Merged Jeffrey MacDonald did it. He really did.

The case of Jeffrey MacDonald, the Green Beret doctor who was convicted in the '70s of murdering his wife and his two young daughters and who has mounted numerous appeals ever since, has gotten renewed attention recently after famed documentarian Errol Morris wrote a book arguing for MacDonald's innocence and disparaging "Fatal Vision," Joe McGinniss' compelling case for MacDonald's guilt.
http://www.amazon.com/Wilderness-Er...8&qid=1355247935&sr=8-1&keywords=errol+morris
http://www.amazon.com/Fatal-Vision-...8&qid=1355248075&sr=1-1&keywords=fatal+vision

Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Gene Weingarten eviscerates Morris' book in a long article and an online chat:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifes...8bc1c6-2da8-11e2-89d4-040c9330702a_story.html
http://live.washingtonpost.com/chatological-humor-121211.html

Any thoughts? Does anyone really think Doc MacDonald isn't a vicious, remorseless baby killer?

I'll sift through it. Until then, could you tell me if you've reached any conclusions?

Monketey Ghost said:

I'll sift through it. Until then, could you tell me if you've reached any conclusions?

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I have never had any doubt about the guy's guilt. His own statements never made much sense and they contradicted the physical evidence. McGinniss' "Fatal Vision" is totally persuasive. And of course, a jury found him guilty and multiple appeals courts have affirmed that verdict for decades. I mention it only because Errol Morris and his book have gotten a lot of attention and some favorable reviews recently by writers who apparently aren't very familiar with the case.

I want to re-read Fatal Vision and read this new book.

In the classic "bushy haired stranger" scenario, the killer(s) pop in out of the blue, do the crime for no reason, and then vanish into thin air, killing all but one person, who is injured, but not seriously.

The cops are skeptical in these cases, and so am I. When the police first got a call about Diane Downs and her kids at the ER, a veteran homicide detective said, "let me guess - mom's got a gunshot wound in her arm." And he was right.

In MacDonald's case, he says he lost consciousness during the attack. If that is so, he was at the mercy of these homicidal maniacs. Why didn't they finish him off, as they most certainly did everyone else?

Another controversial BHS case is that of Darlie Routier, whose two kids were fatally stabbed in the chest and torso while she escaped with a non-fatal stab wound in her neck. Lots of people think she is innocent. I don't.

As for Stoeckley, her role in the MacDonald case is like that of Peter Alphon in the A6 murder. In both cases, a group of people were determined to believe the man convicted was innocent, so they latched onto a flake who would say anything to get attention. After 40 years, DNA tests finally put the A6 case to rest, and there was no miscarriage of justice. James Hanratty did it. He really did. I think MacDonald did, too.

When I skimmed Morris' book recently, I was persuaded that mistakes had been made in the investigation. But I trusted Morris too much. For instance, I simply believed the claim that MacDonald had a wound close to his heart. That may not be accurate at all.

Morris left too much stuff out. He never took a hard look at MacDonald in the book.

I've since learned about the blood evidence, the pajama-top evidence, and that MacDonald used to hit Colette, according to her diary.

Add that to telling Kassab that huge lie that he and his Special Forces friends tortured and killed one of the "intruders", and add that to the basic absurdity of MacDonald's version, and I've got to think he did it.

He doesn't have to be a total psychopath to have done it, nor did he have to be overdosing on Eskatrol. He only needs to be a really selfish bastard who was stressed out and sleep-deprived. Maybe that's a distinction without much of a difference, except that he was capable of behaving normally most of the time.

I think a fight got out of control, and then he tried to cover it up with murder and by concocting a story.

He may have got the idea of his intruders from seeing Stoeckley & friends around the base. He may have got the idea of Manson-like murders from the Esquire article found in his house. Also, he may have gotten the idea of writing on the mirror from a break-in at the next-door neighbor's house a month before, where something was written on a mirror.

I think the Morris book is engagingly written but misleading, now that I've read a little more.

_Fatal Vision_ may have some bad psychiatric speculation or other bad speculation, but I think it's on the right track, whatever its flaws are.

But I admit I don't really understand the blood evidence -- the exact details of who was where. This is partly because I don't really want to think too closely about a father killing his family. It's too awful.

Charlie Wilkes said:

I want to re-read Fatal Vision and read this new book.

