00:00:00
explore today's musthave Trends and Innovative Styles at Mrs be's clearance and outlet shop oneof aind finds in
00:00:06
today's musthave Trends explore wall to--all deals Furniture flooring mattresses Home Accents seasonal
00:00:13
favorites and more discover unique new home decor pillows accessories and more there's something perfect for your style
00:00:20
and budget there's new inventory every day add up to 80% off suggested retail discover the style and savings of Mrs
00:00:27
be's clearance and Outlet when it comes to Quality sleep Ashley has you covered with top mattress brands
00:00:35
at winning prices and with special financing options available you can snooze now and pay later plus your
00:00:42
mattress purchase helps give the gift of better sleep to children in need and US
00:00:47
Special Operations forces visit your local Ashley store or shop online today and make every snooze count financing is
00:00:56
subject to credit approval C store or ashley.com for [Music] details [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever
00:01:45
you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who just this
00:01:51
morning very astutely pointed out that right now at every company in America the IT guy is more important than the
00:01:58
CEO he is the captain welcome welcome welcome I am your captain of the flying garage ship it's good to be seen and
00:02:05
it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a [Music] friend today I am so happy that we are
00:02:17
featuring the very great Sund Drifter by some really good people over at South County Brewing Company garage grade 4
00:02:25
and a half bottle caps out of five sundrifter is a double India Pale ale New England Style with an ABV of 8% and
00:02:33
it's loaded with flavor it's heavy and a little dank like one would expect but balanced out nicely with notes of white
00:02:39
peach white gummy bear white wine and just a little hint of pineapple and I first want to send out a special thanks
00:02:48
to my friend cheers to Patrick R out in Hanover Pennsylvania and a big shout out
00:02:54
to Megan and Millis Massachusetts all right I'm going to give this one my best shot here here Captain cuz we have
00:03:01
Camila [Music] from I can't do it somewhere in Sweden a big shout out to Maggie in Baton Rouge
00:03:11
Louisiana next up we have Jackie and Joe in the UK and last but certainly not least we have Nicole in Jacksonville
00:03:18
Florida everybody that we mentioned went to True Crim garage.com and contributed
00:03:23
to this week's beer fund and for that we give you a big thank you and if you're on the mailing list check your email
00:03:30
because you have a special promo code that's good for this week only as a thank you for being a part of the True
00:03:36
Crime garage Army all right that's enough of the business everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's
00:03:42
talk some true crime [Music] sh [Music] September 8th 1983 dear parent this department is
00:04:44
conducting a criminal investigation involving child molestation Ray Bucky an employee of
00:04:51
Virginia MCM Martin's preschool was arrested September 7th 1983 by this department the following procedure is
00:05:00
obviously an unpleasant one but to protect the rights of your children as well as the rights of the accused this
00:05:08
inquiry is necessary for a complete investigation records indicate that your child has been or is currently a student
00:05:16
at the preschool we are asking your assistance in continuing this investigation please question your child
00:05:24
to see if he or she has been a witness to any crime or if he or she has been a victim our investigation indicates that
00:05:33
possible criminal acts include oral sex fondling of genitals buttocks or chest area
00:05:42
otomy possibly committed under the pretense of taking the child's temperature also photos may have been taken of
00:05:51
children without their clothing any information from your child regarding having ever observed Ray Bucky
00:05:58
to leave a classroom Al loone with a child during any nap period or if they have ever observed Ray Bucky tie up a
00:06:05
child is important please complete the enclosed information form and return it to this
00:06:11
department in the enclosed stamped return envelope as soon as possible we will contact you if circumstances
00:06:18
dictate same we ask you to please keep this investigation strictly confidential because of the nature of the charges and
00:06:26
the highly emotional effect it will have on our community please do not discuss this investigation
00:06:32
with anyone outside your immediate family do not contact or discuss the investigation with Raymond Bucky any
00:06:40
member of the accused defendant's family or employees connected with the McMartin
00:06:58
preschool [Music] [Music] on August 12th 1983 Judy Johnson called police reporting that her 2-year-old son who
00:07:27
was attending the MCM Martin preschool was being molested at the school by 25-year-old Ray Bucky ry's mother is
00:07:35
Peggy McMartin Bucky and his grandmother is Virginia McMartin ry's grandmother is
00:07:41
the founder and owner of the preschool the Bucky family runs and operates this preschool the detective that caught the
00:07:51
case she would start her investigation by interviewing a Baker's Dozen this included Johnson's son and 12 parents
00:07:59
that Johnson passed along their information to the detective okay Captain so this is serious allegations
00:08:08
obviously alleged despicable acts committed and your victim is very young roughly just two and a half years of age
00:08:17
the boy's mother is making the report to the police but obviously she was not there when the crimes or alleged crimes
00:08:24
were committed right this type of Predator is actually more dangerous because if these allegations are true
00:08:33
these individuals are around children all day long yes many many potential victims at the ready for this this
00:08:41
offender so the investigation starts off like this first the little boy is unable
00:08:47
to pick Ray Bucky out of school photos when talking with the police a medical examination of the boy showed no signs
00:08:56
of sexual abuse and really failed to produce any evidence at all regarding sexual abuse but we all know that there
00:09:03
is not always signs nor evidence present the other parents interviewed the the first 12 basically all said that they
00:09:12
had no reason to suspect that anything nefarious was going on at the school at all and I'm actually wondering here
00:09:18
Captain if some of these parents out of this first 12 if they even knew Ray Bucky or probably didn't know Ray Bucky
