At Last, Shadow Has Been Lifted From Manhattan Beach : Reaction: A divided city buzzes with word of jury’s decision. Some wonder if the truth will ever be known.

After more than six years, it took less than five minutes for news of Ray and Peggy McMartin Buckey’s acquittal to spread through Manhattan Beach. The verdicts, televised live, had barely been uttered when phones began buzzing at the churches and the police station and the pastel, seaside homes.

At City Hall, the city attorney’s secretary told the receptionist, who told a pair of volunteer workers, who pursed their lips. At Uncle Bill’s Pancake House, the customers at the breakfast counter exchanged shocked glances, then vigorous debate.

At the community center, a grandmother in a pale-pink sweat suit passed the word to her low-impact aerobics class in hushed tones. A woman clapped both hands over her mouth. Another--who knew “The Children”--uncontrollably wept.

And when another woman, in a small, defiant voice, announced, “Well, I, for one, agree with the judge,” the others averted their eyes and drifted away.

“As you can see,” she confided bitterly, “a lot of them don’t agree with me. They don’t like to hear this viewpoint, even now.”

It was with anguish and relief and gratitude and surprise that Manhattan Beach greeted the culmination of the longest criminal proceeding in U.S. history--a proceeding that was launched from their own city and that, for years, has torn the community.

And though opinions varied--vehemently--on whether the verdict matched the truth, there was one constant: Everyone was glad it was over.

“I hope now that none of the parents involved does anything to mess up their (own) lives any further,” said Russ Lesser, who served as mayor of Manhattan Beach at the height of the scandal.

“Some people have said in the past that if Ray Buckey gets off, they’ll get him. But I hope now that they’re saying, ‘Let’s move forward. Let’s get on with our lives.’ ”

In fact, he said, for him the verdict is already an anticlimax.

“It certainly hasn’t hurt property values here--I can tell you that,” Lesser said.

There was a time in this upwardly mobile beach city when it seemed the shadow of McMartin would never lift. The case, people said, did not stop with a single preschool. Local businesses, churches and other schools were drawn in.

At one point, authorities said they had 56 suspects still uncharged, and 1,200 victims of alleged abuse. Seven preschools in and around Manhattan Beach closed. Only two ever reopened.

“Everything that went on just added to the belief,” recalled Patti Rusth, whose best friend’s Manhattan Ranch preschool was among those closed.

“For awhile, it was almost ‘in’ to be one of the people involved. There were public rallies with movie stars. Women (whose kids went to McMartin) would collapse on the tennis courts in tears and people would rush to comfort them.”

Neighbors doubted neighbors.

McMartin was on the news, in the Sunday sermons, on bumper-stickers, in classroom debates.

At the abandoned preschool, which is up for sale, the graffiti, “Ray Will Die” showed up on the cement walls, was painted over and, within weeks, reappeared.

Thursday, it was there anew, with a fresh message alongside: “Dead.”

There were landmarks.

Even now, longtime residents tell you which church “The Parents” go to, and which supermarket they patronize, and who cuts their hair and how many have joined the Badminton Club. They point out the meat market where pupils said they had been undressed in a back room.

And there were rumors.

Some passed, others fester to this day. Lesser’s wife, Charlotte, for example, laughs today at the 5-year-old rumor that she routinely carried dead babies around town in the back of her station wagon.

But another story still hurts.

“I’m on the vestry at St. Cross Episcopal Church, and we’re constantly under duress and stress,” she said.

The reason is that McMartin children said they were taken clandestinely to St. Cross in neighboring Hermosa Beach and forced to witness satanic rituals. The story was never substantiated.

Nonetheless, as recently as last month, the church and its rectory were pelted with broken bottles and eggs. The vandals left a note: “There is simply no place for Satan worship in this town.”

Shortly after, old questions about St. Cross were revived with the arrest of a 47-year-old church counselor for allegedly molesting two teen-agers connected to the church’s youth group.

At the rectory yesterday, the Rev. Jack Eales was measured in his reaction.

“All I can really say is that I hope and pray that reaching this milestone (the verdict) leads all of us to pray for the beginning of healing in our hearts, our homes and our communities,” he said.

But down the street from the preschool, Steve Napolitano, 23, who attended McMartin as a child, was skeptical.

“This is a divided community,” he said, “and it will be divided, I think, for some years to come. How can you find any truth out of what happened? I think the truth will never be found.”