About jeffrey macdonald
Jeffrey MacDonald, age 70, was born in Queens, New York. He went to Patchogue High School, where he was voted "Most Popular" and "Most Likely to Succeed," and moved on to Princeton University with a scholarship. He had continued his relationship with his high school girlfriend, Colette Stevenson, while they both attended college. The summer after they completed their sophomore years Colette got pregnant, and married shortly after that. Their first daughter, Kimberley, was then born on April 18th of 1964. Jeffrey MacDonald finished his third year at Princeton before he was accepted to Northwestern University Medical School, moving his family to Chicago. Their second child, Kristen, was born on May 8th 1967, and Jeffrey MacDonald finished medical school followed by an internship at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. Two years later he joined the Army and moved to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, which is where his story truly begins.
the fatalities
On the night of February 17th 1970 in Fort Bragg, Colette MacDonald, Jeffrey MacDonald’s pregnant wife, and their two children were brutally murdered. It was around 3:42 A.M. when Jeffrey MacDonald called the emergency services informing them that his wife and children had been injured by four intruders. Those intruders included a black man, two white men, and a white woman wearing a blonde wig. Colette MacDonald, age 26 at the time, was found in the master bedroom, sprawled out onto the floor on her back in her pink pajamas, and her face completely smashed. Laying across her chest was her husband’s blue pajama top. Next to her was Jeffrey MacDonald, who was resting on her chest, with his arm around her neck. In another room was Kimberley MacDonald, age five, laying on her left side with her covers pulled up to her shoulders and tucked under her. She was beaten to the point where there was a bone protruding through her cheek and multiple stab wounds in her neck. On the opposite side of the wall was Kristen’s room, where she was found, at two years old, also laying on her left side with her left arm outstretched and an almost completely empty bottle laying next to her mouth. Unlike Kimberly and Colette, Kristen was not marked at all on the face, but instead was stabbed multiple times in the chest and back. But with all of the members, except for Jeffrey, all of the women in the family were soaked in their own blood with pools on their blood dripping on the floor in a pool enough to constitute a pothole on a rainy day. Written above the backboard in the master bedroom in Colette MacDonald’s blood was the word “PIG.” Jeffrey MacDonald had said he heard the woman saying ‘Acid is groovy...Kill the pigs.’ Before MacDonald was awakened by the voice of his wife crying for help, he had fallen asleep on the couch watching T.V. Other than hearing his wife crying for help, Jeffrey was awakened to three men standing above him. Shortly after MacDonald was awakened, he was attacked by the black man with a club Jeffrey MacDonald described as a wooden baseball bat. During the attack, Jeffrey had said that he somehow managed to bring his pajama top above his head and wrapped it around his hand to fight off the attackers. After he was done fighting the attackers he went to the master bedroom to check on his wife, where he found her not breathing on the floor. After MacDonald tried reviving his wife, he laid his pajama top on top of her and went to check on his kids where he found them also lifeless and covered in their own blood.
guilty..?
A very popular theory on how the night of February 17th 1970, is that Jeffrey MacDonald was hyped up on drugs and very little sleep when he started fighting with his wife and things turned deadly. The medicine prescribed to MacDonald at the time was amphetamine, previously considered harmless and meant for wight loss. The side affects of his assumed dosage were insomnia, irritability, and hallucinations. Not to mention the fact that during the month of January, Jeffrey MacDonald worked every night at one hospital, weekends at another, applied for a third moonlighting post, and worked out with the boxing team. On the days before the murders MacDonald had stood a 24 hour shift, worked a day in the office, played basketball, and stayed up late, making him susceptible of irritability and hallucinations.
In one of the trials Jeffrey MacDonald had admitted to having affairs, which led investigators to believe that him and his wife could have been fighting about the affairs when the argument got really heated and MacDonald lost control. He swung the chunk of wood, busting Colette's head, and continued to attack her. Daughter Kimberley heard her parents fighting and came out of her room to see what was going on and saw her mom being attacked, so she tried to go help her mother but instead was also hit by wood, splattering her brains on the wall in the master bedroom. After realizing what MacDonald had done, he decided he had to finish what he had started and stabbed each of his daughters and wife to death. When he stabbed his wife he was so devastated with himself that he had to put his pajama top over her so that he wasn't looking right at her, leaving holes in the pajama top from the ice pick. He then went to his kitchen and took latex gloves from the cabinet so that he could imitate the writing of "PIG" of the wall, like in the Manson murders. He had supposedly gotten this idea from the Esquire magazine sitting on his coffee table in the living room. Once he finished posing the murders he went into the bathroom and proceeded to stab himself in precise spots knowing that he would only have minor injuries compared to the rest of his family so that he still lived, but enough damage so that it looked like he was also attacked.
