NC - MacDonald family murders at Fort Bragg, 1970 - Jeffrey MacDonald innocent?

[Nova]

Since none of us were there and MacDonald isn't talking about what really happened that night, there is no way to know what transpired. I'm not comfortable speculating and coming up with scenarios that could have occurred. Whatever happened set things in motion and it doesn't really matter because the end result was the destruction of a wife and 2 little girls.

I don't know how human beings can help but speculate as to what triggered such an awful event! If we weren't conditioned by evolution to do so, our species would have died out long ago.

Satch, I knew without question that you had no intention of blaming the victim. I just thought our speculations were accidentally drifting in that direction and I wanted to stop before we went further.

Like you, I've read FV many times and FJ once, but it's been years and, alas, I don't have time to reread them now. But I thought there was testimony (perhaps from Colette's mother?) that Dr. and Mrs. M had quarreled over Colette allowing Kimmy to sleep in the master bedroom precisely because the child wet the bed and Dr. M was left to sleep in the wet spot. (I could very well be wrong, but that is my recollection and I think it was central to the prosecutor's theory.)

 

[Madeleine74]

I'm comfortable with the theory postulated in FV about a tired and cranky and overextended JM getting into a quarrel with his wife and it escalating to where it did. Who hit who first I can't say. Why the bent knife was in the bedroom and when it got there I don't know. The major actions are shown through the blood evidence and trail and fiber evidence. Everything else is one big ? for me. Any number of scenarios that result the same way in the same outcome are possible.

 

[silversurvivor]

Hi Nova,



I remember reading somewhere online about the case that Kimmy once told her bus driver, "My Daddy's mean." And to this day, I have always wanted to find out more information as to the exchange between Kim and the bus driver. I have every reason to believe that what Kim said is absolutely true. But to say this to her bus driver? Really interesting.


Satch

Having taught kindergarten art, I can tell you that children tell you the most intimate details of the families lives. High school isn't much better

 

[KR1]

I don't know how human beings can help but speculate as to what triggered such an awful event! If we weren't conditioned by evolution to do so, our species would have died out long ago.

Satch, I knew without question that you had no intention of blaming the victim. I just thought our speculations were accidentally drifting in that direction and I wanted to stop before we went further.

Like you, I've read FV many times and FJ once, but it's been years and, alas, I don't have time to reread them now. But I thought there was testimony (perhaps from Colette's mother?) that Dr. and Mrs. M had quarreled over Colette allowing Kimmy to sleep in the master bedroom precisely because the child wet the bed and Dr. M was left to sleep in the wet spot. (I could very well be wrong, but that is my recollection and I think it was central to the prosecutor's theory.)

Women seem to deal/be expected to sleep with the 'wet spot' in the bed so much better than men (thinking on a tangent.....!) Apols, a bit off topic but then again, if it was central to the prosecution, perhaps not?

 

[Cracka*Jaxx]

Yes,

I presented this theory in my prosecution view of the case. I think the bedwetting scenario was enough to make McDonald angry, not enough to get into a rage.....yet. However, I think that when he and Collete started fighting in the Master Bedroom, Collette could have either:

1.) Hit him with the club
2.) Thrown that hairbrush at him OR
3.) Stabbed him with that knife found on the floor. You know the one that Jeff made a big deal about pulling the knife from Collete's chest, when the investigation showed it had not been in her chest?

What do you all think about the significance of the knife on the floor?

I think in Jeff's mind of self absorbing, narcissistic arrogance, the "Ultimate humiliation of getting hit by a woman." THAT is what enraged him, and that's when things escalated and he couldn't stop.

Collete courageously fought back against Jeff, and that enraged him enough to kill.

I don't quite know what you mean about the knife being on the floor. Didn't JM get that from the kitchen at some point after Collette was on the floor? And did he have some kind of trauma wound to his head? I don't remember that.

I do think they got into a heated argument. At some point he injured Collette, and possibly Kimmy, very seriously with that club. It was then that he decided to finish the job and pretend someone else did it. He killed the children so there wouldn't be any witnesses against him. He sure had to be cold hearted to kill innocent children.

I'm amazed at how many murders are committed because the killer hurt the victim, or did something so terrible that he didn't want any witnesses alive. These people would rather kill someone, than look bad and maybe lose their job or serve some kind of prison sentence. So, murder is the better alternative. I guess in the killers mind, they think they can make up such a great story that no one would believe they were the murderer. But I just can't follow their 'logic'.

 

[borndem]

The knife on the floor was where JM put it so his story about pulling it out of her chest would make sense. The investigators, IIRC, postulated that the bent-blade knife had been used to open paint cans -- I think paint was found on the knife. That may be what Collette used in her defense against JM. Anyway, he had to have some story about the knife because the thought his fingerprints would be on it.

He spun his story to the investigators with his typical arrogance, totally believing that the stupid CID would buy his tale, lock stock & barrel. But they didn't....

And WRT the girls, I think the investigators were correct in saying that Kim was injured either because she was already in the bedroom when things started and he either hit her in a rage or she got in the way of a blow JM was in the process of delivering to Collette -- or she woke up, came in the bedroom and walked into a blow. So there he is with his wife & older daughter dead -- then he had to premeditate the slaying of his younger little girl, and in cold-blood he walked into Kristy's room and stabbed her to death, probably as she was sleeping (initially, since she tried to defend herself the best she could).

