18 months of being
there and all my comings and goings
and my husband's comings and goings, we never
saw anything to give us
any concern. Ever.
People were constantly
in and out.
Staffers coming to work at different times during
the day, parents coming to pick one up for
dentist, one for doctor,
one was sick this morning
so he's coming in at 11. You never
knew when the door was going to swing open.
Never. Even Lynne
Layton would have to admit that.
I went in that daycare.
I didn't see anything out of the
ordinary. It was kept
nice and quiet.
I did not see anything myself
that would cause me to
believe that anything
could have happened like that.
People came
all the hours of the day.
You know, it was like Johnny's
mom might have two hours for lunch and
she'd come by a lot of times and stay
and bring her lunch and
eat with us. We had
I guess because I knew,
personally knew, everybody that's
children were there. There were very, very few
children that were there that I didn't know their
parents from the time
we were little together, some of us.
We
were just a big happy family, you know.
They all say the same about
little rascals. Don Wilson,
who cooked at the daycare and also
helped with the children.
And Robin Byron,
who took care of the two and three year olds.
It was open door. Anybody
could come in when they wanted to.
I had approximately
12 to 13 children
full time, Monday through Friday in my room.
And I was
with them all the time.
And nothing happened with my children
that I
taught every day.
Robin's mother, Lou,
is a surgical nurse. The two
are very close. You know, even if
there's something that she didn't recognize at
first. I know Robin is
naive to a point, but she's
not stupid. You know, if she
had seen anything
other way, at least she would have told me. She
would have said something. Well, mom, a child
said something, and I'm kind of
worried about it. What would you think?
She would at least have asked me,
what do you think he meant?
But she said nothing like that ever happened.
Why would she want to go to
jail? You know, why would she want to leave
a new husband, a new baby, and go to
jail for something she didn't do?
If something happened, I would have
reported it.
My mom and I are very close. I would have
went to her first. And then
I would have reported it
if something had happened.
Now you've been sitting
in a
year in jail.
I take it it's not
a present experience. If you knew anything,
I mean, is it conceivable that you know
something and you're still not telling?
If I knew something, I would have said something the minute
I was arrested and taken from my baby.
That would have been my breaking point.
Robin's baby, Anthony, was
seven months old when she was arrested
and sent to jail.
Her husband, Kevin, was
19.
Anthony.
I just
can't believe it. You know, all her
dreams
and illusions get shattered. You know,
you teach your children, you know, you obey the law.
You don't cheat on your income taxes.
You believe in God and you be good to
people and nobody will bother you. All you have
to worry about is
maybe sickness, financial worries,
death.
And this whole thing just been shattered.
Reputation.
I always said, reputation means more
than anything, Robin. And she knew that.
She had a good reputation. In fact,
my neighbor told me, she said, of all the
teenagers she knew, Robin was Squeaky
Clinton. You know, it was what you call a
squeaky clean teenager.
And she, and
all the letters I get from her,
you could read them. I've got them all in the box.
Not one word of hate.
Blame.
She just says, well, Mom, you know,
the one letter she wrote to me,
I'll find it for you one day
when I get in there. She said,
I had it all. I was happy
as a child.
Happy in high school.
I had a man to love me and I loved
the new baby and the good mother.
And it's gone.
The children know I didn't
do anything
because I saw them after their daycare closed.
And they come up
to me and hug me.
But now it's a different story.
Because I'm sitting here
because of what their parents want.
So the parents have really done it to the children,
not me.
You think the children on their own would never have
implicated you? No.
The children don't think I did anything.
I don't know about now, but
for a child to come up to me
and run up to me
in a store,
I mean, they're not afraid of me.
I didn't do anything to that child.
But now the parents would never
admit to that. And the children
don't remember it, so.
I ask Emily if she
liked Miss Robin because
Robin came in after another girl.
And I asked her if
she liked Miss Robin. And she said she did.
She liked Miss Robin.
Miss Robin had long hair.
And my daughter was
tickled to death with that long hair.
My daughter had short hair
and her dream was to have long hair.
And Robin had it.
And Robin was young.
And I thought, well, you know, Robin must be
fun. She must give my daughter
attention.
But now, with Robin sitting accused,
things have changed.
Now my daughter
fears Robin.
She has a real fear of her.
She, as she does
all the defendants.
