THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 1, 1995 TAG: 9509280017
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 43 lines
Now you have done it! You have published the most flawed editorial ever (``Retrials? No,'' Sept. 15). The basis of your conclusions ``supplants credulity, and passion has overridden reason'' (to use some of your own words).
As a clinical social worker with eight years of educational and internship preparation plus 25 years of experience, I have helped dozens of people reclaim lost childhoods as sexual-abuse victims and lost adulthoods as perpetrators (I provide service to both).
I am certain that justice prevailed in the conviction of the Little Rascals defendants. Just reading your news accounts of what went on almost would have been enough.
Add to that other media revelations of the child and family victims, as well as revelations by the accused themselves, and I am further convinced.
The clincher for me, the evidence that makes me so certain, however, is the children's testimony corroborated by the evaluating therapists.
Little children tell the truth about this sort of thing. They are highly reliable reporters; and, I know firsthand the exceptional knowledge, skills and abilities of two of the therapists involved in evaluating these children. The evaluators each have extensive training and internships and more than 20 years of experience in their professions. Topped off by their veracity and their personal and professional integrity, these criteria are sufficient to stand alone in support of the convictions of the defendants in ``the whole awful business.''
It is well worth while not to drop the Little Rascals' case. Once more North Carolina must put before the world the ``horrendous, grotesque, soul-destroying crimes'' committed against the Edenton children and their families. Let the retrials begin!
WILLIAM E. RUSSELL, LCSW
Virginia Beach, Sept. 18, 1995 by CNB