Teachers are indicted at the McMartin Preschool March 22 Seven teachers at the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California are indicted by the Los Angeles County grand jury after hearing testimony from 18 children. Included among the charged are Peggy McMartin Buckey, the head of the school and her son Ray Buckey. Seven years and millions of dollars later, the case against the teachers came to a close with no reputable evidence of wrongdoing and no convictions. The McMartin school debacle began on August 12, 1983 when Judy Johnson reported to the police that she believed her 2-1/2-year-old son had been molested at the McMartin Preschool. The first major blunder occurred less than a month into the investigation. On September 8, the Manhattan Beach Police Department sent out a form letter to more than 200 families, alerting them of an investigation into the allegations of child molestation and naming Ray Buckey as a suspect. The latter set off a wave of hysteria in the community. Compounding the problem, virtually every child who attended the school was sent to the Children's Institute International, an organization that claimed it could get children to reveal abuse even when they didn't want to talk about it. Unfortunately, CII was also capable of getting easily manipulated children to reveal abuse when it had never actually happened. The allegations that CII produced grew more bizarre every day. They reported that they had been taken to a cemetery where dead bodies were dug and hacked to pieces (causing blood to spurt out). The local Catholic Church invited an expert on scults to talk to the congregation in the wake of the allegations. Of course, there wasn't any corroboration of these wild allegations from any witnesses although the school often had visitors and guests. The truth or falsity of the allegations mattered little to the community at large. The McMartin School was burned down in an arson attack and seven other local preschools closed down as people who worked with children began to fear that they would be the next accused. Unfortunately for other child care workers around the nation, the abuse scare of the early 1990s found many victims. More recent research has demonstrated that questioning techniques of children can easily be manipulated so that the child will give the answer that the questioner desires. Reference “Teachers are indicted at the McMartin Preschool.” 2013. The History Channel website. Sep 24 2013, 7:01 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/teachers-are-indicted-at-the-mcmartin-preschool. “And When Did You Last See Your Father?” by William Frederick Yeames, 1878 depicting English Puritan inquisitors grilling the child of a Royalist family How hysterical parents, incompetent therapists and malicious prosecutors destroyed the lives of seven innocent North Carolinians – and have yet to admit they were wrong Top of Form Home │ FAQ │ 'Innocence Lost' │ Case Materials │ Site Archive │ Ab ...

1. Teachers are indicted at the McMartin Preschool
March 22
Seven teachers at the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach,
California are indicted by the Los Angeles County grand jury
after hearing testimony from 18 children. Included among the
charged are Peggy McMartin Buckey, the head of the school and
her son Ray Buckey. Seven years and millions of dollars later,
the case against the teachers came to a close with no reputable
evidence of wrongdoing and no convictions.
The McMartin school debacle began on August 12, 1983 when
Judy Johnson reported to the police that she believed her 2-1/2-
year-old son had been molested at the McMartin Preschool. The
first major blunder occurred less than a month into the
investigation. On September 8, the Manhattan Beach Police
Department sent out a form letter to more than 200 families,
alerting them of an investigation into the allegations of child
molestation and naming Ray Buckey as a suspect.

2. The latter set off a wave of hysteria in the community.
Compounding the problem, virtually every child who attended
the school was sent to the Children's Institute International, an
organization that claimed it could get children to reveal abuse
even when they didn't want to talk about it. Unfortunately, CII
was also capable of getting easily manipulated children to
reveal abuse when it had never actually happened.
The allegations that CII produced grew more bizarre every day.
They reported that they had been taken to a cemetery where
dead bodies were dug and hacked to pieces (causing blood to
spurt out). The local Catholic Church invited an expert on scults
to talk to the congregation in the wake of the allegations. Of
course, there wasn't any corroboration of these wild allegations
from any witnesses although the school often had visitors and
guests. The truth or falsity of the allegations mattered little to
the community at large. The McMartin School was burned down
in an arson attack and seven other local preschools closed down
as people who worked with children began to fear that they
would be the next accused.
Unfortunately for other child care workers around the nation,
the abuse scare of the early 1990s found many victims. More
recent research has demonstrated that questioning techniques of
children can easily be manipulated so that the child will give
the answer that the questioner desires.
Reference
“Teachers are indicted at the McMartin Preschool.” 2013. The
History Channel website. Sep 24 2013, 7:01
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/teachers-are-
indicted-at-the-mcmartin-preschool.
“And When Did You Last See Your Father?” by William
Frederick Yeames, 1878
depicting English Puritan inquisitors grilling the child of a
Royalist family

