Green Beret Fatal Vision murderer Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald

his whole story was total bullshit

how did his wife get stabbed THROUGH his pajama top.

Guilty as hell. Needs to die in jail.

Last time I saw him, he had some pathetic enabling wife who was trying to help him get out. This is a woman who was “drawn” to him once he was tossed in jail for killing his wife and daughters. Because I guess she didn’t have luck in the pool of men who weren’t in jail for stabbing their entire family.

great article from 2012

All the evidence in his trial pointed to his guilt. That's why he was convicted. But he's a psycho who will never give up. His story was that a bunch of drug crazed hippies broke into his family's apartment and slaughtered his pregnant wife and two small girls. The pregnant wife and little girls were butchered but he only had relatively minor injuries. Some pitiable drug addicted mentally ill loser named Helena Stoeckley was supposed to be his ticket to freedom. She would practically confess to being one of the killers, then she'd retract what she said. Most of the time she probably didn't know what she was saying; her mind was fried from drug abuse in addition to her being mentally unstable. Anyway, she's been dead a long time and was never considered even remotely credible. Most recently some kind of DNA evidence was supposed to exonerate him, but that didn't happen either. I don't think he'll ever get out, but he's one of the those celebrity killers who always has groupies and supporters. Some woman even married him. But just looking at him makes me flesh crawl.

MacDonald was a guest on the Dick Cavett show. His father in law urged him to go on national television and ask publicly for any help anyone could give in finding the killers. Instead all he did was bitch about how unfairly he'd been treated and took potshots at the Army. At one point, talking a little about the murder night he mentioned he'd watched a late night tv program (not Cavett's; it was Johnny Carson). As he says this, he gets some kind of a leer or smirk on his face. It's absolutely chilling.

OP, Jeffrey MacDonald is a DL gay icon. We believe he is not guilty because he is hot.

THREAD CLOSED

In Fatal Vision, the author Joe Mcginniss had been embedded with the defense team to write his book. (MacDonald had hoped it would exonerate him).

one of the most damning facts: MacDonald was completely bored by and unmoved by the sight of Helena Stoeckley at trial. The woman who, if MacDonald was telling the truth, brutally murdered his family.

strange how MacDonald could not even try not to look guilty.

Moved to a waterfront condo in CA and dated a series of sexy young things named Candy and Randi and Brandi. Drove a Maserati.

he also stupidly told his father in law that he and some Green Beret buddies killed one of the assailants.

and the father in law got it on tape.

that was stupid of him.

CLEARLY trying to take the heat off. how do you betray your own dead daughters with a lie unless you're guilty?

He's an old man now. In prison for more than 40 years. He may as well give it up.

so freaking creepy on Dick Cavett

Acid is groovy.

Dick Cavett later said he realized during the interview that McDonald was guilty.

Errol Morris wrote an exhaustive book about the case. Wasn't convinced either way.

Guilty.

GUILTYFACE

His perspective is sometimes given in Fatal Vision, evidently verbatim from interviews with the author, and from his utter self-absorption and callous attitude towards everyone else, I've no doubt he's a psychopath. He probably had no idea he came across that way, but everything he said about his wife made it clear he regarded her as an item, not human. It's incredibly disturbing.

Gary Cole was perfectly cast as MacDonald in the tv miniseries.

Acid is GROOVY!

KILL the PIGS!

Kinda humpy here

So many weird parallels with the Chris Watts murders

A segment of Macdonald on Cavett with some much later commentary by Cavett.

Creepy.

exhaustive chart of all his lies by some blogger

Yeah Errol Morris and Janet Malcolm are both assholes to write books to exonerate him. Morris lost all credibility for me. Here is a guy who I love to break down why Mac did it. He also says how Darlie Routier and Steven Avery did.

[quote]Acid is GROOVY!

[quote]KILL the PIGS!

What a load of hogwash. Hippies would never have said that. Even small foreign factions would avoid such terminology.

He is scum and should die already.

He is a piece of shit but unlike Watts, this wasn't premeditated. He would have continued to fuck around on Collette and maybe eventually leave her, he was hastened by being on speed and getting in a fight with her in which he accidentally hit his daughter and had to kill them all.

Premeditation can be just mere minutes.

He's no Doc Sheppard.

You're right r26, I don't mean in the legal sense it wasn't but I mean I don't think he had planned this like Watts did, it just kind of happened in the heat of an argument.

Or when Zimmerman said Trayvon said, "Homie don't play that".

If he had said some blacks did it, he would have been believed.

He did claim one of the killers was black.

R31, he had to claim they were all black. Black hippies. Two birds with one stone.

Been fascinated by the case ever since I read McGinniss's book back in the 1980s. I thought he'd be paroled by now because he's succeeded in outliving just about anyone who could object. For me, the most damning evidence of MacDonald's guilt was the photo of the suitcase mentioned at the end of McGinniss's book. No one, including MacDonald, was ever able to explain it away.

Which photo r33? I read the book many times, I don't remember that, did he pack a case because he was going to run? It kind of rings a bell. Also the cards the girls made him which McGinnis had and tried to return to him and Mac didn't want them, a cold sonofabitch.

This happened years before I was even born, but I remember watching the TV movie. He was definitely guilty. The Manson murders were around the time he did it, hence him trying to pin it on drugged out hippies

There was a magazine on the coffee table which had an article about the Manson murders. Like he was running around and said to himself "Hey that's the ticket! I'll blame it on hippies!."

Let the poor man go and live out what few years he has left in peace. 40 + years is enough!

R34 It's on the last page or two. McGuinness is in, I think, Brian Murtagh's office and mentions a photo of the bedroom and an open suitcase, blood surrounding the suitcase, but not on it. Then opines that it was evidence that MacDonald thought about fleeing before he stabbed himself in the chest and concocted the murderous hippies story.

"Let the poor man go and live out what few years he has left in peace. 40 + years is enough!"

Fifteen years per murder doesn't seem like enough to me.

I don’t understand—what was his motive?

He got in a fight with his wife r40 and in hitting her with a club, he reared back and hit his daughter on accident, killing her or pretty close, he decided to just kill all of them and blame intruders. He was also taking medical speed and on not very much sleep so was not thinking clearly.

Of course he's guilty as hell. He's a classic psychopath.

He deserves to have been in prison so long just because his story of what happened was so incredibly stupid.

"Acid is groovy"????

Is the miniseries with the very hot Gary cole any good?

I remember the book "Fatal Vision" came out in August, because my family was on our annual Cape Cod vacation, and my dad had to run and buy the book and couldn't put it down the whole week. MacGinnis, the author, went to college with my father (although I dont think they knew each other, or if they did it was in passing), so he was excited to read it from that standpoint, it's not like my father was ever a huge true crime fan.

I was pretty young, maybe just a teenager (13-14), so while it wasn't a book that really interested me at the time, I do recall looking at the photos in the book and just getting creeped out by the fact that a husband and father would do that to his family. Back then, it was unheard of (at least to me), but now it seems so much more commonplace. So much so that the husband/father is the biggest suspect in these types of crimes.

I know I did read it somewhere along the line, and was pretty convinced of his guilt. And I know MacGinnis ended up having a tough life. I don't think he ever could repeat the success of the book, and I remember hearing he had all kinds of substance abuse and family issues too, until he died a few years ago.

R45, Thas funny, I remember the exact same thing. Although I don’t remember the month, it was summer for sure, and that book was everywhere, especially at newsstands. I think I got my copy at an airport.

r44 Yes, it's excellent, Karl Malden nails it as the father-in-law who believed in and then came to suspect Jeff. It's on youtube.

I haven't watched it in years but I remember thinking it was pretty damn good. I'd read the book a while before and wanted to read it again right before seeing the mini series, but my copy was long gone. No luck at the library, everyone had the same idea.

I seriously put it on to lull me to sleep, it's long and good.

