A paper rebuking Stickels assessment of the McMartin tunnels

[mulebone]

One more thing, this:

Maybe McMartin was just another distraction, used as a scapegoat to cover up something else, much more sinister, that people like Gunderson and his tag-along disinfo groupies knew about or are/were involved in?

is what I think.

For what it's worth, that is.

[Percival]

Thank you, Percival.

There is way too much unsourced allegations all over the fucking internet these days

I googled "New World Order" a week ago and got over a billion and a quarter pages in return. In a few years, there will be a NWO web page for every person on the planet.

there are some really fucked things going on in the world and as long as people like Alex Jones and Constantine can keep the attention of those few who might take notice diverted from whats really going on the easier it is to get away with it.

I agree. My problem with Constantine is that he sources very little, making it impossible to check anything. It's as if he expects folk to take his word for everything. In my opinion, if you make allegations you'd better be able to back them up with something that approaches evidence. I don't think folk like Constantine should be granted any more slack than one would grant a president babbling about imaginary nuclear weapons.

When someone parses data & makes wild unsubstantiated claims based on little more than rumor, I think they do a grave disservice to any legitimate victims.

As far as the tunnel theory goes, if I remember correctly, Stickels said the "tunnels" were filled in after the first allegations were aired. Did Stickels go on to explain how that little feat was accomplished? The amount of dirt needed would have filled a few dump trucks, yet no one in that town saw a thing. Seems a bit odd since most folk in that town were apparently keeping a close eye on the "abuse site."

Well said. It is indeed funny and ironic all in one that the Alcoa Alumni tin foil hat crowd pisses and moans about evidence for the existance of OBL and Al Qeada, evidence for what really happened on 9-11, etc etc, but when it is one of their own making allegations about this or that they turn in to a bunch of brain-dead sycophants who question nothing that they are told.

The 9-11 truth movement is a disgusting example of how easy it is to fool everyone in to believing all sorts of crazy unsubstantiated shit, yet these very people go around calling everyone else ignorant hive-minded sheep.

I think Jeff Wells has done a nice job trying to get people focused on the important matters behind the scenes of 9-11, but very few take note of his efforts.

[American Dream]

I don't feel informed enough to take a really strong position on all this.

Here is Dave McGowan's piece on the subject:

http://cortez.gnn.tv/blogs/19035/The_Pe ... _Preschool

The Pedophocracy, Part IV: McMolestation (McMartin Preschool)

“Rarely has such a strange and little-understood organization had such a profound effect on media coverage of such a controversial matter. The [False Memory Syndrome] foundation is an aggressive, well-financed PR machine adept at manipulating the press, harassing its critics, and mobilizing a diverse army of psychiatrists, outspoken academics, expert defense witnesses, litigious lawyers, Freud bashers, critics of psychotherapy, and devastated parents.”
Columbia Journalism Review, July/August 1997

If there’s anyone who can relate to the sentiments expressed by the Presidio and West Point parents, it is the mothers and fathers of the children from the McMartin Preschool – and there are literally hundreds of them. The McMartin case was, of course, the largest and most well-publicized of the multi-victim, multi-perpetrator ritual abuse cases that sprang forth in the 1980s.

It was also a case that was grotesquely misrepresented by the media, both mainstream and ‘alternative’ – perhaps nowhere more so than in the appalling writings of Alexander Cockburn, the allegedly ‘progressive’ Warren Committee apologist. Cockburn went so far as to write an op-ed piece entitled “The McMartin Case: Indict the Children, Jail the Parents,” which ran in The Wall Street Journal on February 8, 1990.

Virtually everyone agrees that the children of McMartin were victimized, the only debate being whether that victimization was by abusive caretakers or by overzealous therapists and prosecutors. Either way, Cockburn’s stance on the case was unconscionable, and should have sent a clear signal to the progressive community that there was considerably more to the McMartin allegations than met the eye.

The harsh reality is that the McMartin Preschool, in conjunction with at least two other Manhattan Beach preschools and one babysitting service, was the center of a massive child prostitution and child pornography ring whose operations were protected and covered up by any number of local, state and federal officials – or so it would appear.

A glimpse of the true nature and scale of the McMartin case is given by an official correspondence from Sergeant Beth Dickerson of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to Agent Ken Lanning at the FBI Academy Behavioral Sciences Unit in Quantico, Virginia, dated February 10, 1985, and reproduced in Larry Kahaner’s Cults That Kill:

“In August 1983, the Manhattan Beach Police Department began an investigation regarding allegations of sexual abuse occurring at the McMartin Preschool … Altogether, approximately 400 children were evaluated by therapists at Children’s Institute International. All interviews were videotaped and 350 children disclosed sexual behavior …

“In all, the victims named seven teachers (six women and one male) at the preschool as having molested them. These individuals are currently charged with 209 counts of child molestation. Also named are about 30 other individuals still uncharged, as well as numerous unidentified ‘strangers.’

“McMartin victims allege sexual abuse occurred on school grounds as well as at a local market, churches, a mortuary, various homes, a farm, a doctor’s office, other preschools and other unknown locations …

“Most children state they were photographed in the nude … They mention drinking a red or pink liquid that made them sleepy … Children disclose animal sacrificing (bunnies, ponies, turtles, etc.) and some of this occurred in churches. Victims describe sticks put in their vaginas and rectums and also being ‘pooped’ and ‘peed’ on. Children say that the adults sometimes dressed in black robes, formed a circle around them and chanted.

“In May 1984, another preschool investigation began in the same policing jurisdiction stemming from a McMartin victim who identified the Manhattan Ranch Preschool as a place where he was taken and molested … additional children have begun disclosing sexual abuse (approximately 60) and they have named six or more additional suspects … These children talk of strangers coming to the school and molesting them, being taken off campus and molested, being photographed nude and some talk of animals being abused. The children talk of being hit with sticks and of being ‘peed’ and ‘pooped’ on …

“[T]he resources of the police department and the District Attorney’s office were not sufficient in order to follow up on the multitude of uncharged suspects in both preschools … The Task Force became operational on November 5, 1984. It should be noted that the Task Force has two other preschools under investigation for alleged sexual abuse in addition to McMartin and Manhattan Ranch. One, the Learning Game Preschool, is clearly linked to McMartin.”

An astounding total of 460 children reported being sexually abused at the three closely-linked Manhattan Beach schools. Even more astounding, investigative author Michael Newton (among others) has noted that Children’s Institute International determined that: “a full eighty percent displayed physical symptoms, including vaginal or rectal scarring, anal bleeding, painful bowel movements, and the ‘anal wick reflex’ associated with violent penetration.”

The stories told by the victim/witnesses were remarkably similar as to the nature of the abuse, the locations where the abuse took place, and the perpetrators of the abuse. And these were not, as is commonly believed, all preschool children telling these stories; some of the witnesses were former students in their teens and twenties, and their stories corroborated those of the children.

The older witnesses were not allowed to testify at the McMartin trials, however, as the statute of limitations for the crimes committed against them had expired. Many of the younger witnesses were unable to offer testimony as well, for various reasons – most notably because they were too severely traumatized. Even so, as author Jan Hollingsworth has pointed out, prosecutors had at their disposal “more than a hundred child witnesses as old as eleven and a truckload of medical reports bearing documentation of scarred genitals and anuses.”

