McMartin Parents Spur Action by Authorities : Officials Search Lot for Abuse Evidence

Specialists from the sheriff’s crime lab took over on Sunday the investigation of a vacant lot in Manhattan Beach where children from the McMartin Pre-School said they saw animals killed and buried to frighten the children into silence.

Parents of children who attended the school--whose founder and staff members are the subjects of a preliminary hearing on 208 counts of alleged molestation--used an earthmover Saturday to search for evidence supporting the youngsters’ stories.

The parents said they decided to do their own digging when they got no response from the police, Sheriff’s Department and district attorney’s office.

They found a few discarded toys and fragments of a turtle shell, which they turned over to investigators.

They called their efforts a success nonetheless.

‘Taking an Interest’

“We finally got a response,” said Arvin Collins, two of whose children formerly attended the McMartin School.

“For a month,” he said, “we had been getting the runaround from the Manhattan Beach police, from the sheriff and from the district attorney. Now, they’re finally taking an interest.”

As he spoke, a sheriff’s deputy and four crime lab experts were at work with shovels in the vacant lot. During the day Sunday, they recovered more fragments of tortoise shell and what appeared to be several animal bones.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Roger Gunson declined to discuss the significance of these finds but acknowledged that the parents’ actions had forced a response from his office.

“They certainly did,” he said. “When they called and told us what they had done, we had to come out here in the middle of the night and secure this area instead of coming in with the experts we would have liked.”

Passageways Sought

“The parents,” he added, “want things done right now, and those things can’t always be done.”

Collins, however, was not satisfied.

His children, he said, had told a therapist of underground passageways in the field. “We haven’t found the passageways yet,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

And another of the McMartin parents expressed equal confidence.

“My son,” said Joe Cipolla, “told me he witnessed animal sacrifices and devil worship here, and right over there (Cipolla indicated an avocado tree in the vacant lot) is where he said the devil lived.”