Let's Go To Court! - 21: Never Trust a Hottie & the McMartin Preschool Trial

Episode Date: June 20, 2018

Brandi starts us off with a story that’ll have you giving the side-eye to good looking white guys everywhere. This horrible crime began when a well-dressed, charming man walked into a Los Angeles high school and politely informed the school’s registrar that he needed to speak with a wealthy banker’s daughter. It only took a little persuasion for him to walk out of the school with 12-year-old Marion Parker. Soon, Parker’s family received ransom notes from a man who identified himself as “the fox.” He promised to return the girl alive — as long as the Parkers did as they were told. Then Kristin tells us about the longest and most expensive criminal trial in American history. It all started when a mother suspected that her toddler had been molested at daycare. Police immediately took action. They sent letters to the hundreds of parents whose children attended the daycare. Police indicated that the children at McMartin Preschool could have witnessed or been victims of a number of traumatic experiences, including child pornography, sodomy, and oral sex. The parents were horrified. A social worker interviewed 400 of the children. In the end, she found that nearly all of them had been abused. But did she really uncover abuse? Or were her interview methods lkjflawed? Had anything actually happened at McMartin Preschool? And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: McMartin Preschool case, famous-trials.com “The Longest Trial – A Post-Mortem,” New York Times “McMartin Preschool: Anatomy of a Panic,” New York Times (video) In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Aggie and The Fox” by Joan Renner, DerrangedLACrimes.com “Girl’s Grisly Killing Had City Residents Up in Arms” by Cecilia Rasmussen, Los Angeles Times “The Murder of Marion Parker” by Mark Gribben, murderpedia.org “Edgar Rice Burroughs Reports on the Notorious 1928 Hickman Trial” erbzine.com  

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A proud member of Wayne's Auto Group. One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts. I'm Kristen Pitts. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court. On this episode, I'll talk about the longest and most expensive trial in American history.

And I'll be talking about the kidnapping of Marion Parker. I came across this case last week when I was researching the disappearance of Walter Collins. I'd never heard of it. It happened right around the same time in L.A. And so I got most of my information from this, from that same website, deranged crimes, your deranged lacrimes.com. So good. It makes me worry about LA. I mean, right.

How nuts is LA that they've got their own little website? Yeah. Yes. So deranged lacrimes.com um by joan renner and then i also pulled from articles by mark gibbons nope mark gribbon i believe is his name poor mark poor mark he did all this work mark gribbon and an article by cecilia rasmussen who i also wrote articles about the case i covered last week all right thanks folks yes okay december 15th 1927

a well-dressed articulate young man walked into mount vernon junior School in Los Angeles, California, and went straight to the office of Mary Holt, the school's registrar. I had to practice that word 50 times this morning. I literally was like, registrar, registrar, registrar. What is it about registrar? I don't know. I think it's kind of like rural and dispatcher. It's the rrrr, get me? and dispatcher.

It's the R's that get me. The young man told Mary Holt that Perry Parker, a prominent Los Angeles area banker, had been seriously injured in an automobile accident and was calling for his youngest daughter. Mary was confused by this request as Parker's daughters were twins.

Oh. When she asked for clarification, the young man said that he meant the smaller daughter. The fuck? Yeah. Any doubt Mary had about the legitimacy of his request was alleviated when he explained that he was an employee of Parker's at the bank

and that she was more than welcome to call the bank for verification. Instead of calling the bank and that she was more than welcome to call the bank for verification instead of calling the bank for verification of the stranger's story holt dispatched an office assistant uh to fetch 12 year old marion parker from class confidence is so dangerous yes but i also think remember it's 1927 you don't you're you know sorry i got distracted by the cat she opened the door to go downstairs it's actually kind of cool how she did it props to boo yes for opening the basement door um Okay. So she just believes him. Calls an office assistant.

Hey, go get Marion from class. The office assistant goes to Marion's class, interrupts their class Christmas party, and says, Marion, you need to come. Your father's been in a terrible accident. Oh, no. And so she didn't hesitate. She accompanied the assistant back to the office where she was led away by the well-dressed stranger.

Witnesses would later recall that the man helped Marion into his car and patted her reassuringly on the shoulder. As Marion's friends watched the car drive away, they had no idea that they were witnessing a kidnapping. Oh, my gosh. Okay. Pause. Yes. had no idea that they were witnessing a kidnapping oh my gosh okay pause yes when you were a kid did your parents have rules and stuff about like who okay yeah tell me your rules okay so we had a rule that like if somebody would that was not our parents was going to come pick us up they would have a code word yeah we had they would tell us our code word was ridiculous though what was it ice cream oh my god there must have been something going around at that time that like instructed parents to come up with a code word with their kids, right? I'm sure.

I'm sure. Yeah. Okay. Your word was, that was terrible. It's the worst code word ever. Literally any pedophile would be like,

I'm supposed to take you out for ice cream. Yeah. And you would have been like, excellent. Ours was frontier, which is difficult to work into a natural sentence so you know it's real that must have been a thing early night it had to have been like a thing that was going around

but because i remember my parents sitting us down and being like okay if somebody were to approach you and they said that we sent them they will have code word. If they do not have a code word, we did not send them. For the longest time, we didn't have a code word. But my mom was supposed to pick up some other kids from school. And her mom, their mom gave my mom the code word. Yeah. And that's where my mom was like, okay, we need to come up with our own code word and i remember being pissed because i as a second grader wanted to know what their code word was but my mom wouldn't tell you so mad i wanted to know how ridiculous yeah no it's your mom i mean i think that she would stand up well to you know a second grader annoying the crap out of her i'm just gonna say like interrogation

if she was standing second grader annoying the crap out of her and not giving up the code word who knows what she could stomach sherry pits you put her in a room with just one chair and a light bulb hanging down she won't't tell you anything. She's not talking at all. Should we go back to Marion Parker? I guess. I mean, we could continue talking about how good my mom is at keeping secrets. So Marion's friends watch as she's being loaded into this car, and they have no idea that they're witnessing a kidnapping.

And I assume her sister was in this group watching her being taken away right yes yeah so weird this kidnapping would set off the largest manhunt in los angeles history to that point in fact the scope of the search would not be eclipsed until 1947 when LAPD would conduct a massive search for the killer of 22 year old Elizabeth Short, a.k.a. the Black Dahlia. Oh, my God. Yes. So the well-dressed stranger had a head start on searchers and police, though, because it wasn't until she failed to come home that evening that anyone knew Marion had been kidnapped oh my gosh after Marion's disappearance

was reported to the police the Parker family received a pair of telegrams hold on how old she's 12 okay thank you thank you for decoding that um the first telegram came from Pasadena. The second from Alhambra. Sure. Yeah. Sounds right. I'm an excellent pronouncer. Me too.

If this podcast has taught us anything. The telegrams were signed by george fox the telegrams told the family to expect further communication and ransom demands they ominously warned perry parker not to interfere with the kidnappers plans and the parkers were prepared to meet any ransom demand they just wanted word that marion was unharmed the next day, Parker received the first note signed Fox. The note began with the header death. Oh, my. It read Fox is my name.

Very sly. You know, get this straight. Your daughter's life hangs by a thread and I have a Gillette ready and able to handle the situation. A Gillette's a razor. Yes. You didn't pick up on that. You know what was going through my head? I was like, I guess Gillette's have been around for a really long time.

Gillette really was a pioneer in this. Oh, that's scary. Yeah. The second note included ransom demands and was again headed death. Fox this time told Parker to get $1,500 and $20 gold certificates to be prepared and be prepared to deliver them that night. He signed the note this time, Fox Fate. You don't like his signatures, Kristen? I think they're kind of lame. They are.

I agree. But you can tell he thinks they're really cool. Yeah. He definitely thinks it's cool. This time, the kidnapper included a note from Marion to her parents, begging them to comply. She warned that the kidnapper had already threatened to kill her. Please, Daddy, I want to come home tonight,

she added as a postscript to the note she signed. Your loving daughter, Marion Parker. Parker gathered the money, which would be about $20,000 today. Oh, you looked it up? I sure did. The look on your face was just, it was so smug.

