McMartin Jurors Hear Girl, 11, Tell of Rape, Sodomy

An 11-year-old girl who is viewed as the key child witness in the McMartin Pre-School molestation trial testified Thursday that she was forced to submit to intercourse, sodomy and oral copulation with chief defendant Raymond Buckey and to penetration and masturbation by his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey.

The girl’s testimony, which appeared largely consistent with her preliminary hearing version of events at the Manhattan Beach nursery school, expanded the account of the first child witness, who described only fondling and penetration with fingers by Raymond Buckey.

Eleven other children are scheduled to testify at the trial, which is expected to last at least one year.

Thursday’s witness--whose direct examination lasted little more than an hour but whose cross-examination will continue through next week--was described by prosecutors as a particularly important witness because she spent many afternoons at the preschool and thus had “a greater exposure than anyone else” to abuses by teachers there. She attended McMartin from 1978 through 1980 and returned for visits as late as 1983.

The girl and her younger brother account for 37 of the 99 molestation charges against the Buckeys--more than one-third of the case.

She told jurors Thursday that she was repeatedly “hurt” by the Buckeys and photographed by strangers during sex acts, and that she observed both defendants molesting other children. She described being abused in the classroom, at “a green house,” in a farm barn and in the restroom of a carwash. And, like the first witness, she described playing games called “naked movie star” and “lookout.”

The girl said she volunteered “many times” to serve as lookout for parents who might come early to pick up their children “because I didn’t want to be inside (the classroom) being touched and hurt.”

The first time, she said, Raymond Buckey told her to “swing real high and look for some moms.” When she ran to warn him that a mother was coming, she opened the door to a rear classroom and saw that “Ray was hurting and touching kids in a way they didn’t like it.”

She resumed her post at the swings, and the mother who knocked on the door was steered to a side play yard. When she returned and knocked again, the girl said, “Ray poked his head out, brought out her child and said, ‘Here you go, here’s your child,’ and they just walked off.”

Describes Molestation

Asked to describe what happened to her later inside the classroom, she said, “Ray was hurting me by putting his penis in my vagina and putting his penis in my rear end and putting his fingers in my bottom. . . . She (Peggy Buckey) put her fingers in my bottom and her fingers in my vagina and she pushed my vagina together with her vagina.” She said both she and the teachers were naked.

On one occasion, she said, Raymond Buckey put his penis in her mouth.

She said he had brandished a gun and a knife, threatening to kill her parents if she told. However, she said she did tell her mother about some of the naked games--but not that she had been a victim--before being taken to Children’s Institute International to be interviewed by a social worker and examined by a physician in 1984.

Her mother testified this week that the conversation took place several weeks before the interview.

Points Out Inconsistencies

During an afternoon of cross-examination, defense attorney Dean Gits, who represents Peggy Buckey, pointed out inconsistencies in the details of the girl’s account.

For example, Gits reminded her that she had told a 1984 county grand jury that during the lookout game, “Mr. Ray” had shoved the children into the closet when a parent was approaching, then testified in 1985 at the preliminary that he had shoved them into the bathroom and now at the trial that Buckey left the children in the classroom to dress while he dressed in the bathroom.

“Can you explain how both can be true?” Gits asked.

“When I was testifying, that was as I remembered it. Today I remember it a different way,” she said.

“You think you might be wrong . . . ?” Gits persisted.

“No,” the child said firmly.