McMartin Preschool: the longest US criminal trial ends with no convictions after satanic-ritual-abuse allegations collapse
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Material that narrows or disputes the record
Appellate history
1990-01-18
Peggy McMartin Buckey acquitted (1990); remaining charges against Ray Buckey dropped after two hung juries.
Record class
Separate register
Evidence status
Closed without charge
Authority role
prosecutors, investigators and therapists acting on satanic-ritual-abuse panic, the wrongly accused (survivors of the miscarriage)
Organization
No organization assigned
Archive classification
This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.
Satanic-ritual-abuse panic — amplified by therapists and media primed by the discredited book 'Michelle Remembers' — drove coercive child-interview techniques that manufactured allegations of Satanic rites and animal sacrifice with no corroborating physical evidence.
- Violent occult ideology or sacrifice
- Other spiritual authority or belief
Evidence structure
Proceedings
1990-01-18 · acquittal and charges dropped (no convictions)
Superior Court of California, Los Angeles County. Ray Buckey and his mother Peggy McMartin Buckey were accused of mass ritualistic child sexual abuse based on children's statements elicited by suggestive interviewing. After the longest and most expensive criminal trial in US history, no convictions resulted: Peggy McMartin Buckey was acquitted in 1990 and all remaining charges against Ray Buckey were dropped after two deadlocked juries.
Documented coercion mechanisms
- satanic-ritual-abuse panic ideology
- coercive/suggestive child-interview techniques
Cited record
Sources
- institutional reporting historical case review 'Defendant in McMartin Preschool trials is acquitted', History.com (event 1990).
Documents the acquittal of Peggy McMartin Buckey and the collapse of the satanic-ritual-abuse prosecution after the longest trial in US history.
Source provenance
Source access and integrity log
This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.
- Source and tier basis
- https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/january-18/the-mcmartin-preschool-trials Corpus classification: institutional-reporting; evidentiary role: historical-case-review. SHA-256 8db10f67368854688b339cfff975d0d64cd5456fc1fd14488d50b100d5c9388e
- Retrieval
- 2026-07-20 · Preserved
- Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
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Related record
Related cases · False ritual-abuse accusation and miscarriage of justice
- 1994 · West Memphis, Arkansas, USA West Memphis Three: satanic-panic prosecution and the wrongful conviction of Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley
- 1986 · Kern County (Bakersfield), California, USA Kern County ritual-abuse prosecutions: dozens convicted, most convictions later overturned
- 1995 · Wenatchee, Washington, USA Wenatchee 'sex ring': mass arrests on tens of thousands of charges, most convictions later overturned
- 1997 · Edenton, North Carolina, USA Little Rascals Day Care: all convictions vacated after satanic-ritual-abuse allegations
- 1991 · South Ronaldsay, Orkney, Scotland, UK Orkney child-abuse scandal: official inquiry finds the satanic-abuse removals fundamentally flawed
- 1990 · Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England, UK Rochdale satanic-abuse case: government-commissioned inquiry finds organised satanic abuse a 'myth'
- 2016 · San Antonio, Texas, USA San Antonio Four: four women exonerated after a 'satanic ritual' junk-science conviction
- 2017 · Oak Hill, Austin, Texas, USA Oak Hill (Keller) case: day-care operators declared actually innocent after a satanic-ritual-abuse conviction