Yeah, I looked it up. I've noticed you don't always look it up, but I did. So he gathered the money and prepared to meet the man he knew as George Fox. The kidnapper called Parker on the night of December 16th and gave him instructions on how the exchange would occur. However, he spotted police in the area that night and never revealed himself. On December 17th, he sent a third note

blaming Parker for the failure to complete the exchange. He believed that Parker had involved the police. He had, right? It's really unclear. Okay. I'm not really sure. It's possible that there were just police. That there just happened to be police in the area yeah yeah this is what the third note said i will be two billion times as cautious and clever and deadly from now on two billion he sounds like

he's 12 i know you have brought this on yourself and you deserve it and worse a man who betrays his love for his own daughter is a second judas iscariot many times more wicked than the worst modern criminal if you want aid against me ask god not man yeah the kidnapper then instructed parker to drive to the corner of fifth and manhattan place in los angeles and told him not to inform the police or marion would die what would you do i think i probably wouldn't call the police i might not either if i thought it if i truly thought that that would be the difference between getting my daughter back alive, I think I would just... If it were possible for me to come up with the money for ransom, I would just do it, get my daughter back, and involve police after. I might put on a wig and then go to the police or something.

Problem solved. Okay, so the plan was for Parker to sit in his car and wait for the kidnapper to pull up next to him and show him that Marion was alive. The kidnapper would then collect the ransom money and drop Marion off a block down the street. and drop Marion off a block down the street. Parker followed the kidnapper's instructions to the letter.

He waited briefly at the designated meeting place before a Chrysler coupe pulled up beside him. He looked over and caught a glimpse of Marion sitting in the front seat. Oh, my God. The driver of the Chrysler had a white handkerchief over his face and pointed a large caliber gun at Parker the man said you know what I'm here for here's your child she's asleep give me the money and follow the instructions Parker did as he was told he was too close to getting his daughter back to make any move that would spook the man with the gun yeah the money was exchanged and

parker followed the coupe to 432 south manhattan place the passenger door of the car opened and marion was pushed out onto the lawn parker tried to get the license number of the car but the kidnapper had obscured the plate yeah the chrysler roared off and parker ran over to marion he felt a few seconds of relief. His little girl was going home with him and everything would be back to normal. I do not like your tone. Except when Parker got to Marion and took her into his arms, he saw that not only was she dead, but she had been savagely mutilated.

Oh no. He let out a soul shattering anguished cry of grief that reverberated throughout the neighborhood neighbors called the police marion parker's body was wrapped in towels her legs and arms had been hacked off and she had been disemboweled the cavity was stuffed with rags oh my god a wire was wrapped tightly around her neck and then drawn up and wrapped around her forehead to keep her head up oh my god and her eyelids had been sewn open so she would appear so she would appear alive when perry saw her from a car length away oh my god yeah oh an autopsy revealed that she'd been dead about 12 hours and there were

no signs of sexual assault okay that's kind of shocking. I agree. Yeah. The coroner was unable to determine a cause of death, but he assumed it was either asphyxiation or loss of blood. Yeah, I mean, who cares at that point? Right. Yeah, absolutely. Holy shit. Yeah. Oh my god, I have never heard of this. I had never heard of it either.

This is horrible. It is horrible. Yeah. So he thinks he sees he looks over in the car. He sees his daughter there. He said later that he thought she looked strange, but he thought she was drugged. Sure. Like she was sitting there and she just looked out of it, but looked alive.

Well, and I'm sure the kidnapper didn't, like, linger or anything. Yeah, exactly. Oh, my God. Yeah. So just imagining him, like, oh, my daughter's out of the car. I'm running. I'm going to pick her up. And he picks her up, and it's only part of her, and she's been just brutally murdered.

Horrifying. This is such a brandy case. That's so rude. I feel so attacked right now. That poor man and that poor girl. Yeah. Yeah. Gets a little worse.

How? On Sunday, December 18th. Jesus Christ, did he steal the other twin? No. Okay. Newspaper-wrapped packages containing Marion's arms and legs were found at a nearby park. Like somebody just out for a stroll found her body parts. Oh my gosh.

And then a woman who lived about a block away from where Marion had been dropped off discovered a suitcase that contained blood-soaked papers and a spool of thread. The thread was a match for that used to sew Marion's eyelids open. Yeah. You know what? I thought the ransom seemed suspiciously low, even for that time. Yeah. This guy didn't give a shit about ransom.

I don't know. Did he? Uh-oh. God. By the evening of the 18th, the reward for the killer, dead or alive, had topped $50,000. Which in today's money. Almost $700,000. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Hundreds of police officers and thousands of angry citizens began looking for a young white man about 25 years old about five feet eight inches tall weighing 150 pounds smooth shaven with thin features and dark wavy hair he was believed to be traveling in a chrysler coupe or a ford roadster so just two different articles quote the car as being one or the other. So I don't really know which one they were looking for.

But it wasn't that they were looking for two different cars. Yeah. It's just that I'm not sure which one they were actually looking for. Why didn't you do some digging and figure this out? Believe it or not,

it's hard to find articles from 1927. The first break in the case came when the towels that had been wrapped around Marion's torso were identified as coming from the Bellevue Arms Apartments. Okay. This is the only good thing about these old timey cases. Yes. People didn't buy 100% of their shit at Walmart, Costco, or like one other store.

You could actually trace stuff back. You could trace stuff back to like apartment buildings. Like lots of times people rented rooms and the apartment itself provided that type of stuff. And so, yes, they were able to trace these towels back to this specific apartment building. More than 100 police officers descended on the apartment building and conducted a room by room search how big was this building not that big i like to think that it's like a 30 room place yes in one room police found a dark-haired young man who gave his name as donald evans he allowed four officers to search his room and told them he hoped they'd catch the fiend police left his

room without finding any clues and evans left the building never to be seen there again oh shit and okay come on what god damn it they had to have known what he looked like because all those kids saw him all the yeah i i mean they had a pretty good description of him but i also think that a lot of people probably met that description he's white five kind of tall 150 pounds he has hair he wears t-shirts sometimes kind of tall but not really preston yes it's preston kind of tall but not really Preston yes it's Preston

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So he left. I hear what you're saying, but goddammit, like, I feel like if the apartment building wasn't that huge. Yeah. That huge. Police state Kristen comes in. And every well-dressed, nice-looking gentleman of a certain age is like, no, we're taking you in. You're going in for a lineup.

And we're just going to have some kids look at you. So the search of the apartment didn't turn up anything. But police found the car the kidnapper had been seen driving. And they made a major breakthrough when fingerprints in the vehicle turned out to match those of a petty thief and forger, 19-year-old William Edward Hickman. Where did they find the car? I don't know. Okay. It wasn't specific okay just parked right out in front of the apartment building

so who's william edward hickman probably that dude who left the apartment like who skedaddled. Hickman was a former employee of the bank where Perry Parker worked. It turned out that Hickman had been fired for forging checks at the bank and that Parker had not only testified at his trial, but had opposed a sentencing recommendation of probation. Hickman ended up serving a brief jail term his mugshot soon graced the front page of dozens of newspapers across the country prompting sightings as far east as chicago after seeing hickman's mugshot donald evans landlady told the press that he and Hickman were one in the same. The sheriff's department quickly confirmed this after speaking to the four officers who searched his apartment. Did he then punch every single officer in the face?

Like, sorry, you're too stupid for this job and then neighbors confirmed that they had seen hickman leaving the apartment around the time of the meeting with parker carrying newspaper wrapped bundles oh shit during a second more complete search of the apartment criminalists found human blood in the apartment and in the trash can they found half a Brazil nut, which exactly matched the other half of a Brazil nut, which was found in Marion's dress pocket. Well, that's just odd.

Yes. I thought you were going to say they opened the trash can and there was another body part. Like the police just didn't bother to check. No. Half a Brazil nut was in the trash can. The other half that matched perfectly was in Marion's dress pocket. Okay.

She, I don't know. I don't know what that means. I don't know how you would end up with half a Brazil nut in your pocket. I don't either. But it links her to the scene. Okay. Okay. Los Angeles became a scary place for men who had the misfortune to resemble Hickman.

One poor guy was arrested five times before he was given what amounted to a get out of jail free letter like by the police another man who resembled hickman was chased down and surrounded by a mob at sixth and hill streets in downtown los angeles the police arrived just in time to save the man from being strung up on a light pole. Oh, my God. Yes. People were going nuts. I have to say, so I've included a picture here that I will show you in one second of him. So excited.