In the classic "bushy haired stranger" scenario, the killer(s) pop in out of the blue, do the crime for no reason, and then vanish into thin air, killing all but one person, who is injured, but not seriously.

The cops are skeptical in these cases, and so am I. When the police first got a call about Diane Downs and her kids at the ER, a veteran homicide detective said, "let me guess - mom's got a gunshot wound in her arm." And he was right.

In MacDonald's case, he says he lost consciousness during the attack. If that is so, he was at the mercy of these homicidal maniacs. Why didn't they finish him off, as they most certainly did everyone else?

Another controversial BHS case is that of Darlie Routier, whose two kids were fatally stabbed in the chest and torso while she escaped with a non-fatal stab wound in her neck. Lots of people think she is innocent. I don't.

As for Stoeckley, her role in the MacDonald case is like that of Peter Alphon in the A6 murder. In both cases, a group of people were determined to believe the man convicted was innocent, so they latched onto a flake who would say anything to get attention. After 40 years, DNA tests finally put the A6 case to rest, and there was no miscarriage of justice. James Hanratty did it. He really did. I think MacDonald did, too.

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Hi Charlie - re: the Routier case, which I've been sort of on the fence about, if she's guilty - why do you think she didn't also kill her third son, still a baby at the time I think and in the house upstairs? It sort of seems like the same reasoning would apply here regarding the fact that the hippies MacDonald claimed murdered his family also didn't go ahead and kill him.

BTW, I've also read your many posts on the Meredith Kercher murder - they are fantastic! I started out thinking Knox/Sollecito were probably guilty - back in 2009 - but now realize they are undoubtedly innocent.

AnimalFriendly said:

....

BTW, I've also read your many posts on the Meredith Kercher murder - they are fantastic! I started out thinking Knox/Sollecito were probably guilty - back in 2009 - but now realize they are undoubtedly innocent.

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Welcome to the rational side, and the forum.

I was stationed at Pope AFB at the time and hung out a lot at the club where McDonald claimed the killers did.

Never saw them.

I knew a few people in McDonald's unit. They all thought he was nuts.

I'm pretty sure he did it.

I believe he did it.

AnimalFriendly said:

Hi Charlie - re: the Routier case, which I've been sort of on the fence about, if she's guilty - why do you think she didn't also kill her third son, still a baby at the time I think and in the house upstairs? It sort of seems like the same reasoning would apply here regarding the fact that the hippies MacDonald claimed murdered his family also didn't go ahead and kill him.

BTW, I've also read your many posts on the Meredith Kercher murder - they are fantastic! I started out thinking Knox/Sollecito were probably guilty - back in 2009 - but now realize they are undoubtedly innocent.

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Thank you, I'm flattered.

Darlie Routier's husband was upstairs with the baby, so she'd have had to kill him too.

Beyond that, I don't know. One would have to understand the reason why she killed her two sons, and I don't. I think it's glib to speculate that she wanted to get rid of the expense, but it is true that she and her husband, who maintained the trappings of an affluent lifestyle, were about to face the humiliation of bankruptcy. Also, she had been struggling with her weight and taking diet pills.

Debora Green killed two of her three children when she burned down her own house. She also poisoned her husband and almost killed him. She had no obvious motive, but she had a lot of problems. I can speculate that she might have seen the fire as a way of arming herself with an excuse for why her life was such a mess, and the same might go for Routier.

Charlie Wilkes said:

Thank you, I'm flattered.

Darlie Routier's husband was upstairs with the baby, so she'd have had to kill him too.

Beyond that, I don't know. One would have to understand the reason why she killed her two sons, and I don't. I think it's glib to speculate that she wanted to get rid of the expense, but it is true that she and her husband, who maintained the trappings of an affluent lifestyle, were about to face the humiliation of bankruptcy. Also, she had been struggling with her weight and taking diet pills.

Debora Green killed two of her three children when she burned down her own house. She also poisoned her husband and almost killed him. She had no obvious motive, but she had a lot of problems. I can speculate that she might have seen the fire as a way of arming herself with an excuse for why her life was such a mess, and the same might go for Routier.

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Thanks - for some reason I was thinking her husband wasn't home at the time but I must be thinking of another case. I guess one reason I've always thought she might be innocent was that her husband had seemingly stood by her for so long. But maybe they're divorced now since she's been incarcerated for so long. I never really bought into the notion that she'd kill her boys like that due to financial difficulties. With the right help, sometimes bankruptcy doesn't even mean losing one's house.

