McMartin Pre-School Reduced to Rubble : Bulldozed: The Manhattan Beach facility, at which some former students insist they were molested, was torn down to make way for an office building.

The infamous McMartin Pre-School was bulldozed into history Tuesday, existing now only in the memories of former students, some of whom insist they were molested there, and former teachers, who insist they provided loving care.

The sun broke through the haze and parents cheered as heavy equipment lifted the roof off at about 11 a.m. By day’s end only three green walls were still standing, one of them boldly emblazoned in large spray-painted letters: “We believe the children.”

None of the alleged victims who attended the once-prestigious Manhattan Beach nursery school were on hand. But a handful of parents and volunteers--their faces caked with dirt and streaked with tears--watched as the building came down. They had been digging since April 13 for evidence of a trapdoor, tunnel or secret room that more than a dozen former students have talked about.

The busy Manhattan Beach Boulevard site will soon contain a three-story office building with underground parking. It was sold in February for $320,000 by defense attorney Danny Davis--who acquired it as part of his legal fees--to Arnold Goldstein, a Hermosa Beach real estate broker.

“I think there’s a whole lot of peace of mind now. I feel satisfied,” said a mother who believes her teen-ager was sexually abused. “My son says it’s all over for him; that he’s going to lead his life. But I think I’m worse than he. I think it’s very therapeutic to see it down.”

The demolition began just as experts hired by parents unearthed what they say may once have been a maze of subterranean tunnels.

“I feel wonderful and confident that we found it for the kids,” said Stan Ibrao, a volunteer who lives nearby and provided meals to tired parents who have been frantically excavating the site since April 13.

Curious passers-by, some with cameras slung around their necks, others carrying surfboards, peered at the dig, asking, “Did you find anything?”

The parents believe that they have. An investigator from the district attorney’s office was shoulder-deep in one of the holes when word came that only one hour remained for the searchers.

However, a district attorney’s spokesman said neither the investigator nor prosecutors would comment on the findings, except to say that they are unrelated to the case now being prosecuted.

Charges against five of the seven teachers originally charged in the massive molestation case were dropped in 1986. Then last January, after a three-year trial, Peggy McMartin Buckey was completely acquitted and her son, Ray Buckey, was found not guilty of most of the charges against him. He is being retried on eight of the counts, involving three girls, that left an earlier jury deadlocked.

“We weren’t doing this for the court case,” explained Jo Anne Farr, one McMartin parent. “We were trying to validate what the kids said.” Another, Marilyn Salas, was critical of the prosecution’s handling of the case. “The district attorney’s office drilled down six inches,” she said. “We went down seven feet!”

The early days of the dig were conducted by parents, who were soon literally over their heads in dirt and debris. Ted Gunderson, former Los Angeles FBI chief and close friend of one of the McMartin parents, agreed to oversee the search. He turned to Gary Stickel of Environmental Research Archeologists for help.

“It looks like a tunnel to me,” Stickel said, adding that he has no vested interest in the outcome of the dig. “It’s too bad we don’t have more time to explore the thing. There are still artifacts in there, and they may be key ones.”

The archeologist said that after eliminating those subterranean excavations that can be explained as having been made for pipelines or other purposes, two “probable tunnels” remain: one under a bathroom in the first classroom and the second under the third and fourth classrooms. Objects dating from the 1970s and early 1980s were found in soft fill dirt and debris.

Gunderson said the larger opening is 45 feet long, 4 feet high and increases from a width of 2 1/2 feet to 9 feet. Parents believe the chamber may be the “secret room” where molestations allegedly took place.

Defense attorneys could not be reached Tuesday. But parents said the Buckey family and former teacher Betty Raidor were seen outside the school in recent days.