Was Drugged, McMartin Case Girl Testifies

A soft-spoken 10-year-old girl testified in the McMartin Pre-School preliminary hearing Friday that former teachers fondled her, gave her medicine that made her sleepy and killed a cat to frighten her into silence.

The fourth-grader, the 10th child to testify in the hearing to determine whether seven former teachers should stand trial on 208 counts of conspiracy and molestation, said she and other children were forced to undress and pose naked at the school and at a house while strangers took pictures during a game called “naked movie star.”

The child was the first to testify that children were allegedly drugged at the school. She said a bottle of pink liquid medicine was kept on a shelf at the school and she was given it at least twice. On both occasions, she said, “it kind of made me sleepy.”

On one occasion after taking the medicine, she testified, “I fell asleep and woke up in a car.” She said she thought a teacher was driving and that another child was sleeping in the car but could not recall the identity of either one. She added that she then “fell asleep and when I woke back up, I was back at the school.”

She said she did not recall anything else about the incident.

She also testified that chief defendant Raymond Buckey, 26, and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, 58, sometimes were undressed during the naked games and that the school’s founder, Virginia McMartin, 77, watched.

The child, who attended the Manhattan Beach preschool from 1977 to 1980, testified that Buckey and his mother on several occasions fondled her with their hands and that Raymond Buckey took a cat and “cut it in the side” and told her, “ ‘This is what will happen to your parents.’ ”

Also charged in the case are Peggy Ann Buckey, 29; Babette Spitler, 37; Betty Raidor, 65, and Mary Ann Jackson, 57.