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

[cami]

Thanks-I don't want to be posting inaccurately. I just read that Bob Stevenson was not given the time promised to him on LKL the other night. Also, Joe McGuiness was a scheduled guest who was dumped by the show before it aired. I've seen crime scene photos and autopsy photos from this heinous crime-as well as photos of Mac's injuries. I can never believe the intruder story, imo the photos tell a story of their own.

Yes, he was dumped from the show at Kathyrn's insistance. I think I might have already posted this so if I did moderator please remove...

 

[cami]

He was a Green Beret, let's don't forget that. If there had been "hippie attackers," wouldn't a Green Beret have been able to at least make one of them bleed a little, thus leaving someone else's blood at the scene? (Although I do concede, with the ABO system used to categorize the blood evidence in this trial, that an attacker could have had the same blood type as Collette, Kimberly and/or Kristen, or even MacDonald himself. Does anybody know if the blood evidence is still preserved and if so is DNA testing a possibility?)

And as for his wounds, he was a surgeon, for crying out loud!!! The very people on this earth trained to "wound" human beings without killing them!!!

I have never believed MacDonald's BS.

Here are the documents related to the dna tests. The defense selected the items to be tested and the lab.

But here are Judge Fox's orders

Link to documents

 

[cami]

:waitasec: Hmmmmm, well I did hear that on the news. Thanks again. :blowkiss:

Yes but the news is incorrect. I to opened the paper to read "MacDonald granted new trial" but once you read the article you realize that he was granted nothing of the sort....the Fourth Circuit accepted the motion, nothing more, no hearing as yet....

Read on Chris's site, they are all there.

Link to the Government's response to Mac's motion to vacate

 

[sharpar]

The hair under Kris's fingernail could have come from anywhere. She did not have a bath that evening nor were her nails cleaned. There was also grass and dirt under her fingernails. Notice there was no mention by Kathyrn of the bloody blue pajama fibre found under Kris's nail either. Typical of Kathryn and the defense, they just ignore anything that's incriminating. I had to laugh at her on LKL, alleging the hair under Kris's nail was "extremely exculpatory." Half truths and lies..just as Bob Stevenson alleged on the program.

Actually, the MacDonalds had their own washer and dryer in their apt they did not use a laundromat.

Cami - I stand corrected you're right - they did indeed have their own laundry facilities. Got my cases or my facts messed up . Kathryn is a piece of work for sure. MAC is guilty and no matter how much testing or how many motions he will still be guilty. Guess they will use the motion now to drum up more money for supporters. Wish media would just let him rot .

 

[AlwaysShocked]

"that old goat" (Larry King) ... lol......he does simper when the guest is an attractive female, doesn't he? It is just pitiful to watch.

 

[sharpar]

[/quote] My husband was a Marine in Vietnam and I'm always asking him this question. He says that the military and police academy training do one of two things to a man - make him better, or make him worse.[/QUOTE]
Miltary and Police particularily higher ranking ones are used to having orders obeyed without argument or debate. Some of these guys have a real hard time
dealing with civilians who dont follow orders but question, disagree or want to discuss it or dont automatically and without hesitation OBEY .

So sorry about what happened to you - hopefully that kind of behavior is a
rarity now instead of the norm. Dont think the ole boy network permates our
society like it did in decades gone by.

 

[Wudge]

I wouldn't snicker at Bunny's posts. She knows those documents like the back of her hand.....

Can you point out to us the exculpatory evidence that was withheld by the prosecution? Thanks...

This is not breaking news. The prosecution kept hidden from the defense all knowledge of hairs under the daughter's fingernails and/or in her hand(s) that were not a match to Jeffrey MacDonald. They also hid the presence of blood spots, group O, that were found at the scene and on the hand of Colette.

Greg Micthell, Helen Stokley's boyfriend, is blood type O. Additionally, a State witness has gone on record, via an affidavit, to say that they suffered intimidation (witness coercion) at the hands of the prosecutor.

