10-Year-Old’s Credibility Tested by Allegations

A 10-year-old boy on the witness stand in the McMartin Pre-School molestation hearing made a dizzying array of bizarre allegations Thursday--including identifying photographs of Los Angeles City Atty.-elect James Kenneth Hahn, movie actor Chuck Norris and a priest and four nuns as among the “strangers” who allegedly killed animals, molested children and participated in weird rituals at a church altar.

Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Gilbert Garcetti, later in a telephone interview, branded the witness’s identification of the public figures from a group of mug shots as “totally inaccurate.”

However, he added, “that doesn’t mean that other testimony (that not associated with the public figures) is inaccurate. . . . There is some evidence to corroborate part of the testimony. . . . I don’t think it would be appropriate to say more at this time. At the conclusion of the hearing, we will evaluate the testimony of each child . . . and decide which of those children will testify (if there is) a trial.”

Jubilant defense attorneys said the child’s testimony was so preposterous it had done irreparable damage to the prosecutor’s case. At one point, the attorneys asked the judge to strike the boy’s testimony because it was “inherently incredible.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Glenn Stevens unsuccessfully tried to object to the lines of questioning by the defense because the subjects had not been testified to during direct examination.

Municipal Judge Aviva K. Bobb said she would rule later on whether the child’s testimony was credible, most likely at the end of the preliminary hearing, expected to last at least another year.

Usually talkative and amiable, Stevens refused to answer questions about Thursday’s testimony and literally sprinted down the long hallway to his office to avoid reporters.

The hearing, in its ninth month, will determine whether seven former teachers at the Manhattan Beach school should stand trial in Superior Court on 208 counts of molestation and conspiracy involving 41 students.

In a telephone interview, Hahn said of the misidentification: “I think the district attorney has said enough on this. My feeling is that we have to exercise great care in using photos and evidence in these cases. Just because Chuck Norris, the others and I are prominent, we have credibility. But what if some other peoples’ pictures are included? . . . Their lives could be ruined.

Problem in Investigations Noted

“It points to a problem in investigating cases, one has to be very careful. Kids will pick out pictures of those they see on TV and in newspapers. I’m only hopeful that there aren’t others in the situation wrongly identified.”

Throughout the day, defense attorney Dean Gits with gentlemanly persistence, raced through question after question based on the child’s previous statements to law enforcement officers, therapists and the grand jury.

Completely at ease on the stand, the child answered quickly and calmly. He testified that the defendants, sometimes accompanied by strangers:

- Tied him and other children to a post at the school and bullwhipped them until they could hardly stand up, and beat him and other children with their fists and hands at least twice a week. (He also testified that the teachers placed bandages on the bruises and slashes. The boy said he told his mother he got them by falling on rocks and playground equipment.)

- Used knives and hypodermic needles to kill animals at the preschool “almost every day.”

- Molested him and other children in a van after it had gone through a car wash.

- Took the youngsters to a farm, where a man with a bullwhip and dressed in bib overalls forced them to take off their clothes.

- Took the children to a cemetery, where the children were forced to dig up dead bodies and watch teachers hack them up with knives.

- Took the students to a church in Hermosa Beach where they were forced to pray to “three or four gods,” while nuns and a handful of other people chanted and watched from pews. When the children cried and refused to pray, a priest “hit us on the back . . . with his hand,” the boy said.

Charged in the case are the school’s founder Virginia McMartin, 77; Peggy Ann Buckey, 29; her brother Raymond Buckey, 26; their mother Peggy McMartin Buckey, 58; Betty Raidor, 65; Mary Ann Jackson, 57, and Babette Spitler, 37.