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argosciv ago

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Jeffrey R. MacDonald

Jeffrey Robert MacDonald (born October 12, 1943) is an American medical doctor and former US Army officer who was convicted in 1979 of murdering his pregnant wife and two daughters in February 1970.


The murders

At 3:42 a.m. on February 17, 1970, dispatchers at Fort Bragg received an emergency phone call from MacDonald, who reported a "stabbing." Four responding military police officers arrived at his house located at 544 Castle Drive, initially believing that they were being called to settle a domestic disturbance. They found the front door closed and locked and the house dark inside. When no one answered the door, they circled to the back of the house, where they found the back screen door closed and unlocked and the back door wide open. Upon entering, they found Jeffrey's wife Colette and his daughters Kimberly and Kristen dead in their respective bedrooms.

Five-year-old Kimberly was found in her bed, having been clubbed in the head and stabbed in the neck with a knife between eight and ten times. Two-year-old Kristen was found in her own bed; she had been stabbed 33 times with a knife and 15 times with an ice pick. Colette, who was pregnant with her third child and first son, was lying on the floor of her bedroom. She had been repeatedly clubbed (both her arms were broken) and stabbed 21 times with an ice pick and 16 times with a knife. MacDonald's torn pajama top was draped upon her chest. On the headboard of her bed, the word "pig" was written in blood.[3][4][5]

MacDonald was found next to his wife alive but wounded. His wounds were not as severe nor as numerous as those his family had suffered. He was immediately taken to nearby Womack Hospital. MacDonald suffered cuts and bruises on his face and chest, along with a mild concussion. He also had a stab wound on his left torso in what a staff surgeon referred to as a "clean, small, sharp" incision that caused his left lung to partially collapse. He was released from the hospital after one week.[6]

MacDonald's account

MacDonald told investigators that on the evening of February 16, he had fallen asleep on the living room couch. He told investigators that he did so because Kristen had been in bed with Colette and had wet his side of it. He was later awakened by Colette and Kimberly's screams. As he rose from the couch to go to their aid, he was attacked by three male intruders, one black and two white. A fourth intruder, described as a white female with long blonde hair and wearing high heeled boots and a white floppy hat partially covering her face, stood nearby with a lighted candle and chanted, "Acid is groovy, kill the pigs." The three males attacked him with a club and ice pick. During the struggle, he claimed that his pajama top was pulled over his head to his wrists and he then used it to ward off thrusts from the ice pick. Eventually, he stated that he was overcome by his assailants and was knocked unconscious in the living room end of the hallway leading to the bedrooms.[7]

Investigation

The Army's Criminal Investigation Division (CID) did not believe MacDonald's version of events. Also, as Army investigators studied the physical evidence, they found that it did not seem to support the story told by MacDonald. The living room, where MacDonald had supposedly fought for his life against three armed assailants, showed little signs of a struggle apart from an overturned coffee table and knocked over flower plant.[8] In addition to the lack of damage to the inside of the house, fibers from MacDonald's torn pajama top were not found in the living room, where he claimed it was torn. Instead, fibers from the pajama top were found under Colette's body and in both Kimberly and Kristen's bedrooms. One fiber was found under Kristen's fingernail.[9] The murder weapons were found outside the back door. They were a kitchen knife, an ice pick, and a 3-foot long piece of lumber; all three were determined to have come from the MacDonald house. The tips of surgical gloves were found beneath the headboard where "pig" was written in blood; they were identical in composition to a supply MacDonald kept in the kitchen.

