Only 2 of 7 to Stand Trial in McMartin Case

Charges were dropped Friday against five of the seven defendants in the McMartin Pre-School child molestation case, with prosecutors citing insufficient evidence while outraged parents called for revenge.

“I would never get involved in any vigilante-type activity (but) . . . From what I hear other parents say, I wouldn’t want to be one of those defendants walking the street,” said Arvin Collins, who claimed that two of his children were molested at the school.

“They’d be better off with the trial,” said Robert Currie, a parent whose two children attended the now-closed McMartin school in suburban Manhattan Beach. “Otherwise, I don’t think they’re going to live.”

Parents vowed to appeal to the state attorney general’s office to see if it could take over the case and prosecute all seven defendants, who originally had been charged with more than 300 counts of rape, sodomy and other abuse involving 41 children from 2 to 8 years old.

Two-thirds of the counts were dropped during an 18-month preliminary hearing, many because parents were unwilling to put their children through the ordeal of testifying and others because of sometimes contradictory and bizarre testimony from younger children.

The children testified about rape, sodomy, satanic rituals and mutilation of animals. Animal bones were dug up in a lot next to the school, but were never conclusively linked to the case.

Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner said Friday that only the two main defendants in the case will be taken to trial--Raymond Buckey, 27, grandson of the school’s founder, and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, 59.

One of the five former defendants said Reiner’s decision ended almost two years of agony, and asserted that the charges were the result of media hysteria and overeager investigators who led children into fabricating stories.

“The nature of the case is so horrendous and horrible when children are involved, and that’s what incites adults regarding this case,” said Mary Ann Jackson, who was a teacher at the school. “There’s an injustice here somewhere, (and) sometimes that needs to be brought into the open.”

The decision to drop the charges came one week after the end of the preliminary hearing in the case, which began with Raymond Buckey’s original arrest in September, 1983, and has so far has cost the state $4 million.

At the end of the hearing, Municipal Court Judge Aviva Bobb ruled that all seven defendants should go to trial in Superior Court, saying there was probable cause they committed the crimes. A preliminary hearing reviews the evidence to see if there is enough for a trial.

However, Reiner, citing the Superior Court trial requirement that defendants be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, said that charges against the five would fail that test.

Raymond Buckey is now charged with one count of conspiracy, 67 of lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14 years old, and 12 of lewd and lascivious acts by force on a child under 14 years old, said district attorney’s spokesman Schuyler Sprowles.

Buckey’s mother is charged with one count of conspiracy and 20 of lewd and lascivious acts against a child under 14 years old, two of those by force, Sprowles said.

The five against whom charges were dropped are the school’s founder, Virginia McMartin, 78; her granddaughter, Peggy Ann Buckey, 29; and three former teachers, Jackson, 57, Betty Raidor, 65, and Babette Spitler, 36.

“I am hopeful these dismissals will lead to an investigation of the methods used in interviewing children and the personal motivations of the individuals involved in this case,” said Brad Brunon, who represented Virginia McMartin during the preliminary hearing.

The case attracted nationwide attention. It was the first in a series of molestation investigations that resulted in a rash of preschool closures and charges against teachers, aides and a broadening circle of adults involved in children’s activities.

Defense attorneys asserted that their clients were trapped in a web of hysteria.

“It is my hope that more rational minds will realize eventually, as people did after burning women as witches in Salem, that this is wrong,” said Forrest Latiner, who defended Peggy Ann Buckey.

“I can’t sum up today all the pain that has gone on before. But to the extent that five out of seven have had charges dropped, reason is at least beginning to prevail again”