3. How hysterical parents, incompetent therapists and malicious
prosecutors
destroyed the lives of seven innocent North Carolinians – and
have yet to admit they were wrong
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The case in brief
In the beginning, in 1989, more than 90 children at the Little
Rascals Day Care Center in Edenton, North Carolina, accused a
total of 20 adults with 429 instances of sexual abuse over a
three-year period. It may have all begun with one parent's
complaint about punishment given her child.
Among the alleged perpetrators: the sheriff and mayor. But
prosecutors would charge only Robin Byrum, Darlene Harris,
Elizabeth "Betsy" Kelly, Robert "Bob" Kelly, Willard Scott
Privott, Shelley Stone and Dawn Wilson – the Edenton 7.
Along with sodomy and beatings, allegations included a baby
killed with a handgun, a child being hung upside down from a
tree and being set on fire and countless other fantastic incidents
involving spaceships, hot air balloons, pirate ships and trained
sharks.
By the time prosecutors dropped the last charges in 1997, Little
Rascals had become North Carolina's longest and most costly
criminal trial. Prosecutors kept defendants jailed in hopes at
least one would turn against their supposed co-conspirators.
Remarkably, none did.
Another shameful record: Five defendants had to wait longer to
face their accusers in court than anyone else in North Carolina
history.
Between 1991 and 1997, Ofra Bikel produced three

4. extraordinary episodes on the Little Rascals case for the PBS
series "Frontline." Although "Innocence Lost" did not deter
prosecutors, it exposed their tactics and fostered nationwide
skepticism and dismay.
With each passing year, the absurdity of the Little Rascals
charges has become more obvious. But no admission of error
has ever come from prosecutors, police, interviewers or parents.
This site is devoted to the issues raised by this case.
You had to have been there (or did you?)
Sept. 25, 2013
“Peer group pressure... is a factor that should be considered
when there is an allegation of sexual abuse involving multiple
victims. Children in Edenton who never attended the day care,
but who had peers who attended, claimed to have been abused at
the day care.
“During her testimony for the defense, Dr. Maggie Bruck
described a scientific study in which two actors went into a
classroom of 28 children to give a talk. During the talk one of
the actors knocked a large birthday cake off a piano. Seven
children had been removed from the room and did not observe
the event. Later when the children were interviewed six of the
seven children who had not been present not only claimed to
have been there but described the event as if they had been
present.”
– From “Evidence Issues and ‘Lessons’ from State v. Kelly:
Litigation
of Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse” by Jeffrey L. Miller and
W. Michael Spivey, presented at the 6th annual North Carolina
Criminal Evidence Seminar, UNC School of Law (April 16,
1993)
When will wheels of justice turn for Junior?
Sept. 23, 2013

5. There’s a bit of an update out of Raleigh on Junior Chandler’s
prospects for clemency.
Billy Chandler, Junior’s brother, received this email last week
from Pat Hansen in the Governor’s Clemency Office:
“Attorney Mark Montgomery filed a commutation request with
this office at the end of Governor Perdue’s term in office.
However, due to the volume of requests received, the request
was not ‘officially reopened.’ Currently, we are working on all
of the cases held over from the Perdue Administration.
Unfortunately, I cannot tell you when your brother’s case will
be reviewed.”
In North Carolina the governor’s clemency power covers both
pardons and commutations. Here’s the stated distinction:
“Commutation – whereby an individual presently incarcerated
and serving an active sentence has their sentence commuted or
reduced by any number of years, months, or days, or to make
parole eligible, or to time served which would release the
individual immediately.
“Pardon – may be granted to those individuals who have
maintained a good reputation in their community, following the
completion of their sentence for a criminal offense. Ordinarily,
an applicant must wait to apply until at least five years have
elapsed since the applicant was released from State supervision
(including probation or parole). A Pardon is merely an official
statement attached to the criminal record that states that the
State of North Carolina has pardoned the crime. A Pardon does
not expunge or erase a criminal record....”
As much as the facts of Junior’s case call for a pardon, a
commutation seems not quite as steep a challenge. However
great “the volume of requests received,” Junior Chandler’s
surely deserves to be at the top of the stack.
Day-care ritual-abuse claims vs. ‘The Cosby Show’
Sept. 20, 2013

