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Captain Jeffrey Robert MacDonald, M.D. (Born October 12, 1943), was tried and convicted in 1979 for the February 1970 murders of his pregnant wife and two daughters
The murders In the early morning hours of February 17, 1970, a brutal multiple homicide took place in the house of Jeffrey MacDonald, a doctor with the Green Berets (United States Army Captain) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. MacDonald's entire family--his pregnant wife and two young daughters--was brutally slaughtered while he was in the house, while MacDonald survived with some injuries including a stab in the right lung. 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 trauma to the rest of his family, MacDonald himself suffered relatively light injuries, save for one serious stab wound which punctured (and collapsed) his right lung. He said that when he 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". However, when he arrived at the emergency room doctors actually did find less serious wounds, including knife lacerations on the abdomen, several shallow stab wounds on his left chest and abdomen, and several bruises at his hairline indicating mild blunt-force trauma. 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", a style of killings that investigators found suspiciously reminiscent of the recently publicized Manson murders. 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, though none of the wax could be matched to any candles in the house. 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 possibly one of the alleged 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. A polygraph administered by CID in 1971 indicated that Stoeckley at least believed she had been in the house that night, though Stoeckley was well known to have emotional problems. 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, ice pick- 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. (The defense disputes this, saying that documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show that while the lab was apparently able to fold the top in such a way that the holes lined up, they could not come up with a configuration that matches both the location and the direction of the punctures, and that only when the technicians decided to ignore the FBI lab's own finding of the direction of the broken fibers on each hole were they able to claim success.) 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 respectively 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 used 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. 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 charges were instead dropped because of "insufficient evidence". 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 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. 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. 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. 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 shouted to news reporters "they had no right to revoke my bail!" before being driven to the FCI Terminal Island. The Fourth Circuit refused a new application for bail in April 1982. MacDonald's remaining points of appeal were heard in June 1982 and his convictions were unanimously affirmed. A further appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was refused on January 10, 1983. 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 Hospital, with the sole exception of Sadoff who was hired by the defense, concluded that MacDonald was psychologically capable of committing the murders. 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, compared to the prints and hairs found in the house, and were found not to match. MacDonald 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. 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 "crucial" exhibits chosen by the defense. A hair found under the fingernail of Kristen MacDonald remains unidentified. MacDonald ascribes great meaning to this result, however, it can also be argued that the unidentified hair is not exculpatory of MacDonald, as Kristen was an active 2 year old who was not bathed on the evening of the murders. The results also showed that the hair which MacDonald has repeatedly described as being "clutched" in Colette's hand and which he has claimed for 36 years could only have come from her murderer, was found to be his very own. 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 Marshall 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 evidence that was previously addressed by the court, and the recently completed DNA results. A decision on the appeal is pending. The government denies the Britt allegations, and also contends that his allegations would not have impacted the finding of guilty by the jury. | ||||||||
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