Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings/Conspiracy Theories Book II

Fatal Vision/Justice: Jeffrey R. MacDonald (Part II)

Defense

During the defense stage of the trial, Segal called Helena Stoeckley to the witness stand; intent on extracting a confession from her that she had been one of the intruders MacDonald claimed had entered his house, murdered them and attacked him. During the nine years after the murders had been committed, she had made several contradictory statements regarding them, sometimes saying she was present when the murders happened, other times stating she had no recollection of her whereabouts the evening they occurred. Just prior to her testimony, separate interviews had been conducted by the defense and the prosecution, during which she denied ever being in the MacDonald house or ever seeing him before that very day in court. Afterward, Segal argued for the introduction of testimony from other witnesses to whom Stoeckley had confessed. Dupree refused, in the absence of any evidence to connect Stoeckley to the scene, citing her history of long-term drug abuse.

MacDonald's defense called forensic expert James Thornton to the stand. He unsuccessfully tried to rebut the government's contention that the pajama top was stationary on Colette's chest, rather than wrapped around MacDonald's wrists as he warded off blows, by conducting an experiment wherein a similar one was placed over a ham, moved back and forth on a sled, and stabbed at with an ice pick. The defense also called several character witnesses. MacDonald took the witness stand as the last defense witness. Under Segal's direct examination, MacDonald denied committing the murders. When Blackburn cross-examined him, however, MacDonald could offer no explanation against the evidence.

Outcome

On August 29, 1979, MacDonald was convicted of one count of first-degree murder in the death of Kristen and two counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of Colette and Kimberly after the jury deliberated for just over six hours. Dupree immediately gave him a life sentence for each of the murders, to be served consecutively. He also revoked his bail. Soon after the verdict, MacDonald appealed Dupree's bail revocation ruling, asking that bail be granted pending the outcome of his appeal. On September 7, 1979, this application was rejected, and an appeal on bail was further rejected by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on November 20, 1979.

Fatal Vision

In June 1979, MacDonald invited author Joe McGinniss to write a book about the case. McGinniss was given full access to him and the defense during the trial. He expected that the book would be about his innocence in the murders of his family. However, McGinniss' book, Fatal Vision, first published in the spring of 1983, portrayed him as "a narcissistic sociopath" who was indeed guilty of killing his family. It contains excerpts from court transcripts and sections entitled "The Voice of Jeffrey MacDonald," which was based on tape recordings he made following his conviction.

MacDonald subsequently sued McGinniss in 1987 for fraud, claiming that McGinniss pretended to believe him innocent after he came to the conclusion that he was guilty, in order that he continue cooperating with him. After a trial, which resulted in a mistrial on August 21, 1987, they settled out of court for $325,000 on November 23, 1987.

The Journalist and the Murderer, written by Janet Malcolm and published in 1990, is about the relationship between journalists and their subjects and explores the relationship between McGinniss and MacDonald as the subject of Malcolm's thesis that, "Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible." Malcolm maintained that McGinniss tricked MacDonald—a claim that McGinniss subsequently responded to in the epilogue of a later edition of Fatal Vision. In a 2012 book, A Wilderness of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald, filmmaker, and writer Errol Morris argued that many of McGinniss' claims about MacDonald are untrue and irresponsible.