Shadow of McMartin Case Lingering Over Beach City

As a jury deliberates daily in the McMartin Preschool molestation trial, the citizens of Manhattan Beach await the conclusion of the 6-year-old case with a mixture of curiosity and resignation--curious about the outcome, yet resigned to the fact that no verdict can deliver the community from the scandal’s dark currents.

The case’s lingering mark can be found today in the city’s schools, where pupils receive rigorous instruction in molestation awareness. It can be heard in the laments of parents, who worry that their children are being taught to fear human contact. It reverberates from the pulpits of community churches, where ministers still awkwardly grapple with the fallout from the case.

“This is like an open wound that has festered for too long,” said Bob Holmes of the Manhattan Beach City Council. “There’s a tremendous amount of frustration over the length of the trial, the way in which it has been handled and the media circus that it has created.”

Raymond Buckey and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, are charged with 64 counts of molestation that allegedly involved 11 children over the course of several years in their once-popular Manhattan Beach preschool. The case, which produced what is considered to be the longest criminal proceeding in U.S. history, originally involved more than 200 counts against seven defendants, and at its height affected operations at eight day-care centers.

The tragedy divides Manhattan Beach even today, with some residents still insisting that mass abuse occurred and others contending that it was more a case of mass hysteria. The obvious sources of community healing seem to fall short against the power of McMartin.

“Jesus never mentioned child molestation,” one pastor said. “This is just a tragedy.”

The most overt evidence of the hostility can be found at the McMartin school site, where an ominous warning to Raymond Buckey said “Ray Will Die.” The message, which has been painted over on several occasions, always returns like a stubborn stain.

Other signs are more subtle. At Uncle Bill’s Pancake House, it is possible to engage the regulars at the counter in conversation about practically anything but McMartin. Mere mention of the matter produces icy stares into the bottoms of coffee cups, shaking heads and, more than anything, silence.

“People just don’t talk about it,” owner Bill van Amburgh said.

The mayor refuses to be interviewed about the $15-million case. A Chamber of Commerce spokeswoman refers to it obliquely as “our misfortune,” and says no more. The civic-minded women of the Sandpiper Club, an old-line philanthropic organization, are equally evasive.

“We don’t discuss that,” President Georgiann Winfrey said.

And even the most accommodating residents measure their comments with the caution of political candidates.

Among themselves, however, stories are in circulation--tearful tales of former McMartin students, now adults, who attribute sexual problems to child abuse.

“There are dozens of those stories here,” said one community leader, who asked not to be identified. “Fiction may have developed around this case, but there is also truth to it.”

Few suspected that McMartin would still loom so large this far down the road when the case began in 1983, with a mother’s complaint that her 2 1/2-year-old child may have been abused. The complaint gained credence when doctors found evidence of molestation, and police soon followed up with a letter apprising more than 200 McMartin parents of the findings.

The warning triggered a panic in the small city, as bizarre tales of dead bodies, animal sacrifices and devil worship emerged in connection with McMartin, once the area’s premier day-care center. People siding with the prosecution started sporting “I Believe the Children” pins and bumper stickers, and those representing the defendants were taunted in the streets.

Nearly 400 children eventually were interviewed by therapists in the early stages. The investigation came to fruition in 1984, when Raymond Buckey and six other McMartin teachers, including Buckey’s mother, sister and grandmother, school founder Virginia McMartin, who attended hearings in a wheelchair, were indicted on more than 200 counts related to abuse.

As eight South Bay child-care centers were closed in the wake of the allegations, Manhattan Beach became a national symbol of the child abuse issue.

Then the matter took another turn. Citing a lack of evidence, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner dropped charges against five of the defendants, and the 34,000 residents of the mostly white, upscale town were left to sort out the details for themselves, to draw their own conclusions.

That sorting out, it appears, goes on today, and there are vigorous champions of both positions.

For instance, Tim Ritter, the president of the Manhattan Beach Kiwanis Club and a fourth generation resident, is insulted when people question the validity of the prosecution evidence. “Kids don’t lie,” Ritter said. “Something has to be true out of all the accusations that were made.”

Supporters of the McMartin teachers are less inclined to speak publicly, because of the high level of emotion still surrounding the case. Those implicated in the scandal have fled Manhattan Beach, fearing reprisals, and are still afraid to show their faces, although one resident said she occasionally sees Peggy McMartin Buckey’s husband at the local bank.

One person who has spoken out about McMartin at length is Kevin Cody, publisher of the Easy Reader, the major community newspaper. Cody started out supporting the prosecution, but has since become convinced that there is no proof that molestation occurred. Those familiar with the community say his opinion is strongly endorsed by some residents.

