A Wilderness of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald | By Errol Morris | Penguin Press | 544 pages | $29.95
Final Vision: The Last Word on Jeffrey MacDonald | By Joe McGinniss | Byliner, Inc. | $2.99
In 1970, 26-year-old Colette MacDonald and her two daughters were found stabbed to death in their Fort Bragg, NC apartment. Colette’s husband, 26-year-old Army doctor Jeffrey MacDonald, claimed that a band of hippies, including a girl with long blonde hair and a floppy hat, burst into his apartment and murdered his family. He was acquitted by an Army tribunal, retried by a civilian court, and convicted of murder in 1979. He has spent the last 33 years proclaiming his innocence from a prison cell.
In his new book, A Wilderness of Error, filmmaker Errol Morris sets out to prove that Jeffrey MacDonald is, if not an innocent man, at least a victim of the criminal justice system. Morris is best known for The Thin Blue Line, a documentary that got an innocent man off death row. This September, a New York Times book critic raved that A Wilderness of Error would leave the reader 85 percent convinced of MacDonald’s innocence.
In Morris’s telling, MacDonald is also a victim of unscrupulous journalism. In 1983 journalist and author Joe McGinniss published Fatal Vision, which would become the definitive popular account of the MacDonald murders. Morris argues that Fatal Vision distorted the facts of the case and poisoned public opinion against the doctor.
MacDonald has every reason to loathe McGinniss. In 1979, MacDonald made McGinniss a full-fledged member of his defense team in exchange for a cut of the book’s future profits. McGinnis even lived with MacDonald and his lawyers at a frat house in North Carolina. Over the course of the trial, and during his jailhouse correspondence with MacDonald, McGinniss became convinced that MacDonald was guilty, but he kept telling MacDonald that he thought he was innocent. MacDonald only learned otherwise when Fatal Vision was published.
(Update, 01/08/13: This afternoon, Joe McGinniss left a message on my Facebook page clarifying his original arrangement with Jeffrey MacDonald’s defense team. McGinniss writes: “MacDonald’s lawyer realized that prosecution could subpoena me during trial and force me to testify about inner workings of defense. Being a journalist did not provide immunity. To eliminate the risk he paid me one dollar and named me ‘investigator.’ It was a ruse, and not necessary because prosecutors had no interest in me. Obviously, I did no investigating for the defense. My role was clear. But for many years after The Selling of the President, some people thought I’d worked for Nixon. Since I left the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1968, except for a couple of teaching gigs, I’ve never worked for anyone but myself.”)
Last month, McGinniss released an ebook called Final Vision: The Last Word on Jeffrey MacDonald. In it, he summarizes the post-conviction history of what has become the longest-running criminal case in US history and explains why Morris’s claims of startling new evidence are really old news. McGinniss scoffs at Morris’s claim that Fatal Vision sealed MacDonald’s fate, noting that the book came out after the doctor was convicted and that the courts began rejecting MacDonald’s appeals before Final Vision saw the light of day.
Read side-by-side, A Wilderness of Error and Final Vision amount to a journalistic sumo match in which two heavyweights grapple for control of the MacDonald narrative. In order to assess Morris’s book, we must lay out the case made by the prosecution at trial and reported in Fatal Vision.
Jeffrey MacDonald looked suspicious from the outset. He was in the apartment that night, and he was a Green Beret, trained to kill hand-to-hand. He was barely injured, and injured in ways that could have been self-inflicted, or inflicted by his wife, Colette, in self-defense. His cover story was preposterous. “Drug-crazed hippies killed my family” is “The dog ate my homework” of murder.
LINDSAY: Excellent job. Next to the Gene Weingarten article in the Washington Post, this is the best article written on the MacDonald case in the past 30 years. Unlike a majority of the recent articles written about this case, you clearly researched the documented record and didn't take any of the claims leveled by the MacDonald camp at at face value.
This is an open and shut case. The prosecution presented over 1,100 evidentiary items at the 1979 trial and ALL of the sourced evidence points to MacDonald's guilt. This incudes DNA, blood, fibers, hairs, bloody footprints, fabric damage, bloody fabric and non-fabric impression evidence. People ask why this case continues to garner evidentiary hearings and Joe McGinniss provided the best answer. In a recent interview, he stated, "Never underestimate the staying power of a psychopath." The documented record demonstrates that Jeffrey MacDonald is a serial liar, a coward, and a cold blooded killer.
