THE UNDERGROUND TUNNELS OF McMARTIN PRESCHOOL

The Children's Institute International (CII) counselling agency interviewed hundreds of children who had attended the McMartin preschool. First one, and then many of the kids disclosed being led down through trap-doors in the floor of the preschool and taken through underground tunnels. They described some tunnels as leading to a nearby building, where the children were loaded into a vehicle and taken to another location (sometimes via an airplane flight, train or hot air balloon to another city) and abused. Other tunnels allegedly led either to an underground chamber or above ground room where they described being subjects in pornographic photographs and being sexually abused.

The existence of tunnels has been hotly debated since the mid 1980's. If there were tunnels in McMartin, then part of what the children said was true; the rest of their testimony would then be more credible. If no tunnels existed, except in fantasy, then the rest of the children's testimony may also be unreliable. To believe in the tunnels has become almost an required article of faith in some quarters. Unfortunately, we cannot return to the site. The McMartin building was leveled and replaced by another structure.

The first suggestion of underground tunnels and secret rooms may have emerged in 1994-FEB during the interview of a former student by CII. He said " ...like somehow I can't remember. I'm not sure about. Ah, there was a room I wasn't suppose to go in or something....I'm making this up. I'm not sure. Yeah, I can see it, I think." At the preliminary hearing, he testified how Ray Buckley and the other teachers took him to play "Naked Movie Star" (kiddie-porn) games every weekday. In reality, Ray was not at the school until after the boy had graduated. He recalled that the secret room was the size of a classroom was located to the east of the school building and was accessible by a trap door and tunnel.

The Trap Doors

• Classroom 1:
  • trap-door under bathroom sink in SE corner of room; led to a tunnel and underground room
  • trap-door in NW corner of room; led to long tunnel which led to a room under the outer play yard *
• Classroom 2:
  • no trap-door
• Classroom 3:
  • trap door in NW corner led to tunnel going east to garage next door
  • trap-door in SW corner led to tunnel going east to garage next door
  • trap-door in NW [sic] wall
  • trap-door in middle of East wall; led to a tunnel to adjacent property
• Classroom 4:
  • trap-door in SW corner which led to 2 rooms under the school building
  • trap-door in NW corner which led to tunnel which led to a room under the outer play yard *
• Front office bathroom:
  • trap door under sink, leading to underground room
• Outer play yard:
  • underground room accessible by regular door (presumably flush with ground)
  • teacher and child dug a hole which led to a tunnel which led to a very large room (about half the size of a classroom)
  • ladder led to underground concrete room
• Front play yard:
  • trap-door in a playhouse floor; tunnel went West to underground room

The police investigators removed the floor tile in the areas where the trap doors were said to be located. None were ever found. It would have been a straightforward job to remove any trap doors, patch the concrete floor where the doors had been, and re-lay floor tiles. However, it is impossible to patch concrete without the edges being obvious to the eye. The outside playhouse had been mounted on a solid concrete slab. Police inspection of the concrete showed that "no trap door had ever been located there".

Note that all of the trap doors, and other entry routes were described as being in different locations. No two children described the same spot. If there had been tunnel entrances at McMartin, one would expect that a child would have remembered where it was located.

Conclusions

Other components of the children's testimony were clearly fantasy. For example, child molesters would hardly transport children to an abuse location by a hot air balloon, which is at the mercy of air currents. Even if by some miracle the balloon landed at the right location, the probability is extremely low that the winds would reverse direction in order to push the balloon back to the starting point. No child abuser with even a small amount of common sense would use a balloon to transport victims. We would assume that the trap-doors are like the balloons; they also exist only in fantasy.

We predict that investigators could select a few hundred children in any locality in North America; interview them about their preschool experiences, using the same manipulative, suggestive methods as were used by the CII; and find a dozen children who would describe trap-doors, tunnels and underground rooms. This study could be designed without references to sexual abuse and thus could be conducted without any possibility of harming the children.