He’s a cold- blooded sick, narcissistic mother-fucker

After the murders he moved to California to lead the life of a swinging bachelor doctor. He said he thought his family would have wanted him to forget the past and move on with his life. His attitude enraged Freddie Kassab, Colette's step father; Kassab and his wife Mildren were obsessed with finding the killer(s) of their loved ones. They thought MacDonald should have been, too. At first Kassab believed MadDonald's tale about drug crazed intruders, but then he studied the evidence and realized that it all pointed to MacDonald as the killer. After that, he made it his mission to bring him to justice. It took years of legal wrangling, but finally MacDonald was tried and convicted. What Freddie Kassab did was quite incredible. He knew he had a long, difficult task ahead of him but he kept at it and would not give up. He was quite a man.

1970 called R5.

They want their obsession back

The crime scene photos are horrific.

I googled only his name and they popped up with out warning.

[quote]Let the poor man go and live out what few years he has left in peace. 40 + years is enough!

That's exactly what one of his lawyers says.

I dont think he should come out until he comes clean

He lived 80 times longer than his son, about 64 years longer than his his wife, and 75 years longer than his girls. And what a life! Handsome doctor who lived on the beach, he had a great time banging bimboes, he's done enough on the outside. Let him rot.

I don't think he'll ever get out. There's no evidence to exonerate him, although his lawyers and supporters have tried for decades to come up with something that would get him a new trial. He' right where he belongs.

With today's crime scene technology this case would be so open-and-shut. Even with the few blunders, there was still a ton of evidence to convict him.

Luckily we didn't even need high tech shit r58, the fact that they all had different blood types made it pretty easy to lay it out. I bet he was so pissed to find that out.

I was living in Raleigh, NC when this happened. There were very, very few hippies in the entire state at the time. And those few weren’t running around saying ‘acid is groovy’.

My mother knew his family. I remember my mother would turn the kitchen radio on every morning while making my father’s lunch. News of the murder came on. When they said the names Colette & Jeffrey McDonald she said, “OMG, I think the Jeffrey McDonald I kniw is married to a woman named Colette. If it’s the same Jeffrey McDonald, I’m sure he did it. “

She said that Jeffrey & his brother would fight (physically) and his father would insist the mother not break up the fight. He felt they should “fight it out.” His brother Jay ripped people off selling real estate. Used to hold clam bakes on Fire Island (the non-gay beaches), invite prospective buyers and then rip them off. My mother said he was caught and signed himself into a psych hospital so he wouldn’t be charged. She also said his sister did drugs and on her honeymoon she called the mother and made her drive upstate and bring her home and that she was hallucinating,

Charming family.

[quote]With today's crime scene technology this case would be so open-and-shut. Even with the few blunders, there was still a ton of evidence to convict him.

Interesting.

Acid IS groovy, ya little PIGGIES! Charlie said so!

Interesting r61! Never learned much about the dad in Fatal Vision book.

So did Karl Malden play Collette's Dad or her step-Dad? Which was the one obsessed with bringing Jeffrey to justice?

Stepdad

This timeline is as good as any reconstruction I know of, as it takes in the physical evidence so well. The creepiest part is the reason the neighbors didn't hear much (other than a verbal altercation) is that the actual crimes really didn't take that long. The verbal fight with his wife became physical, his daughter came in the room and he killed her with one blow of the club he'd already struck his wife with. After killing the daughter, he hit the wife again quite hard and thought he'd killed her too. So he's in the house in silence when he starts to stage the crime scene, which includes going in his younger daughter's room and killing her.

The second bit of violence also probably happened very quickly. His wife (who he probably thought was dead) wakes up and she goes into the younger daughter's room. He goes in there and finishes off his wife. So Collette very likely knew, in her final moments, that both of her girls had been killed.

So the rest of the time he was there in silence in the apartment, because everyone else was dead. If there had been five hippies in there plus the family of four there'd have been a lot more noise, plus plenty of evidence that others had been in the apt. To believe JMcD you have to believe not only did the hippies commit the crimes, but they managed to wipe the crime scene almost totally clean, without cleaning up the mess!

[quote]Let the poor man go and live out what few years he has left in peace. 40 + years is enough!

How's prison working out for you, Chris?

Timeline

This is the longest running criminal case in American history

What I find interesting is that every time MacDonald is interviewed he gets really heated when talking about the "obvious fraud" of the case. Yet not once has he or his lawyers been able to say what exactly is fraudulent about the evidence. Instead it all hinges on proving that Helena Stokely was there wearing a wig. That's it.

But she wasn't, R70. Even the unmatched fibers and hair evidence have been proven NOT to be Helena's, or any of the other people she said were there or who have claimed to have been there.

These very few fibers/hairs are just the stray, random hair and DNA that everyone brings in from outside. However there's tons of pajama fiber and blood spatter evidence that both a) directly contradicts McD's version of events and b) implicates him fully.

No way Helena and crew could have been there--even if it wasn't a forced entry--been high on LSD and mescaline and not left any real trace.

Another timeline, this one with Colette's arms broken in the first burst of violence, and Kristen killed after Colette went into her room, not before.

[quote]But she wasn't, [R70]. Even the unmatched fibers and hair evidence have been proven NOT to be Helena's, or any of the other people she said were there or who have claimed to have been there.

Yes, I obviously know that.

The one scene that always sticks out in my mind from the TV movie was Karl Malden as the step father walking around the apartment and seeing the cards on the china hutch. He jumps up and down and the cards topple over. That small bit of movement did that yet they were still standing after the murders belying the story that there were multiple people running around.

Karl Malden and Gary Cole were both superb in that TV movie.

They were able to prove that he killed the littlest girl by laying her across his lap and repeatedly stabbing her in the body. All the blood evidence that was found on their clothes confirmed it. He tried to make the murders look extra horrible so that no one in their right mind would suspect the husband and father.

Also, because this the DL, there was a buddy of his who comes off as hero worshipping the good doctor. A Green Beret friend who spent a lot of time with the good doctor in their off times. The wife complained somewhat about the guy always hanging around. No known girlfriend or significant other to be seen. Steroid buddies, I believe. The good doctor's brother was coo coo for cocoa puffs from all the drugs he took.

A few years ago People magazine did a cover story on him and the woman who fell in love with him (and may have married him by now) and their fight to get him out of prison once and for all because he is innocent. It was really a bad move for People magazine to indulge in this type of crap and enable these creeps. Just awful, poor journalism.

his wife is on Twitter. kathryn Macdonald. but she hasn't mentioned him in a while. I wonder if she is still together w him.

r75 Yes, Ron Harrison, his green beret buddy that he was so enthralled with. I was just watching a Bundy doc too and I forget how conservative he was. Both Bundy and Mac hated the counterculture and were horrified by it yet they were hard core Repubs and fucking monsters to boot.

Jeffrey and new wife. She's pretty - but WTF is she doing with him??!!

his wife's Twitter

A white wedding

Do you think he’s been raped in prison?

Life in prison when someone has another 40-50 years ahead of them should not be allowed. Nobody should be locked up that long.

So you favor the death penalty?

M ex SIL was was friends with Collette. Collettes mom wanted to give her her murdered daughters clothes. my ex SIL politely declined them

She could have made a killing with those clothes R85

His wife is crazy., as are all women who fall under the spell of a psychopath/sociopath. And their marriage is unconsummated; he's never been allowed conjugal visits.

Karl Malden and Gary Coleman were both superb in that TV movie.

I read that the guards in the Florida prison where they kept Ted Bundy allowed him and his wife some time alone in a closet after they were married. but I don't believe it. Can you imagine the shitstorm if they allowed him time alone with his wife-and he killed her?

Didn't Bundy have a kid?

I'm not getting you r89.

Where is all this money for Jeffrey's appeals et Alia coming from?

Yes he did, R90. They bribed guards to get time together to have sex, and she got pregnant. But his wife left him within a few years of the wedding and moved out of state, taking their daughter with her.

r91 There are tons of people who think Mac is innocent and that fucking asshole Errol Morris got even more people to think so. A lot of people donate money to help him with appeals.

