Smear Campaign?

Accusations of abuse closed "Mama" King's Galveston day care. But do they hold water?

A A A Comments By Brad Tyer Thursday, Jun 14 2001

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"I guess my point," Tong says, "is there's a lot of information there about Ms. Delcambre that I don't believe has been uncovered. And I find this in a lot of my cases, oftentimes the finger's pointed at the wrong person, and in fact the finger should be pointed at the actual complainant or accuser."

The Houston Press was unable to locate a current phone number or address for Delcambre.

Deron Neblett

Mama King's day care remains closed; a court order forbids her to supervise children.

Deron Neblett

Mama King's day care remains closed; a court order forbids her to supervise children.

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Laura Rhoades is not a lawyer and she is not a detective, and there is in fact squabbling among the team she has amassed. Rhoades hired Tong with money she raised partly from private contributions on King's behalf, many of them from local day cares, but lawyer Stevens has decided to make do without Tong's services.

"He didn't agree with my plan," says Tong, who maintains low hopes that King will win her appeal with Stevens at the wheel. "I'm not going to state for the record that Mark Stevens is incompetent," Tong says, "but I will tell you that [lawyers] don't know what they don't know, and they've got huge egos. And I'm sorry, but there's no course in any law school in Texas or the other 49 states that shows a lawyer how to litigate or try false allegation cases."

What it takes, Tong says, is money. Money, mostly, for expert witnesses.

Rhoades is doing her part, throwing a community fund-raiser last Saturday, and continuing to amass testimonials from other day-care parents who are eager to confirm, for the record, their absolute certainty of King's innocence.

Leanne Mudge and other parents remain unconvinced.

Rhoades keeps searching for the evidence, stringing discrepancies and suspicions and a trail of paper together into a plausible theory as to how a small-time con artist might have tried to take advantage of a sweet old lady and ruined her name and her business in the process, and how a state agency -- in a rush to shut down talk about a woman, licensed and decorated by that same agency, smearing shit on the cheeks of children -- might not be inclined to bend over backward in considering her innocence.

And while Laura Rhoades collects all that, searching for a smoking gun to prove it and for someone in authority who cares, her most compelling pieces of evidence are out in the backyard, playing, illegally, with Delores King.

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