The stories told by these children, it should be noted, were not fed to them by some diabolical team of therapists and headline-seeking journalists. Many of them were offered spontaneously to hundreds of parents and scores of childcare specialists. And the victims of the McMartin Preschool, all adults now, still tell the same stories today.

While anyone suggesting that the allegations in the McMartin case were true – and that a massive cover-up concealed the true nature and scope of the case – is likely to be labeled a ‘conspiracy theorist,’ the most preposterous conspiracy theory surrounding McMartin has always been the notion that some cabal of overzealous therapists was able to implant ‘false memories’ of heinous abuse in the minds of nearly 500 individuals, and have them persist to this day.

Despite the vast number of eyewitnesses – most of them bearing physical evidence of abuse – and despite the fact that the judge who presided over more than a year of pre-trial testimony ruled that the state had more than enough evidence to proceed to trial, District Attorney Ira Reiner inexplicably dropped all charges against five of the seven defendants in the case on January 17 of 1986. Six days before that, he had summarily dismissed two prosecutors on the case.

At least three dozen other suspects who had been independently identified by numerous witnesses were never indicted at all. One of these was a man named Robert Winkler, arrested in neighboring Torrance, California for running a baby-sitting service out of the Coco Palms Motel that authorities described as a front for a sexual abuse ring. Children in the McMartin case recognized Winkler in news footage as the man they had known as the ‘Wolfman.’

The kids described Winkler as being a frequent visitor to the school, delivering drugs for use in abusive rituals, which were sometimes conducted in churches, a cemetery, or a crematorium. The Wolfman, conveniently enough, turned up dead on the eve of his trial, allegedly of a drug overdose.

Winkler wasn’t the only one to miss his day in court in conjunction with the McMartin case. Judy Johnson, the first McMartin parent to lodge a complaint, turned up dead before her scheduled testimony as well. When her body was found sprawled naked on the floor of her home, her death was said to be due to complications from her chronic alcoholism. She was also derided by defense attorneys and their media allies as a mentally unfit crank.

In truth, Johnson was not known to have any mental problems – or a drinking problem – prior to learning of the unthinkable abuse her child had suffered. Considered a key prosecution witness, Johnson received frequent threats prior to her death and was followed when she ventured out in public. Many of the other McMartin parents were openly skeptical of Johnson’s stated cause of death.

A former Hermosa Beach police officer named Paul Bynum, who had been hired by the parents of victims as a private investigator, turned up dead on the eve of his scheduled testimony as well. His death by gunshot was ruled a suicide, though those close to Bynum dispute that finding to this day.

Among other things, Bynum may have testified about his examination of the tunnel excavation project conducted at the school site. This was, of course, the object of much derision by the media. The fact that the children repeatedly told stories of tunnels under the property by which they could be secretly transported to and from the school, and in which they were subjected to unspeakable abuse in a secret room, was frequently cited as ‘proof’ that the children’s stories were fabrications.
It was universally accepted that the tunnels did not actually exist, that being the consensus view of the media and law enforcement authorities.

But while it is true that the investigation commissioned by the District Attorney’s office found no evidence of tunnels, one of the dirty little secrets of the McMartin case is that the tunnels did, in fact, exist.
Many of the parents were not satisfied with the ridiculously superficial examination by the DA’s office, and commissioned another investigation of the site when the property was sold in April of 1990. To lead the project, they hired E. Gary Stickel, Ph.D., a highly regarded archeologist recommended to them by the Chair of the Interdisciplinary Program of the Archeology Department at UCLA. Stickel had served as a consultant to Lucasfilms on the Indiana Jones movies.

Also brought on board were several other technical specialists. As Stickel wrote in his report on the excavation: “By engaging a highly recommended professional archeological team, [the parents] hoped to bring scientific authority to whatever might be found or a definitive resolution for whatever was not to be found.” And what the team found was precisely what the children had been telling them they would find for the previous seven years:

“The project unearthed not one but two tunnel complexes as well as previously unrecognized structural features which defied logical explanation. Both tunnel complexes conformed to locations and functional descriptions established by children’s reports. One had been described as providing undetected access to an adjacent building on the east. The other provided outside access under the west wall of the building and contained within it an enlarged, cavernous artifact corresponding to children’s descriptions of a ‘secret room.’

“Both the contour signature of the walls and the nature of recovered artifacts indicated that the tunnels had been dug by hand under the concrete slab floor after the construction of the building … Not only did the discovered features fulfill the research prequalifications as tunnels designed for human traffic, there was also no alternative or natural explanation for the presence of such features …

“If the stories of the children were bogus fantasies, there is no excuse for the tunnels discovered under the school. If there really were tunnels, there is no excuse for the glib dismissal of any and all of the complaints of the children and their parents.”

This investigation was completed before the McMartin trials had concluded, yet this devastating evidence was never presented in court by the prosecution. The existence of this report, complete with photos and maps of the tunnel complexes, was known to the local and national press, but it was never reported. To this day, it is denied that any tunnels ever existed under the McMartin Preschool.

The denial of the tunnels is necessary to maintain the illusion that the children were not credible witnesses, that illusion being essential to the cover-up. For if the children were credible, the implications run far deeper than the tunnels under the school. There is, for example, the stories told by the children of being pimped out as child prostitutes in private homes and businesses all over the community.

They also spoke frequently of being photographed and videotaped while being abused. District Attorney Robert Philibosian publicly declared the McMartin Preschool to be an elaborate front for a massive child pornography operation. Twenty-three parents filed a civil lawsuit making the very same claim, one that appears to be strongly supported by the facts of the case.

Other stories told repeatedly by the children are even more disturbing. They told of being forced to witness and participate in the ritual torture, killing and mutilation of animals and, on occasion, of human babies and children as well. They spoke of being forced to drink the blood and eat the flesh of the slaughtered corpses, of witnessing the beheading of infants, and of being forced to stab infants themselves.

They told as well of being sealed in coffins with the mutilated corpses. And they spoke of being subjected to every sort of depraved sexual activity imaginable, including necrophilia, copraphilia and bestiality. The abuse was of such stunning brutality that it is almost beyond human comprehension that anyone could inflict such physical and psychological torture on children.

And yet these stories were soon being told by thousands of other kids across the country as preschool abuse cases spread like wildfire. Young children from all walks of life, and from all parts of the country, all telling remarkably similar stories of horrific ritual abuse – how was this possible? If they were all victims of ‘false memories,’ how vast a conspiracy would be required for therapists all across the country to implant the very same memories in all of these children?

Experts have noted that the victimized children show a level of knowledge that defies rational explanation if the kids have not experienced what they claim to have experienced. For instance, these child victims can accurately describe the look, smell, texture and colors of human viscera. This is an ability, it has been argued, that very few adults possess, other than those who have been trained as surgeons or coroners.

These children also display a remarkable level of knowledge of a wide variety of human sexual practices, including many bizarre acts that, again, most adults do not have knowledge or awareness of. If these children did not experience these things firsthand, then how did they gain such knowledge?