00:09:27
or who he was well this was a prestigious preschool a lot of these parents wanted their kids to be going
00:09:35
there I I don't think it was as easy as just signing up and getting your kid in the MCM Martin preschool yeah and a
00:09:42
little side note here regarding Judy Johnson's son she just dropped him off at the school one day like months and
00:09:51
months before these allegations ever came out he he wasn't technically like signed up to go to the school and as you
00:09:58
said you may have had had to jump through some hoops to get your child into this school this is Manhattan Beach
00:10:03
right so she just dropped off her kid and they just had to they didn't even they didn't know who the kid was they
00:10:09
didn't know who the parent was why the kid was there they were all they were kind of confused but the MCM Martin um
00:10:16
are pretty from from my understanding look you can look at it one way or the other either they're despicable horrible
00:10:22
people or they got into this business because they really do care about children well the mother and the founder
00:10:28
of the preschool received a lot of different Awards actually got like Woman of the Year award back in the day for
00:10:37
her work at this preschool so they didn't like kick the kid out they just accepted him at the school and put him
00:10:45
into the system right and once they figured out who the mom was he just became a student but his first day at
00:10:51
the school from my understanding she just dropped him off and didn't speak to anybody well so far this investigation
00:10:59
is not looking so great we have the boy who cannot pick out the accused from school photos and we don't have any
00:11:07
physical signs of abuse that the medical examiners can find on the boy so we move
00:11:13
on to the next steps right we need some evidence so searches of the school the grounds and of the Bucky family home are
00:11:21
conducted during these searches police collected evidence none of it damning at all mostly this is just typical
00:11:29
household items of note we have a rubber duck a graduation gown and a few pictures that were cut out of a Playboy
00:11:39
magazine despite any real evidence at all police did arrest Ray Bucky this was on September 7th 1983 but the Los
00:11:49
Angeles District Attorney's Office declined to prosecute due to the lack of evidence and they wanted more they
00:11:57
wanted more evidence collected and Ray Bucky was released later that same day so the next day the Manhattan Beach
00:12:07
police sent the letter that was read by our amazing host during the trailer this
00:12:12
letter went to 200 parents naming Rey as a child molestation suspect the letter is asking for the
00:12:21
help of the parents of these children to question their kids find out if the children knew of anything going on at
00:12:28
the school ask them about fondling about oral sex about sodomy the difficult thing here look there's many difficult
00:12:37
things going on with this situation the letter doesn't seem like a great strategy doesn't seem to be well thought
00:12:44
out I get that you are reaching out to a lot of people to the masses all at once
00:12:49
it seems a little well it just seems like a dumb idea to me but then on top of this you have untrained parents who
00:12:57
are now going to be questioning their children some of these kids are very young like two and a half years old MH
00:13:03
they're asking them about things that they at two and a half they don't even know about these things they don't know
00:13:09
what this stuff is B you have to be careful when you're questioning children where you're not leading them or you're
00:13:15
not giving them the answers and so like you said these parents aren't trained to
00:13:19
do so and it's weird to put out this letter because again the initial questioning of the 12 parents
00:13:29
I would say is enough because just because there's maybe some smoke or we have an allegation doesn't mean there's
00:13:35
fire and you you go and raid this individual's home you find nothing right the list of things that they find rubber
00:13:43
ducky cap and gown what does that have to do with anything well the graduation gown will later be later we're going to
00:13:52
be told that that graduation gown was like a a satanic robe like a robe that somebody would wear during rituals or or
00:13:59
satanic mass uhhuh and at the end of the day it's it's just a graduation gown like oh yeah people have them in their
00:14:07
homes It is worn during a ritual when you graduate from school right right on October 17th the LA County DA's office
00:14:18
asked the Children's Institute International to interview children who attended the McMartin preschool it looks
00:14:25
like in the end captain that they interviewed about 20 50 Children the interview techniques used were highly
00:14:33
suggestive and they even encouraged the children to pretend or speculate about supposed events it was claimed that 360
00:14:45
children had been abused this is after speaking with the 250 there were examinations and the
00:14:53
children were photographed some of them were photographed and one child in particular particular and I'm using air
00:15:00
quotes here was photographed by an expert who says that there was some kind of scarring that happened on the child
00:15:08
which she stated was caused by anal penetration later research demonstrated that the methods of questioning used on
00:15:17
these children were as said extremely suggestive and leading to false accusations and others believe that the
00:15:26
questioning itself may have even led to false memory syndrome now I'm a little confused as to
00:15:33
why we see a number so high you know the the victim number of potentially 360 when all of the information I could
00:15:42
find says they only interviewed about 250 kids so I I'm kind of guessing here captain that a lot of those 250 would
00:15:52
have had to be victims themselves but may have also witnessed something maybe their stories included witnessing acts
00:16:01
on others that were not interviewed right I don't know it does it doesn't seem to track it doesn't really check
00:16:08
out but one thing that's very difficult to get over here is when you're interviewing this many
00:16:17
children and it's been said that not one of these children had made any claims of abuse before these
00:16:27
interviews right but after the these interviews are conducted you got hundreds of them saying that they were
00:16:34
abused well again it goes back to who's questioning them and and what level of expertise do they have questioning
00:16:42
