MacDonald Family Murders – Part 4

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The Jeffrey MacDonald murder trial ended with him being found guilty of murdering his wife and two daughters.

Listen to the final episode of the Jeffrey MacDonald murder case. We wrap up with the outcome of the 1979 murder trial and additional theories about the murders.

The Jeffrey MacDonald murder trial ended with him being found guilty of murdering his wife and two daughters.
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Ongoing Legal Proceedings

Segal again filed appeals to the charges with the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Court in Richmond Virginia. Three days before the trial was to begin the court stayed Judge Dupree’s order. They agreed to hear the Jeffrey MacDonald murder case appeal. In a 2 to 1 vote in January 1976 the Fourth Circuit overruled Judge Dupree.

They only overruled the speedy trial motion. The Fourth Circuit  believed that the Army’s filings of charges on May 1, 1970, was the “functional equivalent of a civilian arrest warrant.” The Fourth Circuit dismissed all charges against Jeffrey MacDonald.

In March the government would ask for a full rehearing of the charges from the Fourth Circuit court. In a 3-to-0 decision, it was denied. The only option left for the government was to petition the United States Supreme Court. On June 20, 1977, the Supreme Court accepted the Jeffrey MacDonald murder case for consideration. Oral arguments occurred in January 1978.

In an 8-to-0 decision on May 1, 1978, the Supreme Court declared that the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals cannot assume jurisdiction over the claim of not having a speedy trial prior to a trial occurring. In October 1978 the Fourth Circuit court upheld Dupree’s denial of the double jeopardy claim. The US Supreme Court refused to review that decision in March 1979. All of these decisions cleared the way for the trial to begin.

Joe McGinniss

Joe McGinniss first met Jeffrey MacDonald in June 1979. McGinniss had been a guest journalist with a Los Angeles newspaper. He agreed to write a column on the Jeffrey MacDonald murder case including the fact that he was honorably discharged. McGinniss reached out to MacDonald to write a column about being tried 9 ½ years after the murders.

At that meeting, MacDonald suggested he write a book about the Jeffrey MacDonald murder case. The agreement was signed on July 6, 1979, and allowed McGinniss access to all the documents. He was also allowed to be involved in all of the defense meetings. MacDonald agreed and signed the contract and the releases. McGinniss had complete artistic control and could write his book any way he saw fit.

The Trial

On July 19, 1979 the trial began. It would last for 29 days. The jury was made up of seven men, and five women. All of them were white except for one. All had some form of a college education.

The prosecution team would consist of Brian Murtaugh, James Blackburn, George Anderson, and Jack Crawley. All were attorneys within the federal government (Department of Justice & US Attorney’s Office). This would be Blackburn’s first murder case.

The defense would consist of Bernie Segal and Wade Smith, a local attorney from North Carolina. The defense would hammer the missteps of the Army investigation. They highlighted the fact that evidence was touched (i.e. flower pot, phone, the wallet was stolen) and painted a picture of a crime scene that had been trampled.

Paul Stombaugh from the FBI Lab testified about the fiber evidence. His most impactful testimony was concerning the blood evidence. He diagramed the MacDonald residence laying out where all the different blood types were found.

Jeffrey MacDonald crime scene diagram

He testified that the cuts made to the victims had all come from the Old Hickory knife, not the bent Geneva Forge knife. The cuts made to the blue PJ top worn by MacDonald had come from the Geneva Forge knife. No cuts in the blue PJ top corresponded with the chest wound to McDonald’s right lung.

Colette’s bloodstains were found on four locations on the PJ top prior to the blue PJ top being torn. The 48 puncture wounds in the PJ top were perfectly round and showed no signs of tearing, indicating it had been stationary when those puncture wounds were made. When the PJ top was folded to match the crime scene photographs 21 holes aligned to 16 icepick holes to Colette’s left chest and five to her right.

No Psychiatric Testimony Allowed

During the trial, Dupree ruled that there would be no psychiatric testimony allowed and the determination by Colonel Rock in 1970 of the charges being “not true.” He did not want the jury to be unduly influenced.

The jury was allowed to walk through 544 Castle Drive. This was over the objections of the defense. The prosecution was allowed to play a tape recording of Jeffrey MacDonald’s original April 6, 1970 interview. In at least one juror’s mind, this convinced him of MacDonald’s guilt due to MacDonald coming off as cocky and arrogant. The defense put on over a dozen character witnesses that testified to MacDonald’s kindness, dedication to his profession, and devotion to his family.

All Blackburn would do is ask one question:

“Were you inside 544 Castle Drive between the hours of midnight and 4 am on February 17, 1970?”

Each would reply no and he would say no further questions.

Stoeckley Part 2

Helena Stoeckley was called to testify. Since she was a potential material witness a bench warrant was issued for her arrest. Segal had talked with Helena’s mother. In a private meeting with the defense team, she told Segal that if found Helena would talk. What she would say would be nonsense though due to her prolific drug use and mental and physical deterioration.

