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Jeffrey MacDonald Gets New Hearing in 'Fatal Vision' Murder Case
Los Angeles Times ^ | September 16, 2012 | David Zucchino

Posted on 09/16/2012 9:32:25 PM PDT by nickcarraway

This is the case that refuses to die.

Forty-two years ago, the wife and daughters of a handsome young Green Beret doctor, Jeffrey MacDonald, were stabbed and bludgeoned to death at the family home in military housing at Ft. Bragg, N.C.

MacDonald, now 68, is serving three life sentences for the crime, which spawned a bestselling book, "Fatal Vision," a hit TV miniseries and decades of speculation over whether MacDonald is a sadistic killer or a victim of injustice.

In federal court Monday in Wilmington, N.C., the case will play out once again with all its lurid details — drug-crazed hippies purportedly at the murder scene, "pig" scrawled in blood on a headboard, and a mysterious woman in a floppy hat.

MacDonald, who has steadfastly insisted that hippie intruders committed the murders, has been granted a hearing to consider newly discovered DNA evidence, along with defense claims that a key witness was intimidated by a federal prosecutor.

U.S. District Court James C. Fox will decide whether to order another trial in the murders of MacDonald’s wife, Collette, and daughters Kimberley, 5, and Kristen, 2.

The case has wound through the courts for decades, reaching the U.S. Supreme Court. MacDonald was charged by military prosecutors of the Feb. 17, 1970, murders but was then cleared and honorably discharged after lengthy hearings.

But he was convicted of all three murders in federal court in 1979, only to be freed in 1980 when a federal appeals court dismissed all charges.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Extended News; US: California
KEYWORDS: fatalvision; helenastoeckley; hippies; jeffreymacdonald; joemcginniss; narcissist; sociopath

1 posted on 09/16/2012 9:32:29 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

This guy is a narcissist of the first order. If you have ever known one, they belive their own lies and are extremely manipulative.


2 posted on 09/16/2012 10:12:47 PM PDT by lone star annie
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Comment #3 Removed by Moderator

To: nickcarraway; stylecouncilor; windcliff

“Acid is groovy. Kill the pigs.”

Guilty. No one could be that lame, except him.


4 posted on 09/16/2012 10:49:40 PM PDT by onedoug
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To: onedoug

“Acid is groovy.”

While some hippy on LSD may have once said “Acid is Groovy” and a hippy on LSD may have murdered, never is the history of time has a hippy on LSD murdered and then said “Acid is Groovy.”


5 posted on 09/16/2012 10:59:38 PM PDT by Uncle Slayton
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To: Uncle Slayton

Self-inflicted stab wounds are a hard sell...especially if you collapse your own lung.


6 posted on 09/16/2012 11:12:08 PM PDT by des
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To: des
What is a harder sell is this: You enter the home of a military officer, and brutally murder his wife and children, but leave him pretty much intact; have a look at the forensic summary to see just how sure the killer was that his wife and two year old were dead. [The five year old must have been his "favorite." She was only clubbed and stabbed about a dozen times.]

Sorry but it doesn't pass the smell test: the first person you kill is the adult male. MacDonald's wound was described by ER physcians as "small and clean" and his lung was not fully collapsed.

MacDonald's retrial "evidence" rests almost entirely on the recanted testimony of one person; appeals courts do not generally grant retrials on this basis because recanted testimony is notoriously unreliable, MacDonald has probably been given extra leeway because of the notoriety of his case. His shouldn't be. He's a murderer and the evidence against him is overwhelming.

7 posted on 09/17/2012 12:56:50 AM PDT by FredZarguna (Guilty: time to pull the plug on Dr. MacDonald.)
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To: nickcarraway
I read “Fatal Vision” a long time ago. Thought he was guilty until the end. Then I realized that the author was a manipulator.

The author is the same one who has been harassing Sarah Palin. Let's see what the new DNA evidence shows.

8 posted on 09/17/2012 1:29:41 AM PDT by FR_addict
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To: FR_addict

Hogwash. Macdonald was also a serial womanizer who immediately started having an affair with a woman while he was being held in barracks just a couple of weeks after the murder.

He also had an affair with a fifteen year old girl, daughter of a friend of his, that he drove across country, some time before his criminal trial.

