Jeffrey R. MacDonald
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Jeffrey Robert MacDonald, M.D. (b. October 12, 1943), was tried and convicted in 1979 for the February 1970 murders of his pregnant wife and two daughters.
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[edit] The murders
In the early morning hours of February 17, 1970, a tragedy took place in the home of Jeffrey MacDonald, a Princeton-educated physician serving in the Green Berets (United States Army Captain) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. MacDonald's pregnant wife Colette and two young daughters, Kimberley (5) and Kristen (2), were brutally murdered. MacDonald claimed that the family was attacked in their home by intruders. The Government contended that MacDonald murdered his family in a rage, then staged the scene and claimed intruders had killed his family.
MacDonald claimed that on the night of the murders, he was awakened and attacked on his living room couch by four intruders. MacDonald said that one of the intruders was a woman with stringy blonde hair wearing a floppy hat and go-go boots. He further claimed that she was carrying a burning candle and chanting "Acid is groovy, kill the pigs". He also saw three males, one black male with Staff Sergeant (E-6) chevrons on his jacket. MacDonald claimed that he was confronted as he slept on his living room couch, and that he was stabbed and clubbed in the ensuing struggle, and was eventually knocked unconscious in the living room end of the hallway leading to the bedrooms. He also claimed that during the struggle, his pajama top was pulled over his head and remained around his wrists (which remained wound-free) as he warded off thrusts from the ice pick weapon.
When he came to, MacDonald claimed that the house was silent (records show, however, that he also claimed he heard Colette and Kristen "gurgling" when he came to) and he could no longer hear the screams of his wife and oldest daughter. His teeth were chattering and he felt he was going into shock. He went to his wife and tried to revive her, but she had been brutally murdered. He tried to resuscitate each child, but they also, were dead. MacDonald called Military Police for help, went back to his wife, and passed out again before the police arrived.
The Government contended that MacDonald got into an argument with his wife in the master bedroom, which escalated into a rage culminating in the murders of his wife and children, and that he subsequently staged the scene to make it appear that Charles Manson-type hippies had committed the crimes. This contention is based primarily on blood and fiber evidence. A major item of evidence was MacDonald's pajama top, which the government contended showed the following:
1. There was a profusion of pajama fibers found in the master bedroom, including fibers found under Colette's body, indicating that it was ripped in the master bedroom and prior to Colette's body coming to rest on the floor. There were also fibers found in the bedding of Kimberley and Kristen, and a bloodied fiber was found under the fingernail of Kristen. No pajama fibers were found in the living room where he claimed the top had been ripped during a struggle with intruders. 2 fibers were found at the end of the hallway nearer to the living room. 2. The top was stained with Colette's blood prior to it being ripped, contrary to MacDonald's assertion that he didn't come into contact with his wife's blood until after the top was ripped. 3. The top contained several neat, round holes, rather than the ripped, jagged holes expected if MacDonald had been warding off thrusts from the ice pick. Also, the holes in the pajama top matched the pattern of ice pick stab wounds in Colette's chest, indicating that MacDonald had stabbed his wife after placing the top on her chest.
Except for a minute spot of blood found in the hallway that was too small to definitively type, none of MacDonald's blood was found in the living room or hallway, where he claimed to have been attacked.
The Government contended that significant staging had occurred at the crime scene, which pointed to MacDonald as the killer, rather than intruders. Kimberley's brain serum and blood was found at the entrance of the master bedroom, indicating that she had come to the bedroom during the fight and was struck prior to being carried and placed back into her bed and stabbed. The blood evidence also showed that Colette had been in Kristen's room and was further attacked and bled there. This blood evidence, combined with blood evidence contained on bedding found in the master bedroom, indicated that Colette was placed on bedding and carried back to the master bedroom. The bedding contained blood impressions that matched MacDonald's and his wife's pajamas, indicating he had carried his wife to the master bedroom. Evidence also showed that upon exiting Kristen's room, he left exit footprints in Colette's blood. However, Colette's blood was not on the floor of that bedroom. Rather, he stepped in it as it had pooled into the bedspread he used to carry her back to the master bedroom.
MacDonald suffered relatively minor injuries that required no stitches or bandages, except for an incision wound to his right lung, which the government contended was self-inflicted.
All of the weapons used in the attack (ice pick, piece of wood used as club, and 2 knives) were identified as having originated from the MacDonald residence and were disposed of outside of the back door of the residence, with the exception of one of the knives, which was found in the master bedroom.
Three candle wax drippings, which were different from one another in chemical composition and contained household debris, indicating they were old drippings, were found in the apartment. None matched any candle in the MacDonald home.
