Jeffrey MacDonald, convicted murderer, back in court facing new evidence in ‘Fatal Vision’ case
Forty-two years ago, the wife and daughters of a young Green Beret doctor, Jeffrey MacDonald, were stabbed and bludgeoned to death at the family home in military housing at Ft. Bragg, N.C.
Fatal Vision book cover front and back
Monday, MacDonald was back in federal court in Wilmington, North Carolina to retread the details of the case and a murder scene which featured “pig” scrawled in blood on the headboard and a mysterious woman.
Now at age 68, MacDonald has been serving three life sentences and is the basis for the bestselling book “Fatal Vision,” and subsequent TV miniseries.
MacDonald still insists that “hippie intruders” committed the murders and now has been granted a special hearing to evaluate new DNA evidence and claims that a key witness was pressured by a federal prosecutor.
In opening statements, MacDonald’s attorney Gordon Widenhouse said deputy U.S. marshal Jimmy Britt heard the heroin addict, Helena Stoeckley, tell a federal prosecutor in 1979 that she and others were inside MacDonald’s home at Ft. Bragg, N.C., the night of the murders on Feb. 17, 1970. But Stoeckley did not repeat those statements during her testimony at MacDonald’s 1979 federal trial because the prosecutor threatened to charge her with murder if she did so, Widenhouse said.
MacDonald told investigators that one intruder chanted “Acid is groovy, kill the pigs,’’ inviting comparisons to the Charles Manson cult killings in California six months earlier. The LA Times details much of the hearing.
