The Mammoth Book of New Csi (60 page)

The prosecution said that MacDonald had left two bloody footprints on a blood-soaked bedspread he used to transport Colette’s body from Kristen’s room back to the master bedroom. After the trial, the defence learnt that the FBI laboratory had repeatedly tested the sheet looking for footprints and found none. Again, this information had been withheld from the defence during the trial.

Then there was the question of the murder weapon. MacDonald always maintained that he did not own an ice pick at the time of the murders. When interviewed in 1970, both Mildred Kassab and the MacDonald’s babysitter, Pam Kalin, had told army investigators that there was no ice pick in the MacDonalds’ apartment. The two women were questioned again in 1971 and 1972, when both still claimed that they had not seen an ice pick. But in 1979, after extensive interviews with Brian Murtagh, both changed their minds and suddenly remembered seeing an ice pick nine years after the event.

Another piece of damning evidence was the recording made of the military investigators’ interview with MacDonald on 6 April 1970. The jury heard MacDonald’s matter-of-fact – almost indifferent – description of the murders. Then, when his interrogators suggested that he had committed the murders, he became defensive, emotional and angry. He asked the investigators why they would think he would have murdered his pregnant wife and two daughters in cold blood for no reason when he had a beautiful family, a good job and everything going for him. The investigators then confronted him with what they had discovered about his extramarital affairs. The jury heard MacDonald respond blithely: “Oh, you guys are more thorough than I thought.”

Despite this, the prosecution could not come up with a convincing motive for the murders. MacDonald had no history of violence or domestic abuse of his wife or children.

While the prosecution felt that they had very little chance of getting a conviction when they started out, their confidence grew.

“The strength of our case always was very simple,” said Blackburn. “The physical evidence, the scientific evidence, his statements. That was our case.”

Segal called Helena Stoeckley as a witness for the defence in the hope that she would confess to being one of the intruders that MacDonald claimed had entered his family’s apartment, attacked him and murdered his wife and children. Over the past nine years, Stoeckley had made several contradictory statements regarding the murders. Sometimes she said she was involved; on other occasions she said she could not remember where she had been on the night of the murders.

In 1978, she had contacted the FBI and told an agent that she was involved with the MacDonald killings. At the time, she was being treated for depression in a hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was noted that she had suicidal tendencies but, when she entered the hospital, she showed no signs of drug abuse.

Just before she was to give testimony, she was interviewed by the defence and denied ever being in the MacDonalds’ apartment or ever seeing Jeffrey MacDonald – until she was confronted by him in court. But Segal decided to take a chance.

At the trial, she said that, on the night of the murders, she was with her boyfriend Greg Mitchell and a number of soldiers from Fort Bragg. She admitted that they were all taking drugs, but no amount of threats or cajoling could prevent her from telling the jury that she had been too stoned to remember where she had been between midnight and 4 a. m. on the night of the murder. She also admitted owning a floppy hat, a shoulder-length blonde wig and boots. But she had burnt the wig as it linked her to the murders.

“Just a four-hour gap between midnight and 4 a.m., she claimed to have a lapse of memory,” said Segal. “It’s absurd . . . She lied about whether she remembered what was going on but she lied out of a defensive need to protect herself. She knew the government was looking at her.”

Segal then asked her why she had told six people that she had been in the MacDonald’s house at the time of the murders. She said that she did not remember. These witnesses were on hand. Out of the jury’s hearing, all six swore that Stoeckley said that she might well have been in the house. One of them was Detective Prince Beasley, who heard her say on the morning after the murders: “In my mind, I saw this thing happen.” Two other police officers also heard her admit to being present when Colette and the children were murdered. And a friend heard her admit she was at the MacDonald apartment and held a candle while the crimes were committed. An army polygraph expert also confirmed that Helena said she was present at the crime scene and explained that the people she was with had decided to punish Dr MacDonald for refusing to give methadone to drug-addicted soldiers.