For comparison purposes, at the murder scene of Marilyn Sheppard, the coroner, Dr. Sam Gerber, found a half dozen or so blood drops on the stairway. These blood drops did not come from either Marilyn (blood group O with a unique M factor) or from Dr. Sheppard (blood group A). Moreover, since Dr. Sheppard did not have a nick or cut on his entire body, then clearly these blood drops did not come from him and, thus, can readily be inferred to have been left by the murderer -- years later, Richard Eberling admitted that it was his blood.

Notwithstanding the exonerating blood drop evidence, which was presented by the defense in Dr. Sheppard's first trial, the jury simply ignored it and found him guilty -- basically, all of Cleveland had Dr. Sheppard convicted prior to the trial. However, ten years later, Dr. Sheppard was acquitted in a retrial and released from prison.

Still, at least the defense in the Sheppard case knew about the exonerating blood drop evidence. But not so in MacDonald's case.

In my mind's eye, the Sheppard case and the MacDonald case have a lot in common.

 

[Bunny]

This is not breaking news. The prosecution kept hidden from the defense all knowledge of hairs under the daughter's fingernails and/or in her hand(s) that were not a match to Jeffrey MacDonald. They also hid the presence of blood spots, group O, that were found at the scene and on the hand of Colette.

Cami asked you to provide evidence of exculpatory information withheld from the defense, but I saw no evidence from you that anything was deliberately "kept hidden," no evidence to refute the fact that the courts found that NO wrongful suppression of any evidence took place, and aside from that, the evidence you mention was not, IMO, exculpatory.

It's almost as though you simply parroted what Mac had to say on LKL: "We found in the government files records that they had taken hairs from under my daughter's fingernails. They tried to match them against me secretly. They didn't tell us this. They didn't -- they're not my hair so they hid them. Well, we're trying to get those DNA tested. That's one thing."

Several lab techs looked at the fingernail scrapings from Kristen long before trial; in fact they were looked at by Dillard Browning and other lab technicians before Glisson ever saw that evidence, and sans her lab note, there is no documentation at all showing that any hair fragment was found UNDER Kristen's fingernail. None of those other technicians saw any hair fragment under Kris's nail, and even Glisson seems doubtful about it, since she wrote "#7 fingernail scrapings left hand smaller female MacDonald. 1 hair? 2 fragments." Note the question mark after the word "hair."

As for the hair fragment from Kim, isn't it funny that Mac so long held this (and the other hair from Kris) to be so highly exculpatory, but I don't think this hair was included in the DNA test. I also have in my notes (although I lost the link during a crash, so all I have is the meticulous research done by jednme; I believe this came from the handwritten AFIP notes included in one of the attachments filed recently) that "upon examination a determination could not be made as to whether the hair was human or animal. The examiner mentions that the hair appears to be yellow in color and when examined again, using different equipment, he describes it as almost transparent. Since this hair was not included in the DNA test, I can't help but wonder if that 'hair' didn't turn out to be animal. MacDonald and team are saying NOTHING about that hair when for years they held it up as proof of something." So what's the deal on that, Wudge, can you tell us? Why did Mac claim for so many years that this was so very, very important, yet now the defense seems to have dropped this issue and is saying nothing at all about it?

Also, the hairs were not compared to the head hairs of Colette, Kimberly, and Kristen MacDonald (not that it would have shown anything anyway, since the hair fragments didn't have enough characterstics for microscopic comparison purposes, and DNA testing wasn't used in this country until after the trial was over). As JTF once wrote: "If the 2 hair fragments were brought forth at the 1979 trial, what would be the argument from either side? Hair fragments are microscopically uncomparable, so the only presentation either side could make is that the source of those hairs is unknown." So how is that exculpatory, Wudge?

As you probably knew but didn't mention, in a civil action filed on June 11, 1970, Segal tried to enjoin the Army from obtaining MacDonald's hair samples for comparison purposes. And if you read Segal had to say when talking to Pruett and Kearns, you'd see that Segal places virtually no faith whatsoever in hair comparisons. He claims "It is dubious as to whether it can produce any kind of conclusive--" (and we have to assume the next word would have been "results" if Kearns hadn't broken in), and says "I hate to think about the whole procedure."

I also see you didn't mention (perhaps because it is "breaking news" for you and you didn't know it?) that pre-trial, Mac filed a motion to suppress hair samples obtained at the exhumation of the victims' bodies, and that motion was quite rightly denied. What was Mac so afraid of, I wonder? Why did he go to such lengths to try and suppress evidence, if he believed the hairs belonged to "intruders"?