The biggest piece of evidence against Jeffrey MacDonald was his pajama top, presented in court by the prosecutors Brian Murtagh and James Blackburn, and FBI analyst Paul Stombaugh. Strombaugh came to court and stated that MacDonald's claim to have wrapped his pajama top around his arm to fight off the intruders is false because all forty-eight holes in the pajama top made by the ice pick were completely cylindrical, meaning that the top couldn't have been moving and must have been completely stationary when the holes were made. The prosecutors, Murtagh and Blackburn, also staged a reenactment of what Jeffrey MacDonald described as the attack he faced. Murtagh wrapped a pajama top around his hand and proceeded to try to block the blows from Blackburn. From this reenactment two strong points were made. First, Murtagh had received a small wound on his arm from this small staged fight, and MacDonald did not have a single scratch on his arms. Second, all the holes made from that fight n the pajama top were jagged and not perfectly cylindrical. Strombaugh then showed the jury that if he folded to pajama top in a specific way all forty-eight of the holes matched up to be only twenty-one blows from the ice pick, exactly the number of stab wounds Colette MacDonald had. With this single piece of evidence the prosecution managed to convince the jury that Jeffrey MacDonald was in fact guilty.
In one of the trials Jeffrey MacDonald had admitted to having affairs, which led investigators to believe that him and his wife could have been fighting about the affairs when the argument got really heated and MacDonald lost control. He swung the chunk of wood, busting Colette's head, and continued to attack her. Daughter Kimberley heard her parents fighting and came out of her room to see what was going on and saw her mom being attacked, so she tried to go help her mother but instead was also hit by wood, splattering her brains on the wall in the master bedroom. After realizing what MacDonald had done, he decided he had to finish what he had started and stabbed each of his daughters and wife to death. When he stabbed his wife he was so devastated with himself that he had to put his pajama top over her so that he wasn't looking right at her, leaving holes in the pajama top from the ice pick. He then went to his kitchen and took latex gloves from the cabinet so that he could imitate the writing of "PIG" of the wall, like in the Manson murders. He had supposedly gotten this idea from the Esquire magazine sitting on his coffee table in the living room. Once he finished posing the murders he went into the bathroom and proceeded to stab himself in precise spots knowing that he would only have minor injuries compared to the rest of his family so that he still lived, but enough damage so that it looked like he was also attacked.
The biggest piece of evidence against Jeffrey MacDonald was his pajama top, presented in court by the prosecutors Brian Murtagh and James Blackburn, and FBI analyst Paul Stombaugh. Strombaugh came to court and stated that MacDonald's claim to have wrapped his pajama top around his arm to fight off the intruders is false because all forty-eight holes in the pajama top made by the ice pick were completely cylindrical, meaning that the top couldn't have been moving and must have been completely stationary when the holes were made. The prosecutors, Murtagh and Blackburn, also staged a reenactment of what Jeffrey MacDonald described as the attack he faced. Murtagh wrapped a pajama top around his hand and proceeded to try to block the blows from Blackburn. From this reenactment two strong points were made. First, Murtagh had received a small wound on his arm from this small staged fight, and MacDonald did not have a single scratch on his arms. Second, all the holes made from that fight n the pajama top were jagged and not perfectly cylindrical. Strombaugh then showed the jury that if he folded to pajama top in a specific way all forty-eight of the holes matched up to be only twenty-one blows from the ice pick, exactly the number of stab wounds Colette MacDonald had. With this single piece of evidence the prosecution managed to convince the jury that Jeffrey MacDonald was in fact guilty.
..or innocent?
One of the major topics of that time were the Manson murders that recently occurred and were covered in Esquire magazine, that Jeffrey MacDonald had been prescribed to and had sitting on his coffee table. In the article it said that the Tate family was attacked by a gang of hippies and had "PIG" scrawled on the wall in blood. When Jeffrey MacDonald gave his side of the story he said that a group of four hippies, including a long blonde haired woman wearing a large floppy hat, two white men, and a black man, attacked his family. While the MPs (military police) were on their way to the house responding to the emergency call they passed a women wearing boots and a large floppy hat with blonde hair and holding a candle on the corner of the street. They found it very odd that she was out at this time of night, especially considering the fact that it was raining, but did not stop to investigate because they needed to get to Jeffrey MacDonald's house as soon as possible. Even though this woman was spotted the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) officers told the FBI to wind down the search for these hippies because they believed that most of the evidence pointed to Jeffrey MacDonald as the guilty party in the murders.
