Local News in Brief : McMartin Case Doctor
Dr. Astrid Heger, the physician who examined all 13 of the children scheduled to testify in the McMartin Pre-School molestation trial of two former teachers at the Manhattan Beach nursery school, took the witness stand Thursday despite defense objections.
Denying a request by lawyers for Raymond Buckey and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, for more time to prepare for Heger’s lengthy testimony, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Pounders commented: “It would seem to me you’ve been sharpening your knives for this witness for a long time. . . . She is an extremely important witness.”
After establishing Heger’s credentials--she is a board-certified pediatrician who directs the child sexual abuse program at USC, where she is also an assistant clinical professor--prosecutor Roger Gunson asked her to describe her findings in each case. She was still discussing the first McMartin child when court recessed.
During her examinations of the children in 1984, she said, she found genital scarring and relaxed muscles suggestive of molestation.
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