6. “In 1984 in particular we see a turning point in the media
representation of American motherhood. Two major media
events exemplified the cultural contradictions in which working
mothers were caught:
“On one end of the spectrum, the McMartin day-care child-
molestation scandal (followed by a barrage of similar scandals),
and on the other end the spectrum, the premiere and runaway
success of ‘The Cosby Show.’
“The former served as the direst warning of what happens when
mothers go to work and entrust their children to others. The
latter suggested that you could work at a demanding job,
express frequent exasperation with your kids and threaten to
murder them on a regular basis, and yet have a loving husband
and children and be a terrific mother....”
– From “The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood
and How It Has
Undermined Women” by Susan J. Douglas and Meredith W.
Michaels (2004)
Defending Betsy Kelly? Prepare to be stalked
Sept. 18, 2013
“Joseph B. Cheshire V, Betsy Kelly’s attorney, says the
believers in town remain so hostile to the heretics who profess
any disbelief over the charges that he no longer feels
comfortable vacationing at nearby Nags Head. ‘Good,’ says one
prominent Little Rascals father. ‘I almost killed myself last
summer running that extra distance past his house, just so he’d
know that I knew he was there.’ ”
– From “The Demons of Edenton” by Lisa Scheer and
Edward Cone in Elle magazine (November 1993)
“During [the Little Rascals case], Cheshire was the victim of
assaults and for a time wore a bullet-proof vest.”
– From “Nationally known criminal defense attorney Joe
Cheshire (’73) talks about his colorful career” by John Trump at

7. Wake Forest University School of Law (April 5, 2010)
‘The truth is not a smorgasbord....’
Sept. 16, 2013
“The prosecution-minded are careful to say that they do not
believe everything a child says. For example, they do not
believe 3-year-old Virginia’s statement that ‘Karen was cooked
in a microwave.’
“But they do believe her when she says, ‘I helped my teacher
put a playhandle in Karen’s heinie’ – even though one 3-year-
old sodomizing another with a ‘playhandle’ an inch or 2 wide
and not causing bleeding from a torn rectum is as unbelievable
as cooking a child in a microwave.
“Accepting half a child’s statement and rejecting the other
(death by microwave) is capricious: The truth is not a
smorgasbord from which we can choose the facts we fancy and
leave behind those we do not.”
– From “Magical Child Molestation Trials: Edenton’s Children
Accuse” by Margaret Leong (1993)
Board couldn’t see Betsy Kelly ‘minus her publicity’
Sept. 13, 2013
“I am urging you to treat Elizabeth Kelly as you would treat
anyone else with the same case file. I am asking you to
demonstrate that we are all ‘equal under the law.’ Any other
inmate with the same sentence and clean record would have
been eligible for parole the minute she walked through the gates
of the prison.... I am appealing to you not to withhold that
which she would otherwise likely receive – minus her publicity,
minus the rhetoric of politicians. I am imploring you not to
deal more strictly with her than with others simply because she
is Elizabeth Kelly.”

8. – From a letter to the North Carolina Parole Commission
by Jane W. Duffield of Raleigh (April 5, 1994)
The Parole Commission proved unable or unwilling to consider
Betsy Kelly’s case “minus her publicity, minus the rhetoric of
politicians.” Bill Hart, vengeful over her unwavering insistence
that she was innocent, reneged on a plea agreement not to
contest her release, and the Parole Commission obediently sent
her back for seven more months of wrongful imprisonment.
‘Too many therapists with too little expertise’
Sept. 11, 2013
“Why did the epidemic of day care hysteria happen just when
and where it did? Why in 1982? Why in the United States?....
You can’t have a panic about day care centers unless you have
day care centers. These had become a necessary fixture of
American life as more mothers entered the work force, families
traveled far distances to chase available jobs and there were
fewer available grandmothers to help babysit. Undoubtedly
parental guilt in turning over parental responsibility played a
role.
“Among therapists, there was concern over previously not
taking seriously enough the statements of kids who had actually
experienced sexual abuse. There were also too many therapists
with too little expertise who were able nonetheless to self-
promote and gain authority as fake ‘experts.’ This sad episode
is the clearest caution imaginable to any therapist feeling the
impulse to jump onto a current or future fad bandwagon.”
– From “Saving Normal: An Insider's Revolt Against Out-of-
Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the
Medicalization of Ordinary Life” by Allen Francis (2013)
Despite Dr. Francis’s timidity in exposing the “complete bunk”
of multiple personality disorder, his influence across psychiatry

