(c) Copyright Jonathan G. Harris. Permission is granted to repro- duce this for non profit use provided this notice is attached.

"I went to that preschool since I was  a  baby.  I even went  there  during  the  first grade after school. I had fun. We painted and colored,"  Karen (name changed for privacy), now  16, describes  some  happy times that ended when her preschool closed ten years ago. Her parents have similar memories. The center  was open  and they could drop in any time. Her father said that today Karen jumped with joy at the prospect of visiting Miss  Vi; but visiting  the  school's seventy year old  former owner or her two children, Gerald and Cheryl, is somewhat  difficult  today.  They all  remain in Massachusetts prisons. The school was the infamous Massachusetts  daycare, Fells Acres.

Many consider the Fells  Acres prosecution,  which   will be  ten years old this September,  a landmark for child   protection.  Unfortunately,  two juries and the media have   overlooked an   overwhelming body of evidence   that suggests  the case is a complete hoax -- part of the "ritual  abuse" hysteria   that  began in the 1980s. The result is that  for  the past  seven  years three  innocent  people  have languished   in prison. 

It was Labor Day weekend of 1984.  Gerald and his   wife, Patti, were awaiting the   birth of their  third  child. Cheryl  and  her husband, Al, married for scarcely sixteen months, were  ready  to start their family. Vi was  thinking of  retiring and passing the eighteen year old business on to her two children.

Sunday night the phone  rang  at  a child abuse hotline.  A  mother told the staffer that her son had accused Gerald Amirault of molesting him in a secret room which had a bed and  a shelf   with   golden  trophies. The boy had attended Fells Acres for approximately twenty days the previous spring, and had left in June  for  summer  vacation.

The mother and son told several conflicting versions of the story. The boy told the police that he was taken to the secret room on several occasions when his teachers were sick and Gerald  took over the class;  but the teachers knew that Gerald never took  over that classroom.

Initially the boy did not know where the secret room was because he  was blindfolded. 

Another  time the room was at Fells Acres. Finally at the trial the boy testified that he was driven in a car  to the secret room and the magic room which were in a white house and a brown house.

The mother told the grand jury  that every day  her   son attended  Fells  Acres, Gerald removed him from the classroom and took him to the secret room to  molest him. She added that he had to  urinate  in  cups and drink the urine while his teachers were "in the room."   The   mother's   testimony  before   the   grand jury  left  it  ambiguous as to whether this was supposed to have happened in the classroom or the secret room and which  room  the teachers  were  in.  Nobody bothered to ask her to clarify this.
The boy's teachers never saw him  removed from the classroom during  nap  time  or drinking  urine.

Police and social workers  began  interviewing   children and  asking  about  secret rooms. Soon a child accused an unidentified clown, and authorities  warned   parents   to  ask   their children about a  magic   room,  a  secret  room, and a clown. Accusations arose against Vi, Cheryl,  most of the  other  teachers,    and imaginary people such as Mr. Gatt and Abigail Cooper. By the time the investigators realized  there   were   no hidden or unused rooms at  the school,  there were too many magic and secret room stories.  They then decided these rooms were  two classrooms  and  a  bathroom.

The  police  and DSS made no electronic recordings of the initial interviews, so it is impossible to evaluate how much  the children  were  pressured  into making accusations; nevertheless, DSS reports show how investigators subjected the children to  repeated leading  questions  and  the use of anatomically  detailed dolls with oversized genitals, even though initially the children said  that no abuse occurred and denied the existence of a secret room.  Recently, researchers Maggie Bruck of McGill  and  Stephen Ceci  of Cornell have demonstrated that these techniques can produce false accusations by preschool children.  Such  interviews themselves   are   an  insidious  form  of  child sexual  abuse.

The transcripts of the two trials  read like a farce. Children  admitted  that they would have forgotten everything had they not practiced their testimony with their parents.   Prosecutors  Larry  Hardoon and Patricia Bernstein had to re-ask and rephrase questions when children responded "no"  or "I forget  that one," to abuse questions.