Her mother also told the defense that she believed that Detective Beasley was the one who planted the idea in Helena’s head that she was involved in the Jeffrey MacDonald murder case. Helena Stoeckley was escorted to court by US Marshalls. She met with the defense on August 16, 1979. She told them that she couldn’t help them because she was not in the house that night. Segal told her that he had witnesses willing to testify that she told them about her involvement in the murders. She still insisted that she couldn’t help him.

Helena Stoeckley would end up taking the stand. She would deny ever having been hospitalized because of mental illness. Stoeckley was admitted to the University of North Carolina medical center in the spring of 1971 and diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. She was experiencing delusions and hallucinations.

Stoeckley testified to her prolific drug use, which included injecting heroin and liquid opium six to seven times a day. She also smoked marijuana and hashish on a daily basis. In addition, she used LSD and mescaline approximately two times a week.

She denied on the stand to being involved in the Jeffrey MacDonald murder case.

Was Stoeckley a Credible Witness?

In an interesting twist, Stoeckley would tell a defense assistant that she could have been at the Jeffrey MacDonald residence the night of the murders. She told him this after a fight with her boyfriend. Stoeckley would go on to talk about a rocking horse in Kristen’s room. She claimed to have remembered seeing Kristen somewhere before when she looked at a picture of her.

There was a picture in Newsday from July 23, 1970, that showed a picture of a rocking horse.

Segal wanted to call her again to testify as to her confession, but Dupree would not allow it stating that she was unbelievable and “a tragic figure and what she says is not credible.” He also told Segal that Helena had called him over the weekend asking for an attorney to represent her because she felt she was in mortal danger from Bernie Segal.

The Verdict

On August 29, 1979, the jury filed back into the courtroom at 4:24 pm after 6 ½ hours of deliberations. They would come back with guilty verdicts in the second degree for Colette and Kimberley and guilty in the first degree for Kristen’s murder. Each member was polled as to their verdict. Each confirmed the three individual guilty verdicts.

Judge Dupree sentenced Jeffrey MacDonald to a period of his natural life on three counts of murder. MacDonald’s bail was revoked and he was remanded into custody. He was denied bail while awaiting appeal.

Appeals

MacDonald defense lawyers immediately file appeals. One for bail and the other for MacDonald being denied a right to a speedy trial. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals denies his petition for release on bail.

On July 28, 1980, in a 2 to 1 decision the 4th Circuit rules that Jeffrey MacDonald was denied the right to a speedy trial. His conviction was reversed and on August 22, 1980, he was freed and resumed his position at St. Mary’s Hospital.

The US Supreme Court agrees to hear the appeal of the 4th Circuit decision on the speedy trial motion in May 1981. In May 1982 the US Supreme Court in a 6 to 3 decision reversed the lower court’s decision and reinstate the three consecutive life sentences. MacDonald is re-arrested by the FBI and remanded back into federal prison.

In the last 39 years, MacDonald has filed various appeals for wanting a new trial due to suppression of evidence and prosecutorial misconduct. In addition, he wanted DNA testing on all biological evidence. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in September 1998 granted limited DNA testing.

DNA Testing

In December 2000 the DNA testing started at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. This lab was chosen by MacDonald to conduct all the testing. In March 2006 the results were in.

There were no matches to Helena Stoeckley or Gregory Mitchell. The hair found clutched in Colette’s right hand was her own and the hair in her left hand was matched to Jeffrey MacDonald

Kenny Britt (Britt Claim)

Kenny Britt is a former US Marshall. He came forward after the Jeffrey MacDonald murder trial and claimed that when he escorted Helena Stoeckley from South Carolina to North Carolina that she confessed to him. Over the course of a couple of hours, she admitted that she was in fact in the MacDonald residence on the night of the murders. She was coerced by Blackburn to remain quiet unless she wanted to be charged with murder. This conversation allegedly took place prior to her testimony at the courthouse.

Britt had gone to the Jeffrey MacDonald murder defense team in 2005 and claimed he waited so long out of respect for Judge Dupree. Dupree died in 1995.

In A Wilderness of Errors by Errol Morris, published in 2012 he said that the claim of Blackburn threatening Stoeckley was the reason for her lying on the stand. A Wilderness of Errors was written from the perspective that MacDonald was innocent and was railroaded by police and prosecutors.

What I’m about to share was available to Morris, but not mentioned in his book.

Why Would Britt Lie?

The US Marshall Services submitted evidence that Britt did not transport Stoeckley to North Carolina. He had not been involved with her transport in meeting with the defense team and then the prosecution team. This evidence was provided by Dennis Meehan and a female guard and various other Marshalls at the time.

The question remains why would Britt lie in 2005 knowing that records may exist to show he was not involved in transporting Stoeckley?

The answer was that the US Marshall Service had changed its policy to destroy their records after 25 years instead of 55 years. Meaning transportation records in 1979 would be destroyed in 2004. Britt came forward with his claim in 2005.