In February of 1985, Officer Sandi Gallant of the San Francisco Police Department submitted a report to her superiors noting the similarities in numerous ritual abuse cases. She had gathered evidence from fellow officers and police departments across the country and summarized the evidence referenced in the police reports submitted to her. An excerpt from her report reads as follows:

“The information contained herein is distasteful and bizarre, to such a degree that one would choose to discredit it. However, research that I have done in this area has revealed that numerous cases of this type are surfacing around the country and in Canada. The similarities in the stories of each child victim used in these crimes tend to give credibility to the information revealed by others. Additionally, the psychiatrists and therapists who have been treating the victims state that the consistency of the stories and the explicit details revealed cause them to believe that these children are telling the truth. It is also the belief of each law enforcement officer who submitted information for this report that the victims are being truthful and that, in fact, children would be unable to make such stories up.

“During my research, similarities began surfacing which indicate the strong probability that there exists a network of people in this country involved in the sexual abuse and possible homicides of young children. These cases appear to differ from isolated cases of abuse towards children in that the crimes mentioned here have been committed with one common goal in mind – that of mutilating and murdering children for ritualistic or sacrificial purposes. Many of the cases reported also reveal the possibility of child pornography beyond the normal type of ‘kiddie porn’ in that these children are photographed during rituals with some members in robes or other garb and candles, snakes, swords, altars and other types of ritualistic material being used.”

Gallant had requested that the report be sent on to the chief of police for him to review and forward to the FBI. Following his review, however, the chief declined to submit the report. Gallant also tried to get the U.S. Department of Justice to review the paperwork, but she was – not surprisingly – rebuffed there as well.

As for the McMartin case, there has never been any question that the children there were horrifically abused. Though rarely noted in press reports, the jurors were clearly of the opinion that that was, in fact, the case. The hung juries and acquittals were the result of the jury members’ inability to identify the perpetrators of that abuse, which they attributed to the inept presentation of the prosecution’s case.

Another notable fact about the McMartin trials is that the defense was allowed to subject the child witnesses to the longest pretrial hearing in the nation’s history. Facing a battery of as many as seven rabid defense attorneys, the already severely traumatized children were verbally assaulted for weeks on end in a deliberate attempt to break them. The state made little effort to protect these young victims.

Also rarely noted in the reporting on the trials is that the matriarch of the family – Virginia McMartin – admitted on the stand that one of her own granddaughters believed that her children had been molested at the school. McMartin, by the way, had achieved semi-celebrity status in the childcare field. In the mid-1960s, she had traveled to New Zealand, Australia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and England to visit preschools as a consultant.

In the final analysis, the logical conclusion to be drawn from the McMartin case is that 460 kids did not conspire to all lie about the abuse they suffered. They also did not likely lie about their involvement in child prostitution and child pornography. They certainly did not lie about the tunnels under the school.

They also did not lie about their forced involvement in satanic rituals, in which adults sheathed in black ceremonial robes uttered chants. In fact, at least one such robe was seized from the home of a defendant. And, perhaps most tragically, there is good reason to believe that they did not lie about the blood sacrifices either.

REFERENCES:

1. Constantine, Alex Virtual Government, Feral House, 1997
2. Hollingsworth, Jan Unspeakable Acts, Congdon & Weed, 1986
3. Kahaner, Larry Cults That Kill, Warner Books, 1989
4. Newton, Michael Raising Hell, Avon Books, 1993
5. Raschke, Carl Painted Black, Harper and Row, 1990
6. Ryder, Daniel Cover-Up of the Century, Ryder Publishing, 1996
7. Stanton, Mike “U-Turn on Memory Lane,” Columbia Journalism Review, July/August 1997
8. Stickel, E. Gary, Ph.D. “Archaeological Investigations of the McMartin Preschool Site, Manhattan Beach, California” (unpublished report of investigation)
9. Summit, Dr. Roland C. “The Dark Tunnels of McMartin,” Journal of Psychohistory, Spring 1994

[Percival]

Edit double post.

[barracuda]

Transcript of videotaped interviews:

Interview #1 (an 8-year-old boy):

Kathleen MacFarlane: Mr. Monkey is a little bit chicken, and he can't remember any of the naked games, but we think that you can, 'cause we know a naked games that you were around for, 'cause the other kids told us, and it's called Naked Movie Star.  Do you remember that game, Mr. Alligator, or is your memory too bad?

Boy: Um, I don't remember that game.

MacFarlane: Oh, Mr. Alligator.

Boy: Umm, well, it's umm, a little song that me and [a friend] heard of.

MacFarlane: Oh.

Boy: Well, I heard out loud someone singing, "Naked Movie Star, Naked Movie Star."

MacFarlane: You know that, Mr. Alligator?  That means you're smart, 'cause that's the same song the other kids knew and that's how we really know you're smarter than you look.  So you better not play dumb, Mr. Alligator.

Boy: Well, I didn't really hear a whole lot.  I just heard someone yell it from out in the _ Someone yelled it.

MacFarlane: Maybe.  Mr. Alligator, you peeked in the window one day and saw them playing it, and maybe you could remember and help us.

Boy: Well, no, I haven't seen anyone playing Naked Movie Star.  I've only heard the song.

MacFarlane: What good are you?  You must be dumb.

Boy: Well I don't know really, umm, remember seeing anyone play that, 'cause I wasn't there, when - I -when people are playing it.

MacFarlane: You weren't?  You weren't?  That's why we're hoping maybe you saw, see, a lot of these puppets weren't there, but they got to see what happened.

Boy: Well, I saw a lot of fighting.

MacFarlane: I bet you can help us a lot, though, 'cause, like, Naked Movie Star is a simple game, because we know about that game, 'cause we just have had twenty kids told us about that game.  Just this morning, a little girl came in and played it for us and sang it just like that.  Do you think if I asked you a question, you could put your thinking cap on and you might remember, Mr. Alligator?

Boy: Maybe.

MacFarlane: You could nod your head yes or no.  Can you remember who took the pictures for the naked-movie-star game?  That would be a great thing to feed into the secret machine [the video camera], and then it would be all gone, just like all the other kids did.  You can just nod whether you remember or not, see how good your memory is.

Boy: [Nod's puppet's head.]

MacFarlane: You do? Well, that's remarkable.  I wonder if you could hold a pointer in your mouth, and then you wouldn't have to say a word and [boy] wouldn't have to say a word.  And you could just point.

Boy: [Places pretend camera on adult male nude doll using alligator puppet]  Sometimes he did.

MacFarlane: Can I pat you on the head for that?  Look what a big help you can be.  You’re going to help all these little children, because you're so smart…OK, did they ever pose in funny poses for the pictures?

Boy: Well, it wasn't a real camera.  We just played…

MacFarlane: Mr. Alligator, I'm going to…going to ask you something here.  Now, we already found out from the other kids that it was a real camera, so you don't have to pretend, OK?  Is that a deal? 

Boy: Yes, it was a play camera that we played with.

MacFarlane: Oh, and it went flash?

Boy: Well, it didn't exactly go flash.

MacFarlane: It didn't exactly go flash.  Went click?  Did little pictures go zip, come out of it?

Boy: I don't remember that.

MacFarlane: Oh, you don't remember that.  Well, you're doing pretty good, Mr. Alligator.  I got to shake your hand.
 

[sunny]

"Victim" Interviews

It would have been helpful had that site provided more than two "victim" interviews. Out of 400 some odd they may not have been very representative of the majority.