Forgot to mention that I've always been interested in the MacDonald case having grown up in N.C. in the 70s and read Fatal Vision...Stoekley's statements, which changed so much over so much time, utterly lacked credibility due to her various addiction disorders.

Charlie Wilkes said:

I want to re-read Fatal Vision and read this new book.

In the classic "bushy haired stranger" scenario, the killer(s) pop in out of the blue, do the crime for no reason, and then vanish into thin air, killing all but one person, who is injured, but not seriously.

The cops are skeptical in these cases, and so am I. When the police first got a call about Diane Downs and her kids at the ER, a veteran homicide detective said, "let me guess - mom's got a gunshot wound in her arm." And he was right.

In MacDonald's case, he says he lost consciousness during the attack. If that is so, he was at the mercy of these homicidal maniacs. Why didn't they finish him off, as they most certainly did everyone else?

Another controversial BHS case is that of Darlie Routier, whose two kids were fatally stabbed in the chest and torso while she escaped with a non-fatal stab wound in her neck. Lots of people think she is innocent. I don't.

As for Stoeckley, her role in the MacDonald case is like that of Peter Alphon in the A6 murder. In both cases, a group of people were determined to believe the man convicted was innocent, so they latched onto a flake who would say anything to get attention. After 40 years, DNA tests finally put the A6 case to rest, and there was no miscarriage of justice. James Hanratty did it. He really did. I think MacDonald did, too.

Click to expand...

I've always thought MacDonald was guilty. I am glad to hear you feel the same about Darlie Routier. I know one the innocence project-type groups elsewhere which of which we are both members has latched onto Darlie's case and I've made it known that I completely disagree. Same with the Lobato case. I read every single word of the Lobato trial transcripts from the second trial and I am convinved she is also guilty.

With MacDonald, there is little doubt he is guilty but there will always be those who point to Helena's drugged up musings and try to claim she was involved and he wasn't. No way.

Ampulla of Vater said:

I've always thought MacDonald was guilty. I am glad to hear you feel the same about Darlie Routier. I know one the innocence project-type groups elsewhere which of which we are both members has latched onto Darlie's case and I've made it known that I completely disagree. Same with the Lobato case. I read every single word of the Lobato trial transcripts from the second trial and I am convinved she is also guilty.

With MacDonald, there is little doubt he is guilty but there will always be those who point to Helena's drugged up musings and try to claim she was involved and he wasn't. No way.

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I don't agree about Lobato. I think she is obviously innocent. What convinces you she is guilty?

MacDonald is a great case study in meglomania.

He lied his way through just about everything in his life successfully. and believed he could lie his way through the murder.

He almost did, and people like Morris simply fell victim to a con artist.

In this instance, instead of cash, Morris lost a bit of credibility.

AnimalFriendly said:

Hi Charlie - re: the Routier case, which I've been sort of on the fence about, if she's guilty - why do you think she didn't also kill her third son, still a baby at the time I think and in the house upstairs? It sort of seems like the same reasoning would apply here regarding the fact that the hippies MacDonald claimed murdered his family also didn't go ahead and kill him.

BTW, I've also read your many posts on the Meredith Kercher murder - they are fantastic! I started out thinking Knox/Sollecito were probably guilty - back in 2009 - but now realize they are undoubtedly innocent.

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Welcome to JREF!

I'll put on coffee.

Ok this is off topic and I was thinking about starting a topic about this. My last name is MacInnis. The authors is McGinniss... It's the same thing, spelled different. Is there any last name with more spellings then MacInnis?

It's happened before

Charlie Wilkes said:

..In MacDonald's case, he says he lost consciousness during the attack. If that is so, he was at the mercy of these homicidal maniacs. Why didn't they finish him off, as they most certainly did everyone else?...

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Who knows? But there's any number of possible reasons consistent with MacDonald being innocent. Perhaps it was an escalating situation that was not a premeditated mass murder. And even if it was, perhaps, after he was beaten and stabbed, they mistook his being unconscious for his being dead.

Ampulla of Vater said:

...I know one the innocence project-type groups elsewhere which of which we are both members has latched onto Darlie's case...

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And the mother of all innocence project type groups- the original ""Innocence" Project" itself- has latched onto the Macdonald case.
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Charlie Wilkes said:

I don't agree about Lobato. I think she is obviously innocent. What convinces you she is guilty?