But Judge Dupree refused to let them give their testimony in open court. He noted Stoeckley’s long history of drug abuse. Not only were Stoeckley’s statements “clearly untrustworthy”, he ruled, but “this tragic figure” had made most of them while heavily drugged, possibly while hallucinating. He did allow the other witnesses to testify, but they were not to repeat what Stoeckley had said about the murders. This was hearsay as, otherwise, Stoeckley could not be connected to the slaying. However, when she had been interviewed by the prosecution before the trial, she confessed directly to Brian Murtagh. This was again withheld from the defence despite legal requirements.

A number of character witnesses testified that MacDonald loved his wife and kids. But Brussel’s psychiatric report had already destroyed his “golden boy” image and he was now seen as a raging maniac. Segal had no choice but to call MacDonald, who on the stand tearfully denied murdering his wife and children. Sometimes he was so overwrought that he could not speak. For the jury, this was a stark difference from the way he appeared on the tape the prosecution had played of the eerily detached young captain parrying his CID interrogators years earlier. It stretched their credulity.

Under cross-examination from Blackburn, MacDonald became combative but could offer no alternative explanation to the evidence that had been presented. This, on reflection, was a mistake.

“On cross-exam, I got real testy – no question,” said MacDonald afterwards. “My mom used to tell me, ‘You always look cool, except when you are really nervous. Then you get a little smile.’ And that combination was not good for me . . . Bernie said I did fine. My mom, my secretary . . . all said I did fine . . . He said, ‘You are the Establishment. You’re a captain in the Green Berets. No one is more established than a person who volunteers for the army, then airborne and Special Forces. You are not a radical. You don’t wear a ponytail. You never wore an earring. You don’t have tattoos. You are exactly what that doctor’s son is, exactly what that cop wishes he could be.’” A doctor’s son and a cop were on the jury. “He said, ‘This is the best jury money can buy. They will understand.’”

After six hours of deliberation on 29 August 1979, the doctor’s son, the cop and the rest of the jury returned a guilty verdict on one count of first-degree murder for the death of Kristen and two counts of second-degree murder for the deaths of Kimberley and Colette. This was a shock for MacDonald. Only moments before, he had been considering whether to hire the
Queen Mary
, the ocean liner turned hotel moored off Long Beach, California, for his victory party. He was sentenced to three terms of life.

“He has himself to blame,” said Murtagh. “If he had kept his mouth shut, we could not have convicted him.”

But this was not the end of the matter. There would be a series of appeals that would turn over the crime scene evidence again and again. In the meantime, MacDonald’s bail was revoked and he went to jail.

MacDonald’s friends hired the retired chief of the FBI’s Los Angeles bureau, Ted Gunderson. Within twenty-four hours, Gunderson told his new employers: “Has your boy been railroaded?”

He tracked down Prince Beasley, who had now retired from the Fayetteville Police Department after being found by the state police passed out drunk in the middle of an intersection. He then spent time in a veterans’ hospital where he was diagnosed as suffering from progressive “non-psychotic organic brain syndrome”. Among his symptoms were “confusion” and “confabulation” – that is, making up stories without realizing he was doing so. However, Beasley still had a line on Stoeckley, who had married and moved to South Carolina.

With MacDonald’s approval, Gunderson sent a Canadian psychic to convince Stoeckley that she had fallen in love with MacDonald. The psychic told Stoeckley that he could “foresee a beautiful life” for them, if she helped clear his name.

With Stoeckley distracted, Beasley went to visit her husband, Ernie Davis, a violence-prone hippie now languishing in the Fayetteville jail on an assault charge filed by his wife. According to Davis, Beasley promised to post bail and fly him to Los Angeles, if he would tell Gunderson everything he knew about the MacDonald case. Once Davis was in Los Angeles, more sweeteners, including a prospective movie-and-book deal, were offered and he signed a statement reiterating the incriminating claims Stoeckley had made about the murders. In the end, all Davis got out of the deal was $21 for a bus ticket.

But Gunderson still wanted Stoeckley’s signed confession. By then Davis was back in South Carolina with Stoeckley. He had jumped bail. Beasley tracked them down and arrested Davis. On the ride back to Fayetteville with Davis in handcuffs, Beasly let it slip that Davis had spilt the beans to Gunderson. A fight broke out. It ended with Stoeckley offering to tell all.