Most of the trial excerpts on this page are taken from longer excerpts reprinted in Abuse of Innocence, by Paul and Shirley Eberle (Prometheus Book, 1993).

Selected Witnesses for the Prosecution

Selected Witnesses for the Defense

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/project ... artin.html

[barracuda]

Sunny, I think you'll agree that locating any of the Children's Institute interview transcripts online is difficult. So far I have located those two and another one from the heinous IPT site.

There were two more short excerpts read into evidence at the trial, also found at the University of Missouri/Kansas City School of Law website:

Kee (MacFarlane): Was the game some sort of tricky game?
-------: I don't think Ray did anything.
Kee: Pacman glad to remember tricky games. . .
-------: Not of me.
Kee: Other kids?
-------: I never saw that. . . . Ray never touched me.
Kee: Oh, Pacman knows all the secrets.
-------: I don't know any secrets.
Kee: We know the sneaky game. (She picks up the puppet and places iton top of another doll.) Can you show me the sneaky place? (------- points to the doll's abdomen.)
Kee: How yucky! Any place real sneaky? Some place private?
-------: Maybe in wiener?
Kee: How well you remember! You have done a real good job!....

and this excerpt:

Kee: Did anybody put something yucky in your mouth?
-----: (No response)
Kee: Can you remember?
------: I'm not sure.
Kee: How about a finger in your hole?
------: Yes.
Kee: Boy! I bet it did! We'll see how smart you are. Did anything come out of Ray's wiener?
------: (No response)
Kee: What did the stuff taste like?
------: He never did that....

This one is from IPT:

(the boy is holding a Pac-man puppet on his hand)

MacFarlane: Here's a hard question I don't know if you know the answer to. We'll see how smart you are, Pac-man. Did you ever see anything come out of Mr. Ray's wiener? Do you remember that?

Child: (no response)
MacFarlane: Can you remember back that far? We'll see how ... how good your brain is working today, Pac-man.

(Child moves puppet around.)

MacFarlane: Is that a yes?

(Child nods puppet yes.)

MacFarlane: Well, you're smart. Now, let's see if we can figure out what it was. I wonder if you can point to something of what color it was.

(Child tries to pick up the pointer with the Pac-man's mouth.)

MacFarlane: Let me get your pen here (puts a pointer in child's Pac-man puppet mouth).

Child: It was ...
MacFarlane: Let's see what color is that.

(Child uses the Pac-man's hand to point to the Pac-man puppet.)

MacFarlane: Oh, you're pointing to yourself. That must be yellow.

(Child nods puppet yes.)

MacFarlane: You're smart to point to yourself. What did it feel like? Was it like water? Or some-thing else?

Child: Um, what?

MacFarlane: The stuff that came out. Let me try. I'll try a different question on you. We'll try to figure out what that stuff tastes like. We're going to try and figure out if it tastes good.

Child: He never did that to [me], I don't think.

MacFarlane: Oh, well, Pac-man, would you know what it tastes like? Would you think it tastes like candy, sort of trying ...

Child: I think it would taste like yucky ants.

MacFarlane: Yucky ants. Whoa. That would be kind of yucky. I don't think it would taste like ... you don't think it would taste like strawberries or anything good?

Child: No.

MacFarlane: Oh. Think it would so ... do you think that would be sticky, like sticky, yucky ants?

Child: A little.

If you know of any other Children's Institute interview transcripts, please post them or put up url's. If you think these transcripts are somehow cherry-picked, which in the case of IPT would not surprise me, please say why, because they are sounding remarkably consistent at this point.

[sunny]

Sunny, I think you'll agree that locating any of the Children's Institute interview transcripts online is difficult. So far I have located those two and another one from the heinous IPT site.

I've looked online for years for primary sources on this case, particularly concerning physical trauma to the children, which is why I asked about a source link in my first question on this thread. I am not by any means willing to take the word of Alex Constantine on this matter, but it DOES seem as if the transcripts are being cherry-picked. But if I come across many more interviews containing the sorts of leading questions on display in the previous examples I'll have to seriously rethink my position on this case.

[Percival]

Sunny, I think you'll agree that locating any of the Children's Institute interview transcripts online is difficult. So far I have located those two and another one from the heinous IPT site.

There were two more short excerpts read into evidence at the trial, also found at the University of Missouri/Kansas City School of Law website:

Kee (MacFarlane): Was the game some sort of tricky game?
-------: I don't think Ray did anything.
Kee: Pacman glad to remember tricky games. . .
-------: Not of me.
Kee: Other kids?
-------: I never saw that. . . . Ray never touched me.
Kee: Oh, Pacman knows all the secrets.
-------: I don't know any secrets.
Kee: We know the sneaky game. (She picks up the puppet and places iton top of another doll.) Can you show me the sneaky place? (------- points to the doll's abdomen.)
Kee: How yucky! Any place real sneaky? Some place private?
-------: Maybe in wiener?
Kee: How well you remember! You have done a real good job!....

and this excerpt:

Kee: Did anybody put something yucky in your mouth?
-----: (No response)
Kee: Can you remember?
------: I'm not sure.
Kee: How about a finger in your hole?
------: Yes.
Kee: Boy! I bet it did! We'll see how smart you are. Did anything come out of Ray's wiener?
------: (No response)
Kee: What did the stuff taste like?
------: He never did that....

This one is from IPT:

(the boy is holding a Pac-man puppet on his hand)

MacFarlane: Here's a hard question I don't know if you know the answer to. We'll see how smart you are, Pac-man. Did you ever see anything come out of Mr. Ray's wiener? Do you remember that?

Child: (no response)
MacFarlane: Can you remember back that far? We'll see how ... how good your brain is working today, Pac-man.

(Child moves puppet around.)

MacFarlane: Is that a yes?

(Child nods puppet yes.)

MacFarlane: Well, you're smart. Now, let's see if we can figure out what it was. I wonder if you can point to something of what color it was.

(Child tries to pick up the pointer with the Pac-man's mouth.)

MacFarlane: Let me get your pen here (puts a pointer in child's Pac-man puppet mouth).

Child: It was ...
MacFarlane: Let's see what color is that.

(Child uses the Pac-man's hand to point to the Pac-man puppet.)

MacFarlane: Oh, you're pointing to yourself. That must be yellow.

(Child nods puppet yes.)

MacFarlane: You're smart to point to yourself. What did it feel like? Was it like water? Or some-thing else?

Child: Um, what?

MacFarlane: The stuff that came out. Let me try. I'll try a different question on you. We'll try to figure out what that stuff tastes like. We're going to try and figure out if it tastes good.

Child: He never did that to [me], I don't think.

MacFarlane: Oh, well, Pac-man, would you know what it tastes like? Would you think it tastes like candy, sort of trying ...

Child: I think it would taste like yucky ants.

MacFarlane: Yucky ants. Whoa. That would be kind of yucky. I don't think it would taste like ... you don't think it would taste like strawberries or anything good?

Child: No.

MacFarlane: Oh. Think it would so ... do you think that would be sticky, like sticky, yucky ants?

Child: A little.

If you know of any other Children's Institute interview transcripts, please post them or put up url's. If you think these transcripts are somehow cherry-picked, which in the case of IPT would not surprise me, please say why, because they are sounding remarkably consistent at this point.