As for the "presence of blood spots, group O, that were found at the scene" that you claim were "hidden," I'm not even sure what you're talking about. What Type O spots are you referring to? As for Type O on Colette, I knew about that evidence but can't say I've ever seen anything saying that this was "suppresed." Where did you find that information, and why would you think it was exculpatory, since evidence shows Kristen most likely never left her bed, and her blood almost certainly got on Colette when Colette went to Kris's bedroom?

Sans Glisson lab note, every bit of Mac's "new evidence" was presented to the appellate courts before Dupree died in 1995, and not a single court has ever found that any evidence was wrongly "suppressed," nor has any court ever found that evidence was exculpatory enough to show that the jury was wrong in their verdicts.

 

[rashomon]

Good point about the "manipulative personality with a background in medicine," BGG!

Good point indeed.
I have never seen the videotape, but from reading the transcript alone I get the impression that it sounds incredibly "rehearsed".
I especially liked the part where Mac says he felt something like a dish glove on the hand of one intruder. LOL!

Sure Mac. Now that was one those 'five bloody gloves' which were found in your kitchen, that's what you wanted to convey. Nice try. And that three of those gloves were simple oven mitts only adds to the idiocy of your whole concocted story.
And BTW, how could he have felt anything at all with his hands if they were allegedly caught up in his pj top? :liar:

Hi Bunny and Cami!
Although I've been posting on the JB Ramsey forum for half a year here, I had no idea that Websleuths had a JMD forum too. Thanks for pointing it out to me, Bunny!

 

[Wudge]

Cami asked you to provide evidence of exculpatory information withheld from the defense, but I saw no evidence from you that anything was deliberately "kept hidden," no evidence to refute the fact that the courts found that NO wrongful suppression of any evidence took place, and aside from that, the evidence you mention was not, IMO, exculpatory.

SNIP

If you think blood and hair evidence found at the scene of a crime and not turned over to the defense is not looked at as prosecutorial misconduct, you are seriously in error.

Prosecutors hiding the ball, so as to obtain a conviction, is not new to me or most of the rest of America.

Perhaps you would care to bestow upon us how blood and hair evidence found at the scene of a crime can be withheld from the defense in a "rightful" way?

 

[oftenwonder]

Everytime I hear (once again) that the prosecutors held bad so much evidence/information, it makes me want to barf. I also think it is ridiculous when the Mac camp talks about the prosecutors destroying evidence when the apartment was destroyed. MacDonald and company have had 36+ years to compile whatever they needed to prove MacDonald's innocence. They also had (if I am correct) 14 years to visit the crime scene and I believe they did visit the crime scene before it was destroyed. If they didn't, shame on them. If Freddy could visit the crime scene, so should the defense team have been able to visit the crime scene. If MacDonald had not started lying from the day of the murders (and continues to this day), he might not be where he is. There were, no doubt, many mistakes made in this case, but the biggest MISTAKE was when MacDonald slaughtered his family and thought he would get away with it. He has had 36+ years to try to get his "story" (or should I say stories) to fit the evidence and he cannot do it. That is because he is lying. I think the only time I have heard MacDonald (or at least one of the few times) tell the truth is when he said (over and over again) that the hair in Colette's hand would belong to the murderer. It sure did; it belonged to MacDonald. PS: Hi, Bunny, Rash and Cami.

 

[cami]

This is not breaking news. The prosecution kept hidden from the defense all knowledge of hairs under the daughter's fingernails and/or in her hand(s) that were not a match to Jeffrey MacDonald. They also hid the presence of blood spots, group O, that were found at the scene and on the hand of Colette.

Greg Micthell, Helen Stokley's boyfriend, is blood type O. Additionally, a State witness has gone on record, via an affidavit, to say that they suffered intimidation (witness coercion) at the hands of the prosecutor.

Kristen MacDonald was blood type 0. It's been proven beyond doubt that Colette MacDonald was on Kris's bed and suffered multiple injuries there as per the huge amount of her blood found on the top of Kris's bed.

