Episode 106: The Little Rascals Day Care Case

In 1980, a memoir titled “Michelle Remembers” chronicled a woman’s experience of childhood torture inflicted by a satanic cult. Canadian resident Michelle Smith recovered these memories, which allegedly occurred over a 14-month period when she was five years old, while working with her psychiatrist Larry Pazder. Michelle and Larry did an extensive media and book tour where they talked about the memories Michelle had uncovered after hours of hypnosis with Pazder, and in most of the interviews, the psychiatrist answered questions for Michelle. No one ever asked Michelle’s family if her claims of abuse at the hands of a satanic cult were true, or divulged what happened after the book was published, which was that Larry Pazder left his family and married Michelle. A 2023 documentary titled “Satan Wants You” explores the ramifications of the book “Michelle Remembers” and how it sparked over a decade of fears about child abuse and satanic cults. Today we’re talking about seven people working and residing in a small town in Eastern North Carolina who were caught up in what some people now consider a modern-day witch hunt. They’re lives, and I’m sure the lives of the children involved in the accusations, haven’t been the same since.

The Kern County Child Abuse Cases

Not long after “Michelle Remembers” was published, two couples in Bakersfield, California, became embroiled in satanic cult/child abuse allegations. The accuser was a woman named Mary Ann Barbour, who became concerned when she learned one of her step-granddaughters said she was inappropriately touched by a grandfather. This abuse was confirmed by a medical doctor, but no charges were filed in the case. Barbour became convinced that the girls’ parents, Alvin and Debbie McCuan, were unfit parents, and wanted the license of the in-home daycare Debbie ran revoked. She requested that the Social Services Department perform a surprise inspection on the daycare, were the social worker found nothing of concern. But Barbour would not back down. She became enraged when Alvin and Debbie took the girls to see the grandfather who had allegedly abused one of them, and she worked to gain custody of her step-grandchildren. After that, she began telling people a large “sex ring” existed in Kern County, and with her coaching, the girls began talking about a satanic cult that physically abused them, forced them to act in pornographic films, hung them from ceiling hooks, and so forth. People involved in this “sex ring” included Alvin and Debbie McCuan, their friends Scott and Brenda Kniffen, the social worker who had failed to find fault with Debbie’s daycare, and two other social workers.

The Accusations Begin

Police took the word of the girls and their step-grandmother Barbour although they had no physical evidence to corroborate any of the abuse allegations. The Kniffen children were questioned and told they could be reunited with their parents if they cooperated with police, which included asking leading questions about child sexual abuse. They told the police what they wanted to hear. A local doctor performed a controversial test on the children that he said could prove sodomy had occurred, and this test has since been discredited. Both the McCuans and the Kniffens were put on trial, convicted on multiple charges, and given a combined sentence of more than 1000 years in prison in 1984. Other Kern county residents were eventually accused of similar charges, despite no proof of physical evidence or exact dates abuse was said to have happened. The McCuans and Kniffens had their convictions overturned in 1994.

In 2004 the television show “Dateline” ran an episode covering the Bakersfield, California child abuse sex rings. They shared that of the 39 people who were convicted, ten were given probation, and 29 went to prison. Of those 29, 23 had their convictions overturned. Three were released after serving their sentences, one woman died of cancer while in prison, and one man remains in prison.

The McMartin Preschool Case

A small preschool in California also became embroiled in a child sexual abuse scandal that resulted in the longest and most expensive trial in American history. In 1983, investigation into the McMartin Preschool began when a woman named Judy Johnson, whose two-and-a-half-year-old son had attended the McMartin Preschool on about 10 different occasions, placed a call into the local police department. She alleged that Ray Buckey, the 25-year-old son of preschool owner Peggy McMartin Buckey, had molested her son. Ray worked as a school aide at McMartin Preschool. When police asked Johnson’s son if he could identify Ray in a photo line-up, he couldn’t. The police still searched Ray Buckey’s house and confiscated items they felt were significant to the child molestation case—a rubber duck, a teddy bear, and some Playboy magazines. He was arrested on September 7, 1983.

The next day, the police chief of the Manhattan Beach police department sent a letter to 200 parents who were clients of the preschool letting them know Ray Buckey was suspected of child abuse. The letter specifically asked parents to question their children to see if they had been a witness to any crime or been victimized. The letter also listed the following criminal acts they were investigating Ray for, including:

Oral sex, fondling of genitals, buttock or chest area, and sodomy, possibly committed under the pretense of taking the child’s temperature. Also photos may have been taken of children without their clothing. Any information from your child regarding having ever observed Ray Buckey to leave a classroom alone with a child during any nap period, or if they have ever observed Ray Buckley tie up a child, is important.

The police chief ended the letter by asking parents to keep the investigation strictly confidential and to not discuss it outside of their families. Well, you can imagine how that went. Discussions about the charges against Ray Buckey quickly ran rampant in the community. Emboldened, Judy Johnson began telling people that Peggy Buckey, Ray’s mother, was involved in satanic practices and had taken Judy’s son to a church to watch a baby being beheaded, along with several other bizarre claims. The District Attorney’s office decided to bring in a consultant for the Children’s Institute International (or CII), an agency that had the mission of identifying and treating abused children. Parents were asked to send their children into CII for interviews with a woman named Kee McFarland that lasted up to two hours at a time.