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Oh Charlie, there are so many things. She told several people she cut off a guy's penis within days of the crime. She specifically told people she did not know if the guy was alive when she left him. Her story later became that she was attacked by someone and slashed at his penis but left him very much alive. The first thing she said when they came to arrest her was “I didn’t think anybody would miss him.” This means she knew her victim was dead, not alive as she later claimed. She lied about going to the church after she was attacked which was proven because the church wasn’t even open when she claimed to have gone there. The murder occurred in a dumpster area, enclosed on 3 sides and with a curb running around the enclosed sides. The jail cell holding area was also enclosed on 3 sides and the floor paint color continued up the sides of the walls for several inches, mimicking a curb. Upon seeing the holding area in the jail she said “This looks like where it happened.” This is a completely different visual description from where she later claimed the attack-where-she-didn’t-kill-the guy happened. Dixie repeatedly lied on the stand and was caught changing her testimony, as were several of the friends.

I really delved into this case when I was researching it. I even had the phone records spread out and went through them highlighting who was calling who when. It took me weeks to read through all the testimony. I have very little doubt she is guilty. Have you read any of the transcripts? If you haven’t, read Dixie’s testimony. It reveals the deception going on among the family and friends who change their testimony to match the attack-where-she-didn’t-kill-the-guy scenario.

Ampulla of Vater said:

Oh Charlie, there are so many things. She told several people she cut off a guy's penis within days of the crime. She specifically told people she did not know if the guy was alive when she left him. Her story later became that she was attacked by someone and slashed at his penis but left him very much alive. The first thing she said when they came to arrest her was “I didn’t think anybody would miss him.” This means she knew her victim was dead, not alive as she later claimed. She lied about going to the church after she was attacked which was proven because the church wasn’t even open when she claimed to have gone there. The murder occurred in a dumpster area, enclosed on 3 sides and with a curb running around the enclosed sides. The jail cell holding area was also enclosed on 3 sides and the floor paint color continued up the sides of the walls for several inches, mimicking a curb. Upon seeing the holding area in the jail she said “This looks like where it happened.” This is a completely different visual description from where she later claimed the attack-where-she-didn’t-kill-the guy happened. Dixie repeatedly lied on the stand and was caught changing her testimony, as were several of the friends.

I really delved into this case when I was researching it. I even had the phone records spread out and went through them highlighting who was calling who when. It took me weeks to read through all the testimony. I have very little doubt she is guilty. Have you read any of the transcripts? If you haven’t, read Dixie’s testimony. It reveals the deception going on among the family and friends who change their testimony to match the attack-where-she-didn’t-kill-the-guy scenario.

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I don't buy it.

She told people about the guy who attacked her weeks before the murder, but the judge kept the jury from hearing that testimony.

But, beyond that, why, if she was admitting to the crime when the police talked to her, did she describe a completely different scenario in a different part of town? Why would she admit to anything? There was no physical evidence against her. If she hadn't said anything, she'd have never been a suspect.

And why would she kill this guy in the first place?

lane99 said:

Who knows? But there's any number of possible reasons consistent with MacDonald being innocent. Perhaps it was an escalating situation that was not a premeditated mass murder. And even if it was, perhaps, after he was beaten and stabbed, they mistook his being unconscious for his being dead.
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If you were to completely ignore his unchanging version of events I suppose one could view the damage done to his wife and children compared to the wounds he suffered and think of possible scenarios that make sense. However, his version makes no sense whatsoever in context with just the very basic facts of the wounds suffered by each person in the house.

According to him, some hippies break in and there is a struggle where he suffers some facial cuts and bruising, he also sustained a mild concussion and they stab him one time, puncturing his lung. Oh and manage to not wreck the living room during the struggle. He loses consciousness and they then proceed to repeatedly club his wife (both of her arms were broken) and then stab her 37 times. His 5 year old daughter was clubbed and stabbed in the neck 8-10 times and his 2 year old daughter was stabbed 33 times with a knife along with 15 times with an ice-pick.

Those facts plus the rest of the crime scene evidence taken along with his defense resting largely on the ramblings of a known drug addict leads me to the inevitable conclusion that the man, for reasons we will never know or understand if we did, murdered his entire family. The only thing I find unfathomable in this case is how anyone can look at the facts and conclude that this man is innocent.