No patent fingerprints of Mitchell found in that apt, no latent fingerprints either. No blood trail outside the apt. Did Mitchell bleed only on Colette's hands? There is not shred of physical evidence tying Mitchell to that apt, nor Helena for that matter.

I suggest you read the trial transcripts....there you will learn that the defense knew about these hairs prior to the trial. You need to learn both sides of the case and not just MacDonald's. There were no blood spots in Type 0 hidden from the defense.

You might want to refresh your memory on the latest affidavit from Britt. He has not gone on record alleging he suffered intimidation. He is alleging that Blackburn threatened Helena. Why did he wait 20 something years to come forward? I suggest that Britt is not believable and the court will not grant a hearing based on his affidavit. Helena never mentioned in all her many confessions and dealings with the defense that she was threatened by Blackburn. Just another red herring by the mac camp

 

[Wudge]

Kristen MacDonald was blood type 0. It's been proven beyond doubt that Colette MacDonald was on Kris's bed and suffered multiple injuries there as per the huge amount of her blood found on the top of Kris's bed.

No patent fingerprints of Mitchell found in that apt, no latent fingerprints either. No blood trail outside the apt. Did Mitchell bleed only on Colette's hands? There is not shred of physical evidence tying Mitchell to that apt, nor Helena for that matter.

I suggest you read the trial transcripts....there you will learn that the defense knew about these hairs prior to the trial. You need to learn both sides of the case and not just MacDonald's. There were no blood spots in Type 0 hidden from the defense.

You might want to refresh your memory on the latest affidavit from Britt. He has not gone on record alleging he suffered intimidation. He is alleging that Blackburn threatened Helena. Why did he wait 20 something years to come forward? I suggest that Britt is not believable and the court will not grant a hearing based on his affidavit. Helena never mentioned in all her many confessions and dealings with the defense that she was threatened by Blackburn. Just another red herring by the mac camp

Wrong: The group O blood drops and the hairs, which were brown
(McDonald was blond) were not disclosed to the defense. And the affidavit alleging witness coercion is pure fact. It is not going away.

Moreover, rather than just let Helena Stockley tell her story on the witness stand, Blackburn told her that she would be indicted for murder if she did so, which was, obviously, yet another major incident of evidence suppression and witness coercion by Blackburn.

 

[oftenwonder]

I often wonder which "story" the MacDonald supporters believe Helena should have told when she took the stand. She was UNDER OATH; therefore, I believe to be charged with perjury would be far worse than being told she would be prosecuted if she admitted to being involved in the murder of 4 people. Helena was a human being and when she took the stand IF MacDonald was innocent and she had the power to free him, I believe she would have done so. Helena was a druggie and loved/craved attention, but she didn't want to lie her way into prison in order to free a guilty man. Britt's statement may not be going away, but neither is the mountain of evidence that convicted MacDonald in the first place. I don't believe Britt's statement is true, but I say BRING IT ON!! Murtagh (as he has already proven) can handle anything, and I mean anything, that the defense may have in their arsenal.

 

[rashomon]

Bunny: your Courttv mailbox being full, I sent my PM to your Websleuths inbox.

Rash

 

[rashomon]

the hairs, which were brown
(McDonald was blond)

Wrong. That's the typical spin with which the book Fatal Justice wants to throw sand into peoples' eyes.
Don't you know that the DNA tests showed that the light brown hair which was found in Colette's hand was Jeffrey MacDonald's hair?
And lab tech Janice Glisson even listed JMDs head hair as being 'too black' in comparison to this light brown limb hair.
MacD's hair is also listed as brown in official documents.

 

[Bunny]

If you think blood and hair evidence found at the scene of a crime and not turned over to the defense is not looked at as prosecutorial misconduct, you are seriously in error.

If you think that any court ever found that any misconduct ever took place on the part of the prosecution, defense or Dupree, you are seriously in error. If you can point us to any link contradicting the statement I just made, do let us know; there would be many of us who would be very interested in seeing that.

 

[Bunny]

Bunny: your Courttv mailbox being full, I sent my PM to your Websleuths inbox.

Rash

Wha??? I've been keeping that CourtTV mailbox empty, deleting each message after I read it! I'll have to go over there now and see what's going on. Thanks for the heads up, Rash.

