Fatal Vision (39 page)

The following day, Beasley asked her if she would agree to be fingerprinted and to have her hair samples taken. She refused. He asked her why. She said she was afraid she might have witnessed the murders and might know the people involved. She told him she'd been having dreams during the past few weeks which indicated to her that she might know something about the case.

"I asked her what type of dreams," Beasley said, "and she said she had dreamed of seeing people struggling and violence and a lot of blood. Then she said she thought MacDonald might have had something to do with the murders but she didn't know. Then she told me again that she did not know for sure what had happened but she had a suspicion that she was in some way connected to the incident."

On March 25, 1971, a tall, dark, and handsome Nashville narcotics squad detective named Jim Gaddis participated in a raid on the house in which Helena Stoeckley was living.

Stoeckley, who was not arrested, approached Gaddis and asked to speak to him privately. She asked if he knew anything about the MacDonald murders in North Carolina. She said she was a suspect in the case and wondered if he could find out whether she was still "wanted." She also told Gaddis that she had been a police informant in Fayetteville and would like to work with him in that capacity.

Gaddis met her on a street corner an hour later and, as they drove around town, she pointed out five different locations where narcotics were sold and identified the dealers. When raids the next day resulted in two arrests for heroin possession, Gaddis came to believe that Stoeckley could be useful—particularly when she agreed to let Nashville police place electronic surveillance equipment in her apartment.

Stoeckley continued to talk about the MacDonald murders. "She told me a lot of things about the case," Gaddis said. "She also contradicted herself several times about things she had previously told me.

"Some of the things she told me are that on the night of the murders she had taken some LSD but she said it had no effect on her. Later that night, she said, a boy named Greg gave her a large dose of mescaline. After that, she claimed she remembered nothing about where she was until sometime early in the morning. She told me she remembered coming home in a blue Mustang. She remembered getting in the car sometime around midnight and she remembered getting out of the car at her apartment but she couldn't remember if she was with anyone or where she went.

"On one occasion she told me that she definitely knew who had killed the MacDonald family but she didn't give any names. On another occasion she told me that she only had suspicions about who the killers were. On one occasion she even told me that Dr. MacDonald did it himself."

On April 23, a CID agent returned to Nashville accompanied by an Army polygraph operator. Stoeckley agreed to take a polygraph test in regard to her possible involvement. First, however, she had another discussion with Jim Gaddis.

"She again told me she wasn't involved in the murders but that she knew who the killers were. She wouldn't tell me who they were. When I asked her why, she said, 'Those people are suffering enough.' She did not tell me the reason the MacDonald family was murdered but said something to the effect, 'Some people would do anything for a fix.' She then said she had been there and had witnessed the murders, but she wouldn't give me any details. She also mentioned that Dr. MacDonald had once refused to give one of her addicted friends any methadone, but she wouldn't say who the friend was."

Stoeckley's first polygraph examination lasted from 6:15 until 10:30
p.m
. "During the interview," the operator said, "Miss Stoeckley repeatedly acknowledged knowing the identity of the persons who committed the murders."

The next day she told Gaddis that the killers had made one previous attempt of Jeffrey MacDonald's life but had failed. "She didn't explain this any further," Gaddis said. "She kept telling me things but not explaining them any further when I would ask questions about what she said."

Later that day, she underwent further polygraph testing, during which she stated that in the previous three or four months her dreams had frequently placed her on the couch in Jeffrey MacDonald's living room and that MacDonald had stood over her, pointing at her with one hand while, in the other, he held an icepick which was dripping blood.

She also said that she knew the identity of the people who had committed the murders and that if the Army would grant her immunity from prosecution she would make the names available and would explain the circumstances surrounding the killings.

Refused immunity, she said she had already "talked too much," and retracted her earlier statement about knowing the names of the killers. Later in the interview, she reiterated her statement that MacDonald had killed his family himself.

That night, Gaddis took Helena Stoeckley out to dinner. He ordered wine for the two of them. At the end of the meal, he surreptitiously wrapped her wine glass in a napkin and put it in his pocket. The next day, fingerprints were lifted from the glass. After dinner, Gaddis drove Stoeckley to one of Nashville's lovers' lanes and embraced her. In the process—while running his hands through her hair—he was able to obtain a hair sample.

Laboratory analysis revealed that neither the hair nor the fingerprints matched any hair or fingerprints found inside 544 Castle Drive.

On the morning of April 26, Stoeckley, arriving for a third day of polygraph examination, announced that she would henceforth refuse to answer any questions and that she wanted to consult an attorney. She asked to be excused to go to the ladies' room and did not return.

The next day, she sent Gaddis a note:

Please
believe I was
not
in that house!!!! I really and truly don't know anything about the whole mess. I'm sorry I had to leave but I couldn't listen to them lie any more, especially with you there. I'm only begging you to believe me. I'm telling the truth. Thank you for the meal. I'm sorry I let you down. Don't let them arrest me—please."

Thanks & love, Helena

In his written report, the polygraph operator concluded that, "Due to Miss Stoeckley's state of mind and excessive drug use during the period of the homicides, a conclusion could not be reached as to whether or not she knew who committed the homicides or whether she was present at the scene."

In the weeks that followed, CID agents located, interviewed, and gave polygraph examinations to all the people whom Stoeckley had named, at various times, as being possible participants in the crime. All denied any involvement and in each case the denial was supported not only by the cross-checking of stories but by the results of the polygraph tests.