He's really good looking. He looks like any hipster today. Oh, wow. He's hot. He's really good looking he looks like any hipster today oh wow he's hot he's really good looking you know what okay now this is rude what i'm thinking like any guy who resembles him has probably not had a hard day in his life. And then all of a sudden this happened. They're going to be like, what? Everyone loves me and they always have. Yes. No, he's super hot. Super hot.

Yes. What does he look like? I don't know. I have no idea. He's super hot. I'll put his picture in our little collage that we post with the episode. Listen, everybody, just picture a hot white guy. That's all we can say. Super hot white guy. He he's got great hair and he's got a really good hair a bow tie on which

doesn't really do much for me but he looks nice he's he's well dressed he is does not look like the type of oh god yeah i know when you think about what he did can you turn it back around i want to see him again yes didn't get enough get enough of him on the first time, Kristen. God, I just. He's really good looking. You know what? I might be like one of those police officers who was like, oh, hi. Exactly.

You might be. You might look at him and be like, this is not the kind of guy that would do this horrible crime. Want to stare into his eyes for an afternoon. Just like the woman who worked in the school office was like, of course this guy's trustworthy. Look how handsome and well-dressed he is. Yeah. Yeah.

Ugh, boy. Yeah. Angry mobs are running down people who have the misfortune to look like. Yeah. Running down people who have the misfortune to look like. Yeah. But the real Hickman had left town the day after collecting the ransom from Parker. The day that they had come and searched his apartment. Yeah.

He was out of there. Bye bye. He carjacked a sedan, a Hudson sedan. I don't know what a Hudson sedan is. I guess it's a car, type of car. On Hollywood Boulevard. Took $15 from the driver and headed north.

How much is $15 in today's book? You didn't look it up. Oh! Critical error. Well, it would be... I thought it was like $80. Well, it would be... I bet it was like 80 bucks.

I don't think we really need to know. I need to know, Kristen. Oh my God. $200. Really? Yeah. Was that mental math I was watching? Because it's easy.

Because see, the ransom was $1,500, which is $20,000 today. So $15 would be $200 today. You forget I have no mathematical talent whatsoever. So no, to me, that is not easy. That's sorcery, what you did just then. The hunt for the fox was on. More than 7,000 police officers, augmented by members of the American Legion and police from neighboring cities, were out hunting. Do you think he also kind of chose the name fox because he was like a fox maybe because

he was a fox finally on december 22nd hickman was arrested in pendleton oregon whoa police were alerted to his location after a man matching his description paid with one of the marked $20 bills from the ransom at a Portland, Oregon area drugstore. Wait, so surely he did involve the police if the bills were marked, right? He worked at a bank, so he marked them himself. And then once he got the police involved, he was able, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

Duh. No, you're right so he passed one of the marked 20 bills at a portland oregon area drug store and then the police move into the area and they take him into custody after a short car chase on the columbia river highway as he was being arrested he said something to the effect of, think I'll be as famous as Leopold and Loeb? Yes. What a jackass.

Yes. For more on Leopold and Loeb, check out that episode. Episode 16, I think. Absolutely. The Not-So-Perfect Crime. Yes. Damn, we're getting good at this.

We are. Jesus. We are so good at podcasting. Oh, my God. Listen, all people have to do is look at, like, the number of ratings we have and be like, oh, okay. Okay. All right. We're not that good.

A quick Google search will reveal how good we really are. It took Hickman only a few minutes in custody to start shifting the blame for Marion Parker's atrocious murder onto the shoulders of an accomplice named Andrew Kramer. He began to weave a story that absolved him from everything that had happened to Marion except for the initial kidnapping. Oh, great. Yeah.

Sounds like he just got mixed up with the wrong friend. Just the wrong guy. Yep. Hickman said, Marion and I were like brother and sister. She liked me, but she did not like Kramer. And she wanted to stay with me all the time all the time all the time after she was kidnapped yeah he went on to say that he had been

gentle with marion and had even taken her to see a movie on the night before she was killed. I feel like this is the second or third time that we've done a kidnapping story when the kidnapper is like, no, no, no, no, I'm so nice, I showed the kid a movie. Yeah, yep. What the hell are people thinking? I don't know. Turns out, though, Andrew Kramer had a rock-solid alibiibi oh so andrew kramer was a real person he's a real person oh god poor guy he was in jail at this time and have been since august no one has ever been happier to have been in jail okay tell me more. That's all I know about Andrew Kramer.

But, okay, what's our real guy's name? Hickman. Hickman. Okay, he changed names so many times I forgot. So how did Hickman know this guy? I think actually they had done like a couple of robberies together, and that's how he knew him. That's the danger in naming your other criminal friend

is sometimes your criminal friends get caught. Should have named his Sunday school teacher. Yeah, exactly. So Andrew Kramer's been in jail. So investigators quickly ruled out the possibility that anyone other than Hickman was involved in this heinous crime. Mm-hmm. While awaiting extradition in Oregon to LA, Hickman was examined by Dr. W.D. McNary, superintendent of the Eastern Oregon Asylum for the Insane.

Dr. McNary said that Hickman's mind seemed clear. He told a straight, coherent story and never was at a loss for words. There was nothing about him to indicate insanity. never was at a loss for words. There was nothing about him to indicate insanity. He did not differ a bit from hundreds of thousands of other young men. Except that hundreds of thousands of other young men don't kill

small children and disembowel them. I'd say he differed a bit in that respect. I would agree. On December 26th, 1927, on a train taking him from Pendleton, Oregon to Los Angeles, William Edward Hickman told the district attorney, the chief of detectives, and the chief of police that he was ready to talk and wanted to tell the whole story. The men later said that Hickman seemed to enjoy recounting the details of the kidnapping, murder and dismemberment. I bet he did.

Hickman admitted that he had no accomplice. He said that the motive for the kidnapping was to get $1,500 to go to college. He claimed he wanted to go to Bible school. go to Bible school. He told them he was deeply religious and that his ambition was to become a minister. Several times he made mention of God and in discussing his capture took the attitude that since God willed it, it was meant to be. As for killing Marion, hickman said i was afraid she would make a noise he had murdered her the day following the kidnapping so he's keeping her at his his apartment and he's afraid she's gonna make noise and alert people that she's there so the only way to stop her from making noise is to like brutally murder her and chop her to bits yes exactly yeah kristen

you have to overkill that's right the story hickman told was beyond comprehension he said that he had killed marion by strangling with a towel. He knotted it around her throat and pulled it tightly for two minutes before she became unconscious. Once Marion was out, Hickman took his pocket knife and cut a hole in her throat to draw blood. He took her to the bathtub and drained her body. Oh, God. Ugh. He cut each arm off at the elbow and her legs at the knees what he removed marion's clothing cut her open at the waist and disemboweled her at some point during the mutilations he realized that

he would lose the ransom he demanded if he wasn't able to produce the kidnapped girl when he arrived at the rendezvous with her father. So he wrapped the exposed ends of her arms and waist with paper, stuffed her with rags, combed her hair, powdered her face. And then with a needle and thread, he sewed open her eyelids. All to give Perry Parker the illusion that his little girl was still alive. Oh, my God. his little girl was still alive oh my god okay so back to what the doctor said about him not being showing any signs of insanity and not differing in any way from hundreds of thousands of other men or whatever he said. There has to be some level of something there because you don't engage in that behavior and then halfway through it realize, oh, wait, I'm not going to get my money now.

Like, there has to be some level of some mental defect. No, he sounds like a totally normal dude. Did they know about sociopaths and psychopaths back then? I mean... So they bring in a lot of

alienists to testify at trial. Which was the old-timey word for therapists yes i think that they're they have some understanding of it but not to the degree at all that we do now okay and here's part of why i think that is okay in january of 1928 hickman went on trial in los angeles and entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity he was he is believed to be one of the very first defendants in california to use this plea as the law allowing it had only been in place for less than a year wow yes so it's like that stuff is so

new that it's only become a law within the last year at this time whoa yeah that's pretty crazy to think about yes yeah sure that the trial of william edward Hickman would arouse national interest, the Los Angeles Examiner hired novelist Edgar Rice Burroughs, most well known for his Tarzan books, to attend the sessions and write a syndicated column giving his personal reactions. Whoa. This column is really interesting to me because it was clearly written by a novelist, not a journalist. The language is very flowery. And Burroughs was extremely judgmental, opinionated, and often irritable. But that's exactly what the Los Angeles Examiner wanted. They wanted his take on the trial.