Fortunately, due to an oversight by a Marshall administrator, those records were not destroyed and were entered into evidence to counteract MacDonald’s appeal of prosecutorial misconduct. Two retired Marshall’s also testified to their involvement in transporting Stoeckley.

Ted Gunderson – Former FBI Agent

Ted Gunderson was a former FBI agent hired by defense attorneys for MacDonald in 1980 at a rate of $100 per hour. His focus was Helena Stoeckley. He promised her immunity from prosecution, to help her relocate to California, and a part in a movie. All of this for a confession.

He interviewed Stoeckley and got her to confess on tape and film and she even named her co-assailants. Her involvement  in the murders was due to being a member of a satanic cult. The murders were a part of a satanic ritual. Gunderson continued to firmly believe what Stoeckley was selling him to the point that he claimed that the “Black Cult” was behind “a worldwide conspiracy to torture and murder children just like Jeffrey MacDonald’s family.”

This information comes from an article at medium.com from March 3, 2017.

Joe McGinniss Part 2

Fatal Vision was published in the spring of 1983. MacDonald thought it would show how the government railroaded him and ultimately convicted him on fabricated evidence. He was sorely disappointed. McGinniss had in fact painted MacDonald as being a narcissistic sociopath.

McGinniss had started out their arrangement not having an opinion one way or another as to MacDonald’s guilt or innocence. As the trial progress and McGinniss got to know MacDonald on a more personal basis he became convinced that MacDonald was guilty of murdering his family. MacDonald filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against McGinniss for fraud and breach of contract.

MacDonald believed that McGinniss had “duped” him in order to have access to discussions, documents, and defense meetings in order to write his book. A civil trial commenced in August 1987 and the jury was deadlocked with no verdict being rendered.

Keep in mind that MacDonald was not suing over the contents of what was written in Fatal Vision, but instead of McGinniss being a “false friend” and four years of deception. McGinniss’ publishers settled out of court for $325,000. An interesting fact is had MacDonald not sued he would have gotten a lot more money based upon their initial contractual agreement.

MacDonald became eligible for parole in 1991 but did not apply until May 2005. He was denied parole. He next became eligible for parole in 2020 but twice waived his parole requests.

As of 2019, MacDonald has no appeals pending. 

Psychological Test To Detect Sociopathy

Here’s a riddle taken from a Washington Post article written by Gene Weingarten on December 5, 2020.

At the funeral of her sister, a woman meets a man and falls in love with him. But she never asks his name and loses track of him, and when the funeral is over, he is gone. No one can identify him. Two weeks later, the woman murders her brother. Why? All essential facts are known to you. Any guess?

The answer: Because she thinks the man might come back for the brother’s funeral.

This is said to be a primitive psychological test to detect sociopathy. A sociopath, who is amoral and makes decisions solely based on his own needs, supposedly would see the answer immediately. Joe McGinniss felt MacDonald would answer this riddle as a sociopath would.

The Night of The Murders

The murders didn’t start as premeditated but as an act of uncontrollable rage. Possibly due to the use of the diet drug Eskatrol that MacDonald had been taking. The dose was 1 pill once a day. MacDonald was taking 3 to 5 pills a day. He had lost 15 pounds in the three weeks prior to the murders. Eskatrol was an unregulated diet pill that was basically amphetamine.

There was a violent attack on Colette, and investigators and prosecutors feel that an argument had broken out in the master bedroom. It was possibly over coming to bed only to find that Kimberley had wet the bed. He exploded on Kimberley and then on Colette when she tried to defend her daughter.

Colette hits him with a white hairbrush (found on the floor of the bedroom) that causes the bruise to his left forehead. MacDonald grabs the club and in swinging it back hits Kimberley who is in the doorway. Realizing what he had done he began to cover it up to save his own skin and medical career. This involved also killing Kristen and setting up a story that he would be stuck with.

MacDonald goes into the living room sees the Esquire magazine and gets an idea of staging the scene to look like drug-crazed hippies had committed the murders. The Mason family had done so just 6 months earlier.

Main Reason CID Focused On Jeffrey MacDonald

The main reason CID investigators focused on MacDonald early on was that his story contradicted the physical evidence at the scene. This included the locations of the blood evidence and splatter. The torn fibers from the blue pajama top. There was little evidence of a struggle between four adult males in the living room. Plus there was no evidence of MacDonald bleeding in the living room where he was allegedly attacked.

The belief was that MacDonald had been abusing amphetamine diet pills. He was burning the candle at both ends (i.e. exhausted) and had exploded into a murderous rage.

Miscellaneous

544 Castle Drive and the rest of the building has been torn down. It is now a community recreation center and swimming pool. Helena Stoeckley died in 1983 from cirrhosis of the liver and pneumonia.

Colette, Kimberley, and Kristen’s gravestones now have the last name of Stevenson on them

In 2002 Jeffrey MacDonald married Kathryn Kurichh, an owner of a drama school for children.

Resources

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