The jury got the sentences correctly, IMO -- Collette & Kim were 2nd-degree murders, and Kristy was a 1st-degree murder. And he needs to stay in prison until he finally draws his next breath on his soft bed with no one hurting him. Grrrrrr.

 

[hollyjokers]

Here's a breakdown of the cagematch between Errol Morris & Joe McGuiness.

http://m.cjr.org/303546/show/e64468e13bf8a75023fe73b290853464/?

 

[hollyjokers]

Pajama top pocket! If you think the 21 ice pick holes are junk science, you can't explain Colette's blood spatter on the pocket before it had been torn off.

Love logic!

 

[robinparten]

Here's a breakdown of the cagematch between Errol Morris & Joe McGuiness.

http://m.cjr.org/303546/show/e64468e13bf8a75023fe73b290853464/?

Wow, that was a great recap and review of both books. It's such a shame this sham is still going on...........

 

[txsvicki]

How does he explain the pj pocket being stained before torn off?

 

[believe09]

How does he explain the pj pocket being stained before torn off?

He doesnt. How does he explain that the most threatening presence in the house that night survived with a nick on his torso and a bump on his head when the rest of the house was awash in blood?

:bricks:

 

[hollyjokers]

I'll have to go back and look to see if he was asked about it in the April 1970 interview. Seems like that might have been one of the small details the investigators randomly threw out at him to get his reaction.

 

[txsvicki]

I've read almost the whole thread this morning. The wooden club was said to be a piece of wood maybe used as a bed slat, but not a smooth edged slat that came with beds back then. I wonder why he didn't have any scrapes, redness, or splinters on his palms or fingers from wielding it multiple times with such force. Excuse me if this has been hashed out on other threads.

 

[believe09]

I've read almost the whole thread this morning. The wooden club was said to be a piece of wood maybe used as a bed slat, but not a smooth edged slat that came with beds back then. I wonder why he didn't have any scrapes, redness, or splinters on his palms or fingers from wielding it multiple times with such force. Excuse me if this has been hashed out on other threads.

I missed that it was described as not smooth edged-was it varnished?

 

[believe09]

Here's a breakdown of the cagematch between Errol Morris & Joe McGuiness.

http://m.cjr.org/303546/show/e64468e13bf8a75023fe73b290853464/?

Morris tries to blame McGinniss for poisoning the well against MacDonald, but Fatal Vision mostly reported the facts as they were presented at trial. The disappointing truth is that MacDonald was proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in 1979 and his lawyers have been grasping at straws ever since. Joe McGinniss’s Final Vision should indeed be the last word on the subject.

And Fatal Vision wasnt released until MacDonald was convicted.

This is a trend-sort of like the nonsense claims going on around the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson. People are trying to make a name for themselves by taking a stand against the majority. There is nothing wrong with that position, of course, unless you are doing it for the sake of doing it. Contrariness, it just seems like simple contrariness.

 

[txsvicki]

I think someone said it was a board or club with the name of the phone company on it, so I was assuming it wasn't smooth like a bed slat. I probably should try to look and find exactly what it was before assuming.

 

[borndem]

Here's a breakdown of the cagematch between Errol Morris & Joe McGuiness.

http://m.cjr.org/303546/show/e64468e13bf8a75023fe73b290853464/?

A big BRAVO to you, Lindsay Beyerstein!! Quite good and thorough without writing another 900-word epic.

Now I know without a doubt that I do not need to read the, IMO, tripe that Morris wrote! To blindly ignore facts and to make broad statements & assumptions is very weak, especially for non-fiction writing. It makes one wonder why, and if he has a stake in the book other than counter sales of it.

Note: JMHO


And a big thanks to hollyjokers for giving us the link!

 

[borndem]

Pajama top pocket! If you think the 21 ice pick holes are junk science, you can't explain Colette's blood spatter on the pocket before it had been torn off.

Love logic!

ITA, 'jokers.

And love just plain ol' common sense!

 

[borndem]

How does he explain the pj pocket being stained before torn off?

The following is McGinniss's version:

The investigators showed the jurors that when you match the pocket with the place it should go on the top, that there is a blood stain that is on both the pocket and on the shirt itself. When you place the torn-off pocket back on the shirt, it is easy to see the complete stain.

So, sometime before the intruders came in and tore at his shirt -- there in the nearly-undisturbed living room (the one with the Valentine's Day cards still standing on the china cabinet (I think it was a china cabinet), even though there was a life or death struggle among three adult men, the same room with no pj top threads anywhere in the room) -- the pj top was smeared with Collette's blood before the pocket was ripped off.

Odd.

 

[Nova]

Women seem to deal/be expected to sleep with the 'wet spot' in the bed so much better than men (thinking on a tangent.....!) Apols, a bit off topic but then again, if it was central to the prosecution, perhaps not?

My little brother was a bed-wetter and he and I shared the same bed until I was almost 13. (From that I acquired a lifelong habit of showering first thing in the morning. LOL.) I adored my baby brother and never even teased him about the bed-wetting (which wasn't considered a big deal in our house).

Actually, the wet spot wasn't as bad as having to sleep on rubber sheets in the South Florida heat. But I want you to know that some of us guys can cowboy up!