Rabbits Remain Focus in McMartin Hearing

From a large brown grocery sack, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lt. Richard Willey on Friday pulled out a pair of furry, earth-toned rabbit ears, a red-lined black cape and a fat black candle.

They might have been props for a nightclub magic act, but the setting was Los Angeles Municipal Court.

The items--seized during a raid on a home in the South Bay area last week--were being considered as evidence in the McMartin Pre-School case, in which seven defendants are charged with 208 counts of molestation and conspiracy involving 41 children.

For most of the 16 days that the latest witness, a 10-year-old boy, has been on the stand during the preliminary hearing, the focus had been on rabbits--gray rabbits, brown rabbits, jack rabbits, bunny rabbits, rabbit blood, rabbit ears. The topic was so prevalent that on one occasion, a defense attorney inadvertently addressed a witness as Rabbit.

Testimony Completed

The child, who completed testimony Friday, had said that he was taken to a church by teachers from the Manhattan Beach preschool. There, he said, he was forced to drink rabbit blood and he saw moaning, black-robed figures conduct animal sacrifices by candlelight.

A previous child witness testified that a key defendant, Ray Buckey, had cut off the ears of a rabbit to scare the children into silence.

The items in the grocery sack were taken by sheriff’s deputies from the Lomita home of an accused child molester’s girlfriend.

Robert H. Winkler, who is being held in jail on an unrelated child molestation charge, was linked to the McMartin case when three child victims in the case identified him as one of the “strangers” who molested them.

Denied Knowing Defendants

Winkler, who has not been charged in the Manhattan Beach case, has said the ears came from a jack rabbit he shot. He has denied knowing any of the McMartin defendants.

His girlfriend said the candle was given to her by a former nun and that the cape belonged to someone else.

Municipal Judge Aviva K. Bobb, who is presiding at the McMartin hearing to determine if the defendants should stand trial, had ordered the Sheriff’s Department to bring the seized items to court.

But after viewing the objects and listening to the attorneys debate the issue, she ruled Friday that they were not relevant to the child’s testimony. She refused to allow defense attorneys to show them to the child or for the cape to be modeled by Ray Buckey.

Items Differ

The boy had testified that the rabbit he had seen cut up in the church was a gray bunny rabbit. The ears brought into court were blackish-brown. He testified that the clothes he saw were totally black, hooded robes. The cape brought into the courtroom was black with scarlet lining and had no hood. The boy identified the candles as being the white church-altar type. The candle brought into court was black.

Prosecutor Lael Rubin had earlier said the items were corroborative evidence but agreed Friday that they were not relevant to the testimony.

However, she said, “They show that such bizarre items do exist.”

The next child witness is expected to begin testifying Tuesday.

In addition to Ray Buckey, those charged in the case are the school’s founder, Virginia McMartin, 77; her daughter, Peggy McMartin Buckey, 58, who is Ray Buckey’s mother; her daughter, Peggy Ann Buckey, 28; Betty Raidor, 65; Mary Ann Jackson, 57, and Babette Spitler, 36.