These frucking questions are disgusting and would be considered leading the witness in any credible court setting.

Never under estimate the power of a witch-hunt, not to mention the power of suggestion.

Again, those kids may be telling the truth but from my own research it looks to me like Judy Johnson was a bit of a crank, but I dont know her so I really cant say. But I do remember this: January 1987 Chief Prosecutor Rubin and her assistants are revealed to have withheld potentially exculpatory evidence from the defense. The evidence in question concerned the mental illness of Judy Johnson, the parent who first made accusations of sexual abuse against Buckey.

I have no doubt, however, that such things do take place and that it is well organized and that people in high places with much money and influence are involved, I just dont know that the McMartin case is what many think it was. With Gunderson's name involved I have to consider it may have been a distraction and coverup for something even worse.

[Percival]

Sunny, I think you'll agree that locating any of the Children's Institute interview transcripts online is difficult. So far I have located those two and another one from the heinous IPT site.

There were two more short excerpts read into evidence at the trial, also found at the University of Missouri/Kansas City School of Law website:

Kee (MacFarlane): Was the game some sort of tricky game?
-------: I don't think Ray did anything.
Kee: Pacman glad to remember tricky games. . .
-------: Not of me.
Kee: Other kids?
-------: I never saw that. . . . Ray never touched me.
Kee: Oh, Pacman knows all the secrets.
-------: I don't know any secrets.
Kee: We know the sneaky game. (She picks up the puppet and places iton top of another doll.) Can you show me the sneaky place? (------- points to the doll's abdomen.)
Kee: How yucky! Any place real sneaky? Some place private?
-------: Maybe in wiener?
Kee: How well you remember! You have done a real good job!....

and this excerpt:

Kee: Did anybody put something yucky in your mouth?
-----: (No response)
Kee: Can you remember?
------: I'm not sure.
Kee: How about a finger in your hole?
------: Yes.
Kee: Boy! I bet it did! We'll see how smart you are. Did anything come out of Ray's wiener?
------: (No response)
Kee: What did the stuff taste like?
------: He never did that....

This one is from IPT:

(the boy is holding a Pac-man puppet on his hand)

MacFarlane: Here's a hard question I don't know if you know the answer to. We'll see how smart you are, Pac-man. Did you ever see anything come out of Mr. Ray's wiener? Do you remember that?

Child: (no response)
MacFarlane: Can you remember back that far? We'll see how ... how good your brain is working today, Pac-man.

(Child moves puppet around.)

MacFarlane: Is that a yes?

(Child nods puppet yes.)

MacFarlane: Well, you're smart. Now, let's see if we can figure out what it was. I wonder if you can point to something of what color it was.

(Child tries to pick up the pointer with the Pac-man's mouth.)

MacFarlane: Let me get your pen here (puts a pointer in child's Pac-man puppet mouth).

Child: It was ...
MacFarlane: Let's see what color is that.

(Child uses the Pac-man's hand to point to the Pac-man puppet.)

MacFarlane: Oh, you're pointing to yourself. That must be yellow.

(Child nods puppet yes.)

MacFarlane: You're smart to point to yourself. What did it feel like? Was it like water? Or some-thing else?

Child: Um, what?

MacFarlane: The stuff that came out. Let me try. I'll try a different question on you. We'll try to figure out what that stuff tastes like. We're going to try and figure out if it tastes good.

Child: He never did that to [me], I don't think.

MacFarlane: Oh, well, Pac-man, would you know what it tastes like? Would you think it tastes like candy, sort of trying ...

Child: I think it would taste like yucky ants.

MacFarlane: Yucky ants. Whoa. That would be kind of yucky. I don't think it would taste like ... you don't think it would taste like strawberries or anything good?

Child: No.

MacFarlane: Oh. Think it would so ... do you think that would be sticky, like sticky, yucky ants?

Child: A little.

If you know of any other Children's Institute interview transcripts, please post them or put up url's. If you think these transcripts are somehow cherry-picked, which in the case of IPT would not surprise me, please say why, because they are sounding remarkably consistent at this point.

I seriously doubt they are cherry-picked, fuck it is how it is done by nearly everyone in the child protection services field. Surely there has to be a better way...



The secret tunnels of McMartin Preschool?

[sunny]

I seriously doubt they are cherry-picked, fuck it is how it is done by nearly everyone in the child protection services field. Surely there has to be a better way...

There are professional and legal guidelines now, and mostly due to McMartin, as to the proper questioning of children making abuse allegations. Testimony using the sorts of leading questions on display in these McM interviews would be properly thrown out of court.

[Percival]

Testimony by Kee MacFarlane, Director of Children's Instititute International
(Witness for the Prosecution)
August 8, 1988
Direct Examination by Prosecutor Roger Gunson:
Gunson: "What is your occupation?"

MacFarlane: "I am a social worker and a director of the Child Sexual Abuse Center at Children's Institute International," she said. She said she was director of the program focusing on sexual abuse of children, that she received a bachelor's degree in fine arts in Ohio, then decided to discontinue her studies in fine arts and begin working with children. "I applied to graduate school at the University of Maryland and . . . began work with a number of organizations that were involved in services to children. I worked with groups that were studying the court system. . . just trying to get to know people and how the system worked." MacFarlane said she had received her master's degree in social work in 1947.

"I was requested by one of my professors to try my hand at writing federal grant proposals. There was a priority announcement for federal funding for child abuse centers, ten of them in the country. And various universities and other organizations were applying for them, and so I was asked to write a grant proposal which hopefully would allow the University of Maryland to be the source of one of these grants and start a child abuse program.

"The grant was awarded. . . . I helped to organize the people who would run that project." In 1974, MacFarlane said, she went to New Jersey to work at another child sexual abuse program, another of the ten. "It was a major grant. Two of the components of the grant were made into subcontracts of the grant which I was in charge of...."

Gunson: "Where did you go in 1976?"

MacFarlane: "To Washington, D.C. I went to join the staff of the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect. . . . I was asked to come and be a member of the staff of the national center. My job title evolved into 'child sexual abuse specialist.'

"I oversaw a number of programs that were funded by the federal government. . . . I was in Washington for six years. The United States Congress passed an amendment which provided special emphasis on child sexual abuse . . . and they authorized separate federal funding that would be specifically targeted to child sexual abuse. . . ."

Cross-examination by Dean Gits:

"When [name of girl] says she doesn't remember any [naked games] you said, 'I know 'em all because other kids told me.' Do you think that puts pressure on Melinda to remember games that she might otherwise not remember?"

"Yes."

"Do you think that having naked dolls with anatomical parts tends to suggest to the child naked games, naked people?"

"No, I don't believe that.".

"You made the statement, 'Every kid from the preschool came in and told me.' Do you think that statement puts pressure on a child?"

"No."

"You said, 'That's why we wanted to use puppets. We wanted them to get real brave because more than sixty kids have come in and told yucky secrets, and every day more kids come in and tell us what went on down there.' Do you think that statement might put undue pressure on [name of girl] to comply with what other kids said?"

"That statement was true.".

"'And 'we found out all the scary stuff was just a trick to scare the kids to make the kids think that somebody would hurt their moms and dads or hurt them.' 'We found out':' Doesn't that tell the child that you know that something happened?"