9. is undisputed. But will his words be sufficient to deter the next
generation of overreaching therapists from jumping onto the
“fad bandwagon”?
Judith Abbott’s fantasies of Charles Manson
Sept. 9, 2013
“According to court records, one of the state-recommended
therapists, Judith Abbott, showed a five-year-old girl drawings
of satanic symbols (a horned mask, inverted crosses and a peace
symbol described on the drawing as the ‘Cross of Nero’) in an
effort to uncover instances of devil worship. ‘Mr. Bob’ was
wearing one of those, the child said, according to a note Abbott
wrote on the drawing of the mask.
“The same child had begun her therapy complaining that Mr.
Bob gave hard spankings; after biweekly sessions for six
months she was ‘remembering,’ according to Abbott’s typed
therapy notes, ‘oral penetration by a penis, vaginal penetration
by a brown felt-tipped pen and witnessing the murder of human
babies.’
“Abbott explains the delay in eliciting this material by saying
that the children had been terrified into silence. ‘When you
break down the child, you own their spirit.’ she says. ‘It’s like
Helter Skelter, Charles Manson.’ ”
– From “The Demons of Edenton” by Lisa Scheer and
Edward Cone in Elle magazine (November 1993)
A proven effective way to “break down the child”: Subject her
to six months of Abbott’s biweekly “therapy” sessions.
Still waiting for that ‘huge mea culpa’

10. Sept. 6, 2013
“The day-care trials couldn’t have happened without the active
participation of social workers and therapists. Police
authorities relied on the therapists to interpret what the child
witnesses were saying, to interview the children and to counsel
them about their alleged experiences. One might suppose that
the realization that:
● People have been sent to prison for years for crimes that
never happened;
● Children had been abused, not by the accused, but by
misguided therapists who implanted false memories;
would have created a huge mea culpa among the professionals
involved. This hasn’t happened.
“Some have defended their actions, if not the results, on the
basis that their hearts were in the right place. Some have
excused themselves on the basis that nobody knew any better –
that, by golly, nobody could have guessed that rewarding
children for making accusations, and questioning them until
they did make accusations, might just lead to false accusations.
“And they speak, in self-pitying tones, about the ‘backlash’ –
the (presumably) undeserved and irrational criticism that is
flung their way.”
– From “The ‘Ritual Abuse’ Panic” at Imaginary Crimes
Mum’s still the word from the prosecution therapists in the
Little Rascals case, except for Judy Abbott’s resentful response
to the “backlash.”
‘Question mark in so many minds’ about McMartin?
Sept. 4, 2013
In her appreciative review of “The Hunt,” the new Danish
movie about a kindergarten teacher wrongfully accused of child
sexual abuse, Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times writes:
“If you were in Los Angeles in the 1980s, it is impossible not to
be reminded of the McMartin preschool case that dominated

11. headlines for nearly a decade and still remains a question mark
in so many minds.”
Linking “The Hunt” to the day-care ritual abuse panic is
certainly apt – but in whose minds does McMartin “remain.... a
question mark”?
In the mind of law professor John E.B. Myers, perhaps. But
what credible social scientist today will argue that cases such as
McMartin and Little Rascals were grounded in anything but
therapist-created fiction?
Clemency for Junior Chandler is long overdue
Sept. 2, 2013
“That power [of clemency], which the Constitution explicitly
grants to the president, has always served as an indispensable
check on the injustices of the legal system and as a means of
demonstrating forgiveness where it is called for. It was once
used freely; presidents issued more than 10,000 grants of
clemency between 1885 and 1930 alone. But mercy is a four-
letter word in an era when politicians have competed to see who
can be toughest on crime....
“Meanwhile, President Obama’s use of the pardon power
remains historically low. In four and a half years, he has
received almost 10,000 applications for clemency and has
granted just 39 pardons and one sentence commutation. No one
seems to know why some requests are granted and others
denied....”
– From “Pardon Rates Remain Low,” editorial in the New York
Times (Aug. 21, 2013
Pardons have become scarce in North Carolina as well. In her
last week as governor, Bev Perdue pardoned the Wilmington 10,
but not the Edenton Seven – or anyone else, for that matter.
Perdue left office without commenting on the dozens of
clemency applications still on her desk. (Her willingness to