Well, yeah, if it's a column, then it's allowed to be your opinion. So I'm going to read you some excerpts of stuff that he wrote. At the trial opening, Burroughs wrote, Hickman is not normal, but abnormality does not by any means imply insanity. Hickman is a moral imbecile, and moral imbecility is not insanity. Hickman is a moral imbecile and moral imbecility is not insanity. The moral imbecile is as well able to differentiate between right and wrong as is any normal man. The difference between the two lies in the fact that the moral imbecile does not care what the results may be to others so long as he may gratify his abnormal egotism or his perverted inclinations. Moral imbecile i love that the defense put hickman's mother on the stand and she recounted that insanity ran in the family

in response to this testimony burroughs opined the idea as it appeared to me is to prove that hickman is not guilty of kidnapping and murder because his mother thought she heard strange noises about the house at night oh he's good yeah i thought that was hilarious so as i mentioned before numerous alienists therapists psychiatrists examined hickman and testified at the trial burroughs found the alienist theories incredible and humorous after testimony that hickman may have experienced hallucinations, Burroughs wrote, When I was a young man, I thought, upon a certain occasion, I could thrash a policeman. It was a hallucination.

Once, I had a hallucination that I could write a play. With these facts well established and a matter of record, I may now start up a career of murder. Continuing his jibes at the alienist, Burroughs remarked, As a criminal physiognomist, which I had to look this up because I've never heard that fucking word in my life. And as a person supposedly able to judge character from facial characteristics, physiognomist. Like they can just look at your face and tell whether you're a decent human being? That's correct. So as a criminal physiognomist, I shall have to admit being a total flop.

I cannot look at the outside of a man's head and say that he is a murderer. Yet, after watching Hickman all day, I will venture the assertion that if he's crazy, I'm Professor Einstein. So this next opinion of his I found pretty alarming. And this is what he says. Okay. I found pretty alarming. And this is what he says. Okay.

Psychiatry is as far from being an exact science as is alchemy or astrology. And as such, it has no place in jurisprudence. I believe that it can only tend to befuddle the minds of the jury and be cloud the real issue. I think that this just really goes to show two things. First, how underqualified he was to be entering opinions on this matter. And two, how little was known about psychiatry or mental illness

at this time. Well, you think about the Leo and Leopold trial. I mean, that was the first time a lot of Americans had even thought about, oh, gee, some of the terrible things that happen to you when you're a kid can affect how you act as an adult. I mean, this was new stuff.

Yeah. And according to some, total bullshit. Total bullshit. The same as alchemy or astrology. How dare you. As for his thoughts on Hickman, this is what he wrote. I am supposed to write about hickman occasionally

this being his trial but hickman bores me to extinction if he would throw something a book or a fit he would relieve the monotony and raise himself somewhat toward the plane of edwin booth and ben turpin as an entertainer i don't know who they are but i'm guessing they're entertainers of the 20s he is described as a fox and a cold-blooded beast as a rat a snake and a wolf but did it ever occur to you that the thing he did the thing for which he now stands in jeopardy of his life is purely and almost exclusively a human act. With one exception, man alone of all animals kills wantonly, and that exception is man's best friend, which has been trained and bred by man, the dog. And I hate to say this about the dog, for I love dogs. He goes on to say,

he likes to hear himself go, and like the the fabled parrot he has talked too damn much he has convicted himself of every crime in the calendar and proven beyond a doubt that he is not only quite intellectually normal but even in some respects brilliant so he thinks that not only is he not insane, that he's also super intelligent and that he loves to hear himself talk. Yeah. As a lot of super intelligent people do. Sometimes you got to be your own biggest fan. That's right.

Burroughs' overall opinion of the trial? Uh-huh. It is a bum show. The lead is a ham and the comedians are a flop the heavy is all right he goes around shouting no talking in this courtroom and wakes us up every time we lapse into blissful unconsciousness of expert testimony this is why it's important to have an actual reporter that's correct it's ridiculous yeah um so this was a 10-day trial and he wrote i don't know like 12 columns during that time maybe more okay that would be kind of tough yes i agree

after the 10-day trial the jury deliberated for only 43 minutes. Oh, wow. Hickman was found guilty and was sentenced to death by hanging. Oof. Hickman was asked how he felt about the verdict, to which he replied, the state won by a neck with a smirk. Ugh. Yeah.

one by a neck with a smirk yeah during eight months of appeals hickman on san quentin's death row embraced catholicism and wrote apologetic letters to the parkers finally on october 19th 1928 as a crowd of reporters and spectators looked on, William Edward Hickman was hanged. Death was not instantaneous, though. Hickman struck his head on the side of the gallows as he fell through the trap door and hung there violently twitching and jerking. An autopsy report would later show that his neck did not break.

Hickman, who had strangled his young victim had been strangled himself well and that's the story of the kidnapping of marion parker oh that was terrible yeah and so crazy i've never heard of it yeah that is horrifying yeah yeah that was a good one was it your face says otherwise i just can't believe somebody would do that yeah i mean i get the like i think yeah i mean i get the like i think okay let me phrase this better than i get the motivation i can understand his motivation he's pissed at perry parker he got him fired from his job he testified against him i'm gonna you know kidnap his kid get money get money But then the brutal murder, the dismemberment, the disembowelment, the stitching of the eyelids open.

To me, that shows that revenge was so far down on the list. I agree. I completely agree. Yeah. This dude was just a psycho killer. Didn't mention it in here, but Hickman was from kansas city really yes oh god don't you wish you could figure out like where some of these people were yeah he lived in this house kristen he could have he could have

how old was he when he was on trial? Like. 19. Yeah. And this was in 28. He could have been born in this house. Okay. You ready? I. Wait.

Ready. So you know this case. I do. Okay. I don't know a ton about it. I've heard a podcast about it. Which podcast? Sword and Scale does an episode on it.

Damn it. Okay. All right. Get ready for even better because I'll do the voices. Sword and Scale may have audio clips, we've got kristen's impressions sword and scale has been reaching out to me constantly trying to get me to do their stuff and i'm like no i'm busy so it's 1983 manhattan beach californ, just outside LA. It's the LA episode. It is the LA episode. Hey.

Okay. Were we coming to you from LA at this moment? God, we wish. I really wish. It would be amazing. Now it's getting sad in here. No, coming to you from kansas city judy johnson notices that her two and a half year old son is having nightmares

and weirdly he has trouble sitting down she becomes concerned, starts looking him over and sees that there's a spot of blood on his anus and that, you know, he just in general, his anus looks very irritated. She questioned her son and pretty soon the truth came out. I think it's clear that I don't have children because the idea of looking at a kid's anus, it just makes me so uncomfortable. the idea of looking at a kid's anus it just makes me so uncomfortable as soon as she said that i was like i noticed your face yeah it seems wildly inappropriate no you know what you're reminding me of we had this friend like they they had a daughter and i remember he was really nervous about changing her diaper and stuff.

And I think it was just because like he felt weird about that thing. Not because he was trying to be like, I don't want to do any work. Yeah. No, I genuinely felt like that would be a strange thing for someone to do. Yes. No, Brandy. When you're a parent, you got to look at the anuses. Ew. God. I don't know. When you're a parent. You got to look at the anuses. Ew, God.

I don't know, now I'm uncomfortable too. But anyway, this lady looked. Yeah. Pretty soon the truth came out. He was being molested by one of his daycare workers. So Judy had been taking her son to McMartin preschool on and off for a few months. And McMartin had a really good reputation in the area. They'd been around for like 20 years.

The school was founded by Virginia McMartin, this sweet-looking older woman. It was run by her daughter Peggy. And Virginia's two grown grandchildren, Ray Bucky and Peggy Ann Bucky, both worked there too, along with a few other teachers. But clearly something horrible was going on at this daycare. So after talking with her son, Judy immediately took action. She went to the police and said, my son has been molested at his daycare by Ray Bucky. at his daycare by Ray Bucky.

