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The Death Row Baseball Team and Other Odd Episodes in History

Khalid Elhassan May 18, 2020 34 min

Death Row All Stars: A Story of Baseball, Corruption, and Murder - State Penitentiary — Alston's All Stars. Daily Mail

6. Incompetence and Prejudice Led to Tragedy

Ray Buckey and his mother Peggy McMartin at their trial. How Stuff Works

Tales of the goings-on in the McMartin preschool kept growing ever more bizarre. So social workers were brought in to gather more information. Between incompetence and leading questions, the children’s accusations grew steadily wilder and weirder. In addition to being molested by Ray Buckey and his mother Peggy McMartin, the children alleged satanic rites, during which they were forced to drink the blood of a baby that was sacrificed in church.

The kids also said that they saw witches fly, and that they had been abused in a hot air balloon and in (nonexistent) tunnels beneath the preschool. One child even claimed to have been sexually molested by actor Chuck Norris. Other children added that, after being abused in secret rooms, they were flushed down toilets, then cleaned up and presented to their parents.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.