Fatal Vision (32 page)

"I didn't object to that because I knew he was going to say what I said, and I believe that night when she came back she might have said something like, 'We were talking about bedwetting tonight,' and I said, Terrific, what did you learn?' Something like that. I'm not trying to be facetious. It's just so unimportant to me.

"Actually, I don't remember what we talked about. Really nothing significant. Really nothing stands out at all. It was just a routine evening. We enjoyed the time together. It was just— well, we did discuss the—the possibility that I was going to Russia with the boxing team, as team physician."

In describing the attack by the intruders, MacDonald said that after the black man had hit him with the club for the first time, he "literally saw stars and was knocked back flat on the couch." Later, as he struggled back to a sitting position, he had felt "a rain of blows" on his chest, shoulders, neck, and forehead and had noticed the glint of a blade. "Now, sometime during this," he said, "my hands were sort of bound up in my pajama top, and I honestly don't know if it was ripped or if it had been pulled over my head."

Contrary to his April 6 assertion that he had not moved the body of his wife, MacDonald now said that when he first saw her, "she was a little bit propped up against a chair and I just sort of laid her flat."

He described entering the hall bathroom to check the extent of his own injuries and said, "Oh, yeah, I also rinsed off my hands. I don't know why. Your guess is as good as mine. I guess it's because I'm a surgeon at heart."

Most significantly, he now said that after picking up the kitchen telephone to repeat his call for help he might have washed his hands again in the kitchen sink.

"I know it sounds ridiculous," he said, "and I've been questioned extensively about it, and I don't know. I just—I have the feeling that either before or after the phone call I was rinsing off my hands for some reason.

"I know that on April 6 I said I did not think I washed my hands in the kitchen, but the next day my lawyer said the easiest way for a witness to remember something is to have to write it, and I spent the next several days writing out every single thing I could remember, and I think the logical sequence of events is clearer to me now. I would have to say I remember more now than I did then."

He remembered, for example, that while examining himself in the hospital either late on the afternoon of February 17 or at some point on February 18, he had noticed—in addition to the wounds observed by the physicians who had attended him—two bumps on the
back
of his head, two or three puncture wounds in his upper left chest ("I would have guessed them to be icepick wounds"), three puncture wounds in his upper left bicep ("which I would take to be icepick wounds"), and a series of "approximately ten" icepick wounds across his abdomen, all of which had already healed without treatment and none of which had penetrated the abdominal wall. Since the wounds did not require medical attention, he had seen no reason to mention them to anyone.

He said that upon his discharge from the hospital he had been so afraid for his own safety that he had borrowed a pistol and had slept with it under his pillow every night until after the armed guards had been posted at his door, following the announcement that he was a suspect.

He said he was "absolutely certain" that neither of the two paring knives nor the icepick had come from his house, though the club might have come from a pile of scrap lumber he had kept in the backyard. He repeated that he had never owned an icepick.

He said he had enlisted in the Army because he wanted to serve his country in Vietnam and that he had wanted so much to become a Green Beret that he had "told less than the
truth"
about a back injury suffered while playing high school football because he feared it might prevent his acceptance.

He said that, "very, very infrequently
^,,
he'd had a sexual encounter with a woman other than his wife. The only two times he could recall were the night in San Antonio with the Army nurse named Tina, and once, earlier that year, with a different woman, when he had been at Fort Sam Houston for his physician's basic training course. He said Colette had not known about either of these instances.

Tearfully, MacDonald concluded his testimony by saying he had loved his wife "more than anything in the world," and that their time together at Fort Bragg had been "by far" the happiest, least stressful period of their married life.

Colonel Rock was quite obviously impressed by Jeffrey MacDonald: by his military bearing, his obvious sincerity, and by the sense of loss and sorrow that he communicated so effectively.

In a report filed on October 14, 1970—slightly more than a month after the conclusion of the hearing—the Investigating Officer wrote: "After listening to the lengthy testimony of the accused and closely observing his actions and manner of answering questions, it is [my] opinion that he was telling the truth."

Colonel Rock also wrote: "A significantly large number of character witnesses testified in behalf of the accused, covering a life span from age 12 through high school, college, medical school, internship, and military service. They testified to qualities [that made him seem] what can best be described as, The All American Boy.'

"Considering all known facts about the life and previous history of the accused, no logical motive was established. Because of the manner in which the victims were murdered, it is reasonable to conclude that the crimes were committed by persons who were either insane or under the influence of drugs.

"The accused was subjected to two separate psychiatric evaluations. Although there is a four-month time span between the two, there is a striking similarity in the conclusions. Basically, they believe he is now sane and was sane on 16-17 February. Both feel that the accused was not trying to hide any facts from them and that had he been they
would have been able to detect
it. The accused's psychiatrist stated, in addition, that the accused was not capable of committing the crimes. . . .

"Explanations for any discrepancies [in MacDonald's story] are logical, based on the testimony of the psychiatric experts, the time factor, his natural attempts to forget the horrible sights of 17 February, normal human failure to remember routine actions, and the confusion following the blow to his head."

