Indictment: The McMartin Trial

Movie plot difficult to believe but true

HENRY THOMAS plays an outcast wrongly accused of child molestation in "Indictment: The McMartin Trial."

You will find the plot of “Indictment: The McMartin Trial” difficult to believe.
Imagine, a day care center where the children are routinely molested, where animals are killed in front of the children.
A seemingly upright family, the oldest in her 70s, are arrested amidst the bright lights of television and hauled into court.
There is so much hatred toward this family, the day care is burned. There are reports at other day care centers of molestation and cruelty.
The case lasts seven years and costs Los Angeles County $13 million. And the whole story is a hoax.
Yes, hard to believe. But sadly, it is true.
This movie stars James Woods as Danny Davis, an attorney who agrees to take the unpopular case. Wife and others are disturbed he would agree to represent such perverts, but Danny says they deserve a defense like anyone else.
The defendants include Henry Thomas, who you may remember as the little boy in “E.T.” He is Ray Buckey, a reclusive young man who lives with his mother and likes to look at nude photos of women and relieve himself.
When authorities find cut up nude photos he tries to flush down the toilet, it is a sure sign he is guilty of molesting kids.
Lolita Davidovich plays Kee McFarlane, a self-proclaimed social worker without any training. She is alerted to possible child abuse after a woman whose child is at the center reports her son has been sexually abused.
McFarlane records each of the sessions she has with the children. She uses puppets to make the interviews less traumatic for the kids.
The recordings show at first the children deny they were molested. But slowly, the McFarlane character tires them out. Her puppets ask the children’s puppets if they won’t “join” the others and agree they were molested. The children, wishing to please the woman, finally agree they were molested.
Now the prosecutors don’t view all of the tapes. McFarlane writes down the VCR numbers so they can forward to the parts where the kids describe being “molested.”
This case goes on for years and elderly day care owner must submit to sick cavity searches in prison. Yet so much about the children’s stories don’t jive.
First off, they say they were molested in closets. But there are no closets.
The Thomas character, who spends more time in prison than any person in California in history without being convicted, is accused of actions before he even worked at the center. That didn’t stop the case from being prosecuted.
The children, used to lying, sit on the witness stand and tell bizarre stories. One child says they were taken to a church where animals were killed on the altar and the children were molested. But a priest at the church says the doors are always locked. There is no way anyone can bring children there and kill animals.
One child describes being molested in a carwash, but then changes his story. They were all taken to the airport and placed on a plane so they could be molested. But the plane doesn’t leave the ground.
The Woods character learns the mother who initially filed charges of molestation later says the child’s father also molested the boy, as did a neighbor and finally her brother. She eventually ends up in a mental institution. But the prosecutor maintains she went crazy AFTER making the initial charges against the day care center.
Yes, lives are ruined and money wasted. It is a compelling but so sad of a story.
You can watch it unfold over 135 minutes on DVD. Prepare to be appalled.

INDICTMENT: THE McMARTIN TRIAL • Directed by Mick Jackson • Written by Abby Mann and Myra Mann • Runtime: 135 minutes • Rated R for graphic language and disturbing visuals • 3 1/2 stars out of 4