She led them through a series of very leading questions and offered them rewards if they answered correctly. This is evident in the interview transcripts that you can find publicly online.

Questionable Findings at Medical Exams

By March of 1984, 384 McMartin preschool students were identified as having been sexually abused. One hundred and fifty of those children also received medical examinations. The doctor, who also worked with the Children’s Institute International, claimed that 80 percent of the children she examined had been molested. These findings were mostly based on medical histories and the philosophy that all children should be believed when they say they are abused. She used a magnifying device called a colposcope and detected scarrings in the genital and rectal areas of the children that she claimed pointed to sexual abuse. Later, other researchers would dispute her findings and say that those scarring patterns were common even in children who have not been abused.

All in all, seven different people involved with the McMartin Preschool were indicted on criminal charges. Those included Ray Buckey and his mother Peggy Buckey, Peggy Ann Buckey, a high school special education teacher and sister of Ray who sometimes helped out at the school, Virginia McMartin, the original founder of the preschool, and three other preschool teachers. Together, they were indicted on almost 400 charges of sexual crimes, even though the school had been operating for 20 years without any previous complaints.

Searches of the defendants homes never turned up any signs of incriminating evidence or nude photographs of the children. There was no evidence of secret rooms or underground tunnels where the abuse was to have taken place. The preliminary hearings in the case started in early 1984 and was filled with twists and turns, including more and more evidence that the questioning techniques of Kee McFarland with her puppets and dolls called Mr. Alligator, Mr. Snake, Detective Dog, and Mr. Sparky were controversial at best.

In a strange twist, before the trial began, Judy Johnson, who was the first to come forward with the claims of abuse, was found dead in her home at Manhattan Beach. An autopsy later showed she had died of a fatty metamorphosis of the liver, a condition related to alcoholism.

In 1986, a new district attorney took over and called the case “incredibly weak,” dropping all charges against Virginia McMartin and the three teachers that had been charged, Mary Ann Jackson, Betty Raidor, and Babette Spitler. Peggy and Ray Buckey remained in custody, with no bail for Ray and a $1 million dollar bail set for Peggy.

This case would last seven years in total, cost $15 million dollars, and in the end, resulted in no convictions and all charges being dropped by 1990. However, by that point Ray Buckey had been in jail for five years without ever being convicted of the crimes he was accused of. According to media sources, he eventually moved out of the area, changed his name, and went to law school.

The Little Rascals Day Care Case in North Carolina

I wanted to discuss the McMartin because North Carolina had a similar occurrence series of accusations that occurred at a preschool in Edenton, North Carolina. It was also a costly case that relied mostly on the testimony of young children, and seemed to start, again, with one disgruntled mother.

Lew Powell, a retired journalist from Charlotte, was so frustrated by this case that he created a blog called littlerascalsdaycarecase.org where he has an extensive archive of news articles, academic and professional articles, videos, transcripts, and court documents. Special thanks to his diligence and attention to detail in gathering all of this information in one place. It was extremely helpful in putting together this episode.

Edenton native Betsy Kelly opened up the Little Rascals Daycare Center at a home on Court Street in July 1986 alongside her husband, Bob. Bob also worked as a golf pro and ran a local plumbing business. Business was doing well and eventually they outgrew their space. Betsy’s father, Warren Twiddy, helped them by an old bottling plant in downtown Edenton so they could better care for the children at the preschool, along with a growing staff. The business opened up in the new location in late September of 1988. Just a few days after that, a woman named Jane Mabry, who had been a longtime friend and acquaintance of Betsy Kelly, said her son told her Bob Kelly had slapped him at the center. She confronted Betsy and expected an apology for the slap, which Bob had said was an accident, and grew angry when she did not get the response she desired.

As Jane later explained in the PBS Frontline documentary, “Innocence Lost,” she later spoke to another acquaintance with a child at Little Rascals and learned that the child was saying Mr. Bob had molested him. They began talking with other parents about these allegations against 41-year-old Bob Kelly and soon involved the Edenton Police Department, which happened to have a staffer, Brenda Toppin, who had just attended a seminar on recognizing signs of “satanic ritual abuse.”

An Avalanche of Allegations

A few months after the disagreement between Jane Mabry and the Kellys, someone filed a complaint alleging child abuse at Little Rascals with the Department of Social Services in January of 1989. In April, Bob Kelly was arrested and charged with twelve counts of multiple sex offenses. His bail was set at a little over 1 million dollars. The center closed at the end of that month. Edenton is a small community and at first some parents had serious doubts about the sexual abuse claims as they had never seen any signs of it in their children. One mother later told PBS the daycare had a very open-door policy and she’d never seen anything suspicious when she would drop in to pick up her son at different hours of the day. But as the rumor mill continued on, a sense of panic grew, and more parents took their children in for interview with law enforcement and therapists.