children and this is the80s and we're going to see a HBO documentary uh capturing the fredman's where they go
00:16:50
into depth of how how not to question kids and how you can get kids to say certain things and and this will
00:16:57
actually be put into practice after the 80s and after this trial obviously well and one very basic thing of child
00:17:05
psychology that that we know is when a child's being interviewed especially a very young child is being questioned by
00:17:13
an adult regardless of who that adult is most of the time the child will see the
00:17:19
adult as some type of authority and if I were to hold up a stop sign and I'm talking to a little
00:17:27
kid like three-year-old kid and I say I point to the stop sign I say what color is this and if the child says red and I
00:17:36
say I don't even have to say no I just say what color is this if I say the same sentence again ask the same question
00:17:46
again the child then assumes that they have given the wrong answer right and so they they want to please The Authority
00:17:55
they will search for a new answer and it's a lot like the Jesse Miss Kelly interview really I mean they just keep
00:18:04
asking him the same questions over and over again he keeps changing his answers until until they move on and then he's
00:18:09
like oh cool I got the right answer we we have all these kids now with claims of sexual abuse and and some even
00:18:17
bizarre claims and we're going to get into some of these but keep in mind this all started with only one person coming
00:18:23
forward only one mother came forward well and you have Bucky working in his family's business and he looks like a a
00:18:32
mix between I'd say Christopher Reeves and Jeffrey dmer if you see his the first trial he he has those dmer classes
00:18:42
on and so I don't Superman dmer baby yeah I don't I don't think that uh helps him much well in early
00:18:51
1984 Social Services suspended the school's license and the school was shut down about 2 months later seven
00:19:00
preschool employees four of which are from the McMartin family they are indicted on
00:19:07
115 charges of child molestation all seven of the accused were jailed all seven plad innocent to all
00:19:17
charges they were charged with sexually abusing 18 children over a 10-year period now in the coming months the
00:19:24
number of victims regarding official charges would gross significantly from 18 to 41 child
00:19:32
victims these 41 young victims will need to testify or issue statements for the preliminary hearings the first child
00:19:41
witness states that he and some of the other students played what he called naked games and he was touched
00:19:49
inappropriately in bad spots by some of the defendants the other thing that we will start hearing much more about
00:19:57
during this time is that the defendants used death threats to silence the children on June 6th this was the start
00:20:07
of an 18-month preliminary hearing of the alleged 41 child victims only 13 of them would take the
00:20:17
stand but then in a stunning turn of events the mother who made the first accusations against Ray Bucky remember
00:20:25
this is Judy Johnson she died she was found dead at her home on December 19th 1985 at the young age of
00:20:35
44 she died from a liver ailment commonly found in Alcoholics well it's even more weird
00:20:43
than that because she was actually supposed to testify the day that they found her because she actually called
00:20:50
the judge and said hey I don't I don't want to I don't want to testify mhm and they said well we we kind of need you to
00:20:57
come in right important for the jury to hear your testimony and then they find her dead at her house and there were
00:21:05
some people that were suspicious of her death in regards to the charges against this again air quotes child sex ring
00:21:13
that thought oh it's it's awfully convenient that she died just before being able to testify yeah so this next
00:21:20
part this is straight from the Wikipedia page on the case because they had this summarized just so perfectly that I
00:21:27
wanted to include it the page says some of the accusations were described as bizarre you can say that again and we're
00:21:34
going to get into that some of the accusations included Satanic ritual abuse so some of the kids said not only
00:21:42
were they sexually abused but they witnessed flying witches some of the kids said they traveled in a hot air
00:21:50
balloon and some were taken through tunnels that were located beneath the school in one photo lineup
00:21:58
one child identified actor Chuck Norris as one of the abusers there were claims that a rabbit a goat and a baby were all
00:22:09
sacrificed in front of the children there were claims of orgies at car washes and at airports and of children
00:22:18
being flushed down toilets to secret rooms where they would be abused then cleaned up and presented back to their
00:22:26
parents at the end of the school day some child interviewees talked of a game called naked movie star AKA Chuck Norris
00:22:35
and suggested that they were forcibly photographed nude Judy Johnson who as we said passes away even her initial
00:22:45
allegations were quite bizarre she came forward because her little boy was having painful bow movements so Judy
00:22:55
believed that the boy had been a abused and sodomized her son said that he was not
00:23:02
but her claims and allegations against Ray Bucky not only included fondling abuse and sodomy but she also told
00:23:10
police that Ray Bucky had superpowers and that he could fly like Clark K yeah right and again remember her son was not
00:23:20
able to pick Ray Bucky out from school photos it it would eventually come out that Judy Johnson was once diagnosed
00:23:28
with and hospitalized for acute paranoid schizophrenia this this is what's really
00:23:34
sad here you know when we when we review these stories Captain there's always like this smaller sad story hidden
00:23:42
Within These larger Stories the tragic life of Judy Johnson is just is just sad it it it it breaks
00:23:50
my heart this to me appears to be a woman that needed a lot of help and I think that she she didn't recognize
00:23:59
because of things she was suffering from I don't think she recognized that she needed help and she didn't get it she
00:24:06
didn't get the help that she needed and I think that that ultimately led to her her passing away at such a young age in
00:24:14
January of 1986 a judge ordered all seven defendants to a superior court trial on
00:24:21
135 counts of molestation and conspiracy but very quickly that would change because just 8 Days Later the da the
00:24:31
district attorney said there was insufficient evidence against five of the accused and actually requested a