Beasley did not even stop in Fayetteville long enough to pick up clean underwear. He spirited Stoeckley on to the next flight to Los Angeles. She underwent a gruelling five days of roundthe-clock interrogation. Ex-FBI agent Homer Young assisted Gunderson. He later admitted that Gunderson had employed “unethical means and tactics”. There had even been “an element of duress”in Stoeckley’s questioning. They offered her immunity from prosecution (which was not in their gift). She was told that she would be resettled in California with a new identity – a job, home and, yes, even a part in the forthcoming movie. As a result, Stoeckley signed a statement not only implicating herself in the murders but also naming five other members of what she called the “Black Cult” – one of whom actually murdered Colette and possibly one of the girls, too. The credibility of her confession was bolstered by the inclusion of certain details of the crime scene that had never been released to the public. She also underwent three polygraph tests, which concluded she was telling the truth.

“Helena said that she was there. She was chanting, ‘Acid is groovy, kill the pig,’” said Gunderson. She even repeated this on national television later.

“I had a floppy hat that I used to wear all the time, I had on boots that night and as a joke I put on the blonde wig,” she said.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, there had been a very serious drug problem in the Fayetteville area. While there were only about 52,000 troops in Fort Bragg, some 200,000 soldiers moved through the base each year. Those heading for Vietnam left Fayetteville full of hope, fear, courage and patriotism. Many returned disillusioned and jaded. They had witnessed horrors. Some were injured, some damaged mentally by the experience, and many were addicted to drugs. It was estimated that 1,000 heroin addicts lived on the base, while 8,000 others were strung out on amphetamines or other hard drugs.

The city of Fayetteville was little better. With some 53,000 inhabitants, it was known as “Fayettenam”. In surrounding Cumberland County, it was estimated that, of the 225,000 residents, 25,000, or 11 per cent, were drug offenders. A thousand of them were considered hard-core heroin addicts. The narcotics came in from Miami and New York, or directly from the Far East. Pushers, pimps and hookers thrived. And there were casualties. In the autumn of 1969, a soldier on LSD leapt to his death from an upper floor of the post hospital. On a single day in the following January, two twenty-year-old soldiers died from drug overdoses. In May 1970, two soldiers died after overdosing on uncut heroin in the lavatory of a laundromat in Fayetteville. The heroin was so strong that CID agents found them with their syringes still dangling from their arms.

Fayetteville’s Rowan Park was so notorious for its drug dealers that it was known as “Skag Park”. Fayetteville City Council introduced a curfew and narcotics agents, police officers, deputies and CID men patrolled the area. The result was a riot. The police responded with tear gas. Gunshots were fired and there were multiple arrests.

Things were no better on the base. According to Fort Bragg’s newspaper, the
Paraglide
, in 1969, the military police filled twenty-two pages of their “blotter” daily. There were numerous armed robberies, particularly on pay days. Soldiers began carrying concealed weapons to protect themselves. They had so many prisoners in the stockade on Armstead Street that the overflow slept on cots in the halls. In 1969, the CID’s evidence safe was stolen and, downtown, drug users were caught breaking into a police car looking for drugs. Three days after MacDonald’s Article 32 hearing began, a Fayetteville drug dealer was found dead inside the base. He was slumped over the steering wheel of his 1967 Cadillac with two bullets in the back of his head and bundles of heroin hidden in his socks. The following week, three soldiers and a Fayetteville youth were charged with kidnapping a young couple. They had tied the male to a tree and beaten him to death, then raped his fourteen-year-old female companion.

The month before the murders, someone broke into the apartment of Janice Pendlyshok in a building across the walkway from the MacDonalds’ apartment. Nothing was stolen, but Janice’s underwear was found scattered around the room and obscenities were scrawled on a mirror. On the night of the murders, she was awoken by her German shepherd dog and heard a woman screaming and two children crying. MacDonald’s neighbour, aviator James Milne, had his car broken into. Also on the night of the murders, he had seen robed figures carrying candles heading for the MacDonalds’ house.

The army’s policy towards drugs was draconian. Under the new regulations, traditional doctor-patient confidentially was revoked and army doctors were to report soldiers who used drugs.