FBI Data Dump Confirms McMartin Tunnels?

November 3, 2019March 26, 2020 Joe Boyer

The FBI recently released documents related to a child trafficking network called The Finders. They included two pages that may confirm rumors of a secret underground tunnel network beneath McMartin preschool in the ’80s.

On Friday October 25, 2019 the FBI released over 300 pages about The Finders, a child trafficking network with alleged CIA ties. Pages 48 and 49 talk about secret tunnels found underneath McMartin preschool in Los Angeles.

McMartin preschool was the subject of one of the country’s longest and most expensive criminal trials. It happened in the 80s when hundreds of children accused teachers at the school of sexually abusing them. The accusations got more and more bizarre as kids started talking about satanic rituals, witnessing animals being mutilated, and being taken into secret underground tunnels underneath the school which lead to other places. Children named professional football players, baseball players, politicians and actors as perpetrators

A group of parents teamed up with FBI agent Ted Gunderson to go searching for the tunnels. Gunderson was the Senior Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Los Angeles Division at the time. He hired UCLA PhD archeologist Gary E Stickel for the job. They got permission from the new owners of the building and began digging. Page 49 of the FBI release is from Gunderson and an archeologist he hired. It describes preliminary findings on the tunnels, including:

Multiple tunnels
A tree root cut in such a way that it was determined to have happened about 5 years prior
A Disney bag with “copyright 1982” written on it.
A plate with a pentagram on it, hand drawn by an adult
No doorknobs on Classroom 3, only a deadbolt lock. This was one of the classrooms above a tunnel
Fire alarm switches that didn’t connect to a fire station, but was used as an alert system within the school
More than 2000 artifacts under the school floor, including over 100 animal bones

Page 48 shows a map of the school with two tunnel entrances.

Without enough evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the McMartin trial lead to no convictions. Many of the jurors were convinced that children were abused at the school, but couldn’t prove it.

Gunderson and Stickel later did a full, nearly 200 page scientific report. Stickel used ground penetrating radar and concluded that “The project determined the existence of two extensive tunnel complexes beneath the concrete floor of the McMartin Preschool building.”

The official legacy of the case is that the children were coerced into making false accusations, leading to an unjustified satanic moral panic. Debunkers say the tunnels never existed, they were just trash pits from earlier tenants, and the recent artifacts must have been dragged in by rodents.

Why did the FBI include these pages in their release about the Finders? Is there a connection between the school and the trafficking network? Does their official release validate the conclusions of Ted Gunderson and Gary Stickel? Let us know what you think, like share subscribe and stay strange

US Customs report on The Finders (PDF)