He would have been out of prison by now if he would have confessed. Such a stupid criminal....

Karl Malden won an Emmy for it. I remember the miniseries as a teen. It was riveting.

MacDonald is as guilty as sin but has a psychology in play that means he will never admit it. What he did and his refusal to confess don’t make sense to many rational people and have some asking whether he could really have done it, but once you accept that a small number of people (usually men) kill their own families and will swear to their dying day that they didn’t, and that a smaller number still do this when no motive that would make any logical sense to the rest of us, however repellent it is, can be found (mistress / life insurance etc), it’s clear he did it.

One point MacGinnis’s book made well was the idea MacDonald played on a general public perception that a man “like him” “could not” kill his wife and children in this way; but the fact is that if all the evidence shows that he did, then he “could have” (and in fact did).

There was a trigger I believe and not one that would have most people obliterating their loved ones but MacDonald is wrong in the head. MacDonald always thought he was great and amazing and deserved the best life and when he didn’t feel like he was getting what he deserved, then like a small number of people with that mindset, he became physically dangerous. The most convincing theory as to “why” is as explained above and inn the book; that during a fight, in some order of events, he attacked his wife, killed the older child who had perhaps wet the bed as she sometimes did and thus made him angry, finished off his wife and then, what likely came last, had to kill the younger one to match his story and also because IMO because he didn’t want to get stuck with the younger daughter (and perhaps at two or three years old she was capable of being some kind of witness). The murderous hippies claim was absurd but MacDonald thought he could get away with it because he had got away with most things up in life to that point, and he thought he was clever and special and could invite a book to be written, appear on TV etc and not be suspected; and if suspected, it could never be proven that hippies DIDN’T wipe out his wife and kids and leave him with relatively minor injuries. He’s a psychopath.

Breaking the stereotype this guy was a good stepfather.

I'm surprised he didn't just come right out and blame it on the Manson Family.

If memory serves me, McGinniss believed he was innocent. It was while writing the book he came to the conclusion MacDonald was guilty.

R99, for what a random internet view is worth, I’ve never been quite convinced that McGinniss particularly felt MacDonald was innocent at the outset, albeit he agreed at the start to write a book MacDonald thought would exonerate him. I think he took that contract perhaps with at best an open mind and to see where the kind of access he had took him, but not actively thinking MacDonald hadn’t done it. Of course, he evidently became convinced of his guilt as he was hearing the evidence and spending more time with MacDonald. Just my 2c.

The one thing that stood out in my mind from the book "Fatal Vision" was the huge engagement party he hosted for the new love of his life in Cali. A blowout affair with all kinds of accessories in some fancy shmancy restaurant. The highlight was the good doctor reading a promise vow to the blushing bride as the honored guests looked on in awe.

The letter was the kind of cliche ridden missive, with terrible grammar, that spoke of their beautiful and one of a kind love for each other and I think unicorns were invoked and the heavens and the beautiful rolling sea and how they would cleave to one another and never be apart and never, ever go to bed angry with the each other. Maybe two kids, a boy for him and a girl for her. Some guests were teary eyed at the good doctor's words of love, so soft and tender.

McGinnis writes that all guests were not caught up in the spirit of the festivities. Joe noticed that the good doctor's loyal Mama sat grim faced from start to finish.

Oh, and the object of the good doctor's great love moved out of their house several months later, never to be seen again. Never made it to the altar.

Guilty

One issue that made it far easier for the murderous hippies story to gain credence and easier to cast reasonable doubt was that MacDonald's pajama bottoms were inadvertently thrown away/burned in the hospital he was taken to directly after the cops arrived. Prosecutor Jim Blackburn in his at-trial summation of what happened that night based on the evidence included his assumption that MacDonald's pajama bottoms would have had a great deal of Kristen's blood on them. Blackburn opined, based on the pool of blood on the floor near her bed, that MacDonald had placed her across his lap before he repeatedly stabbed her.

As long as I've been following this case, two issues have never been sufficiently answered:

1. How he passed several lie detector tests; and

2. How he convincingly "passed" being hypnotized and being questioned, re-enacting the events of that night.

[quote]he's never been allowed conjugal visits.

That’s too bad for the new wife. I bet he throws a mean fuck.

He has Big Guilt Face.

I remember watching Fatal Vision in 1983, I dont think he is guilty .

R103, it is a well known fact that psychopaths can pass a lie detector test while lying. They feel no guilt, so they don't trigger the signals that those of us with a conscience would trigger.

As to the hypnosis, my guess is that psychopaths can't be hypnotized.

I thought he didn't take a lie detector, he said he would but then later changed his mind. Same with the hypnosis, his lawyer advised that it could be too traumatic for him. But yes, Bundy could have probably passed a lie detector since he had no sense of guilt. Collette's brother and his wife are still alive, I don't know if they have any kids but they are a little younger than Mac and there's no reason to think they won't constantly block his parole plans. HIs new wife looks a bit like the moron who married Erik Menendez, there is definitely a type of these bims.

According to one of the links in this thread, MacDonald agreed to a private polygraph and FAILED it. He and his lawyer then tried to hide its existence and the results.

The Green River Killer passed a polygraph test in 1987, while another man failed it around the same time. Thus he remained free for 14 more years, and murdered a few more women during that time.

R106 is special.

R111, interestingly, I have r106 already blocked from some other thread. Must be a multi-troller.

"The one thing that stood out in my mind from the book "Fatal Vision" was the huge engagement party he hosted for the new love of his life in Cali. A blowout affair with all kinds of accessories in some fancy shmancy restaurant. The highlight was the good doctor reading a promise vow to the blushing bride as the honored guests looked on in awe.

The letter was the kind of cliche ridden missive, with terrible grammar, that spoke of their beautiful and one of a kind love for each other and I think unicorns were invoked and the heavens and the beautiful rolling sea and how they would cleave to one another and never be apart and never, ever go to bed angry with the each other. Maybe two kids, a boy for him and a girl for her. "

The love of his life (at that time, anyway) was a dimwit college student named Randi Dee Markwith (what a name!). She burbled of their love: "It was strange, from the very beginning the sparks we felt. We are both vivacious, energetic people. We both love outdoors and children and music and just being together. We're so in love, so excited and happy with each other." She sent Joe McGinniss a note urging him to read their "marriage contract", so you can better understand the intense and beautiful love that Jeff & I share." Worded by MacDonald it read in part:

"We, the undersigned, are deeply in love and have agreed to become man and wife forever. We both fully intend that this complete union to occur as soon as it is possible to do so. We both fully intend to have 2 children within our first several years together in order that our children can enjoy our intense love and benefit therefrom as much as possible."

It goes on to say that their future children will benefit enormously from their parent's "incredible love for each other, a love so great it is awesome to both us and observers."

They children, they decided were both going to be boys. Anyway, their "incredible love" for each other bit the dust when Markwith dumped him after his legal troubles heated up. I guess she's wasn't THAT much of a dimwit.

R106, wanna buy London Bridge?

Lie detectors are not used in e.g., UK criminal investigations, because they are quite simply not sufficiently reliable. They are only used for entertainment value on talk shows over here with disclaimers that they are not always accurate.

It’s irrelevant whether a murderer passes or fails them, these are highly disturbed and deceitful people.

Every doctor fucks around, just like every cop fucks around.

I never thought this doctor killed his family. Americans are so naive...just because a married man has girlfriends, it does not make him a man who would murder his wife.

What’s naive is believing MacDonald’s bullshit story, R115. Hippies did not break into his house and butcher his wife and kids and leave him barely injured. Anyone who thinks that is as dumb as a bag of rocks.

The reason it’s generally believed he killed his family is because he quite blatantly killed his family.

R115, do you seriously think that’s the reason people think he’s guilty?

I mean, good lord. There is absolutely no evidence to corroborate his story, and all kinds of evidence to support his guilt. He stabbed himself with a scalpel. He tracked their blood and his pajama fibers all over the house. All the murder weapons & paraphernalia came from inside the house.