Agents also spoke to the two young women from New Jersey with whom Stoeckley had been sharing her Clark Street apartment. One said Stoeckley had not returned to the apartment at 4:30 on the morning of the murders but had been away until much later in the day—thus casting doubt on Posey's recollection. This roommate also said that Stoeckley had enjoyed being mentioned in newspaper stories about the killings.

William Posey was found in Birmingham, Alabama, in June of 1971. One of seven children of a career Army man, Posey— the CID had learned—had been arrested for housebreaking in 1968 and on four separate occasions in 1969 had been arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct.

A polygraph examination indicated that Posey's testimony at the Article 32 hearing had not been truthful. When confronted with this result, Posey admitted that he had not seen Stoeckley get out of an automobile on the morning of February 17, 1970, but had only seen her walking from an automobile to her apartment. He also said he did not know that the car had been a Mustang. He said that a month or two after the murders he'd had a dream in which a Mustang had appeared, and for that reason he had testified that this was the car from which Stoeckley had alighted.

He further said that he was no longer positive that the morning he'd seen Stoeckley had been the morning of February 17, and that it had not occurred to him that she might have been involved until at least a week after the murders, and that the opinion he had formed at that time was the result of Stoeckley's telling him that she had been on drugs the night of the killings and could not remember what she had done.

Having absorbed all of this information, Pruett and Kearns discounted Helena Stoeckley as a suspect and began to probe more deeply into the background of Jeffrey and Colette MacDonald.

From mid-November through March of his sophomore year of high school, Jeffrey MacDonald had been absent from Patchogue. With no advance word to teachers or friends, he had abruptly departed for Bay town, Texas, to live with a family named Andrews—friends of the Stern family of New Hope, Pennsylvania, but people whom MacDonald himself had met only briefly and casually.

As they deepened their probe into MacDonald's background, Pruett and Kearns were struck by this event. It seemed odd to them that an outstanding student and athlete who was having no disciplinary problem of any kind should suddenly be removed from his high school and be sent more than 1,500 miles away, to remain away—through both Thanksgiving and Christmas—for almost four months.

Their questioning of former teachers and acquaintances did not turn up a definitive explanation but there were recurrent rumors of difficulty within the MacDonald family—including one to the effect that Jeffrey had been banished by his father in the aftermath of a brutal fight in which he had badly injured his older brother, Jay. One family friend even remarked that MacDonald's mother had often said, "One of Jeffs goals in life is to flatten Jay," so great was his envy over favoritism shown his older brother said to be.

Whatever its cause, the unexplained and prolonged absence from home was considered worthy of attention by Pruett and Kearns, for it was the first hint that a more turbulent level of emotion might have
lain beneath the tranquil "all-
American" surface of the MacDonald family.

Years later, Jack Andrews, Jr., a contemporary of Jeffre
y M
acDonald's and the son of the man who had extended the invitation to Baytown (and in whose home MacDonald resided during his stay) would recall that, "He never mentioned his family. It became apparent rather quickly that this was something he did not want to talk about.

"The story was that my father had just invited him down for a visit. But I knew there must have been some other reason behind it. At first, he was just supposed to stay for a couple of weeks. Then—I don't know quite how it happened—after he'd been here those couple of weeks it was just sort of decided that he was going to stay on.

"It wasn't my doing. Frankly, he and I did not get along well at all. Right from the start, he was always stepping on my toes. A couple of times it even led to some pushing and shoving. Once, I remember, was kind of serious—we got into a real tussle, right in our family living room. It wasn't too long after that that he went home.

"The thing I remember most clearly about Jeff is that he was always striving to be the center of attention. And not just in the normal way: you know, the new kid in town, showing off. With Jeff it was like a crusade—he had to try to look the best at everything.

"The first week or two after somebody would meet him, they'd always be tremendously impressed. But then—with guys, especially—it would eventually end up in a clash. Mostly because of the way Jeff had of insisting that every little detail always be just his way."

Jack Andrews, Sr., the Humble Oil engineer who had extended the invitation, had later died in an automobile accident, but his ex-wife, Mary C. Andrews, was able to recall certain details surrounding the event.

Her husband, she said, had met the MacDonald family through his friend and business associate Bob Stern, while on an extended trip to the Northeast. In the fall of 1958, she had joined him in New York for a time. One evening, she remembered, her husband had invited the MacDonald boys—Jay and Jeff—to come into New York City for dinner.

Unaccompanied by their parents, the two teenaged boys had ridden in from Patchogue on the train and had dined with the Andrews couple in Greenwich Village. The occasion had proved so festive that after dinner the foursome had gone to "a couple of clubs," at one of which a photographer employed by the establishment had taken a commemorative picture.

Soon afterward Mary Andrews had flown back to Baytown. Within a couple of weeks she was informed by her husband that when he returned he would be bringing young Jeff MacDonald with him for a visit.

The two of them—Jack Andrews, Sr., and the high school sophomore, Jeffrey McDonald—left New York on November
11
and drove cross-country to Baytown, which is on the Gulf Coast of Texas. When later asked what had led to this sudden venture, Mary Andrews replied, "I think my husband Jack was just attracted to the boy."

MacDonald's stay in Baytown continued long enough for him to be enrolled in the Robert E. Lee High School there. "He stayed right through Christmas, I'm sure," Mary Andrews said. "I even remember the present he gave me. He knew I liked glass bottles so he bought me this tall, thin, blue glass bottle for Christmas. It really was very pretty."