I don't know
if some of the parents really think I did
anything or not.
I'm wondering if they think I did
anything to them.
What do you think? What's your feeling? They think you did or you didn't?
That I didn't do it.
Is it possible that Robin
somehow was out of that?
That Robin somehow...
No, Robin was in it.
Robin wasn't involved in it.
How do you know? My child told me.
My child
voluntarily told me
about Miss Robin.
My child did not
say anything that was coaxed
out of her.
There were times that I wanted to pick her up
and say, please tell me
who did what to you.
And I did ask...cut this.
Wait a minute.
I want to incriminate myself here.
All I can tell you
is that my child has
incriminated Robin
very seriously.
What Lynn Layton's
daughter, Emily, who is five,
has said about Robin includes
Robin touching her genitals,
urinating on children, and asking
children to swallow snakes.
About Betsy Kelly,
Betsy washed Emily after
Emily had been raped by Bob.
She also cooked Emily in a microwave.
Not all of
the children's statements have been included
in the indictments and so might
never be mentioned in court.
I'm
pretty sure that
I speak for just about everybody
when I say that they should rot
in jail.
They should not have
the privilege of ever
stepping foot
on free soil again.
Innocence Lost will
continue after a short break.
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This is Channel
49, WIPB-TV,
Muncie.
Yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, Thomas Carey,
Court of Chihuahua County. Dispatch
business, Cal State, state, and so on.
Please sit your way. Thank you.
Good morning to you all.
The pre-trial hearings
have been going on for almost two years.
The prosecution
won't discuss what the case will cost
the state of North Carolina.
The state has served the defendants and filed
with the court a notice. As for the
defendants, five of them have been declared
indigent. Most of their lawyers
are now court appointed.
Those things that I thought were important.
She is indigent.
She has no funds.
In February 1990,
the court ruled to join all seven
defendants in one trial.
The prosecution appealed
and the order was reversed by the
state supreme court.
The defendants would be
tried separately.
The first will be Bob Kelly.
He is charged
with abusing 29 children on
248 separate counts.
If convicted,
he could face over 90 consecutive
life sentences.
Sometimes I almost want to say
the DA knows that I'm innocent
but he's too far involved
that he can't, he can't, he's
got to carry on. Sometimes I feel
that.
But we had a good day
here.
I wanted it to be fun. I wanted people to
enjoy. I wanted the parents to
enjoy, the children to enjoy.
And not to be
a drudgery, you know.
To be an enjoyment.
And it was.
I think the majority
of the children loved Mr. Bob.
They loved Miss Betsy.
Miss Betsy was the greatest thing and she still
is.
We just, we had a real
good day here.
But in America
now, if you want to get even with a
man, all you do is accuse him of
a sex crime.
Those have been provided.
Whether it's child abuse,
whether it's rape, it doesn't make any difference.
And the public
automatically assumes that
people are guilty.
But
one of these days
we'll be free.
Because I've not committed these crimes.
What was involved in there?
Is it conceivable to you
that Bob
might have done these things?
There was an awful, awful time
where I thought maybe he could have.
Could have done these
things.
And this is why
it's easier for me to talk to you
about the parents.
Because there was an awful period
where my son's name kept
coming up in
rumors
and in
charges.
And I had to come face to face with the fact
that there was a possibility
that these things may
have happened.
But it was a terrible
feeling.
Not only because
I thought my child might have been hurt.
Not only because
I doubted
something I had not doubted
before.
But because this was my family.
My sister.
The man she lived with.
The man she lived with.
And I had to confront her with
that.
Bob was gone. Was in jail.
And she and I went to the beach
one day. We took the children.
And the children were
playing in the water.
And we were sitting on the beach.
And I asked
her.
If she thought Bob could have
done these things.
And she never hesitated.
She said no.
She said
I've asked him.
We've talked about it.
She said if I thought he
had done these things I would have left.
I would have left him.
And she told me to take the children.
My two children.
And have them evaluated.
I wish I could tell you I went
to that evaluation with not a doubt in my mind.
But I didn't.
I didn't. It was the worst
three days of my life.
And I watched my son.
And then I knew before
the therapist ever told us anything.
I knew that
we were fine.
We were fine.