00:24:38
dismissal of charges yeah so the da was going to move forward against just two of the accused now the two remaining are
00:24:46
Ray Bucky and his mother so Peggy McMartin Bucky and Ray Bucky remained in custody awaiting trial facing about 100
00:24:54
counts of molestation and conspiracy [Music] with all of the uncertainty in the world
00:25:16
feeling safe at home has never been more important which is why I want to talk to
00:25:20
you about Simply Safe home security they're longtime friends of our show and for a good reason Simply Safe has made
00:25:28
it easy to finally get comprehensive protection for your home there is no technician or salesperson that needs to
00:25:35
come and disrupt your house you don't need to pay any outrageous monthly fees or sign a 2-year contract just order
00:25:42
online and set it up yourself in under an hour your home is protected 24/7 with emergency dispatch for break-ins fire
00:25:50
and more all for just 50 cents a day and we're not the only fans of Simply Safe US News and world reports named
00:25:59
simplysafe best overall home security of 2020 head to simplysafe decomg garage and you'll get free shipping and a
00:26:08
60-day money back guarantee that's simplys safe.com garage to make sure they know our show sent you from Simply
00:26:16
Safe and all of us here wishing you safety and good [Music] health all right we're back cheers M 18 cheers
00:26:36
all right so so far let me see if I'm following this correctly we have these initial
00:26:43
allegations it's coming from a mother that we we know has some mental issues definitely has a drinking problem
00:26:51
there's real no proof found the child can't even pick Ray but Lucky out of a lineup and this would be the person that
00:27:01
they're claiming abused him and then they send out this letter this letter goes out to hundreds of
00:27:08
parents like we both said they're not qualified to question their children we get crazy claims these underground
00:27:17
tunnels hot air balloons and because of these claims and because of these allegations a lot of
00:27:23
them were saying well yeah these other kids were there while this was going on so therefore since it can't just be Ray
00:27:33
Bucky that's involved it has to be these other teachers and these other administrators at the preschool have to
00:27:39
know what's going on there's also other claims that they're threatening them with guns they're
00:27:47
killing animals in front of these kids saying hey if if you don't if you tell on us then we're going
00:27:53
to kill your family and and then it becomes this whole while this is not only just a sex
00:28:00
ring but this is also a child pornography they're taking pictures they're filming things and it's all
00:28:07
satanic the claims by the children are just bizarre now keep in mind some of them are very young some of them were
00:28:14
current students at the preschool um they but but it goes to show you that if some of these claims
00:28:23
that are so Fantastical if they can't if they are physically not possible I mean
00:28:28
just science alone tells us some of these things 100% did not happen you would think that these experts would
00:28:37
take this a little step further and say well our technique that we're using to question these kids is coming up with
00:28:44
some some pretty weird stuff here maybe it's all weird stuff maybe it's all made
00:28:51
up we have and then you have the the son Judy Johnson's son not only we're not even talking about a photo lineup that
00:28:58
he couldn't pick Ro Ray Bucky out of he couldn't pick Ray Bucky out of school photos they were showing the child
00:29:05
School photos and like just some of these claims the initial claim like we said Judy Johnson's claimed that Ray
00:29:15
Bucky could fly we know Ray Bucky cannot fly and one of the students said that about the orgies at the they were having
00:29:25
orgies with the with these adults at car washes and airports yet there's no witnesses to any of this stuff one of
00:29:33
the kids says that they flew him and several other kids flew with the owner from California to Florida on a
00:29:42
plane that had no windows that it left from the airport and then at the end of the day he and the kids were there when
00:29:50
their parents came to pick them up it's 4 and 1/2 to 5 hours just to fly one way
00:29:56
California to Florida right and then to fly back it's impossible that that the child would be
00:30:01
there I mean there was mention of a devil house where Lions lived we also have situations where some of these kids
00:30:11
are saying things like an elephant was killed at the school in front of children that Ray Bucky held up rabbits
00:30:19
and cut off their ears and told them that if they told their parents that's what he would do to their parents yeah
00:30:26
and they they did a SE of the school to see if there would you know digging stuff up to see if there was remains of
00:30:34
animals found which correct there were none there was some claims where some of the kids talked about being taken off of
00:30:43
the school and going to houses the weird thing is some of those houses actually existed mhm but again how are they
00:30:53
questioned and then one of the main reporters at the time that kept reporting about this on air
00:31:00
which that's another thing we have all these claims and because it made good TV they make all these claims public and
00:31:09
then you have key McFarland which was this social worker that would interview the children using
00:31:15
puppets and they had tons of footage of this and everybody thought this was the nail in the coffin this is the Smoking
00:31:25
Gun and then defense attorneys said okay we want to see it and the prosecution did not want them to see this and from
00:31:34
defense attorney's mouth which obviously they they have an agenda but they say you can watch these films and you can
00:31:41
watch uh these interviews and it proves that nothing happened right right it's like a Smoking
00:31:50
Gun in the other way well eventually Captain Peggy McMartin was released this on 20
00:31:58
$95,000 bail but Ray Bucky was denied bail remember this whole thing started back in 1983 in our timeline now we are
00:32:08
at January of 1986 but it won't be until April 20th of 1987 that the court begins jury
00:32:17
selection so you have the right to a speedy trial but you just might not get one what you see here is a process that
00:32:26
drags on and on and the longer it goes the more the case just keeps falling apart right we see the reduction in
00:32:34
victims then we see the reduction of charges and perpetrators by October of 1988 now five years into this process we