"Yes."

"In this interview, you are the source of contagion, right?"

"Objection. "

"Sustained. "

" 'All the kids' mommies and dads now know what happened at the school, all the touching, all those sneaky little games.' Do you think by using that statement, and authority figures as sources of knowledge is putting pressure on her?"

"I'm telling her all the parents came to see me and now it's okay.".

"Before that did [name of girl] make any statement about touching?"

"I don't really remember. "

" 'Well, I'm glad you're not so dumb, Snake.' Do you think by telling [the interviewed girl] that, you are telling her she's dumb if she didn't agree?"

"No."

" 'The mommies and daddies are so glad the kids are telling.' When you say 'this stuff happened,' are you telling Melinda touching happened at the preschool?"

"I think I'm trying to tell her I know something happened. I use the word, 'stuff,' on purpose."

"Do you believe these statements tell the children you believe molestation happened at the preschool?"

"No."

". . . with the use of grownups and authority figures."

"No."

" 'Now, Snake, I don't think those teachers should still be teaching children, do you?' Do you think that calls for an opinion?"

"Yes, I think it calls for an opinion."

"Don't you think it tells [the interviewed girl] the teachers are molesters?"

"No. Not at all."

" 'Well, Mr. Snake, you and any puppets you want to use can help us figure it out so no more kids will have that yucky stuff happen to them. . . .' Do you think this is one of the most fundamental pressure points? 'All the other kids said it happened.' Parents, Kee, authority figures. Isn't that telling [the interviewed girl] that kids are getting raped and molested? 'Secret police are watching Ray all the time.' Don't you think that statement might influence [the interviewed girl] to believe that Ray is a bad person?"

"Yes. "

" '. . . and we're gonna make sure that no more kids get hurt.' What did you mean, 'we'?"

"I was referring to myself."

" 'If you have a good memory like all the other kids.' Isn't that putting pressure on [the interviewed girl]?"

"I'm not asking [her] to comply with my statement...."

:" 'I think we should beat up Mr. Ray. . . . What a bad guy! Don't you think he's a bad guy? He's not gonna do this any more to kids, is he?' Did you encourage [the interviewed girl] to beat up the Ray doll?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes."

"Is there a clinical reason for doing that? A therapeutic reason?"

"It can be....."

"Looking back on [this] interview. . . do you think Raymond Buckey ever had a fair chance?"

"The issue of 'fair' may have to be left to the courts to decide."

"No further questions at this time, your honor."

Cross-examination by Daniel Davis:

"You indicated you had training from the FBI."

"No, I was the trainer."

"And who trained you before you trained the FBI?"

"I attended numerous workshops."

"Did you ever sit down with police officers and did they tell you what law enforcement needs to do in interviewing a child who may have been molested?"

"Yes...."

"Do you think that by disrobing a doll and exposing a child to what appears to be an erect penis, that that's suggesting things to the child?"

"Well, we worked very hard on the dolls to have them not appear to be an erect, stimulated penis. In fact we tied them down. If you're asking about whether it can ever affect a child, it's one the research of the last five years has been investigating and . . . there's absolutely no evidence in the research that they do that. . . providing incorrect or false information just because they've got these dolls...."

"The reason you used ugly-faced dolls is because you wanted to impress a negative perception of Mr. Buckey. . . and then you go on to use a black doll with funny boobies to represent Peggy Buckey. Right?" .

"I couldn't say. . . for the most part children picked the dolls."

"Do you see any harm in telling a child what other children said?"

"Harm? Well I can see it can become a problematical issue in legal cases but it doesn't have any effect one way or the other. You cannot say that it is harmful. In fact I did it because I saw a potential for children sitting and clamming up. I did it to prevent that."

". . . You can't distinguish whether what the child says thereafter is something they actually experienced or something you're telling them other kids said. Isn't that one of the issues?"

"Objection. Speculation."

"Sustained. "

"Didn't you tell, in the grand jury, that you did not tell one child what the other children said? . . . Combining your telling [a child] that 'naked games were played at the school because all the other kids told us,' and then to say 'the kids really didn't tell us, the puppets told us,' what was the combined effect of that?"

"What I was trying to do in telling her [that] I already knew was to take from her any burden she might have about the repercussions of telling. . . . I was offering the puppets as a medium to communicate. "

"And when you did that, did it occur to you that you might be creating a sort of realm of fantasy in which children might make false accusations in which they believe they're just pretending?"

"No. It's a major issue because there's not any data to show that has ever happened. Any! But because it is consistently raised, all of the studies with the use of anatomical dolls have shown that the use of those dolls does not in any way lead to false reports about abuse, and there are now, because of this case and the many other cases in which these issues have been repeatedly raised in court, we now have research that looks into issues of suggestibility. There are five or six articles which address these exact issues which you are raising. And they are debunking the idea that by suggesting to children even leading and misleading questions suggestive of child sexual abuse they are debunking the idea that children just pick up and just repeat it. It's information that I didn't have when I did these interviews. Now, five years later, the research is out there. Numerous studies. . . and the resistance of children to these questions is in the ninety-three to ninety-nine percentile. . . . There is now research on the subject."

"My gosh! It sounds like there have been a lot of current studies that really back up your techniques. . . . Could you be a little more specific please? The name of the author, the title, the date of publication?"

"I can't recite that off the top of my head..."

"Just taking the act of a child beating a doll, do you feel there is a difference in interpreting what is going on when a child beats a doll of their own volition, as opposed to a child beating a doll at the suggestion of an adult?"

"It can be different. It can be the same. It depends on the child. . . . It may be the same, whether they're invited to do it or whether they do it on their own."

"To the extent that you adopted this doll-beating technique, you cannot direct us to the identity of any child in the McMartin case that initiated it in their own right-right?"

"Not off the top of my head."

"And did any of these children, of their own volition, initiate the dollbeating?"

"Not that I recall."

"You suggested it to the children?"

"I don't remember."

"Have you ever been tested for your credentials as an interviewer?"

"Not that I can think of. . . . Over the last several years I have been one of the trainers. . . . Several years ago, California changed its licensing requirements for psychologists and required that they be trained in the area of child abuse and. . . I've trained a number of these and I also teach a course at USC which meets the requirements for psychologists...."

"You accept, don't you, that in some of these interviews you urged these little children to beat up on these dolls?"

"Yes."

"And at the beginning of this piece you're introducing the name of a game and the fact it may or may not be a naked game, correct?"

"Correct."

"Don't you feel that that is overly suggestive to a child to tell the child that it's naked?"

"Absolutely not!"

"I'd like to explore a little of what you said about children naming names of other children. . . looking at the names in this piece on 'horsey game.' . . . Is this the context in which the child names names of people who played the games?"

"We asked the children. That's one way we name names. They pick them out of photographs. That's another way. . . . There are specific places in these interviews where I ask the child, 'Was this child involved?' or 'Did they get touched?' or 'Were they naked?' And if the child confirms those direct questions, I would generally pass that along."

"You would generally pass that along by telling somebody in the police department, wouldn't you?"

"Yes. We're required to do that."

"As a consequence of this conversation with [the child] about this 'horsey game,' did you suggest [that] he might be stupid? Chicken?"

"If you're referring again to my talking to the puppets, I described that every way I know how..."

