Peggy Buckey Makes Cameo Appearance in Rader Trial

The marathon McMartin Pre-School molestation trial was interrupted most of Tuesday afternoon when defendant Peggy McMartin Buckey was summoned by an agitated judge in the adjacent courtroom, where jurors have been deliberating the fate of accused murderer Harvey Rader for nearly two weeks.

Buckey, 62, was asked about a report the judge had received that she had discussed the Rader case in the presence of a juror during a lunch break.

Buckey and her son, Ray, who are charged with molesting 11 children who attended their Manhattan Beach nursery school, are in their third year of trial.

Rader, a one-time Reseda auto dealer from England, has been on trial since last March for the murder of a Northridge family--Israeli immigrant businessman Sol Salomon, his wife, Elaine, and their two children, Michalle, 15, and Mitchell, 9. The four disappeared in October, 1982, but their bodies have never been found.

Under questioning from Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lorna Parnell, Buckey said she had simply commented that she felt “very sorry” for the family of one of Rader’s alleged victims. The conversation, Buckey said, took place in an elevator, and her comments were directed to an attorney friend.

“My heart goes out to them,” she quoted herself as saying of the victim’s parents. At that point, she said, a juror also in the elevator identified herself and the conversation stopped.

However, in the afternoon hearing conducted outside the presence of the full Rader jury, the juror told the judge that Buckey had said more, referring to Salomon as “Sol.”

The juror also volunteered that in a previous conversation she once told Buckey that “you’re a strong lady.”

Neither the defense nor prosecutors asked for a mistrial, and Parnell ordered the jury to resume its deliberations today.

Meanwhile, next door, Superior Court Judge William Pounders admonished the McMartin jury to speak up if they hear anyone discussing their case, and to avoid watching television or reading about either case.

“As always happens in this courthouse, with such limited space and so many people,” he said, “conversations about the case even by non-participants can have an effect on the jurors.”

For her part, Buckey said she had come to know the Rader juror and the victim’s parents during hallway conversations in the crowded downtown criminal courts building.

“I’m a friendly person,” she said. “I speak to everyone.”