NCJ Number
146402
Date Published
1993
Length
416 pages
Annotation
Two investigative reporters provide their eyewitness observation of the McMartin Preschool trial, most controversial child abuse trial in American history.
Abstract
In 1983, a woman alleged that her 2-year-old son had been molested by a teacher at the Virginia McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, CA. When police urged parents of past and present pupils to submit corroborating evidence, hysteria ensued, but all the children denied that they had been abused. Subsequently, a private clinic hired by prosecutors to examine the children revealed that every child had been sexually abused, leading to more than 200 charges being filed against several McMartin teachers. The trials lasted 6 years and cost taxpayers more than $16 million. Child witnesses spoke of being raped, subjected to satanic rituals, and forced to watch animals being killed. In this book, the authors capture the often unseen tragedies that attend public hysteria in cases of alleged child abuse: prosecutors concerned only with victory, not justice; questionable assumptions about the credibility of testimony from jailhouse informants, expert witnesses, and the children themselves; manipulation of media reports; and the extraordinary lengths to which society will go to protect alleged victims and those who report alleged abuse. 28 references