12. forgive contrasts with that of previous governors, most
dramatically Charles Brantley Aycock, who between 1901 and
1905 granted no fewer than 369 pardons.)
Among those applications Perdue didn’t address was Junior
Chandler’s.
Now there’s a new governor, and Junior’s brother Billy tells me
a renewed effort is being made to obtain clemency. Even if
Junior were guilty – which he obviously isn’t – shouldn’t 26
years behind bars be punishment enough?
A national epidemic of supposed ‘remembering’
Aug. 30, 2013
“The Edenton case is not just a horrifying aberration. Adults
across the country are suddenly ‘remembering’ that they were
abused as children, and filing civil lawsuits and criminal
charges against aged parents...
“Claims of long-ago child abuse, ‘blocked out’ from memory
until now, have become a common defense tactic. Unscrupulous
‘therapists’ and sensationalist writers feed the frenzy.
“Anything goes against accused abusers, especially the right to
a fair trial.”
– From an editorial in the Arkansas Times (Aug. 5, 1993)
Day-care teachers ‘as helpless as a clay pigeon’
Aug. 28, 2013
“It’s not by chance that day care centers are the sites of magical
molestation, and not public schools with their powerful lobbies
and unions.... Those primary and secondary school teachers’
organizations provide protection and security for their members,
much as the AMA protects doctors and the ABA protects
lawyers.
“It’s only you – a day care teacher – who has no protection at

13. all. If hysterical parents gang up and attack you, you are as
helpless as a clay pigeon in a shooting gallery.”
– From “Magical Child Molestation Trials: Edenton’s Children
Accuse”
by Margaret Leong (1993)
‘Cooper stopped far short of apologizing....’
Aug. 26, 2013
“Attorney General Roy Cooper stopped far short of apologizing
to [Greg Taylor and Floyd Brown]. He said that the SBI had
better investigative practices now and that ‘It was in the best
interest of the state to settle these cases.’
“And maybe in the best interest of justice, too?
“These two men lost their youths thanks to agents of the SBI.
That is an outrage for which they can never be adequately
compensated. State officials have been encouraged to offer
profuse apologies, and that is not unreasonable, though it’s a
little late for it now....
“But let no one involved in prosecuting these two men believe
that the debt for their ‘mistakes’ is paid in full.”
– From “Two former prisoners' lives, valued,” editorial
in the News & Observer (Aug. 15, 2013)
As compensation for their flagrantly corrupted prosecution,
Taylor received about $4.5 million from the state, Brown about
$8 million. Attorney General Cooper seems to find such an
outlay easier to swallow than offering an apology – providing
yet another example of the “Mistakes Were Made (But Not By
Me)” approach to accountability.
By contrast, in 2007 the Duke lacrosse case moved Cooper to
give the defendants a “statement of innocence” and to at least
brush up against remorse:
“In the rush to condemn, a community and a state lost the
ability to see clearly.... I think a lot of people owe a lot of
apologies to a lot of people.”

14. But in 2009, after yet another wrongful conviction settlement –
this one for $3.9 million – Cooper declined to give murder
defendant Alan Gell a statement of innocence. ''The Duke case
was a clear case, very unusual," he explained. "There was no
crime committed....”
“No crime committed”? Why, I know another “clear case, very
unusual” that precisely meets that standard!
Faulty ‘mental tuning forks’ betrayed therapists
Aug. 23, 2013
“Developing a mental tuning fork for the credibility of a claim,
gaining an instinct for when to trust and when to doubt a source
– these are two critical components of becoming a confident and
effective researcher.”
– From “The Devil in the Details: Media Representation of
‘Ritual Abuse’ and Evaluation of Sources” by Barbara Fister in
Studies in Media & Information Literacy Education (May 2003
Although Fister’s observation addresses the challenge of fact-
finding on the Internet, it applies just as well to the
interviewing of child witnesses. The poorly prepared Little
Rascals prosecution therapists – and social services
investigators – surely had an overabundance of confidence in
their “mental tuning forks” and their “instinct for when to trust
and when to doubt.” By contrast, social scientists such as Ceci
and Bruck proceed with caution, not credulity.
Child sex trafficking: 21st century's moral panic?
Aug. 21, 2013
“Some advocates have suggested secure facilities for America’s
child sex trafficking victims.... Such facilities force troubled

