Betty E. Raidor; Defendant in McMartin Pre-School Case

Betty Evans Raidor, a one-time defendant who later became a defense witness in the notorious McMartin Pre-School child molestation case, has died in Bakersfield at 81, her family said Wednesday.

Raidor, who had lived in Bakersfield since her retirement a decade ago, succumbed to complications from a heart attack, said her son, Milan Raidor.

Betty Raidor was one of seven employees at the Manhattan Beach school who were indicted on child molestation charges in 1984. Charges against Raidor and four others were dropped in 1986 because of insufficient evidence.

Her family had to sell their house to cover her legal expenses.

But Raidor said later that she never felt any bitterness toward her accusers, even those who called the loudest for her prosecution.

“Everyone was caught up in the same tragedy,” she said. “I found that material things really didn’t matter, compared to the friends who stood by me and came to my aid in so many ways.”

The McMartin case erupted with a wild flurry of bizarre accusations in 1983. It would become what then was the longest, most expensive criminal case in U.S. history, lasting more than seven years and costing Los Angeles County more than $13.5 million.

In the first trial, Raymond Buckey, then in his late 20s, and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, owner of the school, faced 65 counts of molestation and conspiracy involving 11 youngsters between 1978 and 1983.

Raidor, a key defense witness in the case, testified for eight days, never wavering from her vehement insistence that she knew nothing of the naked games, nude photography and animal mutilations described by child witnesses.

The jury in the first trial acquitted Raymond Buckey of 40 charges and cleared his 63-year-old mother of all 12 counts against her. The jury deadlocked on 13 counts against Raymond Buckey, and prosecutors refiled eight of them.

The jury in a second trial deadlocked on all eight counts against him, and a judge declared a mistrial.

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The Associated Press contributed to this story.