McMartin Preschool Case Facts, Physical Evidence, Tunnels

Reporter’s Notebook: 6 Months of California Case By Robert Lindsey February 13, 1985 “Prosecutors say they intend to present as witnesses 41 former pupils of the school, almost all of whom, physicians testified at the hearing, showed physical evidence of having been sexually abused. The second of the children to testify at the hearing, a 10-year-old boy who attended the McMartin Preschool almost five years ago, has now been on the witness stand for nine days, including eight days under intense cross examination by defense lawyers who have been trying to find inconsistencies in his story. So far, often under rapid-fire questioning that might wither some adult witnesses, the child has stuck to his story with only minor contradictions. He described being sodomized or otherwise sexually molested by all seven of the defendants and asserted that children had been made to pose for pornographic pictures. The 10-year-old boy repeated under cross examination an account of how he and other children were taken to a church where he said adults wearing masks and black robes danced and moaned while Mr. Buckey went to the altar and killed pet rabbits, turtles and birds and threatened to kill the children’s parents the same way if the children told of the alleged abuse. http://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/13/us/reporter-s-notebook-6-months-of-california-case.html

"Behind the Playground Walls – Sexual Abuse in Preschools" Jill Waterman, Robert J. Kelly, Mary Kay Oliveri, Jane McCord – Guilford Press New York 1993 “In the most well-known case, involving the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, two juries from successive trials became hopelessly deadlocked and failed to agree on a verdict after 7 years of investigation and trial. At the press conference following the trial, 9 of the 11 jurors who agreed to be interviewed indicated that they believed the children had been molested, but they felt that the evidence presented did not enable them to state beyond a reasonable doubt who had perpetrated the abuse.”

Tunnel report that backed up reports at McMartin:
The project unearthed not one but two tunnel complexes as well as previously unrecognized structural features which defied logical explanation. Both tunnel complexes conformed to locations and functional descriptions established by children's reports. One had been described as providing undetected access to an adjacent building on the east. The other provided outside access under the west wall of the building and contained within it an enlarged, cavernous artifact corresponding to children's descriptions of a "secret room".
http://web.archive.org/web/20010123212200/members.cruzio.com/~ratf/McMartin.html/

Boy, 7, Is Witness in California Child Abuse Case by Robert Lindsey January 23, 1985 A 7-year- old boy testified today that he had played ”naked games” at the Virginia McMartin Preschool near here and that in at least one of the games teachers at the school had touched his genital organs….Prosecutors have asserted that more than 100 children were abused at the school in the past decade.
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/01/23/us/boy-7-is-witness-in-california-child-abuse-case.html

Penn State signals it wants to settle Sandusky cases - University may have to pay millions to victims of sexual abuse by former coach, Analysis: Number of victims persuaded Sandusky jurors in 'he said, he said' case

Penn State signals it wants to settle Sandusky cases - University may have to pay millions to victims of sexual abuse by former coach
By Ian Simpson  6/24/2012

BELLEFONTE, Pennsylvania  — With former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky  now behind bars for child sexual abuse, the university has given an unusual signal that it wants to wrap up civil suits as fast as possible, legal observers said on Saturday.

Shortly after Sandusky, 68, was convicted late on Friday on 45 counts of sexual abuse, Pennsylvania State University invited victims to try to resolve claims against the school.
"The purpose of the program is simple - the university wants to provide a forum where the university can privately, expeditiously and fairly address the victims' concerns and compensate them for claims relating to the university," it said in a statement.

Sandusky's conviction clears a hurdle for potentially big-ticket civil suits since abuse victims suing the school now can point to a crime that was committed, the observers said.
At least two civil suits have been filed already against the school, both in Philadelphia. A filing by Sandusky's lawyers last month put the number of potential victims at almost 20....
A former assistant coach, Mike McQueary, testified he told late head coach Joe Paterno, Curley and Schultz about a 2001 incident in which Sandusky abused a boy in a Penn State locker room.

Curley and Schultz face charges of perjury and failure to report suspected abuse in an alleged cover-up of the incident. "Schultz and Curley will tell us a lot more about what Penn State knew"  about Sandusky's pedophilia, Kennerly said. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47935946/vp/47934464#47934464


Analysis: Number of victims persuaded Sandusky jurors in 'he said, he said' case
By Wes Oliver, Special to msnbc.com  ANALYSIS  6/23/12

Friday night was not a good night for the Penn State community but you couldn't tell it from the atmosphere outside the courtroom.  Jerry Sandusky was convicted of the overwhelming majority of the child sex abuse counts of against him. The verdict revealed that the jury believed the account of every of major witness the prosecution presented. There were only three verdicts of 'not guilty' in the 48 counts Sandusky faced....

The eight witnesses demonstrated a range of credibility. Ultimately the jury concluded that all of the victims were credible but carefully examined their testimony to see if it established the crimes alleged. It is entirely possible that no single victim could have prevailed in the he-said, he-said conflict in this case. But the victims reinforced one another. The odds that they were all lying were too remote for the jury to conclude anything other than they were all telling the truth. http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/23/12370562-analysis-number-of-victims-persuaded-sandusky-jurors-in-he-said-he-said-case