McMartin Preschool Trials: 1987-90

The jury deliberated from November 2, 1989, to January 18, 1990. Finally, it acquitted Ray Buckey and his mother on 52 counts of molesting young children, but deadlocked on the single count of conspiracy against both and on 12 molestation charges against Ray.

District Attorney Reiner announced he would retry Ray Buckey alone, reducing the charges to five. With Judge Stanley M. Weisberg presiding and newly elected District Attorney Joseph Martinez prosecuting, the new trial began on May 7, 1990. After three months of hearing many of the first trial's witnesses, the jury deliberated from July 9 to July 27, then reported it was "hopelessly and irreversibly" deadlocked. Dismissing all the charges, the judge declared a mistrial.

However, the story took an unexpectedly bizarre turn. In April 1990, as the school building was being demolished, several parents of former McMartin students hired an archaeologist to find evidence of subterranean rooms or tunnels. After the close of the second trial, archaeologist Dr. E. Gary Stickel reported finding a pattern of tunnels. He said they had been constructed after the structure was built in 1966, and were subsequently repacked with soil and artifacts. "The discoveries," he concluded, "stand in stark contrast to the skeptical position that the children only imagined what they described as activities underground."

On August 6, 1990, U.S. District Judge Richard A. Gadbois, Jr., dismissed a $1 million civil suit filed by Peggy Buckey against Los Angeles County. The judge said he understood how Buckey felt but that "being very, very upset does not constitute a cause of action."