00:32:45
are down to just two accused and now there are just 65 charges left and only 11 victims what I think you have here
00:32:55
Captain is what you were getting at with those videotapes I think when the prosecutors are looking at these
00:33:01
videotapes and watching them they're going well we can't put this kid on the stand he's he's making claims that are
00:33:09
scientifically incorrect that cannot happen right they are picking and choosing which victims to believe right
00:33:19
but this is this is where it gets tough for me because the initial investigation I think at that point you
00:33:26
go well there's some claims we're going to keep an eye on it but for some reason they
00:33:32
were dead set on bringing down Bucky and his family that's where the letter came out
00:33:40
and that and again before you even go to trial before you charge anybody take these hundreds of claims and like you
00:33:48
said if somebody's saying well we went down the yellow brick road and ran into the Scarecrow and the The Lion and the
00:33:56
Tin Man that maybe that didn't happen and we should push that one aside MH and ones
00:34:04
that are credible or we can back up with some kind of evidence now we push that in the pile of that possibly could have
00:34:12
happened and so again you want to ruin these individuals lives by making these claims against teachers that worked in
00:34:20
this preschool could you imagine being a teacher and you've done nothing but tried to to help kids and and nurture
00:34:29
kids and you're in this profession because you love kids and now you're being accused of
00:34:37
satanic uh worships and satanic sacrifice in the in the sense of molesting these kids and you're lumped
00:34:47
into this pile with zero evidence zero eyewitnesses some of the like you said some of the accusers can't even name who
00:34:58
attacked them and so there's so much stuff that I think could have been done initially and
00:35:06
also this became this became a story like you said the first accusations 1983 we're we're already 3 four years
00:35:17
into this thing these news stations are reporting on this almost daily oh the media loved this story because they
00:35:25
loved the the Fantastical accusations how bizarre these accusations were they loved it and
00:35:32
the Really the these seven people especially the McMartin family they were really being tried in
00:35:40
the court of public opinion by the media right what they did was you know we have
00:35:45
these preliminary hearings going on they didn't allow any cameras in the courtroom because we had children who
00:35:52
were taking the stand child victims right they didn't know the media does not know the name of the child but they
00:35:59
can hear they're listening in on closed circuit TV and then they're running to the to the Press they're running to the
00:36:08
camera with each one of these crazy Fantastical accusations and like I said key McFarland which is a social worker
00:36:17
but she was dating on a personality that's a conflict covering the trial right that's a conflict of
00:36:24
interest right there and I try to take a step back and think if I'm a detective and I hear these claims the initial
00:36:33
claim well I want to get this bastard right M I want to get I don't want anybody to hurt any child I don't want
00:36:42
anybody to rape a child and to have them be messed up for their rest of their lives and like we've seen time and time
00:36:49
again kids that are abused be can become abusers right it's a cycle ay of abuse right and it's not a I think way back in
00:37:00
the day I said it was a high percentage it's not a high percentage it's not a high percentage that you'd be abused and
00:37:07
then you become an abuser but it's enough that it's like you said it creates this vicious cycle so this is
00:37:15
something as a detective as a parent as as anybody that you would go we need to stop this we need to get to the bottom
00:37:23
of this but once you keep running into brick walls and just like the tunnels I mean you
00:37:29
start digging up you start trying to find before they dug up anything the rooms that these kids kept on claiming
00:37:37
oh that's the room and we went into a tunnel well there are initial checks that they could do to find out there's
00:37:44
no tunnel here right so at at some point these claims that you are giving some Credence to once you realize that it's
00:37:57
false and and it's okay and you can go okay well we messed up because we questioned these kids wrong but you know
00:38:05
what these kids will forget about that the kids will forget about making false claims pretty quickly once this all goes
00:38:13
away but in the process you ruin the school that everybody said was a prestigious preschool to go to winning
00:38:23
Awards protecting children safe environment and because some initial claims and you didn't even do a
00:38:30
background check on the people that are making the claims you ruined so many people's lives yeah I mean the they shut
00:38:37
down the MCM Martin's family business and the MCM Martin family lost everything during the course of all this
00:38:45
thing they spent all their money on their defense in February of 1989 Ray Bucky is
00:38:52
finally released from jail this on $1.5 million Bond and after he has been in jail for
00:39:00
about 5 years he's been in jail for 5 years yes he's being charged with something but can you think of can you
00:39:08
imagine being in jail for 5 years and you've actually not been convicted of anything yet you're you're still in the
00:39:13
trial process right well but that look it's supposed to be innocent until proven guilty so if he's innocent till
00:39:21
proven guilty he should be out I yeah they waved for no no release for Bucky because of the
00:39:30
supposed death threats against possible Witnesses right but see here we are 1989
00:39:37
once again all the charges are again reduced this time down to 52 counts so you can even see the prosecution isn't
00:39:46
very happy with their case because this thing just keeps getting reduced and reduced and reduced during the trial
00:39:52
both of the defendants did take the stand this is pretty much the two biggest parts or or highlights if you
00:39:59
will of the trial a lot of times defendants don't take the stand so this was this was of interest to the media
00:40:07
and both of them in what is a trial that that truly all of America is watching both defendants of course strongly
00:40:14
denied ever abusing any students or any child ever at all right during the trial
00:40:21
some of the children's testimony stated that the naked movie star game was was actually a rhyming taunt used to tease