#1 Posted by PhilC, CJR on Tue 8 Jan 2013 at 06:55 PM
Seriously?
Fact check much?
You said:
snip-
We know Kim’s body was moved after she was mortally wounded because her blood and cerebral spinal fluid were found in the master bedroom
-end snip-
Who knows that? On What lab report do you reference this child has CLEAR body fluid missing anywhere in that home? Did not happen and her head wound involvement resulting in the radiating basal fracture at no time breached her skull - that is a junk science theory.
#2 Posted by Voltaire, CJR on Tue 8 Jan 2013 at 11:51 PM
That article contains factual errors.
Even if you think Dr. MacDonald is guilty, which he isn't, his story is plausible and consistent with the evidence, and he should have been acquitted.
That Joe McGinniss book, and the TV Fatal Vision movie are fiction and are no more the pure unadulterated historical truth, or scientific certainty, than The Young Victoria movie or the Three Musketeers movie.
McGinniss is lying about the contract he had with Dr. MacDonald. McGinniss entered an employment agreement with Segal, chief defense counsel for Dr. MacDonald, in order for McGinniss to assist in the defense of Dr. MacDonald in connection with the murder charges brought against him.
The Brady material law on exculpatory evidence was deliberately and illegally withheld at trial by the prosecution, which is grounds for a mistrial ,and retrial.
Judge Dupree at a later MacDonald appeal made the silly remark that this withheld exculpatory evidence would not have swayed the jury. How on earth did Dupree know for sure? Prosecution must disclose evidence that would help in proving the innocence of a defendant.
There were more irregularities at the MacDonald trial. The foreman of the jury was biased, which negates the principle of an impartial judge and jury. Stombaugh of the FBI was never qualified to render an opinion on fabric impressions, which helped convict Dr. MacDonald, and the fiber evidence is extremely weak evidence. it was all "could have" stuff.
Stombaugh of the FBI was never qualified to testify that there was blood on the pajama top and pocket before it had been torn Janice. Glisson,, at the Army CID lab was in disagreement with Stombaugh about that matter, Dr. MacDonald never did say that the pajama top was torn in the living room so why is it such a big deal that no pajama fibers were found there?
Detective Beasley was convinced from the start that the Helena Stoeckley killer gang were involved, but he was never believed. Leads and suspects were disregarded by the FBI and by the Army CID. Shaw thought Colette murdered the two little girls and Kearns thought he did it because he was a womanizer Ivory made up a theory about bodies possibly being carried in a sheet..
All that mouth-to-mouth accusations is a spurious argument. Dr. MacDonald did mouth-to-mouth to the best of his ability under the circumstances. It was not ideal hospital conditions there, and bodies were moved around later by other people.
It's ludicrously unsatisfactory evidence and a gross miscarriage of justice.
#3 Posted by Henri McPhee, CJR on Wed 9 Jan 2013 at 07:07 AM
“Drug-crazed hippies killed my family” is “The dog ate my homework” of murder. Good one.
Also: most people who are convicted are actually guilty, whatever procedural errors may have been made. Not all, but most. After a little while you need to come up with a counterfactual--a proof of innocence. It's not enough to say "here's a hair you can't explain." You have to be able to say, "THIS OTHER GUY is the actual murderer, and here is how he did it, and why," and your explanation has to fit the evidence.
This is always difficult when your starting point is “Drug-crazed hippies killed my family."
#4 Posted by Edward Ericson Jr., CJR on Wed 9 Jan 2013 at 03:54 PM
Thanks for the well-written article and the shrewd insights.
I bought Final Vision after reading Weingarten's article. I did not expect Final Vision to be much more than a rehash, but I was wrong. Some things I have never understood about the judicial circus acts from 1982 to 2012 were made clear in plain words.
I found a transcript of Errol Morris admitting to Brooke Gladstone that yes, he hopes to free Jeffrey Macdonald the way he freed Randall Adams. According to his own account, Morris took more than twenty years to get around to trying much. Odd way to go about saving the day.
You are a great writer - thanks again. Don't worry about missing the ramifications of that non-breach basal fracture thingy because your critic made that up.
#5 Posted by François-Marie Arouet, CJR on Wed 9 Jan 2013 at 08:59 PM
I haven't read McGinnis' book, but this article, at least with respect to Errol Morris' book, is not at all accurate.