It is not known why the CID was so sure that MacDonald was guilty seeming that their handling of the evidence was disastrous. During the initial arrival at the crime scene a dozen MPs had walked to and from the jeep and the house in the mud from the rain, walking from room to room leaving marks. Furniture in the house had been moved, telephones replaced, surfaces wiped clean, and someone had pocketed Jeffrey MacDonald's wallet. Some of the more important pieces of evidence were destroyed or went missing, such as MacDonald's pajama bottoms being burned by the hospital, and skin from under Colette's fingernail and a blue pajama thread from under Kristen's fingernail disappearing. Over fifty of the photographs that the fingerprint expert had taken were too blurry to recognize anything and use them for evidence. So he went back to retake these photographs only to find out that the moisture in the air had made 80% of the fingerprints useless. The prosecution had tried to say that Jeffrey MacDonald was lying when he said that he layed his pajama top on top of Colette because a blue thread was found underneath her body, but it was later stated that one of the responding MPs rolled over Colette's body when he got to the crime scene, possibly transferring a blue thread under her body. So much evidence had been compromised that it was extremely hard to use anything against Jeffrey MacDonald in court.
The biggest piece of evidence that the defense had to prove MacDonald's innocence was Helena Stoeckley's confession to the murders. Helena Stoeckley was the woman in the floppy hat wearing a blonde wig at the murders. Before she died in 1983 she said that the break in had originally started as a visit to scare Jeffrey MacDonald because he was one of the officers working to put away drug users instead of helping them. Before the trials Stoeckley had admitted to the murders, but when she was on the stand in court she denied ever saying she had a part in the murders. Below is an interview with Helena Stoeckley where she continues to go back and forth on her story not keeping to one consistent confession of what she was doing that night and who could have been involved. A lot of the information she presents is contradicting and includes an accidental confession of the murders.
It is not known why the CID was so sure that MacDonald was guilty seeming that their handling of the evidence was disastrous. During the initial arrival at the crime scene a dozen MPs had walked to and from the jeep and the house in the mud from the rain, walking from room to room leaving marks. Furniture in the house had been moved, telephones replaced, surfaces wiped clean, and someone had pocketed Jeffrey MacDonald's wallet. Some of the more important pieces of evidence were destroyed or went missing, such as MacDonald's pajama bottoms being burned by the hospital, and skin from under Colette's fingernail and a blue pajama thread from under Kristen's fingernail disappearing. Over fifty of the photographs that the fingerprint expert had taken were too blurry to recognize anything and use them for evidence. So he went back to retake these photographs only to find out that the moisture in the air had made 80% of the fingerprints useless. The prosecution had tried to say that Jeffrey MacDonald was lying when he said that he layed his pajama top on top of Colette because a blue thread was found underneath her body, but it was later stated that one of the responding MPs rolled over Colette's body when he got to the crime scene, possibly transferring a blue thread under her body. So much evidence had been compromised that it was extremely hard to use anything against Jeffrey MacDonald in court.
The biggest piece of evidence that the defense had to prove MacDonald's innocence was Helena Stoeckley's confession to the murders. Helena Stoeckley was the woman in the floppy hat wearing a blonde wig at the murders. Before she died in 1983 she said that the break in had originally started as a visit to scare Jeffrey MacDonald because he was one of the officers working to put away drug users instead of helping them. Before the trials Stoeckley had admitted to the murders, but when she was on the stand in court she denied ever saying she had a part in the murders. Below is an interview with Helena Stoeckley where she continues to go back and forth on her story not keeping to one consistent confession of what she was doing that night and who could have been involved. A lot of the information she presents is contradicting and includes an accidental confession of the murders.
One of her neighbors even recalled that on the night of the murders Stoeckley returned to her house around 4 a.m. in her Mustang with "two or three raucous men," and that on the day of the funerals for the MacDonald family she wore black and draped wreaths from her porch.
It is assumed that the army is trying to protect Helena Stoeckley because she is the daughter of a retired colonel, even though she was well known as a junkie, instead of trying to help their highly skilled doctor, Jeffrey MacDonald.
It is assumed that the army is trying to protect Helena Stoeckley because she is the daughter of a retired colonel, even though she was well known as a junkie, instead of trying to help their highly skilled doctor, Jeffrey MacDonald.
my opinion
Being a very close friend of Colette MacDonald since high school you would think that I would jump on the bandwagon that her husband did it and he deserves justice, right? Wrong. I have known the MacDonald's for so long, and was even a bridesmaid in their wedding, to know that Jeffrey would never do this to his family. He loved his wife and daughters very much, and was excited to be welcoming his first son into the world very soon. Yes him and his wife fought, but what married couple doesn't? They were very good working through their arguments and were happier than ever before the accident. I may have a biased opinion because I knew the family, but looking at the evidence I still do not believe that Jeffrey MacDonald killed his family. There is not enough evidence, and so much of it was corrupted, that you could not properly prosecute someone with that kind of evidence. It is only right that he shouldn't be serving time for a crime that he did not commit, but that is only my opinion. What is yours?
references
Cyriax, O. (2009). MacDonald, Dr. Jeffrey (1944-). In Encyclopedia Of Crime. 9pp.