She just immediately assumes that it's him or she has reason. Is that what the boy told her? It seemed like that was what she had gathered from her son. Okay. So police took the report seriously. They did a medical exam on the boy. They asked him a series of questions. And the next day police sent a letter to 200 mcmartin preschool parents what the fuck um yeah is that the proper step

here's okay let me tell you what this letter said because it gets even more ridiculous and then i want to backtrack to what the hell we think should happen in this situation. Okay, so this letter was really something. It said Ray Bucky was under suspicion of child molestation. And the letter asked them to question their own children about whether they'd seen anything suspicious or, God forbid, whether something had happened to them. Let me read you part of this letter. Oh, yeah. Oh, and I should also say, almost all of my info for this episode comes from FamousTrials.com.

Yeah. Excellent website. Oh, my God. The best. So I'm going to read you part of this letter. It says, 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. Then the letter included a form, I assume for parents to fill out after they've talked to their child, and a self-addressed stamped envelope to go back to the police. The letter also said, by the way, this is highly sensitive information.

Please don't blab this all over town. Okay. Okay. there is no way for parents to question their children about this without suggesting that this has happened. They are not trained to do that. These children need to be questioned by trained individuals who know how to get real information out of small children without feeding them topics yeah this is completely the wrong way to go about questioning these kids if something has happened to them the thing i wonder about and and i get conflicted is obviously if something horrible might be happening at a daycare or a school, then I think parents have the right to know. But, yeah, how do you let people know without risking that you're...

I don't know. Without risking a ton of stuff. Yeah. Like accusing someone who maybe didn't do it. Yeah. And the fact that they've just put this guy's name out there to all of these parents now. Yeesh. So the parents freaked out.

Yeah, understandably. As a result of that letter, a few more accusations rolled in. Pretty soon, the whole community was like, you guys need to investigate the shit out of this. Yeah. This is very scary. So the district attorney's office started working with the director of the Children's Institute International, which worked to treat abused children. And they did exactly what you said. Like, they were experts experts they sat down and

actually interviewed the children the director key mcfarlane um was the person who did these interviews she interviewed 400 children holy shit each of the children did a two-hour interview with her oh my gosh yeah she was a pretty big deal She basically invented the anatomically correct doll, you know, like show me where. During the interviews, she used puppets to talk to the children and get them to open up. mcmartin students were found to have been sexually abused what about 150 children underwent medical exams and a doctor confirmed that 80 of the children she examined had been molested what i mean i don't know that you know the answer to that. What does a doctor look for in a medical exam to show that a child has been molested? I would assume tears, bruising, irritation. But by the time it's gotten there, right, to a medical exam?

I don't know. I feel like it'd be so far off of the time that the actual abuse took place. The alleged abuse took place. Interesting. Okay. Meanwhile, more accusations roll in and they're super disturbing. Kids reported being photographed naked and that the daycare workers took the photos as part of a naked movie star game. So they'd have kids do somersaults naked and sing some, like, I'm a naked movie star,

just gross child porn stuff. Some of the kids said they had to play Cowboys and Indians naked and sexually assault one another wow which is disturbing and not pc so thank you for clarifying some kids said cowboys and indigenous people that's right so there were reports that the kids were taken off the property to be molested. One was at a farm car wash. Some kids said there were secret rooms in the daycare center.

Some kids said there were secret tunnels where they were taken to be molested. They also said that the daycare workers forced them to watch satanic rituals. One of the kids said that the daycare teachers took them to a local church, sacrificed an animal, and made the kids drink the blood. What? Okay. These accusations are getting a bit outlandish. What? Just normal stuff here.

83? Is it 1983? Yeah. Well, it's 84 at this point, but yeah. Satanic panic. It's funny. I was telling Norman just like the nuts and bolts of this last night. And that's exactly the point where he was, you know, he'd been like, oh, no.

Oh, the kids. like, oh no, oh, the kids, oh, wait, what? Here's another one. Another boy said they were forced to dig up graves

at a local cemetery. Once they dug up the bodies, the teachers hacked at the corpses with knives. Mm-hmm. You're giving me the head tilt.

Yeah. The I don't buy it head tilt. The I don't me the head tilt. Yeah. The I don't buy it head tilt. The I don't buy that head tilt. That's correct. My patent. So people were horrified. The media covered the shit out of this and police were doing everything they could

to get evidence on these daycare workers. These horrible people. Yeah. They knew the teachers had produced a ton of child porn but in their searches they couldn't yeah where is it i don't know they must have hidden all of it or they must have gotten rid of tunnels the daycare didn't turn up anything no porn porn, no secret rooms, no semen or blood. You know, just nothing. They searched Ray Bucky's house for evidence.

What did they find? Here's what they confiscated. A teddy bear, a graduation robe, a rubber duck, and Playboy magazines. The fiend i'm trying to think which of those items you could find at my house right this minute teddy bear graduation robe no rubber duck no playboy but no playboy magazines you know what's funny to me is like i had a roommate in college who like rubber ducks were just her thing yeah and she had them all over the bathroom yeah

i never thought anything of it now i know she was a huge perv that's correct she's a child molester you heard it here first but seriously they confiscated that that's crazy as evidence evidence of what i think to me the playboy magazines are funny because yeah he clearly just reads the articles the thing he later said well no i'll get to that later the thing he later later said I'll get to that later. The thing he later said, I'll get to it later. I'll get to it later. How about that? Never mind. What? I don't know.

I was going to make a joke about Playboy, but I can't get it together. Let it cook a little. We'll come back to it. So they, oh, I already read that part. Did they find a graduation robe, a duck playboy magazines what would be the graduation i mean i have no idea oh you know what okay i think i know what it is um one of the kids said during the ritual you know animal slaughter thing they wore a black robe they wore robes without clothes on under it all right mystery

solved yep by that point prosecutors i wear mine too high school graduation was so fun especially when that wind kicked so by that point prosecutors had what they needed to take the crate the case before a grand jury on march 22nd 1984 they indicted seven mcmartin employees including ray his mother his sister and his grandmother they were indicted on 115 counts of child sexual abuse okay with no semen no blood no child pornography found of any kind they're taking this all on the word of hundreds of children hundreds of children which i get that's a lot yeah that's a shit ton yep that were get that this information was gathered from a licensed professional who interviewed them using, you know, groundbreaking technology with their anatomical doll.

And it wasn't like, you know, one kid has this story over here, another has this story. Yes. They kind of matched up, you know. A while later, the prosecuting attorneys added 93 more counts. Obviously, this was all super disturbing. The media had a field day. Every publication covered it. Everyone was horrified.

Hundreds of children had been abused. There was just one issue. Aside from the interviews with the children, like you were saying, and the children's medical exams, they didn't really have any evidence. Anything, yeah. There's no evidence. They couldn't find secret rooms. They couldn't find the child porn. They even dug for tunnels.

Wow. It was started by the parents. The parents started digging one day around the McMartin preschool. Oh, my gosh. And I think it was the district attorney who was like, okay, we'll come help you. Wow. martin preschool my gosh and i think it was the district attorney who was like okay we'll come help you so they start digging there are all these photos of people digging for these tunnels it is nuts that is nuts they didn't find any yeah but imagine being those parents your kid is telling you yes i've been abused this happened to me and they've got all of these details and stories you want to and then the police can't find anything yeah you would do

anything in your power yeah at the preliminary hearing the defense harped on how unbelievable it was that all these kids could be abused for years and yet we were only hearing about it now but you know i think there's a good logical argument against that and key mcfarlane the woman who interviewed the children chalked it up to denial syndrome you know the children were afraid they'd been threatened they were afraid their families lives were on the line a lot of kids just don't come forward when they've been abused because they've been so manipulated and you know maybe it was just that key was really good at coaxing the truth out of these abused kids the defense wasn't so sure they pointed to transcripts of her interviews with children

and it looked to them like she actually planted the idea that's exactly what i was gonna say it's easy for the kids to all have the same idea if they're being fed the information i have actually read a little bit of the transcripts of her interviews with the kids yeah i'm gonna read some of it oh good yeah knowing what we know now it's disturbing yeah um when she first asked if they'd ever been photographed nude the kids usually said no but she would ask again and again and again and kind of say like well your friends already told us about the yucky secrets and you know are you gonna be brave and tell us what happened and then then, you know, like in the defense's mind, she's telling these kids what she wants to hear and then rewarding them when they give the right answer.