Among them is Carlos Ruiz, owner of an appliance store a few blocks from the beach. “I don’t think it happened personally,” he said. Ruiz’s wife, Annette, feels sorry for the Buckeys and McMartins. “It’s a wonderful family and they’re wonderful people,” she said. “But they have really been put through the mill.”

Joanne Gottesman sent her three children to McMartin in the 1960s and also remains friendly with the family. Gottesman said she sympathizes with the parents who claim that their children were molested, but does not believe that the defendants are guilty.

“They were good people,” Gottesman said. “I could understand it if one person was being accused. But a whole family? Come on. They’re just not the type to do this kind of thing.”

The division can pit friends against friends. Jim Snyder, a lifelong resident of Manhattan Beach, said he never discusses McMartin with one of his best friends. Both men had children who attended there, but Snyder dismissed the child-abuse reports as overblown, while his friend became a leading advocate for prosecution of the teachers.

“He feels the way he does and I feel the way I do,” Snyder said. “It’s like religion. I don’t discuss it with people I care about, because I know it’s going to cause arguments.”

For most, though, the easiest course is silence. Louis Valencia, the owner of the Manhattan Barber Shop, pretends that the case does not exist. “Why should I discuss it with my customers?” he asked. “I don’t want to offend anyone.”

Says another resident: “I don’t talk about it, and people I associate with don’t talk about it.”

Uncomfortable Quiet

An uncomfortable, albeit polite, quiet thus prevails on the blue- and gray-tiled walkways of Manhattan Beach, a city that has always been known as the class act of the South Bay for its civic emphasis on quality of life rather than commerce. Its fishing pier remains remarkably free of burger stands and bumper cars. Its beachfront is a placid place where people actually stop and watch the sun set. Its crime rate is so low that the local paper reports bicycle thefts. And its life style is so languid that people are willing to pay as much as $3.5 million for a house to live there.

“This is really God’s acre,” said Robert Millar, an artist active in civic affairs.

Millar, 31, has lived in Manhattan Beach for eight years. He for one said it is wrong to assume that McMartin is a controlling factor in people’s lives, despite the impact of the case. People still say hello to strangers on the street and there remains a strong sense of community.

Others share his view that McMartin has been sensationalized. “It was devastating,” said Jan Dennis, a community activist. “But as time went on, people had to get on with their lives.”

After years of decline, school enrollment is on the increase. Lynn Maguire, the mother of two, says Manhattan Beach is still a great place to raise a family, even though there are fewer middle-class people. New day-care centers have even opened, though they remain in short supply.

Walter R. Urban, a Manhattan Beach attorney who represented one of the former McMartin defendants, said the case’s lasting impact on the idyllic-looking community is best measured in little moments: People who back opposite sides bump into each other at the bank or the cleaners and say nothing. Children discover that their classmates are plaintiffs in the trial and learn to leave them alone.

“The community seems to be permanently polarized,” Urban said. “This is a powerful historic event. A little town gets hit with something like this and it’s not forgotten.”

When a man driving around the South Bay in a blue van was reported to be making overtures to children recently, Manhattan Beach residents flew into a panic. One parent said it was as if McMartin was happening all over again as police were deluged with calls.

Even young people who live in the seaside apartments have a surprisingly acute awareness of the case. The rowdy beach bars are full of people who can expound on McMartin if prodded.

“Anyone who lives in Manhattan Beach is aware of this case,” said Jamie Lavalley, a photographer who was sitting at the bar at Hennesy’s Tavern during a recent “Monday Night Football” telecast.

Said Jim Madara, a 35-year-old painting contractor interviewed at one of the community’s main restaurants: “You’re talking about a case that violates the spirit of children. You don’t have to have kids to care about them.”

David Watchfogel, a former Manhattan Beach planning commissioner and teacher, said small communities, unlike large ones, have a tendency to be defined by solitary events.

“When we travel, people who follow the news occasionally put two and two together. And they say, ‘You’re from that town,’ ” Watchfogel said. “But I try to take them apart. . . . Los Angeles is not held responsible for the Night Stalker. Why should we be blamed for McMartin?”

Others, no matter how they feel about the merits of the case, deplore the distance it has placed between children and adults.

“There’s no in-between here anymore,” one parent said. “These kids have been made to be deathly afraid of anyone who looks at them. What we’re doing is raising paranoid kids.”

Watchfogel agreed that the child-teacher relationship changed after McMartin. “It became very clear that people could not hug and touch kids,” he said. “A lot of adults are very careful these days and they will be forever. And that’s the great loss.”

Snyder, the man who split on the issue with his best friend, said he feels the loss, too. “Every time I hug my nieces and nephews I think twice about it,” he said. “Isn’t that weird?”