It's almost like when the doctor comes out of the operating
room and says
we didn't find any cancer or we didn't
find anything. You can look at that
little boy and know he's fine.
And you just want to jump up and down.
And I
know. That's why I know what these
parents are going through. I know.
But there's a different way to do it than this.
This is not the way to do it.
The parents think this is the only way to do it.
They are convinced
that Bob Kelly and the other defendants
molested their children.
The prosecution has the evidence to prove
it. But that evidence
is secret.
And that's the problem for the defense.
How to prepare a defense
when you don't know the details of the
accusations.
Scott Privet owned a video shop
in Edenton. He did not
work at Little Rascals.
What are you accused of?
A lot of things. I think it's
indecent liberties,
rape, kidnapping, conspiracy.
Where?
Where?
I don't know where. That's just it.
I don't know where.
I'm assuming at the daycare center.
Which would be
a good trick because I've never
set foot in a place in my entire life.
Do they
claim that the kids came to your shop?
I don't know.
I really don't know.
I don't know what they're claiming.
I haven't heard that much about it.
Like the state,
they don't seem to want to release
much information, it seems like.
I think that's one of the things the attorneys
have been trying to find out.
Where is this stuff allegedly
supposed to have occurred?
According to the
prosecution, the alleged crimes
took place in unspecified locations
all over town.
But also at the new daycare,
the old daycare, on boats,
at local residences in Chowan
County, at buildings in the business sections,
and in wooded areas. I'm entitled
and I think the order already in place
requires that they tell me
where that offense
occurred. And if they know
when that offense occurred. They have done
neither. We have
gone through each particular bill of
indictment, every bill of
indictment, and been as specific
as we can be with regards to
times and places
of the acts that occurred.
And I understand,
in the first one he read, we cannot tell you exactly
where it happened. We're dealing with a very small
child who related
that in fact
this had happened to him. He did not
relate to him. He did not relate where.
He is related that
it has happened to him. Did they tell you what
the children said?
No, the only thing
that the SBI said to me was that the children
are talking and we know what you've
been doing. And I said to them, I said,
what have I been doing?
What did they say?
That was it. They didn't say.
They just said, you know,
they're talking, they're telling more and more.
What the children did
say, they said to their therapists.
He wouldn't tell me for a long
time. But finally
after going through therapy,
it eventually came out.
We took
her to be evaluated.
And it took about
ten months before she felt comfortable
and safe enough
to indicate that there was
something that had happened there.
Once the children got into therapy and
started working it out,
it didn't come right away. It took it quite a while.
What the children said to the
therapists and exactly when and
how they said it is of vital
importance to the case and to the defense.
They would spend
long hours discussing it.
Did the children talk on their own accord?
Were they asked leading questions?
How did they name
names?
Could the therapists have been influenced by the
fact that they are paid by the state?
These people that are being paid by the state
to treat these children have become
agents of the state now because of the fact
that they are being paid.
The defense feels it must have this information
and it must have it soon.
My greatest fear is
that because
we have not been able to
have our people,
our experts examine the data,
evaluate
the children ourselves,
that when
the time comes that we are given
that opportunity,
the allegations will be almost
two years old, maybe two and a half
years old.
And I don't think that we
will ever know what the truth is.
Sir Williams, we are here
to hear motions and the...
In motion after motion, the defense tried
to gain access to the precise statements
the children had made to the therapists.
Their last attempt before the start
of Bob Kelly's trial was in December
1990.
They're psychologists. They're working with children
and we know
that at some point we may need
to disclose some things to the court
but pending a trial...
The prosecution fought hard not to
disclose anything before the trial
on their relationship of trust
invoking the right to privileged
information between therapist and patient
and warning of the harm
it could cause to the children's continuing
therapy.
and expect these children to go on disclosing
things that are very important
to their therapy.
You have
that limited group of therapists
seeing almost
all of the children
involved.
And they obviously have
the information that we're seeking.
You have the power...
Three therapists, Susan Childers,
Betty Robertson,
and Judy Abbott, treat 85%
of the children involved in the indictments.
The prosecution's
case will in large measure be built on
their reports.
But the truth is that we have
defendants who are accused of
heinous crimes.
We have children who have made accusations
either themselves or through their parents
to mental health professionals.
And those mental health professionals, as your
daughter knows, become a very crucial
part of the testimony
in the trial.
