cami said:
The defense tried to have the charges dismissed citing their own psychologist's reports that MacDonald was not the type of person who could commit this crime.
Interesting how two qualified doctors can reach such opposing conclusions...it's, obviously, all about the money.
I've always believed there should be a system whereby the defense and prosecution have to come to an agreement over which expert(s) to use (before anyone ever sees any evidence) and then split their fee(s)... I like the idea of professional juries, too.
I think what Bob meant was their was no mitochrondial dna to pass on, just his male dna.
Ahhhhh, I think you're right...he
does talk about DNA of the mother...
Sorry I respectfully disagree with you that he doesn't sound like a distraught brother. He's guided by one thing. Seeing those two tiny white coffins of his neices going into the ground. And yes he's angry. I guess we can't understand it, but this crime destroyed them, Freddie, Mildred and Bob.
Maybe I am being too hard on him...I know if my brother-in-law killed my sister, I would turn into the bit** from hell...
It's just that he reminds me alot of Sam Shephard's (sp?) son, who has spent his entire life trying to clear his father's name. The guy is weird - very weird - and you don't get a good vibe from him.
I remember seeing Bob Stevenson on some show (American Justice, maybe) and he said something about telling his children that Papa Bear can kill Mama Bear - it made me very uncomfortable...I get the same creepy feeling from his writings.
It doesn't mean I don't have a great deal of sympathy for him, though...he's carried around so much rage for so long that his life has been, in a sense, also taken by MacDonald...
I too found Mac to be evasive and angry on the witness stand. Just as Silverman referred to in his psychological report "he is subject to respond with anger when his person is questioned on whatever basis." Didn't go over too well with the jury. If your innocent, there's no need for the lies. He told so many lies, lies upon lies.
Well, I didn't think things could get much worse than his trial testimony, but I was wrong...I read your link.
Where do I begin?!
First of all, now I understand the speculation about him using amphetamines...Good God - the man could not shut up! He reminded me of my 5-year old niece after she's had a can of pop and bag of skittles - just endless rambling and non-sensical chatter :doh:. Let's see...we heard about the neighbor who watches across the street with her binoculars and how he teased her about it once at a party, Lt. Harrison's wacky war stories (BTW, wasn't there some rumor that something was going on between these two?), the various health maladies of all the women in his family (and how he was supplying them with drugs he had stolen from the military), and on and on... At first, I thought he was just trying to be conversational and friendly, trying to establish a good rapport with the interviewers. But as things went on, I got the feeling he was not entirely in control of himself...this was not just nerves at work, he was on something... Combine with the fact that he was
so obviously trying to be evasive and you can see why the interviewers knew something was up...
:When he was asked
outright if he put the ice pick wounds on his stomach himself, he just said "no" and then proceeded to ramble on about how his lungs were bubbling and he knew he had a pneumothorax (any innocent person would, of course, react with outrage at the mere suggestion);
:He would constantly repeat the question he had just been asked, obviously trying to buy time as he fabricated his story;
:He would try to place blame, draw attention to the actions of others - the "idiot" doctor, the "







" operator, the medic who was giving him mouth to mouth when he so obviously did not need it;
:He even admitted in his statement that his own mother had caught him changing his story (which he attributed to having read the newspaper - after all, the newspaper would certainly know more about what happened then he did);
:His story changes during the course of the interview - the interviewers have to "remind" him that he was watching Johnny Carson, that he did the dishes, that he wore gloves when he did the dishes, and a whole host of other "facts;"
:Throughout the interview he would not JUST ANSWER THE QUESTION. It was so apparent what was going on here - he was trying to evade detail, evade having to do too much explaining - so he would just go off in some other direction in hopes of distracting the interviewers.
This story differs remarkably from the story he told at trial...
Yes, unbelievable isn't it. What did Mr. Club and Mr. Knife do while Mac was fending off Mr. Icepick with the pajama top. Just stand there observing? His story is just so ridiculous it's beyond belief.
And you know what? After reading the trial testimony, I had the feeling that the prosecutor did not really drive this point home as well as he should have. When asked what the others were doing when he was fighting off ice pick man or baseball bat man, he would invariably say that the others were hitting or punching him. Come on!! The prosecutor should have been all over this - asking him how he was able to fend off three armed men at one time, asking how he was able to keep them all in his sight, asking him why three armed men were not able to overcome one guy with a pajama top - but he wasn't. At least it didn't seem that way to me on paper. Obviously, though, the jury got the point...
Their deaths and the manner they were inflicted is just horrible I agree. It doesn't bear thinking about sometimes. Especially Colette, she fought so hard for her life and her children's lives, she's the hero here, she's the Green Beret tiger fighting for her children...
Colette actually had a compound fracture to her arm...the bone broke through her skin. I can't even imagine how grizzly that must have been to see her body...
...and I can't help but continue to think of her last words. "jeff, jeff, why are you doing this to me"
Now, do you really believe that she said anything like that? Maybe she did and he just turned the words around, but it seems to me like an awfully passive reaction to the situation at hand...If someone were beating me and my children to death, I can't see those words coming out of my mouth...To me, this just sounds like another one of his lies...
Sorry, I got you hooked, though.
Oh, no - I find it (him) fascinating. Did you ever read Ann Rule's
Small Sacrifices about Diane Downs? She was another one...just bizarre in the way she looked at and lived her life. These people are so outside the norm that you can't help but want to study them...