In 1983, in Manhattan Beach, California, one woman named Judy Johnson put forward an allegation. 

Her two-and-a-half-year-old son was, at the time, attending McMartin preschool. Johnson claimed that her son had been sexually abused by a teacher at the school named Ray Buckley. Her claims were unlike anything police had heard before. Although there was no evidence of abuse taking place, police decided to send a form letter to about 200 parents of students at the pre-school. It asked them to speak to their children and listed off possible abuse they might have experienced. 

Over the next seven years, seven teachers, six of them women, were charged with more than 200 counts of child abuse, involving more than than 40 children. There were accusations of Satanic rituals, animal sacrifices, administering of drugs, the creation of child exploitation material, and flying children to far away places where they were molested. The accusations became increasingly bizarre. 

By the late 1980s, “McMartin” had become a household word. The trial is among the longest and costliest criminal proceedings in the history of the United States. 

What emerged, however, was that none of these events had ever taken place. Today, the children who spoke to authorities say they knew at the time their allegations were false. So what was behind this hysteria? And what was behind the Satanic panic that followed? 

CREDITS

Guest: Ruth McIver

Host: Jessie Stephens

Producer: Gia Moylan

Audio Producer: Ian Camilleri

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Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.