The Abuse of Innocence: The McMartin Preschool Trial

by Paul Eberle and Shirley Eberle

Book Overview

On August 12, 1983, Judy Johnson called the police and told them her two-year-old son had been sexually abused at Virginia McMartin's Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California. Mrs. Johnson accused a teacher, Raymond Buckey. After searching the school and the homes of the owners and teachers, police distributed a letter to parents of children attending the McMartin Preschool urging them to ask their children if they had witnessed any acts of sexual molestation by Buckey. The result was mass hysteria. Although the children denied being molested or witnessing any molestations, the D.A.'s office began sending them to a private clinic to be interviewed by "evaluators" and examined by pediatricians. Parents were then informed that every child who had attended the McMartin Preschool had been sexually abused, which led to charges being filed against Virginia McMartin, Peggy McMartin Buckey, Raymond and Peggy Ann Buckey and three other teachers at the school. During the hearings, children described how teachers had raped them, forced them to engage in satanic rituals, and slaughtered animals before their eyes. The ensuing trial triggered a nationwide epidemic of child sexual abuse cases with allegations of infants being raped by devil worshippers and of blood sacrifices. The McMartin trial itself clogged the courts for over seven years and cost taxpayers over sixteen million dollars. None of the allegations were true. Investigative journalists Paul and Shirley Eberle witnessed the McMartin Trial and uncovered stunning amounts of prosecutorial misconduct, all revealed in this disturbing book.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1591021650
• ISBN13: 9781591021650
• Release Date: October 2003
• Publisher: Prometheus Books
• Length: 422 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Seemed very biased at the time

At the time this book was written is seemed very biased but now, years after the trial and after the Satanic Ritual Abuse scandals, it is closer to the truth than most imagined. The authors of The Abuse of Innocence is written by two authors who have a predisposition against child sexual abuse allegations. However, they clearly state this opinion and I simply skipped those sections. Normally, I would not rate a book highly when the authors show such bias, but history has showed that when it came to the McMartin case, they were in fact correct. This book illustrates the faults of the Los Angeles District Attorney's office, problems with the testimony of the witnesses, and most important, the inaccuracies of confessions obtained on procedures similar to the Miami Method.

A good book that deserves a larger readership

With all the publicity surrounding the McMartin preschool trial, now over a decade removed, one would suppose that the definitive book on the subject-and this is certainly the definitive book, and a good one at that-would be a best seller, but it didn't happen. Why? Because the public wanted a villain, somebody to hate, and what they got were some innocent people wrongly accused. With that kind of result the public lost interest. The Jon Benet Ramsey case sold a lot better because the public had clear targets for its hate, John and Patsy Ramsey. Here, Ray Buckey was to be the designated fall guy with his creepy glasses and his nerdish style, but he wouldn't fall because he was clearly innocent of the sensational charges against him. So the public was stuck with no clear villain on whom to vent. The real villains, as graphically revealed in this book, were the press, the prosecutors and the social workers, especially Kee MacFarlane, who indoctrinated the children into describing perverted events that never took place.This was written from the trenches on a daily basis when the overwhelming tide of public opinion was that of a lynch mob desperate to hang Buckey and his family from the nearest tree. The Eberles built a strong case in blaming the media for poisoning the public's understanding of the case, partially through incompetent reporters, and partially through a media lust to sensationalize. Part of what's interesting about this book is how it presages the O.J. trial, especially in the incompetence seen in the district attorney's office. Ira Reiner was D.A. at the time with Garcetti as a critical underling. It is scandalous that they would find the need to use a paid felonious informant to bolster their case against Buckey. He was a five-time loser, no less, who previously had falsely testified for the prosecution in exchange for favorable treatment. Also stupid was the prosecution's use of an incompetent and prejudicial child abuse "expert," Dr. Gordon, who said that he possessed "the largest collection of photographs of children's anuses in the state of California." [p. 106] The authors estimate that 97.5 percent of the people in L.A. thought Buckey was guilty. The sad truth is what he was really guilty of was being a young man who liked to work with preschool children. Now THAT ain't natural was what a large number of people thought. I hope we're getting over that prejudice because what our children need are role models and guides from both sexes.The book is peppered with courtroom asides from an unidentified lawyer. Here's one of the most pertinent from page 105, a exchange between a friend of the Buckeys and the lawyer:"They're putting on witnesses who they know are lying. They concealed exonerating evidence. Don't we have enough criminal conduct by the prosecutors to put them behind bars?""It doesn't work that way," the lawyer laughed. "The law is just for the little people.

I Love This Novel

I LOVE THIS NOVEL! The reason I think this novel is so great is because I completely agree with the author's view that it was the McMartins that were abused not the children. This family was wrongly accused of child molestation by a mentally disturbed woman. They had everything they owned in the world taken from them. They were thrown jail for years without bail. Yet this family kept their heads up high and they never gave up. I also liked the author's up beat writting style and their bitter irony. They never talked down to the reader. Also they always kept an open mind as far as ideas that were different from their own beliefs.. That is probably what kept the reader reading.BUCKEY RULES!