Woman Testifies That She Had Sex With Ray Buckey

A 37-year-old Montana grandmother, claiming she had a sexual relationship with McMartin Pre-School defendant Ray Buckey seven years ago, testified Monday that there is “no way” he could be a child molester.

Smiling at the 31-year-old Buckey and giggling throughout a day on the witness stand, Barbara Dusky Goles said she lied to district attorney’s investigators in 1985 when she told them that her attempts to seduce the young man she had met at a nutrition/UFO convention in Reno were unsuccessful.

She said she had lied “to protect my reputation” because she was about to be married. She said that only a week after she was questioned about Buckey, she married her third husband.

Goles said she had earlier told her fiance, after they watched news of the case on television, that she knew the family and had spent a Thanksgiving vacation at their Manhattan Beach home in 1982. However, she said, she lied to her fiance about her affair with Buckey.

‘Concern for Family’

Goles said she had decided to testify on Buckey’s behalf--corroborating his version of their relationship--after several telephone calls from a defense investigator, who expressed repeated “concern” for Goles and her family.

“They told me they were concerned for my children’s feelings, my husband’s feelings and my feelings,” said Goles, who testified further that, in contrast to the defense representative, district attorney’s investigators had harassed her.

Now living in Butte, Mont., Goles is the mother of two sons and has grandchildren, she said.

The defense had been expected to rest its case Monday, and Goles had been subpoenaed by the prosecution as its first rebuttal witness. However, in a surprise move, defense lawyer Danny Davis, who represents Buckey and said Friday his client did not want her to testify, called her as one of his final two witnesses.

The last witness is now expected to be the father of the 2 1/2-year-old boy whose alleged sodomy by Buckey triggered the six-year-old case, although the judge has placed limits on the scope of the questioning.

Met at Convention

Goles--who for unexplained reasons exercised a rarely used option that allows witnesses to affirm they will tell the truth rather than swear to God--said she and Buckey met in 1982 at a convention booth where both were selling “pyramid power” hats, and spent several nights together.

She said her memories of their first night together are hazy, but recalled the second, at the Fantasy Inn in South Lake Tahoe.

“It had a heart-shaped bathtub and a round bed and it was all in red velour. It was a very beautiful room,” she said. The pair had checked into the motel about 2 a.m. after smoking a little marijuana and being stopped by a highway patrolman, she said. Although they did not have enough money between them to pay for the room, the desk clerk took what they had and even threw in some bubble bath.

Without being specific, she said their sexual relations were normal and included intercourse, although the then-24-year-old Buckey seemed inexperienced. She commented that she found his disdain for underwear, a preference which has been the subject of previous testimony, “sexy.”

“Was there anything unhealthy or bizarre about your relations with Ray Buckey?” Davis asked.

“No,” she replied.

“Was there anything that indicated he would prefer to have sex with little children?”

“No,” she answered.

Buckey and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, 62, are charged with 65 counts of molestation and conspiracy involving 11 children who attended their family-owned Manhattan Beach nursery school. The molestations allegedly occurred from 1978 through 1983.

Goles said she visited the pre-school while staying with the Buckeys later that month and “I observed Ray walk into the room and these children came running up” with outstretched arms. “I was so amazed at the love that was interchanged.”

Asked if she saw anything that would make her think Buckey was capable of molesting one of them, she answered, “No possibility.”

Outside court, Buckey said he felt that Goles’ testimony had deflated the prosecution’s “negative inferences” about their relationship.

“This is a very brave thing for her to do,” he told reporters.

A key part of Buckey’s defense is that because he had an affair with a woman, he therefore could not be a child molester. The prosecution has said it will later call an expert in pedophilia to testify in an attempted rebuttal that there are several types of pedophiles, one of which is also capable of adult sex.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Lael Rubin, who began cross-examination Monday afternoon, said afterward that Goles’ turnabout is more damaging to her reputation than had she said simply that she and Buckey were just friends and stuck to her story.

“It’s abundantly clear that the defense has gotten to her. . . . This lady is straight out of Central Casting,” she said. “She’s lying.”