Church and Store Named in McMartin Sex Hearing

A Hermosa Beach church and a Manhattan Beach market were identified Friday by a 10-year-old witness in the McMartin Pre-School molestation case as places where acts of child sexual abuse, demonic rituals and animal sacrifice allegedly took place.

The child, in his third day of testimony, said he and other children from the Manhattan Beach nursery school were taken to the church several times for candle-lit ceremonies involving hooded, black-robed people and the slaughter of birds and rabbits.

The boy, testifying under cross-examination to events that allegedly occurred six years ago, was asked what happened when he was taken to the church for the first time.

“The people in the black robes made a circle, holding hands and started to moan,” he said.

The boy said that after several minutes of moaning, the participants, whose faces were hidden by the shadow of their hoods, broke the circle. “Ray (defendant Ray Buckey, 26) told us to go in the middle of their circle,” the boy said. The individuals then rejoined hands, started to turn in the circle faster and faster, and picked up their moaning.

“Were you scared?” asked defense attorney William Powell Jr.

“Yes,” the youngster answered.

The boy testified that after the robed figures left, Ray Buckey reappeared with a live rabbit.

“He put it up on the altar and he started to cut it up,” the boy said. “Then he said: ‘If you tell anyone any of the secrets that happened at the school or here or anywhere, then this will happen to that person.’ ”

Searched for Church

Under questioning by Powell, the boy said he did not remember the name of the church. But he said that he, his mother and his brother had found the church after they had driven around the area last year in search of it.

At the request of defense attorneys, Municipal Judge Aviva K. Bobb ordered prosecutors to ask his mother, who had accompanied the boy to court, to give the name of the church to them. Three of the defense attorneys told reporters the church was St. Cross Episcopal Church of Hermosa Beach.

St. Cross’ rector, the Rev. Jack Eales, could not be reached for comment. However, parish secretary Jacqueline Wilson, who said she has worked at the church for 17 years, said that several employees are at the church at all times during the day and that all but one door is kept locked, although several people have keys.

“It’s hard for me to imagine,” Wilson said of the boy’s allegation. “There’d be no way for a large group to come in (without attracting attention), although people do come in and sit and meditate, and organists come in to practice.”

Asked About Market

Powell, lawyer for defendant Mary Ann Jackson, 57, also questioned the boy about alleged events at a store the child identified as Harry’s Market in Manhattan Beach. The boy had testified earlier that he and other children were “touched” in a market storeroom.

The boy drew a diagram of the market and described being taken several times to Harry’s storeroom, which he said was filled with boxes and crates and was lit by sunlight seeping through cracks in its plastic-like walls.

Ray Rasheed, owner of Harry’s Market since 1976, said Friday evening that the allegations are “a fabrication, a lie, nothing at all to do with reality.”

He said he never opened the store alone and does not know any of the defendants. He said that Ray Buckey had worked as a box boy for the previous owner.

The boy identified the teachers who took him to the church and market as defendants Ray Buckey; his sister, Peggy Ann Buckey, 28, and their mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, 58. He added that defendant Betty Raidor, 65, went to the church.

Other defendants in the case--now in the sixth month of a preliminary hearing to determine whether the accused should stand trial--are school founder Virginia McMartin, 77; Mary Ann Jackson, 57, and Babette Spitler, 36. The seven are charged with 208 counts of molestation and conspiracy involving 41 children who attended the seaside school since 1978.