DATE: Sunday, May 25, 1997                  TAG: 9705250052

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY ERIKA REIF, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: EDENTON                           LENGTH:  102 lines

IN EDENTON, THE GHOSTS OF MOLESTATION CHARGES LINGER THE LITTLE RASCALS CASE WAS THE COSTLIEST IN NORTH CAROLINA IN DOLLARS, AND THE COSTLIEST IN EDENTON IN PAIN.

At the Midget League baseball games, parent-coaches pitch to teams of T-shirted youngsters. Adults lean forward on bleachers, clapping and shouting, while others trip over each other as they squeeze on and off the field, yelling out advice.

Edenton is like this. The kind of place where the best-known pub in town goes out of business because people are hanging out with their kids on Friday nights at Earnhardt Field, cheering them on.

Yet there's a dark spot. It's inside most of the parents and some of the children, because everyone on the ballfield knows someone who's been affected by the Little Rascals Day Care Center scandal.

On Friday, prosecutors announced from the courthouse steps that they would not retry Robert F. Kelly Jr. and Kathryn Dawn Wilson, who were among seven people charged in 1989 with molesting 29 children attending the center.

Kelly, who owned the center, was convicted in 1992, and Wilson, the cook, was found guilty the next year. Both convictions were overturned on appeal.

The decision by parents to spare their youngsters a second trial was national news Friday. But in Edenton, with the smell of boiled peanuts drifting over from the Seabrook processing plant, the late afternoon ballgame went on without a ripple.

Gail Boyd from Rocky Hock, which neighbors Edenton in Chowan County, was watching her two children play. She echoed the feelings of many about the case when she said, ``As far as I knew, it was already all over with.''

She was aware, however, that the impact is still felt.

``I think the children are watched more than they used to be,'' Boyd said, adding that the trauma suffered by some families was shared by everyone.

``It's an open wound,'' she said.

One father of two, who would not give his name because he has coached some of the children involved in the case, said, ``Those kids will never be the same.''

Many of the children were from affluent families with influential parents, said the 36-year-old mechanic. But in the parks and playgrounds, the social classes mingle. While some affected children seem to have adjusted, others still struggle.

One boy he knows is less open and playful, and will not undress in front of his father, the mechanic was told by the parents. Many of the children and parents are still under psychiatric care, even though the first charges were made eight years ago. The man also knows of some parents who won't let their children associate with those involved in the scandal.

He describes the ordeal as ``a dark smudge'' in Edenton's history, one that can't be forgotten.

Without the Little Rascals case, Edenton is ``probably one of the most boring towns,'' he said. ``That's what's good about it.''

Drive from the farms of Chowan County into Edenton and follow roads with homes nearly three centuries old. Signs point tourists to the Tastee Freez and Chicken Kitchen, or to downtown and the waterfront.

There, locals often make a U-turn at the Confederate monument, but visitors press to Edenton Bay, where the water rolls past lush shores and cypress patches out to the Albemarle Sound.

Back in town, a pool hall and dance bar recently opened for the 18-and-older crowd. At the door of Steppin' Out, 33-year-old Richard Aycoth of Shiloh, N.C., stamps the backs of hands.

The case went on much too long, he said Friday night. And at a price tag of more than $1 million - the longest and most costly case in North Carolina history - he feels it wasted taxpayers' money, much like the O.J. Simpson criminal trial.

Aycoth was one of few willing to use his name, although his opinions and the feelings of those who disagreed were echoed in the bar and around town, as they have been since the beginning.

``That man is guilty,'' Aycoth said of Kelly.

But a 35-year-old pool player disagreed. He had been working in Pitt County during some of the earlier trials there, and had lived on and off in Edenton. Now he works at a marina and would not give his name, but said it was proper that the charges were dropped.

``How do that many charges come about in a day care center? I'd have believed 10,'' he said. ``You know how these priggish little towns are. That's how 100 charges come about.''

Kelly was originally charged with 99 counts of molesting children. Kelly's wife, Elizabeth, pleaded no contest to sexual abuse charges, as did a Kelly acquaintance, Willard Privott. Both served their time in custody and were released.

Wilson also spent time in jail before the North Carolina Court of Appeals overturned her and Robert Kelly's convictions in 1995.

Three other defendants in the case were charged in 1989 but never tried. Charges against them were dropped late last year.

The only charges remaining are eight new counts of sexual abuse against Kelly, involving a girl who did not attend Little Rascals.

Saturday morning, on the bay, three men leaned fishing poles against the wooden pier posts. Robert White left his pole with his friends while he changed the spark plugs under the hood of his Thunderbird.

White's 5-year-old son was staying with a grandmother. White simply doesn't use day care anymore.

``I don't trust it,'' he said. ``It don't feel right.''

And the townspeople, they haven't let go. Things are definitely not the same.

``They don't trust people like they used to, I guarantee that,'' White said. ``Everybody's watching everybody.'' KEYWORDS: DAY CARE CENTERS CHILD ABUSE SEX

CRIME CHILD MOLESTER TRIAL SENTENCING

RETRIAL CONCLUSION

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