277-279). Woodstock, NY: Encyclopedia of Crime. Retrieved April 15th 2014,
from web.ebscohost.com
Evans, C. (2003). A question of evidence: A casebook of great forensic controversies,
from Napoleon to O.J. Hoboken, N.J.: J. Wiley & Sons.
Greene, E. (1990, October). Media effects on jurors. Laws and Human Behavior,
14(5), 439-450. Retrieved from http://jstor.org/stable/1393934
Kinnell, H. G. (2000, December 30). Serial homicide by doctors: Shipman in
perspective. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 321(7276), 1594-1597. Retrieved
from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25226531
Kornstein, D.J. (1989). twisted vision: Janet Malcolm's upside down view of the “fatal
vision case”. Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature, 1(2), 127-156.
doi:10.2307.743567
McGinniss, J. (1983). Fatal vision. Canada: General Publishing Co. Limited, Toronto.
Moore, C. E. (1982). Sixth amendment -- limited protection against excessive
prosecutorial delay. Journal Of Criminal Law & Criminology, 73(4), 1491-1506.
Retrieved from web.a.ebscohost.com
Oliver, W. M. (2002). Teaching criminal investigation/criminalistics with fatal
vision/fatal justice. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 13(1), 129. Retrieved
from web.a.ebscohost.com
Rowling, J. K. (2003, July). Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Broadway, NY:
Arthur A. Levine Books.
"Sirius Black." IMDb. IMDb.com, 2014. Web. 18 Apr. 2014.
United States of America v. Jeffrey R. MacDonald. 531 F.2d 196. (1976).
United States of America v. Jeffrey R. MacDonald. 688 F.2d 224. (1982).
United States v. MacDonald. 435 U.S. 850. (1978).
United States v. MacDonald. 456 U.S. 1. (1982).
University of Pennsylvania Law Review, The. (1983, March). The corroboration
requirement of federal rule of evidence 804(b)(3) and united states v.
macdonald: How things should not work. University of Pennsylvania Law
Review, 131(4), 999-1037. doi: 10.2307/3311989
U.S. Department of the Army. (1990, September 16). Procedural guide for article
32(b) investigating officer. Washington, Dc: U.S. Department of the Army.
Retrieved from www.apd.army.mil/pdffiles/p27-17.pdf
www.techlawjournal.com/glossary/legal/certiorari.htm
277-279). Woodstock, NY: Encyclopedia of Crime. Retrieved April 15th 2014,
from web.ebscohost.com
Evans, C. (2003). A question of evidence: A casebook of great forensic controversies,
from Napoleon to O.J. Hoboken, N.J.: J. Wiley & Sons.
Greene, E. (1990, October). Media effects on jurors. Laws and Human Behavior,
14(5), 439-450. Retrieved from http://jstor.org/stable/1393934
Kinnell, H. G. (2000, December 30). Serial homicide by doctors: Shipman in
perspective. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 321(7276), 1594-1597. Retrieved
from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25226531
Kornstein, D.J. (1989). twisted vision: Janet Malcolm's upside down view of the “fatal
vision case”. Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature, 1(2), 127-156.
doi:10.2307.743567
McGinniss, J. (1983). Fatal vision. Canada: General Publishing Co. Limited, Toronto.
Moore, C. E. (1982). Sixth amendment -- limited protection against excessive
prosecutorial delay. Journal Of Criminal Law & Criminology, 73(4), 1491-1506.
Retrieved from web.a.ebscohost.com
Oliver, W. M. (2002). Teaching criminal investigation/criminalistics with fatal
vision/fatal justice. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 13(1), 129. Retrieved
from web.a.ebscohost.com
Rowling, J. K. (2003, July). Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Broadway, NY:
Arthur A. Levine Books.
"Sirius Black." IMDb. IMDb.com, 2014. Web. 18 Apr. 2014.
United States of America v. Jeffrey R. MacDonald. 531 F.2d 196. (1976).
United States of America v. Jeffrey R. MacDonald. 688 F.2d 224. (1982).
United States v. MacDonald. 435 U.S. 850. (1978).
United States v. MacDonald. 456 U.S. 1. (1982).
University of Pennsylvania Law Review, The. (1983, March). The corroboration
requirement of federal rule of evidence 804(b)(3) and united states v.
macdonald: How things should not work. University of Pennsylvania Law
Review, 131(4), 999-1037. doi: 10.2307/3311989
U.S. Department of the Army. (1990, September 16). Procedural guide for article
32(b) investigating officer. Washington, Dc: U.S. Department of the Army.
Retrieved from www.apd.army.mil/pdffiles/p27-17.pdf
www.techlawjournal.com/glossary/legal/certiorari.htm