To say that Morris is willing to believe that MacDonald might be innocent because MacDonald seemed like such a good guy is a gross mischaracterization of the book and would almost lead me to believe that Lindsay Beyerstein did not read the book. He cites a tainted crime scene, botched investigation, prosecution that did not disclose all information to the defense (such as unknown fibers in the mouth of one of the victims, wax that didn't match any candles found in the home (and Stoeckley claimed to have carried a lit candle while she was in the house), fibers that seem to have come from a blonde wig (which Stoeckley claimed to have worn while in the house), and a judge that, even according to admirers of said judge, did not allow for a fair trial, all as evidence that could lead a jury to have reasonable doubt about whether Jeffrey MacDonald murdered his family. To reduce it to "Morris simply can’t believe that a Princeton-educated Green Beret doctor who was widely regarded as a loving husband and father would do such a thing." is perfectly false.
Beyerstein states that Morris "thinks it’s perfectly plausible that a bunch of hippies would decide to attack a Green Beret for no particular reason," which is also not accurate. Stoeckley purportedly claimed that they wanted to threaten the doctor since he wasn't giving drugs to addicted soldiers that were requesting them.
Also, at the end of the article, Beyerstein states that "[MacDonald's] lawyer claimed that Stoeckley said all kinds of incriminating things in their pretrial meeting to which she later refused to testify. McGinniss reported in Fatal Vision, and reiterated in Final Vision, that Stoeckley said nothing of the sort." But fails to note that another witness to the pretrial meeting also indicated that Stoeckley said incriminating things.
#6 Posted by Sebastian, CJR on Sat 19 Jan 2013 at 11:47 PM
"Beyerstein states that Morris "thinks it’s perfectly plausible that a bunch of hippies would decide to attack a Green Beret for no particular reason," which is also not accurate. Stoeckley purportedly claimed that they wanted to threaten the doctor since he wasn't giving drugs to addicted soldiers that were requesting them."
As Weingarten points out in his article, these hippies wanted drugs enough to murder - but not to steal them, since the drugs, readily available in Macdonald's house, were left untouched. Well, who would ever thinking of looking in a medicine cabinet, anyway?
I can't believe the piffle Macdonald's defenders come up with. But it is piffle. And the thin thread upon which Macdonald is basing his claim to a new trial, the supposed suppression of evidence, has been, as Beyerstein points out, decisively overthrown.
One thing that does amaze me in the chatter about this case is the fact that, most likelly, Macdonald would, at least, have known about Stoeckly from hearsay. She was the daughter of a lieutenant colonel at the base where Macdonald worked. And she apparently appeared frequently at the base. It isn't hard to see how he would have manufactured a culprit out of her. It is funny, however, that Morris doesn't investigate other of her stories - like being involved in 13 murders with her cult, or having sex with Macdonald two weeks before the murder, etc. I guess those are the ravings of a lunatic - only exculpatory information from her is acceptable.
#7 Posted by roger gathman, CJR on Tue 29 Jan 2013 at 08:00 AM
I think it's most unlikely that Dr. MacDonald knew Helena Stoeckley prior to the MacDonald murders.
The local Fayetteville front-line Detective Beasley did know Helena Stoeckley and he testified at the MacDonald trial that she was his most reliable informant. When she told the police, or the Army CID or FBI, that drugs would be found somewhere they were found there. Whether she was a lunatic or not, that's a fact.
The problem with police informants, or snitches, is that none of them are capable of telling the truth. The police use them because they have inside information, and information is the lifeblood of any police investigation. Helena lied through thick and thin if it was a question of saving her own skin. She was never granted immunity.
The thing is Helena was a reliable informant and she named names. Those leads and named suspects should never have been disregarded by the Army CID and by the FBI and neither should Judge Dupree have ignored her numerous confessions.
The Nashville cop Gaddis testified at the 1979 trial that he would have had Helena indicted for what she had said about the MacDonald case to him.. It was not just Beasley and Jimmy Britt who said Dr. MacDonald didn't do it.
There definitely was suppression of evidence by Murtagh at the 1979 trial including the unsourced black wool fibers in Cotette's mouth and arm and on the wooden club, and the blonde synthetic hair-like fibers.
Part of the trouble is I think the Mafia and CIA were involved. The Mafia murder families and the CIA is above the law, and international law, and it was involved in drug smuggling and torture.
#8 Posted by Henri McPhee, CJR on Mon 4 Feb 2013 at 05:46 AM