Even publicity whore Bugliosi, who defended that shady bitch Stephanie Stearns, wouldn't take the MacDonald case.

so what now for this attention whore?

he had his evidentiary hearing on all his bullshit and lost and the 4th circuit affirmed his loss.

so is it basically he dies in prison now?

I’m the person whose mother knew the McDonald family. She knew them through a friend who owned a restaurant the McDonalds frequented. Her younger brother went to school with McDonald and couldn’t believe McDonald did it because McDonald was BMOC in high school and was idolized by some of the kids. My uncle was fairly poor & Mcdonald was from a more middle class family. He wore new clothes, not hand me downs. He was a football hero. He was at the top of his HS class grade wise. And his gf (Colette) was a nice, sweet girl, an All American type. McDonald was who everyone wanted to be in HS. But my uncle didn’t know about their home life, which my mother knew more

why didn't MacDonald ever speculate on who could have sent the hippies? he never wondered if it was the work of one of his side pieces or her boyfriend.

his complete lack of interest in solving crime was bizarre.

Just like OJ R122.

Despite his compulsive womanizing, MacDonald had a deep seated hatred of women. In "Fatal Vision" it stated that "psychological maladjustment" had caused him to feel "boundless rage" towards "child or woman, wife or mother...the female sex." It was said that "an explosion of rage" caused him to finally snap (taking speed also played a part) and kill his whole family, which consisted entirely of females. I buy that theory. I think despite his saying over and over how much he loved Colette and the girls in reality he hated them and wanted to get rid of them. I think he actually said that he felt "relief" after his family was murdered. Considering how quickly he got over their deaths and lit out for sunny California I think he was glad to be rid of them. A true psychopath.

Jussie Smollett's alleged attackers shouting "This is MAGA Country!" reminds me of the hippies saying "Acid is groovy" while murdering the doctor's family.

[quote]This is MAGA Country

I have only cursorily followed that thread/story. Yikes.

[quote]Considering how quickly he got over their deaths and lit out for sunny California I think he was glad to be rid of them.

While living in Fort Bragg's Bachelor Officers Quarters (BOQ) awaiting a military hearing (Article whatever it was) right after the murders, he was fucking a civilian secretary who worked on-post.

The prosecution psychiatrist who interviewed him prior to his first civilian trial opined that MacDonald was gay, that his hatred of females and hyper-sexual behaviour was a manifestation of his "homosexual panic".

[quote]Same with the hypnosis, his lawyer advised that it could be too traumatic for him.

MacDonald underwent hypnosis and re-enacted what he claimed happened on the night of the murder. In McGinniss's book, I can't remember who said it - perhaps his lawyer or someone on his legal team - that he's either telling the truth or he's the world's greatest actor.

[quote]"Acid is groovy"????

100% USDA certified bullshit. It’s exactly the sort of clueless assumption about hippies that a square would make in 1970.

Reminds me a bit of “This is MAGA country.” 🙄

MacDonald underwent TWO polygraph tests. One he failed, and one he walked out of before it began, probably in fear of failing yet another one.

R24 I think a lot of womanizers are such because they hate women, not despite the fact, and their "success" with women just strengthens their hatred and disrespect. It's part of the psychopathic package. Psychopaths (at least the male ones) do not generally have respect for women or typical "feminine" qualities, but they sure do like to fuck them.

This is R131 . I meant R124 , not 24.

Have he and Chris Watts become pen pals?

Just unlucky, poor man.

Women of all ages were enthralled by the young handsome killer Green Beret Doctor. He had mothers and their daughters fucking him whenever he crooked a finger at them. I think I read that he invited the very young daughter of his upstairs neighbor (none of the neighbors were roused by the carnage that was taking place that night) for some kind of trip and the kid was given permission to go by her mother because she trusted the good doctor to behave himself around her precious flower because he was such a gentleman.

He fucked the kid almost before they were out of sight of their house and continued fucking her for the whole trip. Then returned her to mama's waiting arms.

[quote]He fucked the kid almost before they were out of sight of their house and continued fucking her for the whole trip.

She was 16 years old.

Your point is, r136?

R137 Uh . . . uh . . . MacDonald fuck minors? Uh . . . uh . . . MacDonald like 'em VERY young? Uh . . . uh . . .

Speaking of which, wasn't there a report or something that MacDonald had sexually assaulted his elder daughter Kimberley?

R135 Ewwww and R138 Double ewwww!

It was a lame story, trying to use a "Manson" scenario... guilty!

This was almost 50 years ago, it's time to move on. He is an old man now, just let him go!

This is a totally closed case. How silly.

But we LOVE our murderers. From Vlad the Impaler to Jack the Ripper to Chris Watts, we just can't get enough. Any amateur psychologists here wanna take a shot?

Only if he comes to live with you, R141.

MacDonald on Cavett . . .

Crime scene photos linked here. This all happened in a very small space.

The whole thing was so ridiculously obvious. What gets me upset is that Colonel Rock did not prosecute because it was 'wrong'. WTF?

He should have been demoted or some sort of follow-up. Total bullshit and forced the Kassab family to spend a lot of time and money to get a civilian trial.

The mini-series with Gary Cole, Karl Malden and Eva Marie Saint was compelling. It's on YT.

R36, This was the magazine.

[quote] The prosecution psychiatrist who interviewed him prior to his first civilian trial opined that MacDonald was gay, that his hatred of females and hyper-sexual behaviour was a manifestation of his "homosexual panic".

It was always the gays’ fault, wasn’t it?

“Murder of a wife & two daughters? Why, the fellow must’ve been a homosexual!”

You younger people (if there are any on datalounge) need to know that at the time, there was an anti-military feeling in much of the country, especially among young people.

Returning vets told of stupid, stupid things their superior officers did in Vietnam, putting the lives of the grunts at risk for nothing & sometimes getting platoon members killed. Fragging officers was a thing. Then there were the constant lies ....no, we’re not escalating the war; no we’re not in Laos or Cambodia; no, we’re not carpet bombing civilian areas; yes, we’re winning the hearts & minds of the Vietnamese. The Tet offensive that killed so many Americans was unexpected by the brass. My mother was a Readers Digest subscriber and every time she got an issue there was an article with a title like “Yes we ARE winning the war in Vietnam!” by some general.

So when McDonald portrayed himself as a victim of a bumbling, malevolent Army, a large swath of the public believed him.

A scene kid stabbed my mother to death. Honestly. The whole time she was stabbing away she was yelling “having green hair is chill!”

While he’s obviously guilty, I really dislike armchair psychiatric diagnoses. Especially the nasty, homophobic kind employed by the prosecution.

Is he a sociopath? Possibly. Him being hopped up on amphetamines makes a lot of sense. If he had rage issues on top of that, I can see how a fight with his wife could’ve gotten way out of hand.

Also if you have read Fatal Vision and A Wilderness of Error, you may want to check out McGinnis' rebuttal, Final Vision (2012) where he takes apart the claims in Wilderness and McD's subsequent appeals piece-by-piece.

Yes r154, so glad Joe had a chance to rebut some things before he died. Errol Morris proved himself to either be greedy or fucking retarded in writing that book that entirely hinges on Helena Stoekley (sp) how lucky they had her as a scapegoat. I seriously hate Morris now for jumping on this bandwagon. And Janet Malcolm is a bitch too. Just two more casualties of the ex doctor's charms I guess.

Here's the thing about the random piece of hair. I live alone in my apt and keep it very clean. I still find random hairs occasionally in my apt which totally grosses me out. Sometimes they come from the dryer in my apt from freshly laundered clothes and sometimes I assume I pick them up randomly from the outside.

