Their Crimes Were Unspeakable. They Were Also Bogus
Dan and Fran Keller exonerated of daycare sex abuse
By Arden Dier , Newser Staff
Dan and Fran Keller during an interview in 2014.
(NEWSER) – They were labeled "satanic" daycare owners who murdered babies, held orgies involving children, took kids to Mexico to be raped by military officials, and forced others to drink blood. They each spent 21 years in prison based on those lies, reports the Intercept . But after 25 years, their names have finally been cleared. Texas couple Fran and Dan Keller were exonerated of the sexual assault of a child Tuesday after Travis County District Attorney Margaret Moore filed a motion to dismiss their cases. While noting that some accusers don't agree with her decision, Moore said "no credible evidence exists that inculpates the defendants," who are "actually innocent" of the crime for which they were each sentenced to 48 years in 1992, per the Austin Chronicle .
The case began when a 3-year-old girl who visited their daycare said she'd been spanked by Dan, now 75. Questioned by her mother and a therapist, the girl went on to tell of rape and orgies. After more children came forward with increasingly outrageous claims, the Kellers were convicted based in part on an ER doctor's opinion that the girl suffered a vaginal injury that had possibly resulted from sexual abuse. They were only released from prison in 2013 after the doctor testified he'd made a mistake, having learned at a medical conference that genitalia with that appearance is normal. He says he tried to share his error with the Austin PD years prior but was dismissed; lawyer Keith Hampton worked on the case pro bono for six years to bring about the exoneration, which makes the Kellers each eligible to receive $1.7 million from the state. Read about another case with similar themes here .
http://www.newser.com/story/244602/their-crimes-were-unspeakable-they-were-also-bogus.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=earthlink&utm_campaign=rss_topnews
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If Donald Trump thinks he is the victim of a witch hunt, he should have been trying to run a day care center or be a baby sitter or a kindergarten teacher in the early to mid-1990's. Hardly a week went by without another charge against a daycare center or teacher doing horrible and unbelievable things to young children and many people went to prison. The problem is that in many of the cases the children's testimony was either knowingly or unknowingly led by so-called "experts" in interviewing the children and most cases were shown to be completely false. But not until many lives were ruined. The witch hunt lasted for a few years and then finally went away, but many people still remained, unjustly, in prison.
Wow,,,how fucked-up is that?!
I remember this case when it first happened. I was horrified. I think there was a whole documentary about it. I'll try to find it.
Talk about messed up. But just remember, that the Salem Witch Hunts (which is the original), was brought about because some teen aged girls made up a story.
So sad that we haven't learned a thing from that.
"False memories" have done a lot of damage, no doubt.
It got really crazy for awhile there. Kids were claiming on the stand that some of their daycare providers had sharks in their swimming pools and would threaten to feed them to them if they didn't do what they said and that they performed all sorts of rituals and they were believed! So called "experts" would get on the stand and testify that children 5 or 6 years old were actually incapable of lying and juries believed them! It all started with the McMartin PreSchool case and then the whole country went crazy for a few years. Boy and Girl Scout leaders quit. People closed down their daycare centers and people stopped babysitting. All because they were terrified of being the next ones to be accused of something. A lot of innocent people went to prison. Like Perrie I remember after it was all over I remember there were some documentaries about it and some pieces on shows like 60 minutes.