The MacDonald family all had different blood types — a statistical anomaly that was used to theorize what had happened in their house. Starting with the assumption that they were the only four people bleeding in there, investigators theorized that a fight began in the master bedroom between MacDonald and Colette, who possibly argued over Kristen wetting his side of the bed while sleeping there. Investigators speculated that the argument turned physical as she probably hit him on the forehead with a hairbrush, which resulted in his head wound concussion. As he retaliated by hitting her, first with his fists and then beating her with a piece of lumber, Kimberly, whose blood and brain serum was found in the doorway, may have walked in after hearing the commotion and was struck at least once on the head, possibly by accident. Believing Colette dead, MacDonald carried the mortally wounded Kimberly back to her bedroom. After stabbing her (whose blood was discovered on his pajama top which he said he had not been wearing while in her room), he went to Kristen's room, intent on disposing of the last remaining potential witness. Before he could do so, Colette, whose blood was found on Kristen's bed covers and on one wall of the room, apparently regained consciousness, stumbled in, and threw herself over Kristen. After killing both of them, he wrapped Colette's body in a sheet and carried it back to the master bedroom, leaving a smudged footprint of her blood on his way out of Kristen's room.[10]

CID investigators then theorized that MacDonald attempted to cover up the murders, using articles on the Manson Family murders that he'd found in an issue of Esquire in the living room. Putting on surgical gloves from a medical supply in the hallway closet, he went to the master bedroom, where he used Colette's blood to write "pig" on the headboard. He laid his torn pajama top over her dead body and repeatedly stabbed her in the chest with an ice pick. He then took a scalpel blade from the supply closet, went to the adjacent bathroom, and stabbed himself once. Finally, he used the telephone to summon an ambulance, discarded the weapons out the back door, disposed of the surgical gloves and scalpel blade, and lay by Colette's body while he waited for the military police to arrive.

On April 6, 1970, Army investigators interrogated MacDonald. Less than a month later, on May 1, the Army formally charged him with the murder of his family.[11]

The wiki entry then goes in to lengthy detail about the rest of the of this case; please read all...

I will pull up some pertinent details then move on:

  • During the first day of the trial, Dupree allowed the prosecution to admit into evidence the 1970 copy of Esquire magazine, found in the MacDonald house, part of which contained the lengthy article of the Manson Family murders of August 1969. Prosecutors James Blackburn and Brian Murtagh wanted to introduce the magazine and suggest that this is where MacDonald got the idea of blaming a hippie gang for the murders.
  • During the defense stage of the trial, Segal called Helena Stoeckley to the witness stand, intent on extracting a confession from her that she had been one of the intruders MacDonald claimed had entered his house, murdered them, and attacked him. During the nine years after the murders had been committed, she had made several contradictory statements regarding them, sometimes saying she was present when the murders happened, other times stating she had no recollection of her whereabouts the evening they occurred. Just prior to her testimony, separate interviews had been conducted by the defense and the prosecution, during which she denied ever being in the MacDonald house or ever seeing him before that very day in court. Afterwards, Segal argued for the introduction of testimony from other witnesses to whom Stoeckley had confessed. Dupree refused, in the absence of any evidence to connect Stoeckley to the scene, citing her history of long-term drug abuse.

awildernessoferror.com - Archive of reference material for A Wilderness of Error by Errol Morris https://archive.is/miNBw

2005

  • 2005.11.03 Jimmy Britt, affidavit (pdf)

2007

  • 2007.04.16 Helena Stoeckley, affidavit (pdf)

From Jimmy Britt affidavit:

  1. What I shared with Mr. Smith is that during the Jeffery MacDonald trial, in my capacity as a United States Marshal, assigned to the District Court where MacDonald was tried, I was assigned to travel to Greenville, South Carolina to assume custody of a witness by the name of Helena Stoeckley. I picked Ms. Stoeckley up at the County Jail in Greenville, South Carolina and drover her back to Raleigh.

  2. During the course of the travel from Greenville, South Carolina to Raleigh, without any prompting from me whatsoever, Ms. Stoeckley brought up the matter of the trial of MacDonald. She told me, in the presence of Jerry Holden, about a hobby horse in the MacDonald home, and that she, in fact, along with others, was in Jeffrey MacDonald's home on the night of the MacDonald murders.

Note: Neither Jimmy Britt's nor Helena Stoeckley's(mother of accused suspect, Helena Stoeckley - both shared the same first name) affidavits contain any mention of anything to do with Satanism or "Satanic" elements.


To be continued...

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