All we're asking very simply on it
is that in this case
given the complex medical
and psychological issues involved
that we at least have the opportunity
where a doctor,
where a psychologist is willing to talk
with us, that they not have to say,
well, you know, I'd love to, but I'm
sorry, I cannot, because
of the privilege.
Gentlemen, 158-903
does not support your position.
The motion is denied.
It was a crucial defeat for the defense.
In practical terms,
the therapist's reports will now only
be available to the parents of the children
and to the prosecution.
So the defense will have to turn
to the few parents who either didn't
send their children to therapy
or who sent them to independent therapists.
Debbie Forrest is
one of them.
After she moved from Edenton to Charlotte,
she sent her son Frankie to a
clinic to be examined.
I took him to a clinic
and had him
talk to and physically
examined and
discussed and everything I could think
of at the pediatric clinic there.
And they spent hours with him.
And they
told me not to be concerned.
He seemed to have the level of
awareness and understanding and knowledge that was
appropriate for his age.
He was extremely vocal.
He was a kid that probably would come
home and tell me if something disturbed him.
He tells me everything else.
Brittany Bloom and her younger
sister Tanner apparently tell
their parents everything as well.
Sue Ellen and Clem Bloom are sure of it.
And yet they
were concerned.
The two little girls attended Little Rascal's
daycare. Bob
and Betsy Kelly also babysat for them.
Tanner's
godfather is a psychiatrist
in Atlanta. And we were upset.
People were talking about
how they were having their children evaluated.
And I called
him up and I said, his name is
Sam. I said, Sam, what do I
do? Do I have them evaluated?
So he said,
if they acted normally, then he felt
that
they were probably okay. But
if I was not comfortable with it,
to take them to a psychiatrist,
not one in the area,
and when I had them evaluated,
do not mention anything about
Little Rascal's, a daycare
situation. Just say,
I want my children evaluated.
I'd like both of them evaluated
and see what the results
are. And I
felt very comfortable with that
because I didn't feel like there would be
any prejudice. And that's what he said.
He said that that way there won't be any prejudice
and you know what's really
going on if you go in for a true
evaluation.
And what happened finally? What did you do?
Well,
we talked about it
and we never had them...
And what happened?
Do you
find that they're okay? I mean,
are they fine? I think they're fine. I mean,
they've never showed any results. They haven't
done anything out of the ordinary.
They've never talked
about anything bad happening to them.
And I don't know, they act like
normal kids to me.
Daniel Phillips, his mother says,
also acts like a normal kid.
Even though he was allegedly abused
at the daycare center where his mother Betty
Ann worked.
When she learned that Daniel
might have been abused,
she tried to find an independent therapist.
People on the telephone, I would call up
a psychiatrist and they would say, you know,
oh, they're guilty.
I mean, their secretaries
would talk to you like this. There was nobody
that hadn't heard about this and we wanted somebody
who had heard nothing about this, who knew
nothing about this, who had not formed an opinion
to give us an evaluation
of him. I mean, you can't
file one.
So Betty Ann followed the Edenton police recommendation
and sent Daniel to a local
therapist, Judy Abbott.
Judy Abbott, who has a
master's degree in clinical social work,
treats 17 of the children who were
allegedly abused at Little Rascals.
Do you think that the fact
that each therapist had a lot of children
can be detrimental?
The only way that it would be
detrimental is if a therapist
exceeded their capabilities
on their caseload.
And of course, you know, these are
they're therapists.
They're there to evaluate
and to treat these children
and to heal
or to help the children heal.
They are not
there as investigators
for the state.
Betty Ann doesn't agree.
Daniel was being investigated
by Judy. He wasn't
it wasn't therapy, it was an investigation
that she was doing on this child.
I was not in the same room with them,
but I was in the next room where I could hear everything they were
saying.
She gave him time to get to know her
and then it was, you know, question, question, question.
And then there just
so many doubts,
so many things just kept on popping up
that I would still question and question and question
him at home. So he was getting it from me
and he was getting it from Judy still.
And he
was very insecure. He did not want to be
left at preschool by himself. He
screamed every morning when I took him.
He was very shy of strangers.
He had nothing to say to
his grandparents. He was, you know, shy
of people. He was not a
friendly child anymore. He was just a changed
little boy. The investigators
told you, you know,
this is how a sexual abuse child
behaves. And
they said we were brainwashed.