The hair was Colette's, I believe. So much hype about the hair and how it had to have belonged to the floppy hat woman, but it didn't, of course, because there was no one else in the house that night.

the more I study this case the more absolutely absurd it is to believe he is innocent

Everything Jeff does is manipulative. He is the scariest because he is so likable and comes across as so gentle. I truly believe the Freddy Kassab theory that Colette walked in in the bedroom when McDonald was molesting Kimberly ,and Colette understandably flew into a rage of mama bear. He knew what he was doing when he massacred his family. He is more evil than Manson and Bundy combined

Collette was A dream wife. She was so devoted to Jeff and their children. Colette was kind nurturing and gentle and very humble. He treated her like dirt. Freddy Kassab was a saint

I get excited when this is bumped, only to be frustrated that he hasn't fucking died yet.

This cunt is going to outlast most of us.

MacDonald got his revenge in Gary Cole having to do a full frontal in Beamers

EVIL 👿 is hard to kill r161

Did anyone see the Fatal Vision remake?

seriously r164? No, who was in it? I watch the old one all the time when I can't sleep. It puts me right into dreamland.

Jeffrey MacDonald is going to be 76 this October. If we're lucky he'll die in prison for his hideous, heartless, violent crimes.

R165 It was called Final Vision. Scott Foley played Jeffery MacDonald. I remember seeing the previews for it on Investigation Discovery, but I never watched it.

The tragic thing for Jeff is that he was an exceptional surgeon/doctor. He had great social skills and charisma. His malignant narcissism ruined him.

Kimberly’s head was bashed in by her father. Kristen was stabbed fully conscious directly through heart and throat with an ice pic. This so called man is a monster

R169 I wouldn't want an animal, a pet around him much less a human being.

Always thought he was guilty AF. His "acid is groovy" story is freaking ridiculous.

Prison is where he belongs. He's not safe to be around other human beings. And no conscience, still lying after all these years.

Some men will go to great lengths to get out of paying $850 per month in alimony and child support.

Gary Cole was hot to death in the miniseries.

That baby fat on him - glory!

Apparently a frau bought the farm or something. She didn’t get much screen time and didn’t factor into the plot...of Gary Cole, Scorching Thespian!

Just finished reading Fatal Vision and re-watched the TV movie.

It's amazing at how deluded MacDonald and his lawyer Bernie Segal were in thinking that there would never be a conviction. Segal kept convincing MacDonald that they were "way ahead" during the trial's proceedings, but as the jurors later stated, it was exactly the opposite. For them, the defense never came close to refuting the evidence presented by the prosecution, and that's even after so much other possible evidence was lost or destroyed. Several of the jurors said after the trial that they really didn't want to convict him, but had no other choice.

I was particularly intrigued by the prosecutor's phraseology when cross-examining MacDonald, by starting his sentences with "if the jury should find from the evidence....". It forced MacDonald to answer his questions due to the impersonal nature in which they were posed.

The end of the book (and the movie) had an interesting fact: that MacDonald was eligible for parole in the spring of 1991, less than 12 years after his conviction (and this includes the year and a half where it was overturned on a technicality, and he was free from August 1980 to April 1982). But his ego clearly dictated, and will continue to dictate, that he'd rather be declared innocent than to take ownership of his crimes and have the faintest possibility of a successful parole hearing.

It was creepy as hell that the Fatal Vision author woke up from a sound sleep, exactly ten years to the hour after the murders, to a runny nose that actually turned out to be a bloody nose.

R,175, I believe that Blackburns closing argument was divinely inspired. The jury liked McDonald, they liked his mask of sanity. Gary Cole had a nervous break down playing Jeffrey McDonald. The little girl who played Kimberly was murdered by her father in real life in 1988. Freddy and Mildred Kassab Never got over the deaths Of Colette and the girls and the unborn son. They were destroyed when they realized it was Jeff. It was such a nightmare all around

I believe that bloody nose incident at the 10 year anniversary was supernatural . McGinnis feel torn and conflicted he didn’t want to write the book. I believe that nose bleed woke him up to the truth

Jesus Christ...

Acid is groovy, kill the pigs!

Nobody wanted to believe that a guy who looked like this and was a doctor could kill his own family...

Sorry; hopefully this link works...

Pretty good pic of the doctor’s family....

The two girls, Kimberly and Kristen

The little one, Kristen, closer to when she was killed...

Jeffrey with daughter...

Jeffrey with his family of origin..

(Dad looks kind of psycho; wonder what went on in his original family/childhood)

Colette as a young woman in 1957

Jeffrey with a girlfriend named Shelley in his swinging bachelor days after the murders...

(Also: isn’t it weird that he blamed the murders of his family on Manson style killer hippies (crimes that happened in CA) and then ended up moving to CA (the hippie Mecca) *after* the murders of his family?)

'Acid is groovy'? if it wasn't so horrible it would be funny.

The MacDonald girls’ last Halloween in 1969...

(When I see pics like this, I think of those Watts girls and that whole case; really sad)

Okay, last pic I’m posting of them; it’s too sad.

They do remind me of the tragic Bella and Celeste Watts (and both moms were like 5 months pregnant with boys too; bizarre..)

Jeffrey with daughter

Shirtless Jeffrey—looking very not sorry after the crimes...

Did losing weight and becoming suddenly ripped contribute to Jeff become a family killer like Chris Watts?

(And Jeff was on *actual* speed and getting no sleep while Chris was on the ever mysterious “Thrive” patches and getting no sleep)

Jeff was trying to lose weight in the weeks up to the murders, which was part of the reason why he was hopped up on amphetamines. They were marketed as diet pills back then.

How was that ever legal, R195? I know it was (Mother’s little helpers and all that) but it still shocks me...

Will Thrive patches be illegal some day as well...🤔

They weren't Mother's Little Helper, that was valium. Diet pills are still legal and can be obtained by rx only. Hard to believe there are still so many fatties.

Guilty. A closeted speed-freak who wanted to be free of his family.

So many wife-murders where the husband there just happens to survive the attack.....

You had me and then you lost me r198, Petit? No.

Have to agree with the hippies on this one point — acid IS fantastic

Ok, this thread took me down a rabbits hole last night. He's a murderer for sure.

But is it groovy R200?

Hay, gurl!

Haaaaaaaay!

Werq!

Lol, R200

I’m dead. I thought the promo department had him balancing the scales of justice.

This shit's easy to figure out. Narcissist gets bored. Narcissist needs new supply. Interfering circumstances like wives and children must be eliminated otherwise they'll always be a burden. Solution is to kill them off. Afterwards, rely on superficial charm and good looks to gain sympathy and exoneration. Sometimes it even works. Look how "confused" people are still in this case. Maybe if he presented hole I'd be able to make up my mind. Hmm...

He pings to high heaven.

While I believe he is guilty, there's no Ah Hah moment in this case.

The hippy story is just dumb. There must be some evidence, still in storage, that could produce some DNA.

With O.J. it was the shoes.

With Patsy it was the note.

Why, after all this time, is this still a question?

And by the way, he's a distant cousin. We're all so proud.

Today's fictional perps would say This is MAGA country.

JEFF was very aware of how much he pinged and extremely insecure about his masculinity. He was constantly chasing girls and only concerned about himself. His father was obsessed with masculinity and had serious resentment towards women. His older brother Jay was his dad’s favorite and almost he man like.

Guilty, And should not be living on the taxpayers dime. He should’ve been executed a long time ago.

In this 2017 People mag article, it says Jeffrey MacDonald has been eligible for parole since 1990. 2005 was the only time he applied for parole.

[quote] But in order to get parole, he would have had to admit to the murders. That’s something he’ll never do, he says.

So, he could have been out of prison a long time ago (if parole was granted).

Gary Cole looks better than the real McDonald

Could it have been self defense? Maybe the wife went crazy and killed the daughters, then tried to kill him, and he killed her in self defense. Maybe he just doesn’t want to smear her name.

Sure, Jan. No wonder your sister thinks that you always take the man's side.

All it takes is kooks like r215 spread out across the country and open and shut and cases like this somehow make it to "unsolved mysteries" status. The rest of us can see he did it, as did Chris Watts.

That's a reach R215, that's a massive reach. So she did it to herself and he is just a wrongly accused man, noble in his suffering........

