How One Dubious Child Abuse Accusation Fueled A Nationwide Hysteria
Mar 11, 2014, 00:16 IST
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The case began when Judy Johnson accused Raymond Buckey, her estranged husband and a teacher at the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, Calif., of molesting her son. Police released Buckley because of a lack of evidence but informed parents of the school children of the allegations. Eventually, hundreds of kids claimed Buckley, his mother, Virginia, and other preschool employees, had abused them. These claims were never substantiated.
The $15 million McMartin Preschool trial and the rabid media reports that surrounded the case ignited a national hysteria that Satanists had taken control of the nations' preschools. Television reporters began to chase every aspect of the story to feed the frenzy.
"The story took on a life of its own," KCBS's Ross Becker told the Los Angeles Times in 1990. "We didn't even think at the time . . . about what we were doing. . . . It was 'We gotta get something new on McMartin; look how big this thing is getting. . . .'"
The LA Times itself ran an initial headline on the story reading, "Puppets Help Children Shed Horrors of Abuse: Therapists at Institute Use Toys To Coax From Molestation Victims Secrets of Traumatized Lives."
After the initial trial found the defendants innocent, Geraldo Rivera ran a program, titled "The McMartin Outrage: What Went Wrong?" where he interviewed many of the children and supported a retrial. None of the children interviewed had ever testified.
Amid the media hysteria, other similar sex abuse cases were filed including one against the Wee Care Nursery in the '80s that was ultimately dismissed, The New York Times notes.
In the McMartin case, the charges were dismissed most of the defendants because the evidence was "so slim" that it didn't go beyond the original accusation, according to District Attorney Ira Reiner.
It was eventually revealed that Johnson had been diagnosed with acute paranoid schizophrenia and that the prosecution had been withholding evidence of Johnson's mental illness for three years.
The case has since become a prime example of how the American media and the misplaced zeal of a few people can distort the court system and send the nation into a frenzy.