Forced to Drink Animal Blood, Boy Says

A 10-year-old boy testified Wednesday that he was forced to drink the blood of animals in a church where rabbits and birds were slaughtered to scare children into silence about alleged sex games at McMartin Pre-School in Manhattan Beach.

The boy, who has been on the stand for 14 days, had not mentioned the animal blood until asked about it by defense attorney Daniel Davis.

He said he was forced to drink the blood at the St. Cross Episcopal Church in Hermosa Beach in the presence of chief defendant Raymond Buckey, 26, and two strangers.

“What did you drink the blood out of?” Davis asked the boy.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Christine Johnston objected to the question and Municipal Judge Aviva Bobb sustained her, saying the boy did not have to answer.

After the boy was excused for lunch, defense attorneys argued that it was imperative to ask details about the boy’s new testimony.

‘Web Is Getting Larger’

Defense attorney William Powell said, “We are entitled to know how far this child’s imagination will carry him. This web is getting larger and larger and larger.”

Bobb ruled that because the boy has been on the stand so long and because his testimony about animal sacrifices has been sufficiently covered, he would not have to answer any more detailed questions about the blood.

During the afternoon session the boy said the blood he was forced to drink came from a rabbit.

When asked if he told anybody about it, he said he had told his mother.

Bobb then directed Davis not to ask any more questions on that subject, saying, “I’ve already ruled on this whole line of inquiry.”

Earlier in the day, the boy said some of his former nursery school teachers watched while Buckey sodomized him with a pen in the school’s “secret room.”

Buckey is one of seven staff members at McMartin Pre-School undergoing a preliminary hearing on 208 counts of molestation and conspiracy involving 41 children since 1978.

The hearing, now in its seventh month, will determine whether the defendants will face trial in Los Angeles Superior Court.