3 Child Witnesses in McMartin Case Refuse to Testify

The three remaining child witnesses in the McMartin Pre-School molestation trial have refused to testify, jeopardizing more than a quarter of the charges against Raymond Buckey and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, prosecutors revealed Monday.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Lael Rubin said the youngsters do not want to revive painful memories. Two boys continue to have nightmares and one girl--”in a massive job of repression”--has lost her memory of all events prior to a year ago, Rubin said.

The surprise development came when Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Pounders, in response to a written question from a weary juror, asked both sides for an estimate of how much longer the trial will take.

Rubin then revealed that the prosecution expects to conclude its case by Labor Day because no additional child witnesses are willing to testify.

Therapist Kee MacFarlane, who headed the team that interviewed all the children who remain as witnesses, began testifying Monday, and prosecutors said they will call several other adult witnesses before resting their case.

The defense said it will give an estimate of the length of its case today.

Rubin said the three children account for 27 of the 99 molestation counts against the Buckeys. A fourth child, who refused to testify last month, was involved in three counts.

If the 30 counts are dropped, the Buckeys still will face 69 counts of molestation and a shared count of conspiracy involving children who attended their family-run nursery school in Manhattan Beach.

The defense had predicted from the outset of the trial, which began 17 months ago, that several of the children would not be called as witnesses, but said it plans to call some former McMartin students as defense witnesses.

“The remaining three witnesses had more contradictions and unbelievable accounts (in their testimony),” Raymond Buckey’s lawyer, Danny Davis, told reporters outside the courtroom. “They were a liability (to the prosecution). I think the prosecution’s case is falling of its own weight.”

Nine alleged child victims have already testified to a variety of sexual acts involving the Buckeys, including rape, sodomy and oral copulation, and said they kept quiet about the incidents because Raymond Buckey threatened to kill them and their parents and underscored his threats by mutilating and killing animals.

They also testified that they were forced to play “naked games,” were photographed in the nude, were taken to locations away from the school and were forced to participate in satanic rituals.

“None of (the children who have taken the stand) have been enthusiastic about testifying again,” Rubin said in an interview about Monday’s development. Some had already faced both a county grand jury and a preliminary hearing in which they were cross-examined by eight defense attorneys. “Each has said, ‘I really don’t want to do this,’ ” she said.

The last four scheduled child witnesses, however, remained adamant about not setting foot in the courtroom again. Prosecutors sought to substitute one child’s videotaped preliminary hearing testimony for live testimony, but Pounders ruled against them, saying they had not proven the child to be “unavailable,” as required by law.

At that time, Rubin assured Pounders that similar efforts would not be made on behalf of the remaining witnesses.

One of the youngsters now refusing to testify was the only child at the preliminary hearing considered fragile enough to testify only by closed-circuit television. However, because the state statute limits that procedure to children under 10, the boy--now 11 1/2--would have to testify in open court, as have the other nine.

On Monday, prosecutors insisted that the 30 counts in question will not be automatically dismissed. “Before we rest (our case) we will have to decide whether we can prove the charges involving these children in another way,” Rubin said.

For example, to try to prove a charge involving the 2 1/2-year-old boy whose mother’s report triggered the investigation, prosecutors relied on testimony from the physician who examined him and a jail informant who said Buckey admitted sodomizing the boy.

Davis said he will “vigorously” oppose any efforts by the prosecution to substitute any testimony other than that of the alleged victims themselves.

Monday was not the first time the once-massive case abruptly shrank: during the 18-month preliminary hearing, after only 14 of the 41 scheduled child witnesses had testified, prosecutors abruptly announced that the remaining 27 had dropped out.

Peggy McMartin Buckey, 61, is free on $500,000 bail; her son, 30, is being held in lieu of $3-million bail.