""MacFarlane: All right, Mr. Alligator. Are you going to be stupid?' And then you introduce in your words, not his, the 'naked movie star' game, correct?"

"Yes."

"And wasn't the essence of what you learned from him that he hadn't seen or heard about this 'naked movie star' game until he heard this song?

"This chant?"

"Well, that's what he said in this segment."

"And was your response. . . that he was dumb?"

"No. That means you're smart."

"Wouldn't the inevitable impact of this exchange be that any child would figure that you're calling him dumb?"

". . . It was an attempt to reach out [with] the puppets to help the child."

"After he said he didn't see any 'naked movie star' game, you asked him who took pictures for that game, correct?"

"Yeah. I asked him who took pictures of the 'naked movie star' game...."

"When you talk about 'horsey,' you were the one that added the names of those games and descriptions to that interview, weren't you?"

"No. Some of the children said 'horsey game.' "

"Anyone in this case call it 'horsey game' before you mentioned it?"

"I don't recall."

"How about the 'tickle game'? You're the one who put those words, 'tickle,' in , aren't you?"

"No!"

"Isn't it very easy for you to say there are lots of unnamed children out there in other interviews, without identifying the child?"

". . . I did not make up a single game. These all came by children or by information I had beforehand."

"Did you not introduce every one of the games to [the child] in this interview?"

"No. Of course not."

"You introduced the 'naked movie star,' didn't you?"

"I'm not disputing that I introduced games. You asked me if I introduced every single game and I'm saying I referred to 'lookout. ",

"Your technique. . . Miss MacFarlane, is to take perfectly innocent games and convert them, by the insertion of words like 'naked,' and 'yucky' into accusations of crime, isn't it?"

"No, it is not."

"Then how do you justify, after he tells you 'tug-of-war,' the introduction of the word, 'naked'?"

"I don't think we're talking about the same game. I asked him if any games were played and he says, 'tug of war.' "

"MacFarlane: Mr. Pacman, do you remember any naked, tie-up games like other kids remember?" The child answers, 'No.' How can you justify inserting the suggestion that there were naked tie up games when he just told you about tug-of-war?"

"I can justify it by dozens of other children who told me they were tied up naked, showed me with the dolls, told their parents. . . ."

"After hearing it from the parents, you'd include it in your tapes, right?..."

"And did you make an effort to force little [name of boy] to make an accusation of oral copulation on my client in that interview?"

"Absolutely not."

"Your sequence in the technique with [the interviewed boy] was to first talk about sexual acts and then attempt to have him demonstrate them-correct?"

"No. . . . The goal was to take it all and show anything significant to the parents."

"What we saw [the boy] doing, demonstrating a little doll with its penis in the mouth of another little doll, do you think that had any pornographic effect?"

"Objection. "

"Sustained.... "

"'MacFarlane: When Ray comes out, what does Ray do? How does something get in that little hole?' [Boy]: 'Well, nothing gets in that little hole.' MacFarlane: 'Remember when we figured all that out? That's already in the secret machine?' [Boy]: 'Do yeah. Lemme think. . . .' MacFarlane: 'Remember that? How did that get in there? Let's just show how that happened. That'll be easy. And that can be in the secret machine, all gone. How did it happen?' [Boy]: 'Well, Ray kicked him.' Does it seem apparent to you at this time, that. . . he's saying nothing happened to his bottom?"

"No. It doesn't seem apparent. It seems to me that he's having a hard time with those questions. . . ."

"What you were really trying to do was to get him to demonstrate sodomy with the dolls so you could show it to the parents. Wasn't that really what you were doing?"

"Mr. Davis! I never set out to try to prove to three hundred plus parents that I could make them believe by looking at some segment of tape that their children had been molested! I wanted them to see what I saw because they know their kids better than I did. . . so they could know in their own minds whether something happened to their children...."

"Do you see yourself as a link in the process that led to the children making these accusations?"

"I believe that I enabled children who had not been able to describe things, before they came to me. . . . My job was to uncork the bottle, to see what they had to say, once they had gotten over the fear they had."

[Percival]

I seriously doubt they are cherry-picked, fuck it is how it is done by nearly everyone in the child protection services field. Surely there has to be a better way...

There are professional and legal guidelines now, and mostly due to McMartin, as to the proper questioning of children making abuse allegations. Testimony using the sorts of leading questions on display in these McM interviews would be properly thrown out of court.

Yea I do recall the outcry about this and talk of changes needing to be made, never followed up as to what changes had been made, however.

Good to hear it.

[barracuda]

Here is an edited transcript from the interview of Kyle Zirpolo from here::

Kyle: Mr. Ray [Ray Buckey] didn't work there when I was in there.

Interviewer 1: What do you mean?

Kyle: Yeah, he didn't go there.

Interviewer 1: A long time ago some of the kids … said that there were some secrets from that school—some crummy things happened. And, um, we told 'em about our secret machine right here, and our puppets who are real smart guys like Mr. Snake Here's Pac-Man And, um, we told 'em how smart our puppets were and how they helped kids talk about some stuff sometimes and we've been playing detective … and maybe Pac-Man could talk for you, or Snake, so you wouldn't have to….What do you think?

Kyle: (nods).

•

Interviewer 1: We can talk about those secrets now, Pac-Man. And you can help Kyle … everybody's talking about it now…. You know what? We're going to tell you one of our special secrets 'cause we have a secret that we've been telling all the kids, and this one is—you're going to like this one, Pac-Man, 'cause Kyle's dad is a policeman…. We know that sometimes Mr. Ray was at that school. He wasn't a teacher then, but we know that he was at school. Do you remember that, Pac-Man?

Kyle: He didn't work there, but I know that when [another child] was there, it happened.

Interviewer 1: Well, you know what? We know that even before Kyle was there [Ray] was there. And we know that he was there when Kyle was there too.

Kyle: They said on TV that he did something.

•

Interviewer 1: We know this about Mr. Ray: That sitting outside Mr. Ray's house is a special policeman in a regular car. He doesn't wear a uniform or anything like that, but he, um, sits in a regular-looking car outside Mr. Ray's house…. He watches all the time, and if Mr. Ray goes out of his house, then the secret policeman follows him…. He'll be right behind him and he won't even know he's there….Think that's a good idea, Pac-Man?

Kyle: Uh-huh.

•

Interviewer 1: We got a mountain of dolls here. Here's a little girl. Easy to tell she's a girl. She has a bow, and her vagina's underneath…. Kids throw 'em, beat 'em up, and everything. You should've seen [another child] beating 'em up. Boy we had a good time—

Interviewer 2: Beating up Mr. Ray doll.

Interviewer 1: And, um, let's see. I wonder, Pac-Man, if you remember any of the games that you used to play at that school.

Kyle: Yeah.

Interviewer 1: Yeah? Like which ones do you remember?

Kyle: Like Mr. Ray—he would—he would get his camera, and then he—they would—they would—he would take their pants off, and—and then they would go in their pool and they—then he would take pictures.

Interviewer 2: Your mom and dad already know that game 'cause they heard it from other kids' moms and dads.

Interviewer 1: Did any other teachers play, Pac-Man?

Kyle: Yeah … they took pictures too.

Interviewer 1: Oh, boy. Gee, we're really figuring this out. What a big help you are. My goodness.