Helena Stoeckley (1952-1983), a heavy user of drugs who had significant emotional problems, was identified early on as a potential suspect. Over the years, she made claims implicating herself in the murders, although at other times she denied involvement or claimed that she did not remember where she was the night of the murders due to her heavy drug use. A polygraph administered by CID in 1971 indicated that Stoeckley was being truthful when she stated she thought she may have had been in the house that night. Her confessions, especially one given in 1981, contain many statements that are contradicted by MacDonald's account (e.g., she states that upon arriving at the apartment, she and the other participants discussed obtaining drugs with Jeffrey MacDonald - there is nothing about this in MacDonald's statements of the crime) and the evidence (e.g., an individual she names as also participating in the murders was in fact in jail at the time of the murders).
[edit] Conviction
An initial army Article 32 hearing into Jeffrey MacDonald's possible guilt, overseen by Colonel Warren Rock, convened in July 1970 and ran through September. In November 1970, Colonel Rock issued a report recommending that charges be dismissed against MacDonald because they were "not true", and recommended that civilian authorities investigate Helena Stoeckley. However, the Army's Criminal Investigation Division (CID) believed that MacDonald was guilty, and the CID's official report cited "insufficient evidence".
MacDonald received an honorable discharge from the Army and returned to his home state of New York. He worked as a doctor, and also made media appearances, most notably the Dick Cavett Show, during which he made jokes and complained about the investigation and its focus on him as a suspect. In 1971, MacDonald moved to Long Beach, California, working as an emergency room physician. On 1 June 1972 the CID submitted a report of some 3,000 pages naming MacDonald as the chief suspect. The Justice Department had some 30 days to review the matter but did not decide whether or not to prosecute at that time. Between 1972 and 1974 the case remained trapped within the Justice Department as they struggled over whether or not to prosecute. Finally in July 1974 a decision was made to prosecute and a grand jury was convened in August 1974. The decision to prosecute had largely come about due to MacDonald's father-in law Alfred Kassab.
After studying the Article 32 transcripts, his father-in-law, Alfred Kassab (who was originally supportive of his son-in-law, believing him to be innocent), became convinced of his guilt and began a successful campaign to have him brought to trial. A grand jury in North Carolina indicted him on 24 January 1975 and within the hour MacDonald was arrested in California. On 31 January 1975 he was freed on $100,000 bail pending disposition of the charges. On 29 July 1975, District Judge Franklin T. Dupree Jr. denied MacDonald's double jeopardy and speedy trial arguments and allowed the trial date of August 18, 1975 to stand. On August 15 1975, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the trial and on 23 January 1976, a panel of that court, in a 2-1 split, ordered the indictment dismissed on speedy trial grounds. An appeal on behalf of the Government led to an 8-0 reinstatement of the indictment by the U.S. Supreme Court on 1 May 1978. On 22 October 1978, the Fourth Circuit rejected MacDonald's double jeopardy arguments and, on 19 March 1979, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review that decision.
The trial lasted July 16-August 29, 1979. MacDonald was convicted of one count of first-degree murder in the death of Kristen and two counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of Colette and Kimberley. He was given three life sentences, to be served consecutively. Immediately after the verdict MacDonald applied for bail pending the outcome of his appeal. On 7 September 1979, this application was rejected and an appeal on bail was further rejected by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on 20 November 1979.
[edit] Fatal Vision
Joe McGinniss was hired by MacDonald to write a book about the case. He was given unfettered access to MacDonald and the defense during the 1979 trial. MacDonald expected that the book would be about his innocence in the murders of his family. However, McGinniss' book, Fatal Vision, portrayed MacDonald as a narcissistic sociopath who was indeed guilty of killing his family. The book contains excerpts from court transcripts and sections entitled, "The Voice of Jeffrey MacDonald", which were based on tape recordings made by MacDonald following his conviction.
MacDonald subsequently sued McGinness for fraud based on the fact that McGinniss pretended to believe MacDonald innocent after he came to the conclusion that MacDonald was guilty, in order to continue MacDonald's cooperation with him. Detractors of the book refer to it as "fiction", however, have not provided examples of fraudulent facts contained in the book. After a trial, which resulted in a hung jury, McGinniss and MacDonald settled out of court for $325,000.
"The Journalist and the Murderer", written by Janet Malcolm and published in 1990, is about the relationship between journalists and their subjects, and explores the relationship between McGinness and MacDonald as an example of the author's thesis that, "EVERY journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible."
[edit] Post-Conviction Appeals
On July 29, 1980, a panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed MacDonald's conviction in a 2-1 split on the grounds that the delay in bringing him to trial violated his Sixth Amendment rights to a speedy trial. On August 22, 1980, MacDonald was freed on $100,000 bail. He returned to work at St. Mary's Medical Center in Long Beach, California as the Director of Emergency Medicine. His job had been held open during the year he was incarcerated (1979-80). On December 18, 1980, the Fourth Circuit Court split 5-5 to hear the case en banc and thus the panel's decision stood. On May 26, 1981, the United Stated Supreme Court accepted the case for consideration and on December 7, 1981, heard oral arguments. On March 31, 1982, they ruled 6-3 that MacDonald's rights to a speedy trial were not violated. Technically, only the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals could revoke MacDonald's bail, but Judge Franklin T. Dupree did so anyway. MacDonald filed a new motion to be freed on bail, which prosecutors had until 20 April 1982 to respond to. In the end the Fourth Circuit refused bail pending appeal. MacDonald's remaining points of appeal were heard on 9 June 1982 and his convictions were unanimously affirmed on 16 August 1982. A further appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was refused on January 10, 1983.