 

[Bunny]

Everytime I hear (once again) that the prosecutors held bad so much evidence/information, it makes me want to barf. I also think it is ridiculous when the Mac camp talks about the prosecutors destroying evidence when the apartment was destroyed. MacDonald and company have had 36+ years to compile whatever they needed to prove MacDonald's innocence. They also had (if I am correct) 14 years to visit the crime scene and I believe they did visit the crime scene before it was destroyed. If they didn't, shame on them. If Freddy could visit the crime scene, so should the defense team have been able to visit the crime scene. If MacDonald had not started lying from the day of the murders (and continues to this day), he might not be where he is. There were, no doubt, many mistakes made in this case, but the biggest MISTAKE was when MacDonald slaughtered his family and thought he would get away with it. He has had 36+ years to try to get his "story" (or should I say stories) to fit the evidence and he cannot do it. That is because he is lying. I think the only time I have heard MacDonald (or at least one of the few times) tell the truth is when he said (over and over again) that the hair in Colette's hand would belong to the murderer. It sure did; it belonged to MacDonald. PS: Hi, Bunny, Rash and Cami.

Exactly right, oftenwonder. Remember that entry on the MMT? "[font=Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-serif][size=-1]MacDonald implies that he was prevented from inspecting the crime scene. During the 2003 Larry King Live interview, he said that the apartment 'was kept for about 15 years, and then when we wanted entry, when the defense finally was close to getting an order from a judge to go into that apartment, they wrecked it.'" But the truth was that in June of 1979 Bernie Segal, Joe McGinniss, John Thornton and James Osterburg spent five hours inside 544 Castle Drive in preparation for the trial, and the Court found that the defense "had every reasonable opportunity to inspect this crime scene at any reasonable time during the last thirteen years..."[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-serif][size=-1]
Segal was sloppy about things in this case, so cavalier about it that I believe he thought he could just repeat his Article 32 performance, hammer witnesses on cross-examination, and that would do the trick. I don't think he realized that Blackburn and Murtagh were taking the case far more seriously than he was. Every time I read Bernie's closing argument, I just shake my head in disbelief. But of course it wasn't his closing argument which convinced a jury to convict MacDonald; it was the evidence (including Mac's own lies) and the lack of evidence to support his stories which put Mac where he is today.
[/size][/font]

 

[Bunny]

Wrong: The group O blood drops and the hairs, which were brown
(McDonald was blond) were not disclosed to the defense.

Wrong. That's the typical spin with which the book Fatal Justice wants to throw sand into peoples' eyes.
Don't you know that the DNA tests showed that the light brown hair which was found in Colette's hand was Jeffrey MacDonald's hair?
And lab tech Janice Glisson even listed JMDs head hair as being 'too black' in comparison to this light brown limb hair.
MacD's hair is also listed as brown in official documents.

Rash is right on all counts, Wudge. You can read Glisson's notes and the DNA results for yourself if you don't believe her.

Also, with regard to the hair in Colette's hand, Mac's website long proclaimed that the hairs were brown, but MacDonald was blonde, so the hair couldn't have come from him. But as Rash pointed out, Jeffrey MacDonald was indeed described as having brown hair in the Criminal Investigation Division report: "MacDonald: 12 Oct 43; Jamaica, NY; M; Cauc; 71 in; 175 lbs; brown hair; green eyes; medium build; discharged from US Army 4 Dec 70..."

Although this hair was initially found not to match MacDonald, it was not tested against hairs from the children's heads, nor was it tested against hairs from all parts of MacDonald's body.

This hair, by the way, was certainly not withheld from the defense, since they knew about it as early as the 1970 Article 32 hearing where it was reported. Dillard Browning, Janice Glisson, and Paul Stombaugh classified it as the distal portion or the tip of a limb hair. Limb hairs are microscopically uncomparable, so there was no forensic basis for MacDonald's claim that the hair was Greg Mitchell's.

And of course we know now that this crucial "mystery hair," which for decades Mac has claimed could only have come from Colette's murderer, was his very own.

I still don't understand what this "group" of type O spots is that you keep referring to...can you be a little more clear on exactly what it is you're talking about here?