Funnily enough, R217, the TV show [italic]Unsolved Mysteries[/italic] had a very short-lived spinoff in 1992 called [italic]Final Appeal[/italic], which was about people convicted of crimes who professed their innocence and had enough supporters to warrant a second look at their cases.

Guess who was featured in their premiere episode?

That enrages me r219, there are actual innocent people they could profile and they did him? Fucking creeps. Like Joan Porco, whose son Chris attacked her and her hubby with an axe and she survived with gruesome axe wounds. Her hubby died. The son claimed innocence and she still believes him though he was convicted. There was an "I survived" ep with her and it says, "woman survives unknown axe wielding intruder". Yeah, sure, Jan.

Joan Porco just can’t bring herself to believe her son tried to kill her. I suppose that’s a “normal” reaction to such a terrible trauma.

I think the Fatal Vision miniseries was the first thing I ever saw Gary Cole in. Oh mama, he was a hottie.

The thing I remember in the book the most was in Blackburn’s closing argument: “If the evidence proves he DID it, we don’t have to prove he COULD HAVE done it”. Spot on.

What do I think/ He's guilty as sin. But then I don't really THINK that, I know it. The evidence showed that he did it. That's why he was convicted. And all the blather about drug crazed hippies, and a woman in a floppy hat and a blonde wig holding a candle and chanting "Acid is groovy. Kill the pigs" is sheer lunacy. It's amazing that some people actually believe there were other people in that apartment that night besides MacDonald and his doomed family. There was never any evidence that intruders came in. Never.

MacDonald has alway been made out to be some kind of sexy stud, but I never found him attractive. He always had a smarmy, slimy, leering aspect to him. He talks about his sex life at length in "Fatal Vision", going on about the women he got involved with and how they found him irresistible. It made him seem like a narcissistic ass. He blamed Joe McGinniss for that, saying that he insisted he talk about his sex life because he needed to know all about him. But if that was true (and it may well not be; MacDonald is a pathological liar) he surely could have said to McGinniss "I won't talk about that. It's private." At any rate, I found him a lot more repulsive than attractive.

Acid is GROOVY!

KILL the pigs!

Guilty as sin

I thought r215 was being facetious. No?

Ah right, that's possible R225, it's just that it's difficult to tell on these boards, where there are a handful of posters who might say something like that. There's one in particular trolling different threads who has a vicious hatred of women that seems to distort his perceptions. But yeah, it could also have been facetious.

R220 - it was the first time I ever heard of the case and of Jeffrey MacDonald, and I wasn't even a teenager then. Despite the segment designed to plant doubt as to his guilt (which was the intent of the show in itself), there being no mention of the Kassabs, no mention of [italic]Fatal Vision[/italic] or Joe McGinniss (and no wonder, this was only a few years after MacDonald's suit against McGinniss was finally settled), and parts of Helena Stoeckley's interview from the British show [italic]False Witness[/italic] (on YouTube, linked below) from just before her death used to corroborate MacDonald's version of the story, I believed James Blackburn (who was interviewed) and his description of the crime the most.

The crimes scene photos are so grotesque. How could you do that & to children? He's getting of lightly. OMG, those photos...

More evil than Ted Bundy

Colette was a sweetheart. She was so gentle and kind very meek and passive and everything was about family with her.She wouldn’t hurt a fly the only time I believe that she got violent was when she stabbed McDonald in the abdomen and that was to save her children’s lives. Colette died a hero McDonald is a cowardly prick

In regards to the tapes Jeff made to Joe McGinnis about sexual habits and proclivities, Jeff was recording these tapes from jail cell and he was more than happy to brag, fabricate aspects of his life with Joe. Jeff is a sexual pervert. In the 80s a woman sent her picture she was a groupie who actually believed in his innocence he sends a letter back with the sticky substance on the paper and says “This is what your picture did to me in 10 minutes”

I was teenager living in North Carolina when the murders happened. There were only a few dozen hippies in the entire state at that time, and no one was saying lame things like ‘acid is groovy’.

AS As intelligent as Jeff was in medicine and vast knowledge of things, he was also incredibly stupid when it came to intuition and understanding other people. He really was like a robot he was a mimic

I don't think any hippy has ever said 'Acid is groovy. Lets kill the pigs', but it's exactly what someone who has never met one and only hard third hand reports might think they would say, while murdering people.

"She wouldn’t hurt a fly the only time I believe that she got violent was when she stabbed McDonald in the abdomen and that was to save her children’s lives."

Collette didn't injure MacDonald except for possibly scratching him. A piece of skin was found underneath one of her fingernails, but was lost due to sloppy police work. The wound in MacDonald's chest was a relatively minor one; a very neat, clean incision that partially collapsed one of his lungs. Obviously self-inflicted. That was one of the things that pointed to his guilt. He had a couple of scratches, a bump on the head and a neat little incision in his chest. His wife and daughters were killed many times over, bludgeoned and stabbed dozens of times. It would seem that any intruders would have focused most of their insane rage on the one who posed the most danger to them, the virile, manly Green Beret doctor. Look at photos of Colette's and the children's injuries and look at the ones of MacDonald's. He suffered minor injuries; they were butchered.

[quote]I thought [R215] was being facetious. No?

Well, it seems like a plausible explanation to me. Women go crazy a lot.

R222, MacDonald was and is a VERY attractive man, what woman WOULDN’T throw herself at him, except maybe a butch lesbian?

"MacDonald was and is a VERY attractive man, what woman WOULDN’T throw herself at him, except maybe a butch lesbian?"

Who are you, his crazy wife? And "was and is a VERY attractive man?" When he was young he looked smarmy and creepy, with his seventies hair and aviator glasses and leisure suits. And now he's a gray haired, haggard old creep. "Very attractive?" Yes, you must be his nutso wife.

Ah I think I was right and R215/E236 is the crazy woman-hating troll on another device, or having cleared his cache. You keep blocking him and he keeps popping up again like some crazed wack-a-mole. One of his tells is that he has a thing about lesbians - he really hates them. Like I said, his hatred has distorted his perceptions.

'Women go crazy a lot' lol. I hope to god this weirdo is never called for jury service.

I don’t hate lesbians. I was merely stating a fact that they are the only women who wouldn’t be attracted to a VERY attractive man.

[quote] I hope to god this weirdo is never called for jury service.

Name-calling is so childish. I’ve never answered a jury summons in my life. Always thrown them in the trash.

r237 Nails it! So smarmy and creepy with his muttonchops and leisure suits and child molester tinted glasses. DL fave Dan Broderick was much more attractive. He has an awful, weaselly voice too.

And the fact remains that women do go crazy a lot. They’re always being locked up in the nut house. There’s a thread here about that girl singer Ashley Spears who’s in one now. It’s a shame more of them aren’t locked up.

The Macdonald family apartment was very *small*; it defies logic that “a bunch of hippies” could have been in there acting crazy and nobody would have heard all the commotion and the living room would still have looked like this (all the other rooms are small and look similar—not like there were tons of people in there...)

Plus it was a rainy shitty night r244, no bootprints, no floppy hat drippings, nothing.

R235 is right. If a group of drugged up people barged into any home he'll bent on murder, then the person they would focus their attack on would be the man, so that they could contain him and continue with attacking the woman and children. As a clinician he would know where he could safely injure himself without causing too much damage to himself.

Pure evil this guy. Pure evil.

I remember when George Zimmerman claimed Trayvon had said, "Homey don't play that, i instantly thought of acid is groovy kill the pigs. Same time dead lies.

"I remember when George Zimmerman claimed Trayvon had said, "Homey don't play that, i instantly thought of acid is groovy kill the pigs. Same time dead lies."

I never heard anywhere that George Zimmerman said Trayvon Martin said "Homey don't play that."I heard that Zimmerman said Martin approached him as he went back to his truck and said "do you have a problem?" Zimmerman says he said no, to which Martin reportedly replied "you do now." That actually seems rather plausible.