00:40:29
other children this was something that the kids made up and then it turned into this whole weird sex ring thing they're
00:40:36
saying the kids said this rhyming taunt went like this what you say is what you are you're a naked movie star you know
00:40:44
how kids come up with dumb little Rhymes to say and so this had actually nothing
00:40:50
to do with having naked pictures taken of of the kids at all one of the big things in this in this trial is when
00:40:59
they had they had three doctors that were taking evidence you know they were they're examining these kids they're
00:41:06
taking photos they're documenting everything because they wanted to be able to say look these are the claims
00:41:12
I'm making and these are the reasons I'm making these claims and a lot of them talked about well because of this abuse
00:41:20
that you can see on the genitals and on different areas that you could see scars
00:41:26
or SC tissue and and they had all three which was a great move by the defense team separately they said okay can you
00:41:34
point out the area and they had all three experts and all three of them pointed out different areas yeah so none
00:41:42
of them matched at all when I initially heard some of these claims uh the parents
00:41:49
questioning we know that that's probably not right we know they're not qualified
00:41:54
to question their their kids but once these kids are medically examined then I put a little more weight
00:42:02
into that because we have medical examiner saying hey look there's some signs there's not 100% proof evidence
00:42:10
but but there are definitely some signs and so I put some weight into that on November 2nd 1989 the jurors began
00:42:19
deliberations for what would be 3 months and 16 days later that the jury ended their long deciding period and the long
00:42:29
awaited verdict was in the jury acquitted both Peggy McMartin and Ray Bucky of all 52 counts yeah but we are
00:42:39
not done yet because some of the jurors at a press conference following the trial stated that they believed the
00:42:46
children had in fact been molested but the evidence did not allow them to State who had committed the abuse Beyond a
00:42:55
reasonable doubt and much of the media seem to be convinced that Ray Bucky was guilty as
00:43:01
well well and and hold on that that's going back to what I was saying about the medical examiners when you have a
00:43:09
doctor forget all this Hocus Pocus [ __ ] in these tunnels and these naked movie star games and all that
00:43:15
stuff when you have a doctor telling you that there's some evidence there it's like okay well again what the jury is
00:43:24
saying is well there's some evidence there we just don't know who did it yeah and well you also had one of your least
00:43:32
favorite things in this case a jail house snitch who comes for you I know how much you love a good old jailhouse
00:43:39
snitch they should be they should not be legal yeah he comes forward and says you
00:43:43
know in jail Rey told me he confessed to me that he did abuse some of these these
00:43:50
children yeah did you know how long this individual was in the cell with Ry I know I don't know much about it
00:43:59
because I didn't look into that angle because it was discredited yeah so well what here's
00:44:05
here's the story so at the time California was getting in big trouble because they were taking
00:44:13
individuals that they weren't able to get anything out of and they were taking known jailhouse snitches and putting
00:44:21
them in there and then obviously having them on trial so what they do is they put this individual in the cell less
00:44:31
than 48 hours so you're having a guy that's claiming for years I'm innocent not telling the authorities anything not
00:44:42
cracking at all but somehow they put this guy in they put him in the cell with him under 48 Hours full confession
00:44:51
singing like a bird well here's what's so funny the guy shows up he's he's on stand one time one day he has to come
00:45:00
back the next day but he he never showed up so they arrested him so the first day they got
00:45:08
this jailhouse snitch and they got him all dressed up and they got him in a suit and they got him playing the game
00:45:16
right combed hair and everything doesn't show up the next day and they find him they have to arrest him so now it's the
00:45:25
second day of him talking about how he got a confession out of Ray and he doesn't have a suit on and he's covered
00:45:33
in tattoos and he his hair's not done and by the way there's two sheriffs on each side of him as he's testifying yeah
00:45:44
now it didn't go well for the prosecution but these jail house snitches is it's stupid there's so many
00:45:53
of them that have been false that it's like they should just be it should be illegal mhm
00:46:01
mhm the the thing here though Captain we have Ray Bucky who is actually going to
00:46:08
be retried later this time on just six counts but this trial resulted in a hung jury the prosecution but hold on this is
00:46:19
two years I roughly two years after the the first trial what I have here is that the
00:46:28
second trial lasted from May 7th 1990 to July 27th 1990 yeah this resulted in a hung jury the prosecution then gave up
00:46:38
trying to obtain any type of conviction in the case the case was closed with all
00:46:45
charges against Ray Bucky dismissed in the end Ray Bucky was jailed for 5 years without ever being convicted of
00:46:53
committing any crime at all yeah there should be a lawsuit there in the end two the trial lasted 7 years and
00:47:02
cost 15 million at the time it was and this still may be the case today it was the
00:47:10
longest and most expensive criminal case in the history of the United States legal system and as said it was a trial
00:47:19
that ultimately resulted in a grand total of zero convictions and and we said the McMartin
00:47:26
preschool was closed but the building itself was actually dismantled and guess what there were no tunnels under the
00:47:34
school the secret tunnels under the school were much of the alleged abuse supposedly took place they didn't even
00:47:41
exist well they did bring in a AR archaeologist to do some digs Indiana Jones and uh he he claims he found
00:47:51
tunnels but a bunch of the reporters that followed him his invest tigation was yeah he found tunnels once he dug
00:47:59
the tunnels right so um they found like Building Material down there but it was determined that it's believed that that
00:48:07
building material was pretty much just trash from where they constructed the school itself well he also claimed that
00:48:14
