McMartin (1983–1990)

The McMartin preschool case began in August 1983 with an allegation by a single parent in Manhattan Beach. The investigation expanded to children at the preschool generally; by 1984, dozens of children had described abuse to interviewers at Children’s Institute International, a contracted child-protection facility. The principal CII interviewer was the social worker Kee MacFarlane, whose videotaped sessions with the children — later released in full as part of the trial record — became the central substantive issue of the case. The interviews used leading and suggestive questioning techniques, including anatomically correct dolls and presupposition of abuse, that subsequent academic analysis demonstrated were highly likely to produce false reports in young children. Stephen J. Ceci and Maggie Bruck’s Jeopardy in the Courtroom (American Psychological Association, 1995) is the standard scholarly treatment and uses the McMartin tapes as a principal worked example. MacFarlane was a key witness at the trial; she was not accused of crime, and acted under the prevailing clinical orthodoxy of the period, which has since been substantively rejected by the professional community.

The criminal trial ran from 1987 to 1990 — the longest and most expensive criminal trial in American history at that point. Ray Buckey, the principal defendant, was acquitted on all charges in 1990; the remaining counts against him were dismissed after the jury deadlocked. Peggy McMartin Buckey was acquitted on all counts. The other defendants had charges dismissed before trial. The case produced no convictions.

McMartin is the canonical reference point of the panic for two reasons: its scale (counts, defendants, length, cost) and its outcome. It established that the pattern — extensive child testimony developed through specific interviewing techniques, dramatic allegations including ritual elements, prosecutorial commitment over years — could collapse entirely in court. Subsequent cases of similar shape would be evaluated against it.