Acknowledgement: In the 1980s, I lived near the McMartin Preschool, followed the story daily when it happened, and bought into the “I believe the children” mantra of my neighbors.

Part I: the backstory

In March 1984, the 78-year-old McMartin, her daughter Peggy Buckey, her grandchildren Raymond and Peggy Ann Buckey and three other longtime McMartin Preschool teachers were indicted on 105 counts of child sexual abuse involving 18 children.

During the preliminary hearing the counts increased to 205 involving 41 children. Following the 18-month long preliminary hearing, charges were dropped against all but Peggy and Raymond Buckey. Peggy Buckey, 58, remained in Los Angeles County Jail without bail for two years and one day. Raymond Buckey, 26, was held without bail for five years.

During their two-year, nine month long trial on 100 counts of child sexual abuse involving 13 children, 100 witnesses testified, and over 1,000 exhibits were introduced. Transcripts of the trial ran to over 400 volumes.

Stories of playing the Naked Movie Star Game and Cowboys and Indians with Miss Peggy, Mr. Ray, Miss Mary Ann and Miss Betty, as Virginia McMartin watched. The teachers, he said, were naked and sexually abused the children during the games and said they’d shoot them if they told their mom and dad.

On Jan. 18, 1990 the jury found Peggy Buckey not guilty on all counts, except for a single count of conspiracy. The jury deadlocked on 13 of the charges against Raymond Buckey, including the conspiracy count involving his mother.

And more:

In addition to interviews, 150 children received medical examinations. Dr. Astrid Heger, of CII, concluded that 80% of the children she examined had been molested. For the most part, she based her findings not on physical evidence, but on medical histories and her belief that “any conclusion should validate the child’s history.”

The testimony of children at the preliminary hearing was shockingly bizarre, and often riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions. Children testified that sexual assaults took place on farms, in circus houses, in the homes of strangers, in car washes, in store rooms, and in a “secret room” at McMartin accessible by a tunnel. One boy told of watching animal sacrifices performed by McMartin teachers wearing robes and masks in a candle-lit ceremony at St. Cross Episcopal Church. In response to a defense question, the boy added that the kids were forced to drink the blood of the sacrificed animals. Perhaps strangest of all, was the testimony of one boy who said that the McMartin teachers took students to a cemetery where the kids were forced to use pickaxes and shovels to dig up coffins. Once the coffins were removed from the ground, according to the child, they would be opened and the McMartin teachers would begin hacking the bodies with knives.

Excavation of the McMartin site looking for the “secret tunnels”:

So what really happened? Here are the possibilities: a) They were guilty and a justice system failure; b) They were innocent and it never happened; or c) there were some instances of abuse but not the 300+ cases alleged.

With 300 victims and 7 defendants and the passage of time, we would certainly one day learn what really happened. Right? Surprisingly, none of the original seven defendants, despite offers of clemency from the prosecution, ever admitted guilt or implicated a fellow defendant. None of the over 300 children recanted, nor have any of their therapists or physicians allowed that their procedures might have led to false allegations.

But that situation is about to change. One of the kids is now talking and the Easy Reader Newspaper (a small free newspaper in Manhattan Beach that covered the original allegations) is pointing us to a Los Angeles Times Magazine interview with Kyle Sapp, one of the 12 children who testified.

Part II: What Really Happened (in Kyle’s own words)

The first time I went to CII [Children’s Institute International, now known as Children’s Institute, Inc., a respected century-old L.A. County child welfare organization where approximately 400 former McMartin children were interviewed and given genital exams, and where many were diagnosed as abuse victims], we drove there, our whole family. I remember waiting … for hours… I remember thinking to myself, “I’m not going to get out of here unless I tell them what they want to hear.

I remember them almost giggling and laughing, saying, “Oh, we know these things happened to you. Why don’t you just go ahead and tell us?

Anytime I would give them an answer that they didn’t like, they would ask again and encourage me to give them the answer they were looking for.

But the lying really bothered me. One particular night stands out in my mind. I was maybe 10 years old and I tried to tell my mom that nothing had happened. I lay on the bed crying hysterically—I wanted to get it off my chest, to tell her the truth. My mother kept asking me to please tell her what was the matter. I said she would never believe me. She persisted: “I promise I’ll believe you! I love you so much! Tell me what’s bothering you!” This went on for a long time: I told her she wouldn’t believe me, and she kept assuring me she would. I remember finally telling her, “Nothing happened! Nothing ever happened to me at that school.” She didn’t believe me.

The aftermath:

On November 2, 1989, after nearly thirty months of testimony, the case went to the jury. The jury spent another two-and-a-half months deliberating its verdicts. On fifty-two of the sixty-five charges against the two defendants (some charges were dropped during the trial), including all of the charges against Peggy Buckey, the jury returned an acquittal. On the thirteen remaining charges against Ray Buckey, the jury announced that it was hopelessly deadlocked.

The second trial was a much more focused proceeding, involving only eight counts of molestation and three children. The prosecution presented its entire case in just thirteen days (compared to fifteen months in the first trial) and offered only eleven witnesses. The jury ended its deliberations deadlocked on all eight counts. The jury leaned toward acquittal on six of the counts, and leaned toward conviction on only one count.

Following the mistrial, District Attorney Reiner chose not to retry Buckey a third time and all charges against him were dismissed.

The McMartin Preschool Abuse Trial was costly in many ways. In monetary terms, it cost taxpayers over $15 million dollars. For the defendants, the costs of the trial included long terms in jail (Ray Buckey spent five years in jail before being released on bail), loss of homes, loss of jobs, loss of life savings, and a stigma that might never leave. The children too were victims. Ray Buckey in a CBS interview said: “Those poor children went through hell,…but I’m not the cause of their hell and neither is my mother..The cause of their hell is the …adults who took this case and made it what it was.”

No winners in this one.

hat tip: LA Observed

Also reporting this: Overlawyered

technorati: mcmartin child abuse

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 29th, 2005 at 9:54 am by Insider and is filed under Big Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.