Mcmartin Preschool

The 1980s was a decade full of the fear of feminism, the fear of crime, and the fear of satanic sexual abuse on children. From 1980 to 1990, child sexual abuse and satanic child sexual abuse was a hysteria sweeping the nation. Preschools and day care centers had soon turned to ghost towns as guardians of the children became terrified to let their children out of their sight. McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, is one of the most famous cases, and was also a case made with no evidence. Although the McMartin family was innocent to the ritual sexual abuse chargers, many citizens wrongfully accused them due to the mass hysteria around the subject at the time. In 1983 at McMartin Preschool, teacher Ray Buckey was arrested for child sex abuse, but found not guilty due to a lack of evidence. After the arrest, children of the preschool were questioned by authority, and had given information that Ray, his sister

Beck explained this as, “[the children] were stuck as scared, young witnesses in a room alone with overzealous investigators.” In the book, Beck included information about the reality of child sexual abuse, including the fact that shown by research, perpetrators are usually relatives or family friends, and fewer than one percent actually take place in daycare centers. Beck had also made a clear connection between the preschools and the witch trials, saying it all was a “product of a decade-long outbreak of collective hysteria on par with the Salem witch trials”(Beck). After the trials were over, Ray Buckey had spent five years in jail and his mother Peggy had spent two years in jail. The trial became the longest and most expensive criminal trial in American history, lasting seven years and costing fifteen million dollars. Years after the case had closed, McMartin Preschool was closed and