R248, Zimmerman gave several accounts of the murder, at one point claiming that Martin had jumped out of the bushes and yelled, "You got a fucking problem, homie?" Because, of course, that's how black people talk.

Back to topic: MacDonald is repulsive.

R249 So are you with your racist mumbo jumbo.

What's DL's obsession with this man? So many threads about this ancient case. Do they think he's h0ot?

"What's DL's obsession with this man? So many threads about this ancient case. Do they think he's h0ot?"

Actually, I think the interest stems from it being a fascinating case. And it WAS a particularly horrifying murder: a pregnant mother and her two little girls killed with such ferocity it was like the killer hated them.

And MacDonald is an unusual killer; voted Most Popular and Most Likely to Succeed in school, a graduate of Princeton, a doctor, a Green Beret. And of course he was considered handsome and attractive by most people (but not by me). He attracted a lot of attention and even to this day he has supporters working on his behalf to get him a new trial, or have some kind of "new evidence" tested, or grasp at any straw to try and help him get out of prison. And he himself never lets up. The prosecutor in the case said this of him: "He's never going to accept his guilt. He's never just going to sit in jail. There is a temptation to say "The end. This is it. Finished." But no. Not really. The case is never going to be in a position where he just quietly sits in jail and lets the years roll by." In other words, Jeffrey MacDonald is always going to be popping up in the news from time to time because he will never shut up and accept his fate. People will always be talking about him because he will never shut up.

R252 He would have to come to terms with his own conscience that he killed his own family in a beyond ghastly manner. And he isn't able to do that - provided that that he even has a conscience.

R250, I was, I thought rather obviously, mocking Zimmerman for his obviously racist and false account of his crime.

MacDonald has no conscience. He's quite evil. As bad as Charles Manson.

R,253. He has zero guilt formation. And I reckon to say he’s more evil than Charles Manson. Manson didn’t kill his own children and Manson had a far worse childhood

also... a hippie with a candle, in the middle of a violent scuffle, and no wax dripped on the floor? So guilty.

Why are people interested in this case?

[bold]The dichotomy between how Jeff MacDonald presented himself and what he did that night.[/bold]

He married Colette b/c she was pregnant.[bold] Jeff went through 6 years of intense medical training at top schools and hospitals (Princeton, Northwestern, Columbia Presbyterian), trained and passed all the requirements to become a Green Beret. All the while, with a young wife and two infant daughters. Working part/full time to pay the bills.[/bold] He was handsome and presented as happily married to some people. Although others knew a different side to him, he managed to keep his life compartmentalized.

[bold]Then these overkill blood-soaked murders come out of nowhere. [/bold]

[bold] Analyzing his psyche is what draws to the case.[/bold] McGinnis wrote that many persons, even ones only tangentially involved with case, became preoccupied with it. One example was a reporter in NC who took time off to hang out with the hippy community near Ft. Bragg and do some sleuthing on his own. His conclusion, hippies don't use the phrases Mac claims he heard and the hippie community was so small, if a group of them did it, everyone would know. Dick Cavett interviewed Mac, concluding (based on his experience interviewing 100s of people) Jeff was guilty. Just didn't talk like a falsely accused person.

He is guilty, but he already paid the price. He lost his youth, career and life, he is 75. Let him live his last years free.

R259, why? He deserves mercy? He should get some semblance of happiness before he dies? What would justify that reasoning?

His being old and in prison for 50 years, R260

Guilty as sin. Classic narcissistic sociopath who believes he can control & manipulate others to believe in his bullshit lies about what he did.

R259 He is still limber and able to get around - NEVER trust someone like this at any age. He could do something dreadful again. He's a very sick man.

Tldr...... can anybody tell me why this guy did this? He sounds like he was a very smart successful person.

R264 He was a crazy person, probably on speed, and he snapped inside like a psycho. Often, crazies don't even need a reason - at some point they just let loose. Still has no guilt or remorse today.

The wife looked like a man in drag.. poor thing.

R266, Colette was much prettier in person. She was girl next door pretty

In the last 'The Voice of Jeffrey MacDonald' section of [italic]Fatal Vision[/italic], he made a comment of Colette not being "photogenic" (which was kind of true, but still....). What a guy.

r268, He also made comments about how Kimberly was not that pretty of a baby and how Colettes waist or legs were too skinny. He is truly evil

Here's what he said about Colette"

"She never really looked as pretty in a picture as she was. Colette was not photogenic for some reason, although she had a very fine bone structure and a nice nose. I could never figure out why she wasn't photogenic, because to me she was a brown eyed, beautiful blonde, um, who didn't have the greatest waistline, and her legs were a little skinny, but to me she was incredibly beautiful."

He also said of her "Colette wasn't a woman that walked into a room and stopped the room by any means." But he goes on to say that she had a "beautiful, meaningful face" and compared her to Meryl Streep, saying that Colette had "that sort of quiet beauty about her." His descriptions of Colette quite contrasts with his descriptions of his girlfriends. When it comes to his girlfriends he would always go on about how good looking and sexy they are and what great bodies they have. One woman he was with for a couple of years he describes as being "the most staggeringly sensual woman" he'd ever seen, a real sexpot. God, what a prick!

R261, sorry but being old isn't a justification. Plenty of nasty evil old people in the world. Just means you are closer to death. 50 years is a lot of time but that's irrelevant. Don't commit a crime and you won't serve any. If our legal system says X amount of years are to be served for said crime, than that is what you shall serve.

True r271, Mac needs to die in prison

50 yrs? I thought he spent the 70’s out and fucking all over California!

Never trust anyone under 75, man.

First of all, as has been noted, MacDonald hasn't been in prison for 50 years, only since the '80s. Secondly, he probably would be out now if he'd ever admitted the crime and shown remorse. Since he refuses to admit culpability, there's no way he'll be paroled.

I wonder if Jeff's wife found her way here.

50 years in the Hole, man.

I saw a post earlier in the thread saying that the girl who played Kimberly was killed by her own father. That is completely nuts, I hadn't heard that before.

MacDonald DID spend most of the seventies living the life of a swinging bachelor doctor. In 1979 he was convicted of the murder of his family and sent to jail. In 1980 his conviction was reversed on the ground that his rights to a speedy (it took NINE years to bring him to trial) had been violated. He was freed on bail and went back to work at St. Mary's Medical Center in Long Beach, California, as the Director of Emergency Medicine. I think it was during that time he got engaged to some dimwit young student named Randi Dee Markwith. Anyway, on May 26, 1981, the United States 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 had not been violated. He was rearrested and returned to Federal prison and his original sentence of three consecutive life terms was reinstated with time already served since his 1979 conviction. I think he's been in prison ever since.

It's true, R277. Here's her IMDB entry:

I did a search to see if I could find anything online about Gary Cole having a nervous breakdown during the filming of Fatal Vision, as R176 mentioned. Didn't find anything that mentioned that, but I did find more than one article that mentioned how MacDonald wasn't thrilled about Cole portraying him because he wasn't a "name" and that he wanted the role to go to Robert Redford (!) (who was in his late forties in 1984 and several years older than MacDonald himself) because he was famous. So arrogant.

One of the things I find so bizarre about this case is that the army initially declined to charge McDonald. It was only after Colette's stepfather pushed them to reopen the case did he wind up going to trial. I'm not entirely clear how he was able to do that (I am not especially familiar with this case ). Did the step-dad hire a private detective or something?

R281 MacDonald was a Green Beret and the army/military are very inclined to protect their own kind, just like any big business. A number of people got the ball rolling and he ended up in prison again. During his last trial a fellow Green Beret was a fellow juror - and he left the courtroom crying and later said that with all the evidence he had to find MacDonald guilty. Didn't really want to but the guilt was all there.

r203/r204, You know that's actor Gary Cole in both photos, right?

The Constitutional "right to a speedy trial" does NOT pertain to suspects living a free life, as JMcD was. It pertains only to suspects held in custody, so that excessive pre-trial incarceration is avoided.

r8, He looks more evil and unrepentant than ever there.

r25, Except that the jury found him guilty of pre-meditated First Degree murder for his last killing. He stabbed, in cold blood, his 2-year-old simply because, hanged for a dime, hanged for a dollar.

