McMartin: If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try to Try Again

The circus-like atmosphere of the first McMartin trial spilled over to the second, but only outside the courtroom. Before it began, a demonstration of approximately 500 people marched around Manhattan Beach carrying signs reading, “We believe the children.” According to Doug Linder, polls indicated that 87% of Americans thought Ray Buckey was guilty. By comparison, only 56% of Americans thought that O.J. Simpson was guilty at the conclusion of his trial.

Inside the courtroom, things went more smoothly than they did the previous trial. Judge Stanley Weinberg replaced Judge William Pounders on the bench, while a new prosecution team consisting of Joe Martinez and Pamela Ferrero tried Buckey on only eight counts.

Meanwhile, the parents stepped up their efforts to find new evidence to present at trial. They felt that if they could find the tunnels, they could prove Buckey’s guilt. Ted Gunderson, then living with McMartin mom Jackie McGauley, felt that he could help. Indeed, as the former Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, Gunderson had more investigative experience than most (if not all) of his counterparts on the Manhattan Beach Police force and the LA DA’s office.

Gunderson allegedly arranged a consultation with Dr. Rainer Berger, Chair of the Interdisciplinary Program of UCLA’s Archeology Department.* Dr. Berger recommended that they ask archeologist Dr. Gary Stickel to head one last dig at the McMartin site, and adjacent areas. McMartin parents, with the help of donations, ponied up $53,000 for the project. After thirty-odd days of digging (mostly in May 1990), with consultation from some of the older children, other experts, and with the help of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) he came to the following opinion:

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’.

Dr. Stickel not only found tunnels, but also artifacts (specifically, stainless steel bands) that would date the tunnel’s construction sometime after 1966. Moreover, he found a plastic bag bearing a Disney logo and a 1982 copyright date on it (others would also find a Burger King wrapper originating from about that time inside one of the holes). That would seem to indicate that someone had used the tunnels up until the accusation.

I won’t go into the viability of these tunnels right this instant. But I will say that the prosecution declined to use them in evidence. Thus, they never became a factor in the second trial.

On 27 July 1990, a fresh set of jurors were just as deadlocked as the previous twelve. They leaned toward Buckey on six of the counts, against him on one, and were split down the middle on the last.

DA Ira Rainer decided against prosecuting Buckey again, thus ending all litigation in the McMartin case once and for all.

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*Many sources, including Gunderson himself, said that he arranged this final attempt to find tunnels. According to Jackie McCauley, however, Gunderson had little to do with the Stickel dig specifically, and the McMartin case in general. Moreover, she says that she was the one who arranged the excavation.