"Brutalized"

Sex charges at a nursery

Wearing Snoopy earrings and a purple coat dotted with Teddy-bear pins, Virginia McMartin, 76, a white-haired widow, sat in a wheelchair last week in a Los Angeles superior court, her head bowed low. McMartin, three relatives and three other women faced charges that they sodomized, fondled and raped more than 100 preschool children at a day-care center run by McMartin in Manhattan Beach, a coastal suburb of Los Angeles.

To frighten their victims into silence, the teachers allegedly cut off the ears of rabbits and other small animals in front of the children, warning the youngsters that the same fate could befall them. Said Los Angeles District Attorney Robert Philibosian: "The children were extremely reluctant to tell anyone about [the sexual abuse]." The school never had trouble obtaining the required state or local licenses, although authorities now believe the child abuse began at least ten years ago. It was not until last September, when a mother told local police that her two-year-old child had been molested, that the school came under suspicion.

McMartin's grandson Raymond Buckey, 25, was arrested in connection with that incident, but was later freed for lack of evidence. The arrest sparked a wider investigation, and in November the school shut down. Twenty-five families have filed civil suits against the nursery, some asking more than $1 million in damages. "Virginia McMartin was a sweet little old lady," said an incredulous father, whose three-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter were, in his words, "brutalized" at the center. "We thought it was the best place for our children."