Query by McMartin Jury Hints at Some Guilty Verdicts

Jurors in the McMartin Pre-School molestation trial adjourned for a three-day weekend Friday without reaching final verdicts, but not before asking the judge a question which, in its phrasing, seemed to indicate guilty verdicts on at least some counts.

So far, they have reached decisions on 52 counts--the same number lodged against defendant Ray Buckey. The counts involve all 11 children named in the criminal complaint.

They have 13 counts left to decide.

Buckey’s mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, is charged with 12 counts, involving four children who attended the family-run nursery school she directed in Manhattan Beach.

The remaining charge is a shared count of conspiracy.

The jurors, in writing, asked Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Pounders whether it is possible for them to find one defendant guilty and the other not guilty of conspiracy, since both are named in the single count. Four verdict forms were provided them for the conspiracy count.

The answer would appear to be yes, depending on which, if any, allegations contained in the conspiracy count the panel finds to be true. Defense attorneys, however, asked to discuss the matter with Pounders before he gives the jurors a formal answer when deliberations resume next week.

The acts of conspiracy contained in the single count include allegations that Peggy Buckey required parents to notify her what time they planned to pick up their children and prohibited parents from coming to the school during certain hours.

The conspiracy count also accuses Ray Buckey of telling the children to play a game called “lookout,” in which they watched for approaching parents. And it alleges that Ray and Peggy Buckey together played “naked games” with children, photographed naked children, transported children off the school premises, and threatened them with death.

The jury had been expected to conclude its work by Friday. However, it left early Thursday because of the illness of one juror’s child, and recessed at noon Friday because another juror had a doctor’s appointment.