McMartin Case Witness Is an Apparent Suicide

A former defense investigator who was scheduled to testify in the McMartin Pre-School molestation case Thursday was found dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound earlier in the day, authorities reported.

Paul Bynum, 39, a retired Hermosa Beach police officer and most recently an investigator for the California State Bar, was found in his Glendale home about 6 a.m. with a bullet wound in his head, Glendale police said.

Bynum, who had worked as an investigator for McMartin defense attorneys early in the 3-year-old case, was expected to testify about animal bones he found buried at the preschool, prosecutors said.

Superior Court Judge William Pounders told jurors that Bynum’s death was “not due to any criminal cause,” adding that Bynum’s testimony “will be presented through other testimony and evidence.”

Bynum had testified at the trial Wednesday without the jury present in a hearing to determine what he would be allowed to tell jurors. His testimony involved turtle shells he found buried at the Virginia McMartin Pre-School in Manhattan Beach.

Prosecutors have alleged that the defendants slaughtered animals in view of their victims to frighten them into silence. Ray Buckey, 29, and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, 60, are on trial on 100 counts of molestation and conspiracy to molest.

District attorney spokesman Al Albergate said there is “no evidence that the suicide was because of the McMartin case.”

Bynum’s is the second death of a witness in the case. About a year ago, Judy Johnson, the mother who triggered the massive investigation by claiming that Ray Buckey had molested her son, was found dead in her Manhattan Beach home of a liver disease.