Macdonald also folded his pajama top on his wife’s torso and then made the icepick wounds while she was lying still.

I agree with the person who said he was a narcissist.

Just because McGuinness wrote a book about Palin has no bearing on Macdonald’s guilt.


9 posted on 09/17/2012 2:43:32 AM PDT by somerville
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To: somerville

“This guy is a narcissist of the first order. If you have ever known one, they belive their own lies and are extremely manipulative.”..........

You talking about Jeffrey McDonald or Obummer?


10 posted on 09/17/2012 5:30:13 AM PDT by DaveA37
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To: F15Eagle; Larry Lucido

Well done.

The Diplomat’s Club, season 6, episode 22


11 posted on 09/17/2012 5:50:03 AM PDT by Gamecock (We don't come to Christ to be born again; rather, we are born again in order to come to Christ. RCS)
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To: All

Macdonald is guilty but he did not get a fair trial. He was railroaded by the Federal Judge who made absurd evidentiary rulings. He kept evidence in favor of Macdonald out. It was a screw job. However, he is guilty. That doesn’t make it right what the Judge and Prosecutors did.


12 posted on 09/17/2012 5:55:10 AM PDT by Valentine Michael Smith (You won't find justice in a Courtroom)
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To: nickcarraway

From reviews I’d read about the new book on the case, I started thinking McDonald was railroaded since, for example, there really was a girl in a floppy hat who confessed to being in the house.

Then I read this interesting column http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/09/15/2345752/jeffrey-macdonald-had-a-breaking.html Here’s the money quote about an afternoon he spent with Helena Stoeckley: “After she said she suffered panic attacks every time she drove by the murder scene, which she apparently often did, I offered to take her to Fort Bragg myself. We drove to 544 Castle Drive and parked on the street. I didn’t tell her that was the MacDonald apartment, assuming she’d recognize it, especially with the boarded-up windows and her panic attacks.

Nothing. No reaction. She had no idea where she was. She was a pathetic seeker of attention and approval, even if she had to lie to get it.”


13 posted on 09/17/2012 12:01:01 PM PDT by DrC
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To: somerville
The icepick wounds was one of the reasons, I believed he was guilty at the time I read the book. But towards the end of the book I realized what a manipulator of facts the author was with his “vision” of the crime. The doctor with the icepick theory was the same doctor who came in and testified that OJ was not guilty.

The tears on the shirt could have been easily manipulated till the holes all matched.

Here's Palin’s take on the case that I ran across today.
It's a good read.

Exclusive - Sarah Palin: Did Joe McGinniss Condemn an Innocent Man?

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/09/17/Did-Joe-McGinniss-Condemn-an-Innocent-Man

14 posted on 09/18/2012 5:19:57 AM PDT by FR_addict
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To: nickcarraway
Sarah has a lot of facts in this article. She doesn't claim MacDonald is innocent, but she thinks there is a good possibility that he was railroaded by McGuinness.

I think anyone reading her article below would wait to see where the new evidence points before being absolutely sure that MacDonald was guilty.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/09/17/Did-Joe-McGinniss-Condemn-an-Innocent-Man

15 posted on 09/18/2012 5:24:46 AM PDT by FR_addict
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To: FR_addict

There were so many other factors that showed his guilt.

The point is that Mcguiness was NOT the prosecutor on the case. He had nothing to do with the jury’s decision.

Kudos must go to the late Freddy Kassab, the persistent stepfather of Macdonald’s wife. He would not give up until he found justice.


16 posted on 09/18/2012 6:00:38 AM PDT by somerville
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To: F15Eagle
Wasn’t Elaine reading ‘Fatal Vision’ in one of the Mr. Pitt episodes?

Yes, the one where he fires her for trying to kill him :-)

17 posted on 09/18/2012 6:08:02 AM PDT by KosmicKitty (WARNING: Hormonally crazed woman ahead!!)
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To: somerville
No, Joe McGuiness was not the prosecutor, but he ingratiated himself to the defense team and then used the defense team to write his book with a very bias slant. Joe McGuiness shaped public opinion with his “Vision” on this case.

The point is that there may be a good reason why MacDonald is being given a new hearing.

Sarah brings up a lot of good facts. You might want to look at her article.

18 posted on 09/18/2012 6:35:20 AM PDT by FR_addict
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