Boy Not in Buckey’s Class, Witness Says

The 2 1/2-year-old boy whose allegations against Raymond Buckey triggered the massive McMartin Pre-School molestation case nearly six years ago was never taught by Buckey, former defendant and teacher Babette Spitler testified Monday.

The child attended the Manhattan Beach nursery school briefly during the summer of 1983 and was enrolled in former defendant Betty Raidor’s class, Spitler said at the trial of Buckey and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey.

Spitler said that she never heard the child say a word and that he didn’t cry when his mother dropped him off in the morning. But she said she observed that he “floated around” from object to object at the school and sometimes slipped out of class onto the playground.

Spitler taught on and off at the school beginning in 1973 and was there continuously from July of 1980 until the school closed in 1984. She sent her two children there as well.

She testified that she never saw Raymond Buckey on the school grounds before 1981, although several children have testified that he molested them as early as 1978.