American educator who was accused of child molestation. Widespread allegations by pre-school students of the McMartin school that the Buckeys raped, sodomized and terrorized them with satanic rituals led to a 33-month, $15 million criminal trial, the longest and costliest in U.S. history at that time.
Ray’s grandmother, Virginia McMartin, opened a pre-school in Manhattan Beach, California in 1956, and was aided by her daughter, Peggy McMartin Buckey. Experienced as a teacher’s aide from the time he was a teenager, Raymond took one year of college to study diet and nutrition. He himself was a health food advocate of such diets as the wheat grass fad, and conscientious about working out to keep in good shape. Buckley worked as a volunteer in a child-care center in the fall of 1980 building playground equipment. When he returned to Manhattan Beach, he began working at the pre-school full time in 1981.
The grim tale began in August 1983 when Manhattan Beach resident Judy Johnson, 39, claimed she noticed rectal irritation on her 2 ½ year old son and blood in his diaper. After she took the child to the UCLA medical center, doctors confirmed her worst fears; he had been sodomized. When she asked him who had hurt him, he said simply, “Mister Ray.” Though Johnson was diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic in 1983 and died the following year of alcohol-related liver disease, her action on 8/12/1983 instigated the wave of accusations. She was the first parent to make a charge of sexual abuse of her son by Buckey. The accusation proliferated in a hysteria like wildfire over the next few years as 125 parents came forward to make molestation charges against Buckey, his mom and seven other present and former staff members.
On 9/07/1983, Buckey was arrested and released on bail the same day. The police sent 200 letters to other McMartin parents naming their concerns and Buckey as their suspect, setting off the panic. By March 1984, 400 kids had been interviewed and videotaped; therapists concluded that at least 350 of them had been abused. A grand jury returned indictments against Buckey, his mom, sister, grandmother and three teachers from the school on 115 counts of abusing children. The charges involved accusations of “lewd and lascivious acts” against kids over a five-year period.
The trial began in April 1987. As the case muddled along, a total of 124 witnesses gave 60,000 pages of testimony. The credibility of the children’s testimony was questionable when they also described familiar games, as well as bizarre tales of digging up a human corpse, killing and mutilating small animals, and jumping out of airplanes. After three years, the testimony of many of them became doubtful and obscured. Buckey spent five years in jail, from 3/22/1984 until the jury acquitted him of 52 counts on 1/18/1990. The trail also addressed Mrs. Buckey’s own molestation as a child and Raymond Buckey’s problems with alcohol and his collection of pornographic photos.
At the acquittal, the public reacted with cries of outrage. Many of the jurors felt that there had been molestations, but the prosecutor had failed to prove by whom and when. On 1/31/1990, Los Angeles District Attorney Ira Reiner reopened the case so that Buckey could be retried on the 13 counts of molestation; the trial ended in a jury deadlock.
The final few cases that went to trial were again deadlocked. There was no substantial proof. After seven years and more than $13 million in trial costs, not one charge was upheld. To pay legal costs, the family sold their home and the pre-school, and lost everything. They sued one family for slander and were awarded $1 dollar in damages.
Virginia McMartin died in 1995 at age 88. Her daughter, Peggy McMartin Buckey died 12/15/2000, age 74. Peggy’s daughter Peggy Ann resumed her teaching career and her son Raymond went to law school after the trial.
Link to Wikipedia biography