The McMartin Preschool Satanic-abuse case

Record summary

Allegations against staff at McMartin Preschool in California began in 1983 and produced one of the longest and most expensive criminal proceedings in U.S. history. Investigators and interviewers elicited increasingly elaborate claims of tunnels, ritual abuse, and occult activity from children, while prosecutors struggled to establish corroborating evidence. The case is valuable for comparing folklore motifs, suggestive questioning, childcare fears, and courtroom standards. Charges were ultimately dismissed or ended in acquittals, and no evidence established a Satanic cult. The episode remains central to scholarship on moral panics and false-memory dynamics.