At this point, the prosecution is starting to think that maybe their case isn't so good after all. so good after all. Over the past few years, it had become clear that Judy Johnson, who was the mom who originally brought these claims forward, was mentally unstable.

Oh, no. At some point before the end of the preliminary hearing, she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Oh, wow. And died of alcoholism.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. But none of that should matter, right? Because even if the first parent who brought forth the charge was unstable, there are all these other kids who said it happened. So it shouldn't matter. Yeah. The prosecution's team was pretty big,

and some of them actually started to side with the defense after they studied this a lot they thought this key character seems a little sketch yeah at one point one of the prosecuting attorneys said keem mcfarland could make a six-month-old baby say she was molested which i can see that i mean 384 yeah out of like 400 yeah exactly so the prosecution huddled for a minute um and they were like you know obviously some people felt very strongly that they had a good case that these people were guilty other people didn't ultimately they decided to drop the charges against most of the daycare workers,

but keep the charges against Ray and his mom, Peggy. By the way, this preliminary hearing lasted 18 months. A preliminary hearing? Holy shit. Yeah, this is a long one. So everything's moving forward at this point. Preliminary hearing wraps up. They're about to go to trial.

All of a sudden, some filmmakers start making a documentary about the crimes. And they ended up turning over some of the film, in which one of the prosecutors says that the kids embellished the stories. The prosecutor said, we basically have no case. He also said that they withheld critical information from the defense, including the fact that Judy was unstable and that when they first interviewed her son,

he couldn't pick Ray out of a lineup. So the defense attorneys are like, awesome. Hey, judge, how about we dismiss this whole thing yeah the judge is like no we're gonna keep going well we're too far fucking in by this point by the way i read i read somewhere else i think it was in the new york times that at one point one of the prosecuting attorneys dropped out and started working for the defense on this so I'm wondering if it's the same guy who said this other stuff.

At any rate, the trial begins. The prosecution brought out 61 witnesses, children, parents, therapists, some lady who had been in a romantic relationship with Ray Bucky. The parents would talk about how they got that letter from the sheriff and how they took their child to be interviewed by key mcfarlane and you know how horrible it had been to find out that their kids had been molested yeah then the kids would take the stand tell these horrible stories

but then the defense started showing the jury tapes of the children being interviewed and the defense was like look she's coaching them to give the right answers. Okay. Now it's time for me to sword and scale this bitch. Yes! Okay. This is a little long, but I... Can you not use the hillbilly voice?

Because I'm still having nightmares about that. Oh, God, yeah. It's a good voice, though. You did an excellent job, but it's terrifying. I was going to say, it was pretty spot on. It was excellent. I'm going to say it to myself. So, Kathleen, I guess she goes by Key.

Starting with her. Key. Mr. Monkey is a little bit chicken, and he can't remember any of the naked games but we think you can because we know a naked games that you were around for because the other kids told us and it's called Naked Movie Star do you remember that game Mr. Alligator or is your memory too bad and so the little boy has his Mr. Alligator puppet and he goes, I don't remember that game. Oh, Mr. Alligator. Well, it's a little song that me and a friend heard of.

Oh, well, I heard out loud someone singing Naked Movie Star, Naked Movie Star. You know that, Mr. Alligator? That means you're smart. Because that's the same song the other kids knew. And that's how we really know you're smarter than you look. So you better not play dumb, Mr. Alligator. What the fuck? Mm-hmm.

Well, I didn't really hear a whole lot. I just heard someone yell it from out in the... Someone yelled it. Maybe, Mr. Alligator, you peeked in the window one day and saw them playing it. And maybe you could remember and help us. Well, no. I haven't seen anyone playing Naked Movie Star. I've only heard the song. What good are you? You must be dumb. Oh my gosh.

Well, I don't really, I don't know really. Remember seeing anyone playing that? Because I wasn't there when people are playing it. You weren't? You weren't? That's why we're hoping maybe you saw see a lot of these puppets weren't there, but they got to see what happened. Well, I saw a lot of fighting. I bet you can help us a lot though. Because like Naked Movie Star is a simple game because we know about that game. Because we just had 20 kids told us about that game. Just this morning, a little girl came in and played it for us and sang it just like that. Do you think that if I asked you a question, you could put your thinking cap on and you might remember Mr. Alligator?

Oh, my gosh. Yeah, this is fucked up. This is super fucked up. Maybe. You could nod your head yes or no. Can you remember who took the pictures for the Naked Movie Star game? That would be a great thing to feed into the secret machine. And that's the video camera camera and then it would all be gone just like all the other kids did you can just nod whether you remember or not see how good your memory is i fucking hate this lady i know i know a lot of people say that she really didn't do this on purpose and that she really didn't know. But I don't see how.

I don't see how that's possible. So, of course, the little boy nods the puppet's head. You do? Well, that's remarkable. I wonder if you could hold a pointer in your mouth and then you wouldn't have to say a word. You could just point. So the boy places the pretend camera on the adult male nude doll using the alligator puppet. Sometimes he did.

Can I pat you on the head for that? Look what a big help you can be. You're going to help all these little children because you're so smart. Okay, did they ever pose in funny poses for the pictures? Well, it wasn't a real camera. We just played. Mr. Alligator, I'm going to ask you something here. Now, we already found out, the other kids, that it was a real camera.

So you don't have to pretend, okay? Is that a deal? So it goes on. Ugh. I hate this yeah like no wonder you found 384 because you fed them the fucking information and you pestered them yes when they didn't say what you wanted them to say you called them dumb yeah and said that other kids remembered? Yeah.

That's terrible. No, she called the alligator dumb. Brandy. Yeah, it's really upsetting. And I know that, obviously, the first time you ask someone about something like this, maybe they're not going to be, they're not going to come out with it.

But harassing them and annoying them until they oh god so then the defense called their own expert who was actually a professor of psychiatry and the guy was like yeah she basically gave these kids a script and rewarded them when they gave the right answers yeah this is exactly what it sounds like and remember how i said that the medical examiner had said that she'd found that 80 of the kids she looked at showed signs of abuse the defense called their own doctor to review the evidence and he said that in the vast majority of cases the kids look totally normal yeah the other thing and i didn't write this down but that original doctor was affiliated with the Children's Institute and she said

that she made her judgments more based on what the kids had said. Yep. Yep. Then the prosecution called on a jailhouse informant as we call them,

snitches. Snitches get stitches and wind up in ditches. call them snitches snitches get stitches wind up in ditches his name was george freeman which i had to i had to practice that a lot so you didn't say george foreman yes yes and here's how embedded that is in my head the first time i read it i was like george foreman what a crazy coincidence we'll have fun with that and then i was like oh no i need george freeman although it is funny that freeman is in jail yeah it's a good one thank you look mr alligator you are dumb for not appreciating this

joke i know you like my joke. Everyone else did. All the other kids said it was hilarious. Oh, that's fucked up. Why am I taking it down that road? Okay. So that was Ray Bucky's cellmate. Yeah. And he said that Ray told him that he had molested a bunch of children at McMartin and elsewhere. No.

He also said that he'd had sex with his sister a whole bunch. No. He also said that he'd had sex with his sister a whole bunch. And that the reason the investigators couldn't find all the child porn was because Ray had sent it all to Denmark. Okay, here's my problem with this. Uh-huh. It is a well-known fact that child molesters do not do well in prison. They are horribly abused. It's like criminals like that is lower than any other crime.

And they are sought out in prison and they are beat and they are treated terribly. No one is going to be sitting in prison bragging about how many fucking children they've abused. You know what? i didn't even think about that i was more excited about the idea of him taking all this child porn and sending it to denmark sending it to denmark yes by the way the stuff he didn't send to denmark he buried in south dakota south dakota that's what george freeman said and I am not going to question George Freeman. George Freeman. I love your grills. The defense was like hey jury just a fun reminder this guy has committed like nine

felonies. He's a known liar and by the way his story is ridiculous. Yeah. At one point Ray and his mother peggy both took the stand in their own defense and of course they both denied the allegations yeah during cross-examination the prosecutor questioned ray again and again on basically these two things the fact that occasionally ray didn't wear. And the fact that he owned adult magazines. Yeah, those free ballers, they are just... Lock them up. That is correct.

