McMartin preschool trial

The McMartin preschool trial was a day care sexual abuse case in the 1980s, prosecuted by the Los Angeles District Attorney, Ira Reiner.

[1] Members of the McMartin family, who operated a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, were charged with hundreds of acts of sexual abuse of children in their care.

[2][3] In 1983, Judy Johnson, mother of one of the preschool's young students, reported to the police that her son had been sodomized by her estranged husband and also by McMartin teacher Ray Buckey.

Some sources state that at that time, Johnson's son denied her suggestion that his preschool teachers had molested him, whereas others say he confirmed the abuse.

[4][6] In addition, Johnson also made several more accusations, including that people at the daycare had sexual encounters with animals, that "Peggy drilled a child under the arms" and "Ray flew in the air.

The text of the letter read:[4] September 8, 1983 Dear Parent: This Department is conducting a criminal investigation involving child molestation (288 P.C.)

Do not contact or discuss the investigation with Raymond Buckey, any member of the accused defendant's family, or employees connected with the McMartin Pre-School.

Johnson was diagnosed with and hospitalized for acute paranoid schizophrenia[5][9][10][11] and, in 1986, was found dead in her home from complications of chronic alcoholism[4][12] before the preliminary hearing concluded.

[2][9][16] Astrid Heppenstall Heger performed medical examinations and took photos of what she believed to be minute scarring, which she stated was caused by anal penetration.

The recordings of the interviews were instrumental in the jury's refusal to convict, by demonstrating how children could be coerced to giving vivid and dramatic testimonies without having experienced actual abuse.

[21] The techniques used were shown to be contrary to the existing guidelines in California for the investigation of cases involving children and child witnesses.

[6] When shown a series of photographs by Danny Davis (the McMartins' lawyer), one child identified actor Chuck Norris as one of the abusers.

[6] There were claims of orgies at car washes and airports, and of children being flushed down toilets to secret rooms where they would be abused, then cleaned up and presented back to their parents.

Some child interviewees talked of a game called "naked movie star" and suggested they were forcibly photographed nude.

[30][31] On March 22, 1984, Virginia McMartin, her daughter Peggy McMartin Buckey, her grandchildren Ray and Peggy Ann Buckey, and teachers Mary Ann Jackson, Betty Raidor, and Babette Spitler were charged with 115 counts of child abuse, later expanded to 321 counts of child abuse involving 48 children.

[2] In the 20 months of preliminary hearings, the prosecution, led by attorney Lael Rubin, presented their theory of sexual abuse.

The following day the state credentialing board in Sacramento endorsed the ruling and restored Buckey's right to teach.

[38] In October 1987, jailhouse informant George Freeman was called as a witness and testified that Ray Buckey had confessed to him while sharing a cell.

[citation needed] On January 18, 1990, after three years of testimony and nine weeks of deliberation by the jury, Peggy McMartin Buckey was acquitted on all counts.

[4][26][42] In 1988, The New York Times reported that the case "attracted national attention when the authorities speculated that hundreds of children might have been molested and subjected to satanic rituals" and "has teetered on the brink of mistrial".

[6] David Shaw of the Los Angeles Times wrote a series of articles, which later won the Pulitzer Prize,[45] discussing the flawed and skewed coverage presented by his own paper on the trial.

[47] Another instance of media conflict of interest occurred when David Rosenzweig, the editor at the Los Angeles Times overseeing the coverage, became engaged to marry Lael Rubin, the prosecutor.

[19]In an article in Los Angeles magazine, Mary A. Fischer said the case was "simply invented", and transmogrified into a national cause celebre by the misplaced zeal of six people: Judy Johnson, a mother of one of the children, Jane Hoag, the detective who investigated the complaints; Kee MacFarlane, the social worker who interviewed the children; Robert Philibosian, the district attorney who was in a losing battle for re-election; Wayne Satz, the television reporter who first reported the case; and Lael Rubin, the prosecutor.

In May 1990, Stickel claimed he found evidence of tunnels, consistent with the children's accounts, under the McMartin Preschool using ground-penetrating radar.

Materials found during the excavation included bottles predominantly dated to the 1930s and '40s, as well as tin-can fragments, plywood, inner tubes, professionally-butchered livestock bones, four small containers of trash, and a former owner's old mail box.

The remaining items, per Wyatt, had likely been left by a plumber digging from adjacent to the building to avoid damaging the concrete pad.

[citation needed] Federal funding was also used to arrange conferences on ritual abuse, providing an aura of respectability as well as allowing prosecutors to exchange tips on the best means of obtaining convictions.