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Jeffrey MacDonald

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Dr. Jeffrey Robert MacDonald (Born: October 12, 1943) a former Green Beret in the U.S. Army, who was tried and convicted in 1979 for the murder of his pregnant wife and two daughters.

The murders

The murders took place at Fort Bragg, North Carolina in the early morning hours of February 17, 1970 while MacDonald was a Doctor with the Green Beret's (United States Army Captain).

Conviction

MacDonald claimed that on the night of the murders, he was attacked on his living room couch by four intruders who also murdered his family. Despite the massive injuries to the rest of his family, MacDonald himself suffered few injuries at all, save for one serious stab wound which punctured his right lung, and said that when washed his hands and checked himself in the bathroom mirror (before making sure that help was on the way) "he did not even have a cut or anything". After studying the Article 32 transcripts, his father-in-law, Alfred Kassab, became convinced of his guilt and began a successful campaign to have him brought to trial. A grand jury in North Carolina indicted him in 1975 and after four years he was brought back to North Carolina to stand trial. The trial lasted July 16-August 29, 1979 where he was convicted of one count of first-degree and two counts of second-degree murder. He was given three life sentences, to be served consecutively.

Following his conviction MacDonald appealed to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. On 29 July 1980 the Fourth Circuit ruled 2-1 that MacDonald's right to a speedy trial had been violated and on 22 August 1980 he was freed on bail. An appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the government led to a reinstatement of the conviction on 31 March 1982 and MacDonald was returned to prison.

Analysis of the case

Publications

Fatal Vision

A best selling book was written about the case called Fatal Vision by Joe McGinnis. The book is made up almost entirely of direct quotations from trial and grand jury transcripts, the signed statements of witnesses, and Jeffrey MacDonald's own words. In Fatal Vision, the author suggested that MacDonald killed his family in a fit of psychotic rage due to taking amphetamines. Although this was only a theory, there are items of evidence to support it, including but not limited to MacDonald's own admission that he was using amphetamines,(the defense claims that he was tested for drug use, however he was not tested for the presence of amphetamines, as the equipment available to CID was not capable of performing this test) and his telling Dr. Sadoff that it was a "weird coincidence" that his brother, Jay, had also suffered a psychotic break with reality after abusing amphetamines.

Fatal Justice

In 1993, another book about the MacDonald case entitled Fatal Justice appeared. The authors claimed that psychiatrists, both military and civilian, had examined MacDonald before the Army's Article 32 hearing in 1970 and said he was sane and normal. However, examination of the facts shows that all of the doctors at Walter Reed Hospital concluded that MacDonald indeed was completely capable of committing these horrific crimes, and only one doctor -- who was hired by the defense -- disagreed. The authors also told of eyewitnesses who claimed to have seen one of the intruders MacDonald had described. The "Fire Island Four," a group whom MacDonald had previously come in contact with in an innocent way long before the murders, were most likely the persons MacDonald drew upon when making up his descriptions of the so-called "intruders." It was implied that no bloodstains were put on MacDonald's pajama top before it was torn, yet Stombaugh's (FBI) testimony at trial proved that despite MacDonald's story of waking in the hallway after the attack, with his pajama top still wrapped around his wrists, the pajama top was stained with Colette's blood before it was torn.

Potter and Bost also make some mention of gloves found in the apartment, implying that these were worn by "intruders." These gloves were, in fact, oven mitts.

Details

The authors also mentioned that the military police and Criminal Investigation Division (CID) at Fort Bragg had made some errors while investigating the case. A second reinvestigation occurred. Despite meticulous investigation, no evidence was found to support MacDonald's account of intruders, and the evidence that was studied by the CID and FBI pointed directly to Jeffrey MacDonald as the sole murderer.

MacDonald lost all of his appeals, and the courts ruled that the judge at the original trial, Judge Franklin Dupree, had acted correctly when he refused to let the jury see a transcript of the Article 32 military hearing, and, because this was not an insanity trial, had also acted properly in not allowing the jurors to hear any of the psychiatric testimony. Had he done so, the jurors would have learned that all of the doctors at Walter Reed, with the sole exception of Sadoff who was hired by the defense, concluded that MacDonald most certainly could have committed these crimes.

MacDonald had said that one of the intruders was a woman who was carrying a burning candle and chanting "Acid is groovy, kill the pigs." Three candle wax drippings, which were different from one another in chemical composition, were found in the apartment. Colette was known to be fond of burning candles. Some of the wax was found to be consistent with birthday-candle wax; other wax drippings were studied and found to be old and filled with household debris. Helena Stoeckley (1942-1983), a heavy user of drugs whom the defense fastened upon as one of the possible "intruders," confessed and recanted many times, and at one point said that MacDonald himself committed the murders. Most interesting with regard to the wax drippings were that Stoeckley claimed that her candle dripped blood, not wax.

One of the most damaging pieces of evidence against MacDonald was the fact that, despite his story of using his pajama top to fend off frenzied, icepick-and-knife wielding "intruders," the punctures in MacDonald's pajama top were found to be perfectly round, with no tearing, indicating that they were placed in the top while the top was stationary. Moreover, MacDonald claimed that he was wearing his pajama top when he went to sleep and woke to find it still on his body, wrapped around his wrists, yet holes in the pajama top matched holes in Colette's chest. MacDonald also claimed that he had wakened to the sounds of his wife and one daughter screaming, and that at that exact time, he was attacked by three of the intruders each repectivly armed with a club, ice pick and knife. Yet it was shown at trial that the weapons with which he claimed to have been attacked were, at the same point in time, being against his family in other rooms. Additionally, a bloody hair of Colette's was found entwined with a fiber from MacDonald's pajama top, and another fiber from his pajama top was found under his youngest daughter's fingernail.

MacDonald supporters have claimed that the prosecution suppressed evidence in this case, but the courts ruled that no suppression had taken place. Unidentified fingerprints and fibers found in the apartment amounted to nothing, since prints and hair samples of the children were never taken, and since every home has many fibers, hairs and fingerprints that belong to no one and no item in the house. Moreover, Stoeckley's fingerprints and hair samples were obtained, matched to the prints and hairs found in the house, and were found not to match.

He is currently imprisoned in Maryland at a Federal prison. He has steadfastly maintained through the years that he would not ask for parole because it would mean he must admit remorse to the parole board. But he finally did apply and had a hearing on May 10, 2005. Parole was denied, with the recommendation that 15 more years be served before another parole hearing.

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