On the other hand, many of the parents are still adamant about what they feel happened.

Dear ER:

For the residents of the beach cities and beyond who remember the McMartin and Manhattan Ranch cases and want the dark stain removed from their conscience, Kevin Cody’s article (“The McMartin Preschool case: What really happened?” ER, Oct. 27, 2005) will help them. The need to whitewash this horror and scrub it clean has been with us from the day my wife and I were contacted by the Manhattan Beach Police Department and told our son was one of the children identified as a victim of molestation at Manhattan Ranch Pre-School.

My wife and I didn’t want to believe any of this ever happened, either. But wishing it never happened doesn’t make it go away. Put yourselves in my wife’s and my shoes for a moment.

We had just moved to the Hollyglen neighborhood of Hawthorne in the summer of 1983. We enrolled our four-year-old son at Manhattan Ranch Preschool because my wife and I both worked full-time jobs. Sometime in the following summer, we received a phone call from the Manhattan Beach Police. We were told to come down to the headquarters to speak with a police detective. At that time we learned that our son had been identified by other children at the preschool as a fellow victim of molestation. Based on that information, we acted to protect our son. We scheduled him for medical examination. We took him to therapy. My wife asked him to show her the places where he had been taken during the day while we were at work.

When the medical report came back with positive confirmation that my son had been sodomized, I didn’t need to be persuaded further. The news was devastating.

For this, we and the other parents were castigated by the media for expressing concern about the safety and well-being of our children. We were branded as “witch-hunting” parents because our children had been violated and we wanted justice.

Now, one of the adult children involved in this sad saga comes forward and admits he lied under oath. And the community in need of vindication will once again tell itself that none of this ever happened. The same public that chafes at the notion that “ . . 300 children told authorities that they were molested at the preschool, but no adult every acknowledged witnessing the assaults . . .” will find it similarly difficult to believe that priests abuse altar boys behind closed doors. Both groups will go on hiding their heads in the sand and believe what they want to believe.

As for Cody’s inference that the parents’ silence since the trial’s end be read as an admission of error, I can offer my own reaction. McMartin and Manhattan Ranch happened over 20 years ago. My son who was four at the time is now 26 years old. In the intervening years, he has asked about Manhattan Ranch once. His request was to look at the newspaper articles that we kept from the trial. He looked at the file when he was 16 or 17 and never asked about it again. The memories of Manhattan Ranch, McMartin, and the specifics of his molestation, are not easy topics to bring up or resolve. The fact that parents and their children don’t want to discuss this issue is self-evident to those of us who went through it. There is only emotional pain, like a scab being ripped off, to greet our effort. Instinctively, we knew then as we know now that survival means moving on.

Cody’s explanations regarding the prosecution’s failure to bring about convictions in the McMartin case (and Manhattan Ranch, as well) overlooks the most obvious problem – the children themselves. They never stood a chance in the face of attorneys whose profession relies on the ability to impeach testimony. Were they coached by therapists, encouraged by their families, prepped by attorneys? Certainly. Who wouldn’t have been? They were also scared to death – literally. Then they were thrown to the lions.

The strategy now is to discredit Children’s Institute therapist Kee MacFarlane, and all the therapists and medical specialists who were literally on the cutting edge of justice in child abuse cases. We were supportive of the therapists’ techniques of using hand puppets, of encouraging the children to draw their feelings, of encouraging, even prompting them to reveal their secrets. Without these tools, my son’s therapy would have been pointless. For Cody to suggest that “hundreds of children were virtually molested by the therapists and doctors who examined them” is absurd. How does one elicit the truth from a child who fears physical harm if he reveals his secrets?

In retrospect, our son’s inexplicable night terrors, his panic over having his picture taken, his fear of going to school and being dropped off, of being dressed in other children’s clothing when we went to pick him up at the end of the day, would have made sense if only we had stopped in unannounced at Manhattan Ranch to observe.

Instead, we assumed our son was safe in pre-school. Lesson learned.

Michael S. Simpson

San Pedro

That letter is from this JREF thread started by Jackie McGauley, a parent of a McMartin child with a somewhat contentious reputation in the case who I am sure you are familiar with if you have looked into McMartin at any depth.

[Percival]

Judy Johnson was the first to set this whole thing off, this is her statement to police, everyday she would call them with new ever more strange allegations. From what I am seeing she had to put a lot of this shit in her kids head, but what do I know?


Notes from an Interview with Judy Johnson
Judy Johnson, the parent who first reported an incident of sexual abuse at the McMartin Preschool,
continued to contact the District Attorney's office to make new, and increasingly bizarre, charges.
The following notes are directly taken from a summary of an interview with Johnson, as reported by a deputy district attorney.
February 15-16, 1984
Billy describes having communion in a church. A prayer similar in sound to the Lord's prayer was recited. A goat climbed up higher, higher, higher. Then a bad man threw it down the stairs. It woke up later. Ray poked Peggy at the altar. Lots of candles; they were black. Ray picked his rt. pointer finger. It bled. Ray put it in the goat's anus. Nobody had clothes on under the robes. Billy had a robe on too. They put a band aide on his finger. Old Grandma played the piano. Lots of threats were made against Billy and his family. It is unclear whether it was a doll or real baby (Billy says real baby) but the head was chopped off and the brains were burned. Billy said Peggy killed the baby. Peggy had scissors in the church and she cut Billy's hair. Billy had to drink the babies [sic] blood. Ray wanted Billy's spit. He put it on the altar. The baby was big like Billy. It screamed. When Billy's bottom was bleeding Ray put a tampax in his bottom to stop the bleeding, then he took it out. The red circled people in this ad [referring to a newspaper ad for a local health club] are all familiar to Billy. The 3 women are witches. The man poked them. Peggy, Babs, and Betty [the preschool owner and two teachers] dressed up as witches too. The person who buried Billy is Miss Betty. There were no holes in the coffin. Babs went with him on a train with another girl where he was hurt by men in suits. Ray waved good bye. The train moved fast. It had lights. Ray took him back to school. Possibly [location of organization] Big Brothers. Peggy gave Billy an enema before he was taken away (from McMartin sch.) Staples were put in Billy's ears, nipples & tongue. Babs put scissors in his eyes. She hit him a lot. She chopped up animals and said she would come in the night and take away. She pushed his stomach and threw him against the wall. He has extreme fear regarding Babs. Also something awful would come in the window. Ray made small babies cry. Billy was hurt by a lion. An elephant payed with the lion, squirted H20. Then the lion didn't move. Billy was on his back. Ray let him pull the lion's tail. The lion roared but didn’t' move. Betty was there, and other people. One lady took pictures.

February 22, 1984

Billy feels that he left LAX in an airplane and flew to Palm Springs area. Described the airplane as one like used by federal express only it had windows. Billy went to armory located behind Judy (?) residence. Ray drove there in his VW bus. Billy went with Peggy who drove a red and white VW bus, at the armory there were some people there wearing army uniforms. The goat man was there. After going to the armory, Billy was taken to Sand Dune Park, at the armory it was a ritual type atmosphere. When Billy was taken to a church, Judy believes it was the Church of Religious Science [address]. At the church Peggy drilled a child under the arms (arm pits.) Atmosphere was that of magic acts. (Ray flew through the air.)

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