You know, everywhere
you turn, you know, your child is sexual
abuse and that's why he's doing that.
And we didn't really question
the fact that before he was questioned
by us and everybody else
that he was fine.
And, you know, it was after
he was being questioned and almost
interrogated that he started acting this way.
Maybe after four
weeks you would get, you know, the
weekly report. And we started reading
these and I would go over them and there was just certain
things that you would see in there that
I know this child, I mean I'm with this child
every day. I know my son
and I know that he would not say this. I
know that this is not the type of play that he
plays. He doesn't play Rambo. He's G.I.J.
and it's just certain things only
that I knew that Daniel hadn't said.
What Daniel
did say when he was two and a half years
old contributed to the
arrest of Bob Kelly,
Scott Privet,
Betsy Kelly,
and Don Wilson.
Well, Don's indictment was kind of
unusual. That was
when he was playing with the dolls.
You were overhearing it.
He told me about it.
And they had, you know, these two dolls,
female doll and the male doll.
And Ben Ann
was just listening. She wasn't watching.
But evidently
the male
doll was on top of the female
doll. And he was calling
the male doll Mr. Bob but he would never
name the female doll.
And Judy Abbott kept saying, well, who is
this, you know, who is this female?
Who is the girl? Who is the girl?
And you never would say. And
she said, well, is that Miss Don?
And Daniel said, yeah.
And that was how the
Don's indictments were handed down.
Indictment 89,
CRS-1281.
In the presence of the victim, Daniel
Phillips, Robert Fulton Kelly Jr.
put his penis into the mouth of the defendant.
At one point, the defendant was
on bottom and Robert Fulton Kelly Jr.
was on top. At another
time, the defendant was on her knees with Robert
Fulton Kelly's penis in her mouth.
The more Betty
Ann heard, the less she believed.
They had these little
pictures of them in the paper.
We had picked up a newspaper and I'd thrown it back down
the back seat where Daniel was sitting.
And I asked him if he knew any of
those. He remembered any of those and he couldn't
name any of them. So I said, Daniel, I said,
you know, you know who these people are. No, I don't.
I don't know who they are. I said, come on, Daniel.
I said, you know, you know, I don't
know. So we went to therapy and he
brought the picture in there with her and
I happened to be listening to this time and
you know, she said, you know, who are these people?
And he said, I don't know.
He didn't know who they were. He was getting them all mixed up.
I mean, this had been a year, you know, he
didn't remember what they looked like really.
I don't think. But when she
wrote up her therapy report for him, then
he had gotten every one of them
right the first time and she hadn't had
to tell him who they were.
But I don't remember exactly how
I came about to show him this picture with the
sheriff in there, but he told me that the sheriff was a bad
guy, that he had went upstairs
and had wanted to put handcuffs on the people.
Anyway, he was one of the ones that was sexually
abusing them too and he appointed to Bob
in the same picture and he said that Bob was a good
guy. You know, I kept on telling
him, my child is confused. You know,
he is very confused. I have confused him.
Judy has confused him. We need to get
this straightened out. And Judy kept on saying, no,
he's not confused. And H.P. and Brenda
were saying, no, he's not confused.
He knows what he's talking about. You're the one that's confused.
So I said, well, then we need
to investigate the sheriff. I said, because he has pinpointed
the sheriff as being upstairs when this was
happening too. And then that's when
Daniel was confused. Brenda talked and said,
no, he's confused now. Well,
you know, a few minutes earlier, no, he wasn't
confused.
Even though Betty
Ann was not convinced that her son's
allegations were true, she
found out to her dismay that the
state had filed ten indictments in her
child's name.
She went to the district
attorney's office in tears.
I was just upset. I was
really mad. I was really upset that they had did this
without even telling me that they were going to do this
without getting my consent on this.
I mean, I knew nothing about it, that they were going to hand down
all these indictments with Daniel's name on them.
I knew nothing about it until I called
them and asked them.
And he told me, he said, I advise
you,
not to go out on the street
and say that you are unhappy with what we have
done, you know, handing these
indictments down. He said, and all in the next
sentence, he said, because you know that all of the
children are saying that you were to look out while this
was going on.
And so, you know, I can take
a threat just as good as you can give one.