Many children claimed that they were removed  from   their classes  and that they told their teachers that  they  were going to the magic room. No teacher had heard of such a room until  the beginning of   the   investigation.   Various  children   also described attacks  or  molestations  by  clowns, robots, and   a lobster.  No teacher ever saw anyone dressed  as  a clown, except for Hicko, who performed magic at birthday  parties.  Supposedly, Miss  Vi fed  a  child  a frog that quacked like a  duck; Miss Cheryl  killed animals  and buried their blood in  the sandbox, leaving  not a trace of evidence; and someone tied a naked boy to a tree in front of the all of the teachers and pupils.

Parents testified  on how Fells Acres converted their darlings to  monsters. Every problem -- nightmares, bed wetting,  overeating,  undereating,  temper  tantrums,  jealousy, sex  play,   lying,  clinginess  --  became  a  symptom of abuse. Without any scientific basis, Psychiatrist  Renee  Brant   justified   this    interpretation   and introduced psychiatric jargon -- rescue  fantasies,  transference, and   displacement   --  to make palatable to the jury the   children's   stories of molestations by imaginary people and assaults in the presence  of  their teachers.

Prosecutors also introduced pediatric gynecologist Sara Jean Emans  to  satisfy  the juries'  and the public's need for "physical evidence" of the abuse. She told  one jury that the vulvitis,  an  irritation and inflammation  of  the female genitals seen in three of the girls, is a "significant finding" in an evaluation for sexual  abuse.  This  testimony was  admitted in  spite of the fact that one of these girls had not been at the school for eighteen  months at the time Emans had examined her. When due to rubbing from abuse, such irritations  generally  heal within  three  weeks.  She further  added that  it was unusual to see three girls from the same school  with  the  condition, even though the gynecology  book  she  co-authored states that  the condition is common and usually due to hygiene problems.

Recently New Jersey freed Kelly  Michaels,  who was  convicted under  similar circumstances. Their supreme court recognized that suggestive interviews of children combined  with   the failure   to   record  them  and  unscientific psychological testimony similar to Dr. Brant's violate our right to  due  process. In  other  states,  the  spirit  of  the Salem witch hunt remains alive. Not only have our courts upheld all convictions,  but  the parole  board keeps Cheryl and Vi in prison because they will not confess. Gerald will not even be eligible for parole until he has spent  twenty  years  in  prison. 

Many in the psychiatric community make snide remarks about   the experts who tried to warn the jury about how the outrageous interviews prevented any reliable  information  from  being  obtained  from the children.  Meanwhile,  Dr. Emans,  Dr. Brant, and  the prosecutors continue to hold conferences boasting about the success of their "do any thing  to  obtain a conviction" approach to justice. As  long as this injustice  stands, it will be  a  model for others to  follow, once they have found another victim.

Finally the press has started to cover this case. January 30, 1995 the Wall Street Journal had a beautiful piece written by Dorothy Rabinowitz. This led to another piece in the Malden Observer by Jay Lindsay.

Later Charlie Sennot did a thorough and dispassionate investigation of the Fells Acres prosecution in the Boston Globe March 19, 1995, page 1. 

The Wall Street Journal has published two more pieces by Dorothy Rabinowitz and an editorial asking Governor Weld to commute the Amirault's sentences.
The WSJ also announced the establishment of a defense fund for the Amiraults.

About the author and sources:

Jonathan G.  Harris  is   an assistant  professor  of chemical engineering at MIT (affiliation mentioned for identification purposes  only).  He  also  follows "fringe  science."   and   as part  of  this  interest has studied the ritual abuse controversy for over a year. The information in this article  comes  primarily   from   transcripts  of  Gerald  Amirault's  trial and Cheryl LeFave's and Violet Amirault's  trial  and  some DSS  and  police reports  from  the Fells Acres investigation.  Also used were appellate court decisions; a friend of the court  brief on   behalf of   Kelly Michaels written by Professors Stephen Ceci and Maggie Bruck; interviews with  several  people  involved  in  the  case. "Karen"(alias)   is  a  sixteen  year old girl who attended Fells Acres from when she was a baby until  it   closed   in  September of   1984.   Her  name  has  been changed to protect the family's privacy. The interview was carried out with the parents'  consent Documentation of any facts stated here can be provided  upon  request. 

Jonathan   G.   Harris
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