Taking into account also the testimony in regard to Helena Stoeckley, the inadequate preservation of the
crime scene, and the abundance
of investigatory mistakes, Colonel Rock concluded his report with two recommendations:

Two weeks later, choosing not to make public Colonel Rock's recommendations, the Army announced simply that the charges against MacDonald had been dismissed due to "insufficient evidence."

Jeffrey MacDonald immediately applied for an honorable discharge. He said he felt "bittersweet." He said, "This is no victory. My beautiful family is gone and their killers are still at large. I'd like to get those people. I can't understand why the Army didn't try harder. I plan to do a lot of investigating. I think they should get the death penalty if they are caught. They made their decision when they killed my family. They should pay for it." ,

The murder of three members of a family does not, in all cases, bring about a heightened and sustained degree of interest in the survivor. But when the survivor is an intelligent, physically attractive, Princeton-educated physician who happens also to be a Green Beret officer and who tells the world, less than six months after the Charles Manson murders, that the violence done to himself and his loved ones was wreaked by drug-crazed hippies in an apparent replication of the Manson cult homicides, it is inevitable that he will become, for a time, the focal point of a certain amount of public attention.

That this happened to Jeffrey MacDonald was not surprising. That he found himself gratified and titillated rather than repelled by the phenomenon may also have been unsurprising, but in the months and years which were to follow the Army's announcement that the charges against him had been dismissed, it proved by no means insignificant.

Even before the Article 32 hearing began, MacDonald seemed entranced by the newspaper and television publicity he was receiving and decided that, eventually, he would like to have someone write a book about the case. Handled properly, such a book could make him not only famous but rich. He, after allr " had a story, and nobody simply "told" a story anymore. People with stories sold the rights to them, something Bernie Segal repeatedly assured MacDonald that he would someday have the chance to do.

To that end, MacDonald began to compile what he would later call a "diary" but what was, in f
act, a reconstructed account of
his version of the events which had led up to and had flowed from those terrible early morning hours of February 17.

Thinking that someday this material could be turned over to an author whom he would come to employ, MacDonald, alone in his BOQ room in the evenings, began to write:

Saturday, 14 Feb 1970. Went to PX and bought Valentine's cards and candy for my three girls—Colette, Kimberly and Kristy.
...
I'm sure we made love that night, because we almost always did, given an evening together without others or without my work.

Monday, 16 Feb 1970. Routine day at work. Heard from boxing club coach who said I would probably hear within several days about the proposed 30-day trip to Russia as physician for the team. Colette is almost as happy as I am about the possibility of my going—although we both wish she could go. . .

Later, there would be occasional mention of memories of his wife and children, such as: "The kids especially in my thoughts today—tried to read Rod McKuen poetry but everything reminded me of the kids or Colette and I had to quit," but the diary's dominant theme, other than concern about the progress of the legal proceedings against him, soon came to be publicity.

Friday, 22 May . . . The news today had the story of the $5,000 reward—it sounded very good on TV.

Tuesday, 16 June—The publicity, I forgot to mention . . . was very good. Page One in the Sunday Raleigh
News and Observer
and was a good human interest story except we are sorry they used a picture of me in my convertible—it makes light of a very serious situation. It would have been better not to use that particular picture.

Tuesday, 7 July—Yesterday's press fairly good to me. . . . Evening TV coverage excellent.

Thursday, 9 July—It is apparent that the press is strongly behind me. . . .

There then had occurred an incident in which CID agents, in an attempt to obtain a hair sample which MacDonald had refused to provide voluntarily, forced off the road a car in which he and his attorneys were riding. After a scuffle during which both Segal and an assistant, Dennis Eisman, fell to the ground, the CID agents forcibly removed MacDonald to a site where the hair sample was obtained.

Having sensed that a confrontation on this issue was about to erupt, Segal had arranged to have a car full of reporters and photographers trailing the vehicle in which MacDonald was riding. The incident was, therefore, widely reported. In his diary MacDonald noted:

The news was out immediately—it appears to be the biggest story in weeks. Headlines all over, TV, radio, and countless phone calls. Rep. Pike, Sen. Javits, Jack Anderson's column in Washington—everyone is interested. The AP and UPI wire services told Freddy in Long Island that it is world wide, not just national.

The day after the incident, he wrote:

More pictures today, taking some advantage of the neck brace worn by Denny, and involving AP, UPI, and local. The press conference in New York tomorrow [at which the Kassabs and Jeffrey MacDonald's mother planned to renew their demand that the hearing be reopened to the public] sounds like it will be well-attended.

The following day, he reported:

The news conference was attended by two major TV stations, multiple radio stations, AP, UPI, local newspapers. Freddy just told me it went beautifully. No mention here yet, but it was on the 6
pm
news in New York. . . . Dennis is wearing his brace, and there has been extensive TV coverage of same.

The publicity he was receiving, in addition to fueling his desire for more, also had the effect of attracting to his cause certain of those "beautiful people" to whose ranks MacDonald was drawn.