he found a plate that had a pentagram on it again I that could have been placed there think about it this way if you're
00:48:23
some teenager that lived in the area and you know what they're looking for and you jump the fence one day and and put a
00:48:30
pentagram on something right and I'm I'm not trying to make excuses it's just I don't buy any of that stuff I don't look
00:48:39
well you're you're spot on because there were people that were like spray painting graffiti on the school and on
00:48:44
the grounds after these charges were brought forward no and my thing is these Tunnels for example forget the hot air
00:48:53
balloon forget all that stuff when these kids talk about these tunnels or these secret rooms don't you think the police
00:49:01
and the detectives and the the prosecutors want to find that right and they would have found that if there was
00:49:07
a tunnel just a simple tunnel they would have found that and to me you find that
00:49:14
well there's your Smoking Gun because for a kid to say oh yeah we were we were molested in this tunnel and we put in
00:49:22
this secret room if you find that secret room in that tunnel and you have hundreds of parents that let their kids
00:49:30
go there that never heard about this room or the secret spot to me that's would be a Smoking Gun but th this this
00:49:40
whole scenario is strange because you know we have to take allegations of sexual
00:49:48
assault rape anything like that we have to take it very serious yes and so on some level I go I can't fault these
00:49:57
detectives cuz they wanted to find something but they did it in such a way that I think you would have found
00:50:05
anything if if you if they would have questioned if they would have sent out a note to 200 and some uh parents and said
00:50:15
look there there was a murder that took place and we're trying to see if any of your kids saw it I think would get back
00:50:23
a percentage of kids that were like oh yeah I saw Ry murder somebody you know what I mean mhm I I think you would have
00:50:32
got that back anyways because the age of the kid you're talking about a age range
00:50:38
of three to five six this is prime time for for kids to make up stories mhm I know that one of
00:50:47
the doctors that they've used the way that she has documented cases and child abuse that that has become she's really
00:50:58
helped create some of the standards on how we document this stuff so I'm not saying that she was right but if she was
00:51:06
so wrong why would we adapt uh anything that she did in this trial that we didn't get a convi conviction to
00:51:14
modernday practice and I I'm I'm unclear on that cuz I thought it was this was examined
00:51:23
and and it was decided to change the way that we do it not because this worked well but because it went so badly uh I'm
00:51:32
I'm not certain you you could be spoton with that I I don't know the details here's my thing is like again I I don't
00:51:40
want to full detectives or police or the prosecution for wanting to get a child molester that is the scum of the earth I
00:51:49
want them all to die all to burn in hell right but when you have a physician saying they examine these patients and
00:52:00
maybe they're wrong on a percentage of the patients how can you explain all the the abuse marks or the scar tissues or
00:52:11
whatever these medical professionals are saying and I understand that it's it was
00:52:17
early in the study of all this but is it possible that there was was some things
00:52:24
that were going on well maybe not in the preschool but maybe at somebody's house that's what
00:52:30
I'm saying that's what that's where you take the juror's words where the one jur
00:52:35
said hey it's it's my opinion that maybe one or two of these kids were in fact molested but the evidence doesn't tell
00:52:45
us who who was the perpetrator of that Beyond A Reasonable Doubt so as you said it could have been you could could have
00:52:55
a child who was abused just by somebody else that has nothing to do with the school at all in fact and I didn't want
00:53:02
to get into this because I don't know how true it is one of the accusers later the the mother changed
00:53:11
the story of the abuser was her boyfriend and not somebody at the school and I don't want to get into that too
00:53:19
much because I don't know if that resulted in a conviction or what but you go back to the initial allegation
00:53:26
and you did have some good people along the way and and here's here's the thing that I want to point out I do believe
00:53:33
that a lot of these people who were ultimately wrong and had bad judgment that being the a lot of the District
00:53:41
Attorney's office and a lot of the detectives and the judge and so on and so forth I do believe that a lot of them
00:53:48
thought they were doing good work that they were helping a bad situation I think their intentions were good well
00:53:55
you had 13 kids take the stand right there yeah and there were some real heroes along the way I mean you have a
00:54:03
judge who is saying hey let's reduce these charges because this this case is getting weird it doesn't make it's not
00:54:10
making sense you do have a prosecution team who is reducing charges who are letting accused go they they're dropping
00:54:20
charges against we went from seven accused down to two right and did have you know a detective that came out and
00:54:27
told the prosecuting team the DA's office says before you bring any official charges you need to take a look
00:54:35
at this and you need to take a look at that because this stuff is starting to not check out and what I mean by that is
00:54:41
the first allegations altogether right of Judy Johnson contacting the police and saying hey my son is having some
00:54:49
painful bow movements therefore he was sodomized well when you dig a little deeper you figure out that she not only
00:54:58
accused Ray Bucky 25-year-old Ray Bucky of the preschool of as being one of the abusers but she also accused her
00:55:06
estranged husband as having sexually abused the boy right initially the boy says there was never any sexual abuse at
00:55:14
all this is the same woman that would go on to tell the detectives that she saw Ray Bucky flying and that her ex-husband
00:55:23
also raped dog this this poor woman was mentally ill and needed a lot of help and she was
00:55:33
very paranoid and I think she I think she was afraid of things that weren't actually
00:55:39
happening but well back to the point of the 13 kids that testified some of those
00:55:46
have came forward now and said hey I don't think any of that stuff happened that I testified to yeah I saw at least
00:55:53
