1st McMartin Child Witness Balks : Girl, 11, Resumes Testimony, Says She Can’t Remember

The first child witness in the retrial of McMartin Pre-School molestation defendant Ray Buckey balked at resuming her testimony today and finally testified that she could not remember anything.

The 11-year-old girl had testified only a short time today when she left the witness stand complaining of a stomach ache. Prosecutors conceded that she did not want to testify further.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Pam Ferrero said the 11-year-old girl’s parents called her Wednesday night saying the child was “extremely reluctant” to return for more questioning. But the parents agreed to bring her anyway.

Ferrero told Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg that the girl expressed the same desire not to testify when she arrived at court today but “was trying to be cheerful” and agreed to take the stand.

But when Buckey’s attorney, Danny Davis, resumed cross-examination, the girl appeared uncomfortable. She was on the stand 10 minutes, answering intimate questions about her body, when she suddenly announced, “May I be excused? I have a stomach ache.”

Minutes later she was observed in the hallway sobbing in her father’s arms as he tried to comfort her.

The judge recessed court to give her time to compose herself and said he would take further action if that became impossible.

After about an hour of private talks with prosecutors, the child was escorted back into the courtroom and returned to the witness stand. Her father was allowed to stand next to her and she clutched a stuffed toy.

However, as she began to testify she answered every question regarding her past allegations of sexual misconduct at the school by saying, “I can’t remember.”

The 31-year-old Buckey is charged specifically with raping the girl and using a foreign object to sodomize her.

The first Buckey trial, the longest and costliest criminal proceeding in U.S. history, ended in January with Buckey acquitted of 40 counts of molestation at the family-owned preschool in Manhattan Beach. His mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, was acquitted of 12 charges. But the jury deadlocked on 13 counts against Buckey, and the district attorney decided to retry him on eight of those charges involving three children.

Numerous children in the first trial testified about a “naked movie star game” allegedly played at the McMartin school. The current witness made the same claim, saying she and other children took off their clothes for the game and were photographed nude by Buckey.

Authorities made extensive searches but found no such photographs.

During cross-examination Wednesday, the girl told Davis that her memory was vague because “I tried to put the people at the preschool out of my mind.”

“Who molested you?” Davis asked.

“Just Ray I think,” the girl said.

“Did the lady teachers molest you?” he asked.

“I don’t remember,” she said.