How did you see that?
What was that? As a threat.
That you don't go out on the street and you don't tell
anybody anything about you're unhappy
with this or you're going to be the next one to get it.
What a threat.
How else could it be? I mean, what else?
What other kind of statement
was he trying to make?
What do you think?
There was a threat.
He meant it as a threat.
But he took it as a threat.
And that's the only thing
it could be. There's no other explanation.
Debbie Forrest felt threatened, too.
At one point, I felt very scared
as did my husband. I got some phone
calls and I understood that there was somebody from
the State Bureau of Investigation asking
questions about me, wanting to
know if I was a camera bug and
was I good friends with these people
and what do they know about
me? And believing that
these people in jail are innocent, I became
real concerned that, you know, who's next?
Maybe if you believe that your child
was unharmed, that you're suddenly
involved in this whole thing. And it is very
frightening.
Even in Charlotte, 250
miles from Edenton, Debbie Forrest
felt that she couldn't leave the little rascals
case behind.
I got phone calls. My family
got phone calls. One particular
lady, Judy Abbott, who
told me that she was
working with a number of children in group therapy,
called my mother
and said she was concerned and that I might have
fallen through the cracks. And she phoned me at work
and upset
me very much. She told me that
it was imperative not only that I
get treatment for my son, but that
I was being a neglectful
mother if I didn't. And
that the best thing for me to do would be
to bring him back there. And
I said that I preferred to have an independent
type of valuation and she said that was a very
bad idea. That it needed to be somebody
that was familiar with the case, knew what happened to the other
children, and that if I did
that, that they would take care of paying for it. There would be
no expense to me. But for Betty
Ann, that's what was wrong with
the case. People were too familiar
with it. Yeah. You could
get on the phone and you could be talking to parents
and um,
well my child said so and so.
And the very next
week in therapy,
you know, your child just happened
to say the same thing.
I mean, I don't see any other way around it.
I mean, it happened. I mean,
I did it. They did it. They won't admit to it,
but they did it. I mean, they would get on
the phone with the parents. I mean, they get on the phone with
me and tell you, you know, my child said this
about your child, you know.
Your child said this about my child and my child
said this about the other child. And then they would tell
that parent and that parent would question that child
on what was supposed to have happened. And then
the child would go to therapy the next week and would
say the same thing.
Not only parents and therapists
questioned the children, the police
did as well. If the way my son
was questioned and badgered and
repeatedly asked the same thing is an
indication of how the other kids were interviewed,
I don't find it difficult to believe
that these kids are now
believing something happened that didn't.
Um, if
other mothers were made to feel that they were basically
unfit because they
didn't choose to send them to a particular doctor,
I'm sure that they might
start thinking that. Um,
you know, I can pretty much convince
my son that it's Monday and it's really Saturday
and I can convince him he dreamed something.
It's awfully easy to influence children
that young. Um, and they don't remember
something for very long.
I got it! I got it!
I got it!
How easy or difficult
it is to influence small children
and how long they remember things
will probably be discussed at the trial.
It certainly will not be decided there.
It is
one of the thorniest and most controversial
of issues with strong
and opposing points of view.
I believed that
these little children
who are four years old
could never have
described the things
that had been said unless it
happened. It's not
in their realm of vocabulary, it's not
in their realm of experience
unless they have
experienced it themselves.
Our son is three and a half,
our daughter is six years old. They have no reason
to say these things.
So, you know, we believe them.
Children tell lies to
get out of trouble, not to get in trouble.
I don't think Daniel believed he was
sexually abused. I don't think
he understands
really
the nature of the question.
He, uh, he understood
enough to know what
we wanted the answer to be, or
you know, what we were trying to get at.
Because after he would
I mean,
you say no enough and
that's not the right answer, you figure, you know,
you'll try yes. And
I think that's basically what he did.
As far as him believing he was sexually abused,
I mean, you can ask him now.
And he has no
you know, you would think that some of these stories
he told would come back, but
they never happened.
I don't think they ever will.
To me, you have that many children
saying that something happened, common
sense says something had
to go on there.
Who was that?
He wasn't down there, kids.
I'll tell you, that dog was here.
I believe
the children.
I know now that children do not
lie about things like this.
And parents don't know enough
to fabricate it
and then
have their children repeat it back to the
police. It's ludicrous to think that.