MacDonald's license to practice medicine was revoked in the summer of 1983. MacDonald by this point had been transferred to the Federal Correctional Institution at Bastrop Texas.
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 none of the doctors hired by the defense or who worked for the Army or government at Walter Reed Hospital, concluded that MacDonald was psychologically incapable of committing the murders. The jury also would have heard the results of an exam of MacDonald done by psychiatrists hired by the prosecution showing that MacDonald was a psychopath indeed capable of committing the murders. The courts have also ruled that the confessions of Helena Stoeckley were unreliable and at odds with the established facts of the case, and that her treatment at trial was correct. During trial, she was arrested under a material witness warrant and testified before the jury that she could not remember her activities on the evening of the murders due to substantial drug use; witnesses to whom she had confessed were not allowed to testify.
MacDonald supporters have claimed that the prosecution suppressed evidence in this case, but each attempt to prove these accusations has been rejected by the courts as not showing MacDonald's innocence or because the evidence claimed had indeed been available to the defense. Unidentified fingerprints and fibers found in the apartment were never matched to anyone known to have been in the house prior or after the murders. However, fingerprint exemplars of the children were not obtained and Colette's fingerprint exemplars were of poor quality, as they were taken subsequent to embalming. Also, MacDonald disposed of many of his family's belongings and many possible items were not available for comparison. Two unidentified 22" long synthetic hairs were found, but not pointed out specifically to the defense. The government contends that such hair was not from a wig and more likely came from the children's dolls. Also, the hairs differed from each other in composition and were found in a hairbrush, which points to the unlikely scenario that an intruder brushed their hair at the scene and was wearing more than one wig. A minute spot of blood that was either type 0 or type B (MacDonald's blood type) was found in the hallway. MacDonald supporters continue to insist that this was not disclosed to the defense, despite the existence of the trial transcripts online which clearly show this spot was indeed disclosed and discussed.
MacDonald is currently imprisoned in Maryland at a Federal prison. He has steadfastly maintained his innocence through the years and while eligible for parole in 1990, did not apply until 2004, thinking that applying would mean he must admit remorse for crimes he did not commit. But he finally did apply, at the urging of his wife and attorneys, and had a hearing on May 10, 2005. Parole was denied, with the recommendation that 15 more years be served before another parole hearing, or 2 years if new circumstances were to arise in the meantime.
DNA test results released March 10, 2006, showed that neither Stoeckley's nor Mitchell's nor any other "intruder's" DNA matched that in any of the 15 exhibits allowed by the judge (out of 50 the defense wanted tested). A hair found under the fingernail of Kristen MacDonald, age two, with root intact, remains unidentified (but a fiber also found in her nail scrapings was matched to the pajamas of Jeffrey MacDonald). The results also showed that the hair on the open palm of Colette's hand did not match MacDonald microscopically, was DNA tested and found to be his limb hair with no root. In her other palm was one of Colette's own hairs. Hairs found in the bedding were matched to the MacDonald family. A judicial response to the DNA results is pending.
MacDonald was granted leave to file his 4th appeal on January 12th, 2006. This latest appeal is based on the recent claims of Jimmy Britt, a retired United States Marshal who worked as such during the trial. Britt claims that he heard a material witness in the case, Helena Stoeckley, admit to the prosecutor of the case, James Blackburn, that she was present at the MacDonald residence at the time of the murders. Not disclosing such admissions to the defense would be a violation of discovery. Britt also claims that he heard James Blackburn threaten Helena Stoeckley with prosecution if she testified to her involvement in the murders at the trial. MacDonald has requested to expand the appeal to include all the evidence amassed at trial, and the recently completed DNA results. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals granted MacDonald's motion for a successive habeas petition and remanded the matter back to the District Court Eastern Division for a decision. The government denies the Britt allegation and contends that even if the allegations are true, they would not have impacted the finding of guilty by the jury.
[edit] References
- McGinniss, Joe. Fatal Vision. Signet, 1984. ISBN 0451165667
- Bost, Fred and Potter, Jerry. Fatal Justice: Reinvestigating the MacDonald Murders. W.W. Norton, 1995. ISBN 0393030008
- Malcolm, Janet. The Journalist and the Murderer. Vintage, 1990. ISBN 0679731830
[edit] External links
- The Jeffrey MacDonald Case This website is maintained by friends and family of Jeffrey MacDonald
- The Jeffrey MacDonald Information Site This website presents trial transcripts, grand jury testimonies, depositions, declarations, CID reports, FBI reports, psychological and psychiatric evaluations and other documents pertaining to the case.
- Crime & Justice / Jeffrey MacDonald This site is an open message board for discussion about the case.