two of them that as adult came forward and said I made the whole thing up because of the direction of the doctors
00:56:00
and my parents right but we have other victims that have stated that no what I said then was true and and I I still
00:56:13
stand by that and that's where you wonder if we have that false memory syndrome that we were talking about
00:56:19
earlier as quoted in the San Francisco Examiner who like several other Publications had some great coverage on
00:56:27
the case and the examiner was much less bias than most of the papers at the time
00:56:33
but the quotes that I wanted to read are first from the first one is from Peggy McMartin Bucky one of the accused she
00:56:42
said I've gone through hell and now we've lost everything and that couldn't be more that statement could not be more
00:56:49
true one of the jurors was quoted as saying I believe the children believed what they were saying was true I could
00:56:57
not tell if the children were telling what actually happened to them or if they were repeating what their parents
00:57:04
told them and we talked a bit about the bias of the media well the LA Times in a
00:57:11
in a 1990 article by David Shaw who was a pullitzer prizewinning media critic for the LA Times whose deeply reported
00:57:20
series were often tough on his own newspaper but in regards to the media's coverage
00:57:27
of the McMartin trials he posed a very simple question where was the skepticism in the media
00:57:34
citing pack journalism and hysteria that marked the early coverage of the McMartin case from the article which is
00:57:42
just a fantastic read anyone can find it just Google McMartin trial LA Times Shaw
00:57:48
wrote media feeding frenzies have become almost commonplace in recent years but in McMartin the media seemed especially
00:57:57
zealous in part in large part because of the Monstrous bizarre and seemingly incredible nature of the original
00:58:05
accusations more than most big stories MCM Martin at times exposed basic flaws in the way the Contemporary news
00:58:14
organizations functioned pack journalism laziness superficiality cozy relationships with
00:58:23
prosecutors a comp comptitive Zeal that sends reporters off in a frantic search to be the first with the latest shocking
00:58:33
allegation responsible journalism be damned a tradition that often discourages reporters from Raising key
00:58:41
questions if they aren't first brought up by the principles in the story now Captain I watched I had to rewatch it CU
00:58:50
I actually watched it when I was much younger was was the HBO movie indictment the McMartin trial with James Wood the
00:59:00
great James Woods so this came out in 1995 and it also has one of my favorites Oliver Stone was one of the producers
00:59:09
and indictment actually won a couple of awards it won two prime time Emmys and two Golden Globes and according to
00:59:17
Wikipedia the film is cited as a watershed in the shift of ideas about Satanic ritual abuse recasting Ray Bucky
00:59:26
as a victim of hysterical conspiracy rather than a child abuser well again in this case to me it still leaves
00:59:37
questions as much as we go a lot of these claims were you know claims of fantasy
00:59:45
really and hot air balloons and secret tunnels and and these devil worshipping games I I do not want want to dismiss or
00:59:56
especially the 13 victims that testified and then the victims that still claim this abuse happened to them I don't want
01:00:05
to dismiss that but it's it's one of those cases where it's like you can't believe it on either end like okay we
01:00:13
get this initial claim and then we send out letters to hundreds of people what do you think you're going to get back at
01:00:19
the end of the day you have this good school that was closed you have teachers that their
01:00:26
career was ruined you have kids that possibly have false memories a whole family that went bankrupt CH childhood's
01:00:35
ruin Ray Bucky who spends over five years in jail five years of his life taken away from him his his life was
01:00:44
gone after this there is no going back right you know he had to leave Chang his name he got married as a son I just want
01:00:53
to leave you with this one thing and I believe this was in the second trial I just want to leave you with this
01:01:03
one thing because there's so many questions here the first question that was asked
01:01:09
by the prosecution to Ry when he was on stand and the second trial was why do you like kids so
01:01:18
much and his reply was because they're honest [Music] all the uncertainty in the world now is
01:01:40
the time to protect your home with Simply Safe there's no technician no salesperson that needs to come to your
01:01:47
home just order online and set it up yourself you don't need to pay any outrageous monthly fees or sign up for
01:01:54
for a 2-year contract your home is protected 24/7 with emergency dispatch all for just 50 cents a day head to
01:02:02
simplysafe docomo and get free shipping and a 60-day money back guarantee at simplysafe
01:02:10
docomo protect you protect your family at simplys safe.com garage and here's a little recommended reading this week we
01:02:18
are recommending Star Spangled Scandal sex murder and the trial that changed America one day an anonymous note sets
01:02:26
into motion a tragic course of events that culminates in a shocking murder this true story sparked a national
01:02:33
debate on Madness honor virtue Fidelity and the rule of law check out Star Spangled Scandal and as always for
01:02:41
everything True Crime Check out true Crim garage.com yeah and we know everybody's world is upside down so we
01:02:48
want to thank you for joining us again in the garage and until next week be good be kind and don't
01:02:55
[Music] litter this show is sponsored by better help do you look forward to the holidays maybe
01:03:35
you struggle with seasonal Blues this time of year can be a lot and it's natural to feel some sadness or even
01:03:42
anxiety about it but adding something new and positive to your life can counteract some of those feelings
01:03:47
therapy can be a bright spot something to look forward to to make you feel grounded and to give you you the tools
01:03:55
to manage everything going on if you're thinking of starting therapy give better
01:03:59
help a try it's entirely online designed to be convenient flexible and suited to
01:04:04
your schedule just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapist
01:04:10
at any time for no additional charge find your bright spot this season with betterhelp visit betterhelp.com garage
01:04:18
today to get 10% off your first month that's better help hp. / garage