In September 1989 Bob’s wife, 34-year-old Betsy, was arrested on sexual abuse charges along with a man named Scott Privott, who was a friend of Bob’s and owned a local video rental store. He had never set foot inside Little Rascals. Not long after, Shelley Stone, Kathryn Dawn Wilson, Robin Byrum, and Darlene Bunch were also arrested on similar charges. They were caregivers at Little Rascals except for Wilson, who cooked meals for the children. The defendants were all charged on the basis of forensic interviews four therapists conducted with the children in the community. Of course, everyone wanted to believe the children when they said they had been abused. But where was the physical evidence?

According to an article that ran in the News and Observer, children told the therapists that they had been sodomized, beaten, and forced to participate in orgies while at Little Rascals. Some also said they had flown on spaceships and swam with sharks alongside Mr. Bob and other adults. Prosecutors never presented any physical evidence that children had been sexually abused. Some of their parents pointed to incidents of bedwetting, nightmares, and fear of going to the bathroom alone as evidence backing up the children’s claims.

Bob Kelly eventually went on trial in July of 1991 in Farmville, North Carolina, about 90 miles away from Edenton. Originally charged with more than 248 accounts of abuse involving 29 children, the number was reduced to 100 charges of abuse involving 12 children. The trial lasted eight months, with a dozen children testifying. The court transcripts show some very interesting statements by the children, including going on boat rides where babies were tossed into shark-infested waters and hot air balloon rides into outer space. These children who testified had never claimed to have experienced sexual abuse before being interviewed by the therapists brought in to assist the police. A jury found Bob Kelly guilty on 99 accounts of the child sexual abuse and he was sentenced to twelve consecutive life in prison terms.

Bob’s wife, Betsy, finally had her bond reduced to $400,000 in October of 1991, and she was able to leave jail.

Kathryn Wilson, the cook at Little Rascals, struggled with whether or not to take a plea deal in the case or go to trial. She had a young daughter and feared if she took a plea deal the state could still take her child away from her. She took the risk and was found guilty of sexually abusing four different children in January of 1993. Wilson was found guilty and sentenced her to life in prison. She gave birth to a son while behind bars. Her case went under appeal in September of that year, and she was able to go and live with her mother in Statesville after being released on $250,000 bond.

Fearful that she would also be convicted on the child sexual abuse charges, Betsy Kelly made the difficult decision to plead “no contest” to 30 counts of child abuse in January of 1994 and was sentenced to seven years in prison, with credit for two years and two weeks already served. Scott Privott, the video store owner, also pleaded “no contest” to 37 counts of felony child abuse as part of a plea agreement after serving three years and eight months in jail. The charges against Shelley Stone, Robin Byrum, and Darlene Bunch were all eventually dropped in 1996.

Trials Overturned

In May of 1995, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ordered new trials for both Bob Kelly and Kathryn Wilson. Defense attorneys argued that the judge in Bob Kelly’s trial should have inspected the transcripts of the interviews with the children prior to the trial beginning, and he didn’t. Parents of the children were allowed to testify as expert witnesses. A juror had failed to disclose that he had been sexually abused as a child, and another juror brought in an article that ran in Redbook magazine describing traits of pedophiles and shared it with the jury. Another juror drove to Edenton against the judge’s orders to view the Little Rascals daycare building in person. Three of the jurors later told the media that they did not want to vote for a guilty verdict, but they were intimidated and criticized by the other members of the jury until they did so.

In May of 1997, prosecutors in the Little Rascals Day Care Center case announced they were dropping all the charges against Bob Kelly and Kathryn Wilson. Assistant District Attorney Amanda Lamb said the following:

“The paramount thing is not having to drag these children through this again. The charges are being dropped, so that wounds can be healed.” However, Lamb did say they would retry Bob Kelly on eight new sexual charges that were unrelated to the Little Rascals case. They said they had discovered Bob had raped and molested a 9-year-girl in Edenton in the summer of 1987. Bob Kelly said he had known the family, but never met the victim.

The Power of a PBS Documentary

Betsy Kelly’s father, Warren Twiddy, told The News and Observer he believed the remaining charges in the Little Rascals were dropped because PBS was about to release an update to their “Innocence Lost” series about the case. Ofra Bikel had produced three episodes on the series. In 2007, she received the John Chancellor Award for her reporting for PBS Frontline and the series, which began to bring some of the many holes in the prosecution’s case to light.

The parents, police, interviewers, and prosecutors involved have never publicly admitted any error in their behavior in the Little Rascals case. In 1999, those remaining charges in the separate sexual abuse case involving Bob Kelly were finally dropped. It was too late for the Kellys’ marriage by then. Though they tried to move forward, irreparable damage had been done to their relationship after having weathered so many accusations and both having served time in prison. They divorced not long after Bob was released from prison. Scott Privott had a similar experience—he was married when he was first accused in the case and divorced while in prison. He later remarried.

This past spring, Robin Couto, who was arrested in the case when she was 18-year-old Robin Byrum, co-authored a book with Betsy Hester titled “Twenty-One Boxes: Robin’s Story and the Tragedy of the Edenton Seven.” I have not read the book but it is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other area bookstores. You can learn more at betsyhester.com.

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