15. children into a system of care that may be just as exploitive as
with a pimp/trafficker.
“Countless women continue to seek restitution for the sexual
abuse by employees assigned to supervise them while in
detention in the ’60s and ’70s – some of these women have
children fathered by detention employees....
“So then why do we talk about secure facilities for child victims
of sex trafficking? Because ‘sex is at issue’ in their
victimization....
“Child sex trafficking is not the first social issue to create
moral panic around physical and sexual abuse. In the ’80s,
Satanic Ritual Abuse garnered self-proclaimed experts, national
media attention, law enforcement mobilizations, federal
funding, excitement and hysteria. By the ’90s official
investigations produced no evidence of widespread conspiracies
and only a small number of crimes were verified....”
– From “Residential Programs for America's Child Sex
Trafficking Victims:
Secure or Non-Secure Facilities?” by Dr. Lois Lee, founder and
president,
Children of the Night, at Huffington Post (July 9, 2013)
Google
Remember when ‘ritual abuse’ was a hot topic?
Aug. 19, 2013
A brief visual aside, courtesy of the Google books Ngram
Viewer:
However much frustration I feel in pursuing exoneration for the
Edenton Seven – plenty! – I do take some reassurance in
watching the ritual abuse moral panic slowly lose its hold on
public discourse, as shown in the Ngram above or here.

16. Anxieties about children still make us crazy
Aug. 16, 2013
“Ritual abuse may now seem an almost quaint aberration, a
temporary fad that seized the popular imagination, as outdated
as hula-hoops or disco fever. But our anxieties about children
continue to affect our judgment. When a meta-analysis of
research published in Psychological Bulletin (1998) suggested
that not all children under the age of 18 were traumatized by
having sexual experiences before adulthood, the U.S. House of
Representatives passed a resolution condemning the association.
Not surprisingly, the popular outcry that led to the
Congressional resolution was sparked by talk show celebrity
Laura Schlessinger.
“More recently, a book that explored whether overzealous
response to fears about children and sexuality are harmful to the
youth we seek to protect was published by the University of
Minnesota press after trade publishers deemed it too
controversial for their lists; Tim Pawlenty, then a state
legislator, but who was elected governor of Minnesota in 2002,
quickly moved to condemn the publication and the University
for publishing it.”
– From “The Devil in the Details: Media Representation of
‘Ritual Abuse’ and Evaluation of Sources” by Barbara Fister in
Studies in Media & Information Literacy Education (May 2003)
That was Dennis T. Ray’s story, and he was sticking to it
Aug. 14, 2013
“FARMVILLE – A juror in the trial of Robert F. Kelly Jr.
testified Wednesday that it was an ‘amazing coincidence’ that
information from a magazine article appeared in his notes about
jury deliberations.
“Dennis T. Ray insisted during a hearing on Kelly's bid for a
new trial that he did not use information from a Redbook article
about child molestation to evaluate Kelly's guilt. Ray denied

17. that he compared Kelly to characteristics of a molester listed in
the article.
“But defense attorney David Rudolf vigorously attacked Ray's
credibility by referring to notes Ray made during the
deliberations. Rudolf cited numerous phrases from the magazine
article, such as ‘vast amount of child pornography’ and ‘sex
fiend’ which were identical to phrases in Ray's notes.
“Rudolf, his voice rising, asked Ray whether it was just
coincidence that so many phrases from the magazine appeared
word-for-word in his notes. Ray replied that ‘it must be’
because jurors did not have the article in the jury room. ‘The
only explanation you have for this is that it is an amazing
coincidence?’ Rudolf asked. ‘Yes, sir,’ Ray said.
“In another sharp exchange, Rudolf questioned Ray's contention
that he did not describe the article in an interview with a
producer for [“Innocence Lost”]. Ray said he told her [only]
that there were books in the jury room. Rudolf: ‘You are under
oath, sir.’ Ray: ‘I do not remember saying that to her. No, sir.’
Rudolf: ‘Did you say it or not? You are under oath.’ Ray: ‘I do
not believe that I did.’
“Rudolf then played video tapes of the program that showed
Ray describing the article. Ray said after viewing the video that
he did not remember it.”
– From “Kelly lawyer attacks juror's credibility” in the News &
Observer (Jan. 20, 1994)
Dennis T. Ray seems to have been quite a loose cannon in the
jury room. In addition to the “amazing coincidence” of the
Redbook article, Ray also (according to other jurors cited in
Bob Kelly’s appellate brief) “made visits to Edenton despite
instructions by the trial court not to.
Mr. Ray also claimed to have talked with an inmate at Eastern
Correctional Institution. According to Mr. Ray, the inmate, a
convicted child molester, claimed to know Bob Kelly, and to
have personal knowledge of Mr. Kelly's guilt. The jurors said
that Mr. Ray also displayed some sort of object that he claimed

18. to be a ‘magic key’ referred to by several children.”
Unpersuaded that any of this mischief might have contaminated
the jury’s decision-making, Judge Marsh McLelland rejected
Bob Kelly’s motion for a new trial.