He wanted OUT. The life he lived in California proves that.

R281 the army was testing the LSD on McDonald, giving it to him without his knowledge. They wanted to cover that up.

Poppycock, r287.

"Did the step-dad hire a private detective or something?"

Actually Freddie Kassab almost single handedly went after MacDonald. He went through the usual legal channels and he got help along the way, but if it wasn't for him MacDonald would have gotten off scot free. Freddie Kassab was really an amazing man It took years and years, but he finally achieved his aim: to put the murderer of Collette and her children in jail for life.

R191 I had those same Sears shorts and tops sets the girls are wearing. I had four sets: pink, blue, green and yellow. They were my summer play clothes uniform one year (maybe 1969) and I wore the shorts under skirts during the school year. I loved those outfits. So weird to see them on murdered children.

Freddie and Mildred Kassab wanted to remove any association with Jeff MacDonald from their lives and memories to the extent that they replaced the headstones on Collette and her daughters' graves, removing MacDonald and using instead Stevenson, Collette's maiden name.

What the Kassabs went through was beyond comprehension. They loved and trusted MacDonald implicitly. When they finally accepted the truth that their beloved son in law, whom they knew since he was 12 years old butchered their daughter and grandkids , the pain and terror was like being murdered all over again. It destroyed them. Mac also destroyed his faithful mother Perry. Mac is a devil

I never understood MacDonald's appeal. In every interview I've seen him give he comes across as an arrogant, egotistical prick. And despite his education he doesn't strike me as a very intelligent person, either.

Mac was a genius in medicine. He revolutionized emergency medicine in the 70’s. He was exceptionally bright

His current wife Kathryn MacDonald is from Silver Spring, MD and lives in Columbia MD.She's educated, a professional, worked in a law office and served on an arts council. I've read interviews where she is adamant about his innocence. The question is does she truly believe this or is it a cover because she gets off on being in proximity to him? A cynical part of me suspects the latter but who knows .

"Mac was a genius in medicine. He revolutionized emergency medicine in the 70’s."

Who sez? "Mac?" Yes, that sounds just like something "Mac" would say about himself.

Apparently the author Errol Morris is a big defender of MacDonald and wrote a book defending him. I was surprised because I thought Morris was an intelligent guy.

"I was surprised because I thought Morris was an intelligent guy.

Obviously he fell under the spell of "Mac." Is he gay? Maybe he fell in love with "Mac."

r297 I agreed, too bad that Morris went from defending actual innocents to the shit that was "A Wilderness of Error" and he wasn't just saying that he didn't get a fair trial, he actually thinks this fucker is innocent.

I never for a minute thought MacDonald was guilty. Every single doctor in America cheats and THAT was the only thing they had on him.

r300 Um, seriously? They also had tons of forensic evidence and also the ridiculous stories he made up about murderous hippies coupled with the Esquire mag about Manson on his table. No way 7 people could have been in that house and nothing was disturbed. Sorry you know some doctors who are philanderers, I don't think they all cheat and Mac absolutely did this.

Everyone talks about MacDonald as this straight laced all American guy who shocked everyone by snapping. But I remember reading a comment in an old thread about this case on the DL from someone who knew the MacDonald family . Supposedly his siblings were nuts as well. I can't recall the exact anecdotes they relayed about them. Somebody else whose mother knew Jeffrey in high school wrote that his mother immediately suspected MacDonald when she heard about the case, saying something along the lines of "If it's the Jeffrey MacDonald I knew then he was definitely involved "

I don't know what to think. Allegedly, a heroin-addicted vet named Greg Mitchell was the killer. His girlfriend, a teen runaway and fellow addict named Helena Stoeckley, was supposed to be the hippie in go-go boots chanting and holding a candle. Both died years ago.

"Allegedly, a heroin-addicted vet named Greg Mitchell was the killer. His girlfriend, a teen runaway and fellow addict named Helena Stoeckley, was supposed to be the hippie in go-go boots chanting and holding a candle. Both died years ago."

Oh, all that was settled years ago. There was never any evidence that anyone was in the apartment except MacDonald, Colette and the two little girls. Poor Stoeckley was a brain fried hopeless drug addict fantasist who craved attention and got it when she started saying things that supposedly incriminated her. But she kept confessing and recanting until nobody believed anything she said anymore. There were no drug crazed hippies and certainly no white female in a blonde wig and a floppy hat wearing shiny go go boots who held a lit candle and chanted "Acid is groovy! Kill the pigs." Jeffrey MacDonald certainly has no imagination.

I didn't follow the case at the time as I was way too young. What was Dr. MacDonald's motive for doing something so evil?

"What was Dr. MacDonald's motive for doing something so evil?"

In the first place he was severely mentally disturbed. "Fatal Vision" went into detail about his psychological maladjustment. And he'd been taking speed. The theory is that he and Colette had a fight and he lost control, went into a psychotic rage, and ended up killing his whole family. "Fatal VIsion" talked about his "boundless rage...towards the female sex." Despite his promiscuity I always got the impression that MacDonald, deep down, hated women.

r302 I hope that talk is kept alive, Mac is old and so are his peers and for sure that mother would be dead, but yes, I don't buy the all American shit either. r306 is right, speed, misogyny, being tied down to one woman and three kids when he had never had a chance to flex his doctor's muscles for pulling down pussy. Look at his string of bimbos and maserati and boat in Long Beach and you can see this is a guy who is trying to live the youth he felt was birthright and that Colette stole.

He must be deranged if he would have confessed, he would have gotten out of prison years ago. Too much pride and ego I suppose.

He has a whole movement based on his innocence, no way will he ever confess. He's sued people for slander and wooed many a chick on the basis of his wronged guy shtick. Meanwhile, in court with the woman who supposedly helped slaughter his family and ruined his life, he couldn't even be arsed to look at her and seemed bored by the whole thing. Also, the army thought he was guilty the whole time, remember that is who Kassab was fighting against and what tripped the whole thing, when Mac finally sent the transcripts to Freddy he saw with a dawning horror that the army was the right the whole time.

Errol Morris was hired by Theranos to make a fawning documentary about Elizabeth Holmes and he never noticed that Theranos was, in fact, one big crime scene, so he's maybe not as smart as his reputation would suggest.

Another heartbreaking aspect is that Mildred Kassab had three other baby girls before Collette was born, they were either still born or died shortly after birth. When Collette had her first girl she handed her to Mildred and said, "here is one of your lost girls." So Mildred lost all her daughters twice. Also, don't forget that Mac had pulled out a suitcase before he settled on his fucking ridiculous story and called the MP's. So he was thinking about running after his freak out but changed his mind.

r300 is beyond stupid.

Never would this his-own-children-murderer have been paroled, nitwit at r308.

r305, "Fatal Vision." Read it.

What's with these "what was his motive?" queries? Take your damn pick of motive:

~~Freedom. ("Yay!")

~~Insane "love." ("If I can't have her,...")

~~Money. ("Yay!")

~~Rage, temporary or permanent. ("I hate you!")

I think one can find Jeffrey's motive/s on that short list.

Here ya go asshole

313, ya you nitwit

Who's to say that he'd get parole if he confessed to the crime? All these years, these DECADES of him lying through his teeth about everything doesn't make him look very good. He would have to express remorse and I imagine he would fail miserably at doing that since he obviously has never had any remorse for what he did. Anyway, he was denied a new trial and it looks like the end of the line for him even though he says he will continue to "fight for his freedom." He's 75 now. Chances are he'll live the rest of his life in prison, where he belongs.

Pride, narcissistic, and criminal mind. Great combo.

Oh, and this.

Why did you bump this thread, fishbulb?

If only he waited until now - he could just blame Antifa.

Hulu is doing a series on this case with errol Morris. Probably will convince a generation of idiots that he's innocent