- The McMartin Pre-School: Satanic Panic -

Johnson also made several more accusations, stating that people at the daycare had sexual encounters with animals, that "Peggy drilled a child under the arms" and "Ray flew in the air." As a result, members of the McMartin family, who operated a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, were charged with hundreds of acts of sexual abuse of children in their care. More accusations, bizarre and some even physically impossible, were made in 1983; nevertheless arrests and the pretrial investigation took place from 1984 to 1987, and the criminal trials ran from 1987 to 1990.

In a letter sent out to parents, Investigators wrote: “Our investigation indicates that possible criminal acts include: oral sex, fondling of genitals, buttock or chest area, and sodomy, possibly committed under the pretense of "taking the child's temperature." Also photos may have been taken of children without their clothing. Any information from your child regarding having ever observed Ray Buckey to leave a classroom alone with a child during any nap period, or if they have ever observed Ray Buckey tie up a child, is important.”

Some of the accusations mirrored the emerging satanic ritual abuse panic. It was alleged that, in addition to the children having been sexually abused, they saw witches fly and traveled in a hot-air balloon. When shown a series of photographs by Danny Davis (the McMartins' lawyer), one child identified actor Chuck Norris as one of the abusers. Some of the abuse was alleged to have occurred in secret tunnels beneath the school. There were claims of orgies at car washes and airports, and of children being flushed down toilets to secret rooms where they would be abused, then cleaned up and presented back to their parents. Some child interviewees talked of a game called "naked movie star" and suggested they were forcibly photographed nude.

In 1988, The New York Times reported that the case "attracted national attention when the authorities speculated that hundreds of children might have been molested and subjected to satanic rituals" and "has teetered on the brink of mistrial." The case lasted seven years and cost $15 million, but resulted in no convictions. All charges were dropped in 1990. By the case's end, it had become the longest and most expensive series of criminal trials in American history.

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