They Must Be Monsters: A Modern-Day Witch Hunt The untold story behind the McMartin phenomenon: the longest most expensive criminal case in U.S. history

It was somewhat delusional: the idea that we two undergrads would leave college to chase the mystery behind the McMartin Preschool case a criminal proceeding that had steadily become the longest costliest in United States history. It was the epitome of naiveté--but we were too green to see it.Back then in 1987 as we examined the case and the community of Manhattan Beach that gave it life we saw an absence of blunt journalism; that a false narrative had spun tragically out of control. No one it seemed was ready to face up to what wed done.To the general public the story was uniquely grotesque--a conspiracy of adults whod sexually abused hundreds of preschool kids as deplorable as any crime had ever been.But if as some argued the case was a hoax then it was an American tragedy of monumental proportion where young children were being used and exploited as weapons to persecute innocent citizens all of it orchestrated by the very people--parents prosecutors and clinical professionals--whod so nobly claimed they were out to protect them.From our perspective it was not so much a story about child molestation but a remarkable account of a community gone mad a historical event that had been hopelessly misunderstood and thus misreported.And so for three years we kept going following one lead to the next until the day we finally got our hands on the truth.By doing so its fair to say we became experts on the events of Manhattan Beach the two people uniquely qualified to write They Must Be Monsters. Its not because we took a course or did an abundance of research or sat through the trial--frankly we did all of those things--but because we took it further than anyone else. We went there. We lived it.Having sat on this information for nearly three decades were ready to go on the record to reconcile this forgotten calamity. Were doing it for ourselves for the people who suffered and most importantly for our great society of fair-minded citizens who never knew that something so unjust had actually occurred in modern America.