And he wore sweatpants in association. Okay, for real. That is, nobody needs to see that. Supervised probation. Yeah, leave a little something to the imagination, please. Yeah, leave a little something to the imagination, please. The thing I liked about, and I just, I keep fixating on the adult magazines. Yeah.

Because, not that that's proof of anything, but if anything, it. Shows that he's into adults. Yes! Yes, that's what I'm saying. It's like, and he even said in his testimony, granted, he was being questioned about, like, there was this lady who he claimed he had sex with. She said they didn't have sex. And so the prosecutor was kind of trying to make this point that, like, you had this fake girlfriend who you didn't want to have sex with.

Yeah. And then she brings up the magazines and Ray's like, you know, to me, it's apples and oranges. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I wouldn't just switch from adult women to children. That's like, you know, to me, it's apples and oranges. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I wouldn't just switch from adult women to children. That's just, no. Wouldn't do it.

Let me see if I can actually find that, because that'd be good. So this is at the part where he's being cross-examined about this alleged relationship with this woman named Barbara. And he's talking about how his family really didn't want Barbara living with him because, you know, morals, they were a very Christian family. Okay, so the prosecutor says, Mr. Bucky, do you have a belief that child molesters do not have relationships with adult females?

It's common sense. If you have a perversion for children, you wouldn't have a desire for female adults. Is that your belief based on your experience? Oh my gosh. What experience? Having a perverted interest in children and therefore not having an interest in women. And he just kind of, there's a big pause. I can't imagine it. It's like mixing apples and oranges. It's like homosexuality. You wouldn't have an interest in females. Have you ever met or heard about individuals who are bisexual? Oh my God. He goes, I've heard of it, but I can't imagine it. Now, isn't it true, Mr. Bucky, that in order to counter a claim that you had a sexual interest in children,

you came up with and fabricated this account of sexual intercourse with Barbara? And he goes, I have no sexual desire for children. Never had, never will. Oh, my gosh. So she's, this prosecutor, is trying to say that having an affinity for both adult women and children is the equivalent of bisexuality?

Yeah, I guess when she couldn't back him into a corner and be like, okay, this, you know. This aversion of being bisexual. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Gross. That is horrible. Yeah.

I really feel bad for Ray Bucky. Yeah. First of all, I don't know that there's anything worse that you can be accused of. No. And he has been accused like to the max. Yes. This has been a nationwide story. And the media was not kind.

No. The media was not like, maybe this happened. It was like, no, this. No, this dude. Yeah. Yeah. We caught him. Holy shit. happened it was like no no this dude yeah yeah we caught him holy shit finally in 1989 after 30

months of testimony holy shit the jury deliberated and they deliberated for two and a half months holy shit okay these jurors yeah for had to sit in this trial for 30 months yes it's unreal it is i can't even imagine no and you don't get paid shit no you don't get paid shit that's two and a half years yes yes but i think shit good on them for deliberating for two and a half months because i can see how at the end of that you'd be like i'm ready to go home yes And anyhow, at the end of that, you'd be like, I'm ready to go home. Yeah.

Lock him away just in case. Yeah. I mean, I feel like it'd be so easy. Yeah. To do that. Yeah. Do you remember what they decided? Or do you have an opinion on what you think they decided? I believe I remember.

Okay. So they acquitted Peggy of all charges. But they deadlocked on Ray. And it came down to those interviews with Keeva and Farland. The jurors thought they'd been misleading, clearly. But a lot of them were worried. They were like, we think he did it. But the prosecution didn't really prove he did it.

And that's why they deadlocked. And that's why they deadlocked. And that's why they went to the second trial. For the second trial, there were new prosecutors and a new judge. The public was pissed because everyone knew

that he did it. What was wrong with this stupid jury that they couldn't see what was so obvious to everyone else? Afterward, one of the jurors said they did not listen to two and a half years of testimony i'm sorry if the world is not happy but it was me there and i can live with it yeah yeah good for that juror i agree i mean that would be hard to have the rest of the world saying oh you let out this

predator but again the rest of the world has read a couple newspaper articles and again the question for a juror is not do you think this person is guilty or innocent yeah it's did the prosecution prove beyond a reasonable beyond a reasonable doubt that this person is guilty and clearly they didn't yeah i think that's so hard for the public to understand when because like obviously we follow court cases all the time we make a judgment on it but the question in a juror's mind is not do i think this is guilty? It's, has this person been proven guilty? Well, and they get so much more information than the rest of us get.

Because you know that in those newspaper articles, in the 2020 episode, in all that stuff, they didn't show video footage of her interviewing the kids, which to me is what it all comes down to. Is what it all comes down to absolutely so each time this thing went to trial or through a hearing more kids seemed to drop out more parents were saying no my kid's not going to go through this again so this second trial was much shorter than the first the defense actually tried to get that original boy to come on the stand but by that point you know his mother had died yeah his father was had sole custody and his father was like no way in

hell yeah sorry and this time the prosecution didn't even call key mcfarlane but the defense did good you know and they pointed out all the flaws that they had in the previous trial i'm gonna reread you that uh doing it a different accent this time this time i only have so many man this la kid had some a strange way of talking so after three months this time i bet the first jury was like what the fuck what the fuck three months the jury went into deliberation and they deadlocked again so the district attorney had to decide, do we try this guy again for a third time or do we just cut our losses? Right.

Evidently, he did not think that the third time would be the charm. He just, he dropped it. Ultimately, this whole legal saga cost taxpayers more than 15 million dollars yeah it lasted seven years yeah and most people believe it was basically a witch hunt yeah 15 million dollars how many years seven no convictions yeah yeah and ray spent five years in prison i believe his mother spent two years in prison yeah yeah completely a witch hunt yeah fueled by satanic panic satanic panic um i think biased media coverage yes definitely that interviewing technique yes it was just wrong the letter that the police sent out to all those parents

that set things off like that was i mean that was like gasoline yes yes on a flame yeah yes there's a way to handle the situation and make sure every parent knows in a um quick manner that's not it what's weird to me is here's a form yeah check yes no maybe right you know yeah what the hell we've supplied us a uh self-addressed stamp tombo for you to return your survey god so oh crazy key's methods were eventually discredited oh really i know that's shocking why oh we'll have to think on that the daycare was shut down you know they lost that oh yeah who's gonna send their kids in their kit there peggy at the end of it said i've gone through hell and now we've lost everything yeah across the country amidst all this panic a bunch of daycare workers were accused of molesting kids. And most of those claims proved to be false.

It was just this panic that swept through the nation. At the end of it all, Ray said, those poor children went through hell. But I'm not the cause of their hell. And neither is my mother. The cause of their hell is the adults who took this case and made it what it was. Absolutely. Because that is horrible. Yeah. I'm sure in some cases the kids were convinced that something horrible had happened to them.

Yes. Because they were so young. Yeah. I found something somewhere that said Ray ultimately went on to law school, but I couldn't find anything more on that. Something somewhere that said Ray ultimately went on to law school, but I couldn't find anything more on that. After all this went down, the media kind of had a self-reflecting moment. They were like, hmm, boy, we could have done that better. Kind of screwed the pooch on that one.

So the New York Times did a big postmortem. And because everyone, especially some of the big L.A. outlets, clearly sided with the prosecution. Yeah. And their follow up article, the New York Times went after 2020, KABC TV, which is the local ABC News affiliate and the L.A. Times. They were like, your coverage was pretty biased. Here's what the New York Times dug up. The KABC reporter who first covered the McMartin accusations later entered into a romantic relationship with Key McFarlane.

Wow. Then the Metro editor at the LA Times got engaged to one of the prosecutors in the case. Oh my gosh. Both of them said that to one of the prosecutors in the case. Oh, my gosh. Both of them said that they were unbiased in their coverage. And the L.A. Times guy said that he removed himself from having a role in the coverage after he got down with the prosecutor. Got down with the prosecutor. I will say that as long as this went on and those reporters were, you know, would be on the case for that whole time. It's a lot of time that you're spending.

