Supporters Still Ready to Aid McMartin Defendants

A South Bay organization that rallied support for defendants in the McMartin Preschool case is no longer active, but a network of supporters still responds when needed, members of the group say.

That was evident last week when Betty Raidor--a former teacher at the preschool where it was alleged that children were molested and who was once a defendant in the case--was hospitalized for injuries suffered in a fall, said Patti Rusth, a co-founder of Friends of the McMartin Preschool Defendants.

Get-Well Party

“The word got around very quickly,” she said. “People were calling from all over, wanting to know if Betty was all right and how they could help.”

Rusth said the group hopes to bolster the 68-year-old woman’s spirits with a “get-well-quick” party when her treatment for eye and other injuries is completed. Raidor went home Friday.

Tani Johnson of Manhattan Beach said a recent birthday party for Virginia McMartin, the 80-year-old founder of the preschool who also was dropped as a defendant in the case, provided an unofficial occasion for a large meeting of supporters. She said at least 100 people turned out, many of them old friends who have known the McMartin family for 30 years or more.

Dormant Now

Johnson said she was one of dozens of supporters who put up their homes--about $3 million in equity altogether, and $183,000 in Johnson’s case--to cover bail for the five women defendants, who were released from jail after they and two other defendants were indicted on child sexual molestation charges in March of 1984.

Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, in January of 1986, dismissed all charges against the five--McMartin, Raidor, Mary Ann Jackson, Peggy Ann Buckey and Babette Spitler. Reiner said the evidence against them was “incredibly weak.”

The trial of the two remaining defendants, Peggy McMartin Buckey and her son, Raymond, is entering its second year in Los Angeles Superior Court.

But aside from keeping in touch and watching over the elderly women, who lost their homes and savings to legal costs, Friends of McMartin--which once claimed hundreds of supporters--has become dormant, members say.

Rusth, of Redondo Beach, said that so far as she knows, few members still attend the marathon trial in Los Angeles Superior Court. But the group still believes that the Buckeys are innocent, she said.

Another Friends of McMartin co-founder, Claudia Krikorian of Rolling Hills Estates, said some members were burned out by the intensely emotional controversy and wanted to put it behind them.

“It isn’t that we don’t care any more,” said Krikorian, whose two private schools were among at least a dozen South Bay nurseries hit by accusations of child molestation. “But you reach a stage where you have to let go of the anger and get on with your life. People who are important in my life know the truth.”

8 Schools Closed

One of her preschools and seven others in the South Bay closed, some on orders of state licensing authorities reacting to molestation allegations, and some because parents withdrew their children.

Aside from the McMartin staffers, however, only one other person--an employee at another Manhattan Beach preschool--was ever charged with child molestation. His trial resulted in a deadlocked jury.

Raidor’s attorney, Walter Urban, said the defense network started forming after the 1984 indictments, with small meetings in homes to gather support for the McMartin defendants. Teachers from other preschools were drawn to the meetings as the wave of molestation accusations spread to more nurseries, he said.

Rusth, whose family in Manhattan Beach goes back three generations, said she started attending the meetings when longtime friends fell under suspicion.

‘People Were Afraid’

“Passions were very, very high,” she said. “When I stepped forward on behalf of my friends, I had a real fear that these suspicions would turn on me. People were afraid to be seen together.”

As the number of supporters grew, Urban said, the private meetings were moved to hotel conference rooms. In July of 1985, the group decided to go public.

“These people had nothing to hide,” said Urban, who helped organize Friends of McMartin and still keeps in close touch with many involved in the case. “There was no reason to be afraid of scrutiny by the public and the media.”

The group, which claimed to have hundreds of active supporters during the height of the controversy in 1984 and 1985, took out full-page newspaper ads and began a series of press conferences and public meetings. They researched the subject of child sexual abuse in hopes of better understanding the allegations overwhelming the South Bay schools, members said.

The group’s public relations efforts peaked in late 1985, when it staged its largest rally at the Holiday Inn in Torrance. Members estimated the turnout at more than 300.

Many of the older backers say they based their support on long friendships with the members of the McMartin family and with the preschool teachers who are of their generation. Lucille Mock said she has known Raidor and other older McMartin teachers since the early 1950s. “We had our little mothers group going and we raised our kids together,” said Mock, whose husband, Leo, was the postmaster in Manhattan Beach for 36 years.

Mock said she didn’t put any of her three children in the McMartin school “because I was always home to take care of my kids. In those days, it was unusual for mothers of young children to be out working.”

But she said she could never believe that her friends would harm children or allow anyone else to harm them.

Friends Since 1955

Nancy Kelly, an office manager for a Torrance firm, said she and Raidor have been “best friends” since they met in 1955 in a church group for young mothers. “We used to take our kids for walks in the park or on the beach,” she said. “Throughout the years, I have shared everything in my life with Betty.”

Kelly said she also became good friends with Virginia McMartin, Peggy McMartin Buckey and Mary Ann Jackson. “I hurt for them when I think of what happened,” she said. Kelly provided more than $100,000 in real estate equity to help raise bail for Raidor.

Ruth Park, an aerospace systems analyst, said her friendship with Raidor also goes back to those years as young mothers. Park offered her condominium to help meet Raidor’s bail.

Johnson, 36, and John York, 27, are children of the “Gray Panther brigade,” a term used to describe some older members of the group. “My parents were very close friends of Betty and Peggy and so I’ve known them all my life,” Johnson said.

Next-Door Neighbors

York’s family lived next door to Betty Raidor and her husband, Lonnie. “When I was a little kid, their children used to come over and baby-sit me,” he said. “They were absolutely great neighbors. Betty’s whole life was taking care of kids.”

York, a parks and recreation instructor who is noted for setting two records for swimming the Catalina Channel, said his mother, Dottie York, who died last month, was especially close to Raidor.

Some McMartin supporters say they doubt that the firestorm that swept through the South Bay preschools will ever be fully understood. “It was such a crazy collage of events and people,” Rusth said. “Sincere, well-intentioned people on both sides got caught up in it.”