Jane Mabry
wanted her son Joel to be a part of the trial.
She's convinced that he was not
just slapped, but also sexually abused.
The prosecution decided
against it.
Which of the other children will testify
will depend in large measure on how well their
therapists and their parents feel they're doing.
The parents
feel the therapy has done wonders for
the children.
Of course, that is the salvation for these children
who are victims.
That they do talk about
it and sort through all the
feelings.
And it has been a blessing.
I never thought I'd see
this day. I thought
I'm totally ruined. My life is ruined.
My child is ruined.
But we're not. We're fine. We're happy.
She is so happy.
You would never know anything had happened
to her.
The children
seem
healthy and happy. Richard has sort of
grown into his own.
He's six years old.
I think we're doing
wonderful.
Whoever testifies,
there is no doubt that the trial will be
emotional. It will also
be a bitter fight.
H.P. Williams, the district attorney,
acknowledges it.
I believe in a cordial atmosphere.
However, this case,
the cordial atmosphere has
not been present. And it's just
as
some people say, this is
both sides are having to play hardball.
Hardball
connotes
fairness.
I don't believe
that hardball would be an appropriate
way to describe the way
the prosecution is engaged in
this particular case.
I don't believe that
hardball is threatening a defendant
to be reindicted on as many charges
as they need to be to avoid
them being able to make bond.
I don't think hardball
is continuing to interview people
who say they haven't done anything
and then saying
they'll be arrested unless they change
their position.
And then either arrest them
and make them defendants
or continue to threaten
them with arrest
or intimate that they're going to be arrested
because they're saying that they had
nothing wrong and saw nothing happen
in the daycare. I don't believe
that's hardball.
I think if we were still living in Edenton and I
was still as convinced as I am today
that nothing happened,
I believe at some point my
husband and I would have been involved
in defending ourselves.
I
at one point truly believed they were going to come pick us up
for questioning. We felt that
adamant about the renaissance and we said that
and
I
think it's very possible I might have been arrested.
We were very
concerned about that for a time.
To the point of talking to an attorney
and figuring out if that happened, what happened
to Frankie. And that's a pretty fearful
way to live. I think they would
love to arrest me because it would ruin
my credibility as a witness when I get
up there.
Whether they will or not, I don't know.
We're just sitting and waiting.
You don't know what's going to happen.
I feel that
they arrested the last three of us
just to say that we talked to them.
Tell them what they wanted to hear.
I mean,
taking me away from my baby at
19 months old.
Arrive from hers and he was three months.
Putting pressure on us
so that we would talk to them.
And give them what they wanted.
But they didn't think we'd last this
long.
They thought that I was afraid
of the Kellys. They kept saying
you can tell me everything.
You're not, we're more powerful
than the Kellys are. Like there
were some mob or something that they would get me
if I told something. But there
was nothing to tell, so.
I've told the truth this far
and I'm going to keep on telling the truth. I'm not going to tell
a lie.
Just to save my skin.
I was offered a plea bargain
a month after I was arrested.
I wouldn't
say I did something
when I didn't do it. I wouldn't say
someone else did something and they didn't do it just to go home.
My lawyer from
start one asked me if he was to
offer a plea, would I take it?
I told him no. I'd tell the
DA to shove it where the sun don't shine.
Because I'm
not taking a plea for something I didn't do.
Ever.
Who in Edenton is innocent
and who is guilty
may take seven trials to find out.
Even then,
the truth may prove to be
elusive.
I don't know if we'll ever know the whole truth.
We may not ever
know everything.
But we know a lot.
And what we know we believe.
What do I believe?
I don't know.
It got
blurred all out of proportion.
Something might have happened.
But by no means
the things are saying.
I mean not everything.
They've gone crazy
and they just
spread like wildfire.
I believe they're guilty.
In the bottom of my heart, I mean I know
they're guilty. I think now they
need somebody to be blamed
and somebody to be proven guilty because it's
gone on too long and too many people have been hurt.
It's almost as if when someone dies
you want to remember them like they were.
Not like they were laying there
the last time you saw them.
It's like you want to remember
the good people that I knew before
this happened.
It shattered
our picture of our
lives.
We felt like
we had such a secure life
and a happy
life.
Things like this don't happen
all the time.
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