Yeah, I agree with someone. So to end up in a romantic relationship from that, that's not that crazy to me, but yeah, you definitely have to remove yourself from a position of reporting on it. I feel like once you can no longer have a non-biased you know what i was when norman was working in a school district the education reporter

were you able to report on that in a non-biased manner did you just did you just write call about the hot history teacher or whatever everyone's talking about norman caruso no i'm i'm glad you said that so i didn't have to um and i don't necessarily think that well and i think that if you can you know, keep there from being a conflict of interest, absolutely. If you can still, you know, bring a non-biased view. I don't think you have to pull yourself off a case that you've been on for fucking a million years already. I think you do if you're in a serious relationship with one of the key players.

Yeah. Like, I think you just bring it to your boss and you say, here's conflict i have yeah and you let the boss decide yeah you know yeah my paper was so small and dinky they would have been like you're trying to get out of work and for what it's worth the la times after this was over they did a four-part investigation into themselves. Wow. And found that they had done a bad job. Good. Yeah. I mean, because that's, it's horrible what happened. Absolutely.

And they acknowledged that they played a role in it, and they were off balance. Yeah. Yeah. Bucky's lives were ruined. Yes. Completely ruined. Yes. Completely ruined. Yes.

Yeah. I feel. And I'm thinking about that grandmother who founded this school. Yeah. With her friends from church. Yeah. I mean, and she, I think died in 1989 or something. I just, God.

Yeah. Horrible thing to go through. Terrible. And that's what I got for you. I thought I had more. Quite the conclusion there. Well, that's all I got. And that's all she wrote.

You know what? I looked over at my notes. I saw I had more. But really, it was last night I'd written everything up, and then I stumbled upon the New York Times postmortem where they like. Yeah. And I just I was too tired to type it up. So I saved it for this morning, but I put the link in my document and I wrote, oh, shit, buy it.

So I wouldn't forget. That's it. And that's all I got. You already revealed the oh shit. The oh shit is out there. I think that case is crazy. Yeah. And I think that hopefully some lessons were learned.

And it looks like there were. I think so. But at what expense? The Buckeyes lives. Yeah. I mean, I don't even know what kind of lives they were able to go on and live after that. They lost everything. What's amazing to me is that you can be accused of something like that. You spend your life savings defending yourself. Best case scenario, they don't find you guilty. That's it. You don't have any recourse to be able to get any of that back.

You've been dragged through the mud and you're just lucky you're not in prison anymore. And you're, yeah, that's it. The win is that you didn't go to prison. You have lost your business. You've lost your life savings. You've lost your work. Yeah.

No, but you have created a career of running a daycare. Who's gonna hire you now? You're never gonna of running a daycare. Who's going to hire you now? You're never going to work in a daycare again. Yeah. Well, and let's be honest. If they found him guilty, surely death penalty, right? Oh, yeah.

Maybe not in California. Yeah, probably not California. But, man. Anywhere else. Yeah. Texas. I was just thinking. They would have strung you up a long time ago in texas

yeah i yikes i feel like i saw a documentary on this a long time ago and it's just so sad all around all these parents all of a sudden thought their kids had been through this traumatic traumatic experience and then the and then it turns out they put them through a traumatic experience. Yes. That would be horrible. That fucking lady. Yeah. Turns out she was a social worker. Yeah.

But she didn't have a license as a therapist or anything. Mm-hmm. Sometimes you got to be a real expert. Yeah. For a podcast, not really. Not so much for a podcast. If you're interviewing children about whether they've been abused, maybe you should a real expert. Yeah. For a podcast, not really. Not so much for a podcast. But if you're interviewing children about whether they've been abused, maybe you should have some expertise.

Yeah. That's like, that's the Jerry Springer final thought for today. Oh my God. I used to love that show. I did too. Every time I think of that show, I think of when they would have the weddings on the show.

Do you remember? And they'd bring out a big three-tiered cake and they'd set it on the ground. Like, oh, I hope nothing happens to this. What a beautiful cake. It'd be a shame if something happened to it. Turns out it's not even made a cake. They just, like, plan it oh my god oh gosh well that case was crazy thank you for thank you for covering it for us you know what's weird is i was thinking

it's kind of a light child molestation case because there was no actual molestation that took place it just it starts out so dark especially if you don't know the story. If you don't know the story, yes. Yeah, last night Norman was like, oh my God. Because my reactions, I'm worried that people will be like, wow, this girl doesn't care about molestations. That's why I was so,

I mean, I knew you knew the case because it's on famoustrials.com. I feel like we've had that site memorized for years. But I was like, oh man, I hope, I hope, I hope she doesn't know this case. Because it just. Yeah, it changes it so much if you know it. Yes. Yeah.

We should have had Norman on to do all the reactions. You're right. We should have. Man, missed opportunity. Seriously, last night he was like, oh, oh, no. Oh, God. Oh, the poor kids. Wait, they sacrificed an animal and made the kids drink

the blood hold on hold on back this straight up you've officially lost me what fueled the satanic panic i you know i don't even know it's just something that just grew and grew and then all of a sudden people were sure that their neighbor and dentist and uh roommate's ex-girlfriend were worshiping satan and were coming to get them and sacrifice thing them to the uh lord of the underworld hate it when that happens gets me panicked just thinking about it right anybody who was something anybody who was wearing black you would i would have been instant so fucked yeah yeah i liked what you posted on facebook today which now you have to describe yeah so it was like this post it's like the grim reaper like paddleboarding and like on a inflatable raft and like i don't know doing something else and it was like

uh me this summer it's like the weather warms up because everything i wear is black because that's exactly me i wear black all the time it's my favorite color 90 of my wardrobe is black which i've always wondered how much of that is salon so a lot of it i think that's where the like how much of that is salon so a lot of it i think that's where the like probably the origin of it is because like for a long time that was my dress code yeah when i worked in salons like you had to wear all black and then when i just started shopping i was automatically drawn to black stuff but man i just think stuff looks good in black. It's true. It does. I say, and I've got a,

you've got all of the colors of the rainbow on your shirt today. Yeah. I don't do a lot of black. Yeah. I've got to balance you out. I know. That's right. That's why we work so well. I keep the color to my hair.

You do. I really like it by the way. Thanks. I just got it done. It's very blue. Oh. I sort of tried the chili at Wendy's. What do you mean you sort of tried the chili?

I'll explain. I had chili cheese fries the other day. They have that? Yes. Which the funny thing about, you know, we did that episode on the wendy's chili and the finger in them yeah looks like a french fry yeah chili cheese fries looks kind of like fingers but quite good was it good i have not had that item there you're not i'm really not a french fry person no you're really not. I mean, I like French fries fine.

I'll eat a few. See, this is why it's such a joy to go out to eat with you. Because you've got these delicious little things and you're like, I've had three and now I'm good. See, I feel like if I were Zach and I figured out on like date number two that you just don't eat French fries, I've been like, I've got to lock this down. This is a lifetime of double fries. That's how I landed him. Sure as hell wasn't your personality. I mean, no. It was unlimited fries.

That's correct. All the fries you can eat hey if you liked this podcast find us on social media give us a like subscribe follow us head on over to itunes leave us a rating leave us a review do all that stuff and then tell your friends about us please do yeah man we've gotten that like down i feel like you've got it down and you're like please do yeah and we've gotten that like down I feel like you've got it down and you're like yeah please do I feel like I've got to say something and so at the end I'm always

like yep should I reiterate it yeah you say it this time damn it you can do it I believe in you Twitter Instagram Should I reiterate it? Yeah. You say it this time. Damn it. You can do it. I believe in you. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, iTunes. You've heard of all these things.

Go find us there. Rate us. Review us. Love all up on us. Please do. And then join us next week. When we'll be experts on two whole new topics podcast adjourned and now for a note about our process i read a bunch of stuff then regurgitate it all back up in my very

limited vocabulary and i copy and paste from the best sources on the web and sometimes wikipedia so we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. For this episode, I got my info from FamousTrials.com and the New York Times. And I got my info from DerangedLACrimes.com and articles by Mark Gribben and Cecilia Rasmussen. For a full list of our sources, visit LGTCPodcast.com. Any errors are, of course, ours. but please don't take our word for it. Go read their stuff. Please do.