Frontline

Innocence Lost: The Plea (1997x10)

Air date: May 27, 1997

FRONTLINE producer Ofra Bikel revisits the defendants in the Little Rascals Day Care sexual abuse case and reports on how each of them, while accused of the same crimes, have met with dramatically different fates. In 1991, FRONTLINE broadcast Bikel's Emmy Award-winning profile of Edenton, North Carolina, a town torn by reports of sexual abuse emerging from its best day-care center. More than thirty people were accused, and seven were eventually indicted on hundreds of abuse charges. In 1993, 'Innocence Lost: The Verdict,' winner of a DuPont Columbia Silver Baton and the Grand Prize at the Banff Television Festival, detailed stunning courtroom events and raised serious questions about the fairness of the trials which resulted in twelve life sentences for Little Rascals owner Bob Kelly and one life sentence for day-care worker Dawn Wilson. 'Innocence Lost: The Plea' reveals what has become of those caught up in this controversial case.