The Tunnels

• 1985-MAR, Parents Search: On MAR-4, some parents of McMartin students searched the vacant lot to the West of the school. They dug a random series of holes a few feet deep where the children had described tunnels and underground rooms. No evidence was uncovered. About 4 dozen parents returned on MAR-15 with a backhoe. They dug a 60' trench running north to south beside the west wall of the McMartin building. They then dug 6 east-west trenches, each 30' long, starting from the original trench. They were searching for the remains of sacrificed animals and for any signs of underground rooms or tunnels. If any had existed, then they would have been easily found. The soil in the area is sandy and would have required elaborate shoring with wood or concrete to prevent cave-ins. No evidence was found.
• 1985-MAR, Archeological Search: A few days after the parent's search, an archaeological firm began to excavate. Scientific Resource Surveys, Inc. (SRS) had been hired by the DA's office. They brought children onto the property to help them search for trap doors, tunnels and rooms. They scanned the area using a "terrain conductivity meter", an instrument that detects the presence of underground caverns or changes in soil consistency by measuring the electrical conductivity of the earth. They detected two trash dumps, but no evidence of underground tunnels or rooms.
• 1990-APR, Parents Search: Some parents dug a hole 15' deep under the north-east section of the school building. This would be underneath Classroom 3, the region where three children described tunnels that led to the building next door. No tunnels (and presumably no trap-doors or rooms) were found.
• 1990-APR, Gunderson Search: Ted Gunderson coordinated a 38 day excavation project. He had been an FBI agent in charge of their Los Angeles office. Consulting archaeologist Dr. E.G. Stickel was hired. He had become famous by claiming that he had found 40,000 year old human artifacts in the Santa Clara Valley of Northern California. (Most archeologists believe that North and South America were devoid of human beings prior to about 11,000 years ago).

  After team members were interviewed by reporters, stories were published that a filled-in tunnel had been found or that an opening that could lead to tunnels was found. The team complained that District Attorney Reiner was ignoring their evidence; they would not release any of their findings because they did not trust the DA's investigators.

  A one-page report written by Dr. Stickel was distributed to reporters and spectators on 1990-JUL-27 - the day that the final verdicts were announced in court. They implied that a number of tunnels had been found. The longest went 45' from the south-west wall in an easterly direction, and 10' along the north wall. This description makes no sense to us, because the building is aligned in a north-south direction; there is no south-west wall. If that was the longest tunnel, then presumably there were others found. They also claim that one tunnel led to a 9' chamber. It is not known whether the dimension refers to its length, width or height.

  Dr. Stickel's final report (5) totals 186 pages. It contains many confusing points

  • a photograph is shown of a fast food wrapper with a 1982/3 copyright date. This is said to have been photographed in situ i.e. exactly as it was found, before it was removed from the earth. But the photograph does not show the wrapper in situ.
  • some photographs of soil variations are too dark to decipher
  • many artifacts allegedly recovered from the "tunnel" were also not photographed in situ
  • the report claims that they found one possible tunnel, one certain tunnel and one possible room. But all of these structures would have required elaborate shoring and bracing with wood or concrete walls. They would be quite obvious if excavated and not open to doubt
  • a consulting geologist, Dr. E.D. Michael frequently viewed the digs and concluded that "Generally, the results of my examinations were negative insofar as proving the existence of a tunnel"
  • Dr. Stickel concludes that Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) detected tunnels. But Spectrum, the firm that conducted the GPR scans, reported that they turned up no evidence of tunnels.
  • The tunnels and room would have had to be filled in about 1983. But the fill material consisted of pre-1940 trash, discarded before the building was constructed.
  • the physical effort fill in the cavities would take a very large number of trips with wheel barrows, at a time when the preschool was under observation. Nobody noticed anything.

Conclusions

The Secret Rooms

Conclusion

The Real Tunnels

References

1. John Earl, "The Dark Truth About the 'Dark Tunnels of McMartin'", Issues in Child Abuse Accusations, Vol. 7, #2, 1995 Spring, P. Institute for Psychological Therapies, 13200 Cannon City Blvd., Northfield, MN 55057. An expose on the McMartin day care centre underground tunnel myth. $15 USF; $20 USF (foreign).
2. Ellen Bass & Laura Davis, "The Courage to Heal, Third Edition, Harper Collins, New York NY, (1994). P. 520-1. Cites Dr. Sticley as finding tunnels.
3. Fukurai, et, "Sociologists in action: The McMartin sexual abuse case, litigation, justice, and mass hysteria..", Vol. 25, American Sociologist, 01-01-1994, P. 44. Contains an overview of the case and details of jury selection.
4. Paul & Shirley Eberle, "The Abuse of Innocence : The McMartin Preschool Trial", Prometheus Books (1993). ISBN: 0879758090. The authors attended the court sessions lasting over many years, and concluded that there was no case against the accused.
5. E.G. Stickel, "Archaeological Investigations of the McMartin Preschool Site, Manhattan Beach, California". Manhattan Tunnel Project (MTP), 1993. Introduction by R.C. Summitt. Paper is unpublished at this time.
6. R.C. Summitt, "The Dark Tunnels of McMartin", The Journal of Psycohistory, 21 (4); 1994-Spring, P. 5 - 13