Invest with us. Harvey Silverglate, a renowned civil liberties advocate, has been an appellate attorney for MacDonald. Unfortunately for MacDonald, she would never admit any memory of her involvement in the killings in court. Investigators identified at least 240 leads in the casebut the evidence continued to point back to the MacDonald. Coverage of the latest true crime stories and famous cases explained, as well as the best TV shows, movies and podcasts in the genre. McGinniss drew on pop-sociology to render an image of a psychopathic killer in the guise of the friendly doctor-next-door; the kind we know from endless horror movies. And the physical evidence, the circumstantial evidence, just kept mounting against him and contradicting his story for events from that evening.. Stories about the innocent caught in a machine that perverts every possibility of justice. The family moved to Chicago after MacDonald was accepted into Northwestern University Medical School. He told authorities that hetried to fight off the attackers but was wounded and eventually collapsed in the hallwaylater regaining consciousness and discovering his family had been killed, according to the new FX docuseries A Wilderness of Error.. No attempt was made to locate the woman that night. The prosecution, led by James Blackburn and Brian Murtagh, argued that MacDonald staged the crime scene to blame hippies. LP: Judge Fox is a close friend of Judge Dupree, who presided over the 1979 trial. Most notably, the holes in the shirt MacDonald had been wearing appeared too smooth and clear cut to indicate self-defense. LP: She said that to her lawyer at the time of the 1979 trial? Nonexclusive right to authorize all uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA). Silverglate believes that Jeffrey MacDonald has been railroaded, and that this railroading exposes disturbing trends in our federal criminal justice system. Often, the spouse turns out to have committed the murder, so its not surprising that the case turned to McDonald. 741 Immigration & Travel. During this time, he met and became friendly with a number of Americans, including the ONeill family of Chester, Pennsylvania. Many felt that his acquittal would be a cinch, but much more was to go wrong. Check out never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! MacDonald claimed he'd broke his arm in the fatal scuffle, but Kearns would later say in an interview that authorities had MacDonald under surveillance at the time and did not observe any broken arm. Maybe more than I would have thought as a teen. Inexperienced military police failed to pick up a woman near the house who fit MacDonalds description. Although Kassab didnt join the family until Colette was a teenager, he had always been close with his stepdaughter. In 1982, she sat down with Gunderson and Beasley in a taped interview, claiming that she had been part of a satanic cult that had killed the family because MacDonald was not cooperative in helping heroin addicts during his time at Fort Bragg. 6,889 Family Trees. MacDonald, bloody but alive, was next to his wife, who had been pregnant with their third child when she was stabbed 16 times with a kitchen knife and 21 times with an icepick. The strength of the families now almost a decade after the launch of Santiago are largely determined by how many of them have been killed or locked up. The one thing that sticks in my craw above anything else is this: There were lab results. Mica remembered seeing a woman who fit this description while en route to the scene but said the Armys Criminal Investigation Division (CID) omitted this during their subsequent inquest. View all records. They grew to become serious forces, in part, because of failures by police to respond to the problem. Or maybe theres something else at work: Picture #2 is even more awful to see than Picture #1. Smerling is the director of the documentary series A Wilderness of Error, which examines the MacDonald case. Pennsylvania had the highest population of Kassab families in 1920. MacDonald, bloody but alive, was next to his wife, who had been pregnant with their third child when she was stabbed 16 times with a kitchen knife and 21 times with an icepick. Did Jeffrey MacDonald Brutally Slay His Pregnant Wife And Daughters Or Did The Cops Get The Wrong Guy? WebThe Kassab family name was found in the USA in 1920. I thought of devils that lurked in human flesh, like in The Exorcist, another popular based-on-a true-story-book-turned-movie of the period that floated around our house. Kassab said in that moment, as he stood in the preserved crime scene, he realized the man he had once considered a loving partner to his stepdaughter had slaughtered his family and then staged the attack. Another page in another chapter in the new gangland war. Two members of the Tiba family have been charged in relation to the shooting. The writer had full access to the trial, and appeared sympathetic. Marc Smerling thinks he has some idea. (See Silverglate's article on the case in Forbes.). Waters rubbished that explanation. As if they had seen it with their own eyes. None of this has set MacDonald free. MacDonald sued McGinniss for fraud in 1987, with a mistrial leading them to settle out of court for $325,000. Some of the shootings are retribution for the severe prison bashing of Bassam Tiba, underworld sources say. After leaving the factory, he spent several years scrabbling for a living: working on a farm, peddling fancy goods, and the like. Get all your true crime news from Oxygen. The cost to Melbourne's north-west is huge. He drew on his previous knowledge of MacDonald, who he had met years earlier while courting Colettes mother, Mildred. After Mica performed mouth-to-mouth, MacDonald came to. The bedroom of Kristen and Kimberly MacDonald, mere hours after they were murdered. A staff writer for All Thats Interesting, Marco Margaritoff has also published work at outlets including People, VICE, and Complex, covering everything from film to finance to technology. His wife Colette and his children have also been forever denied these things -- but not, I have come to believe, by the man who is currently serving three consecutive life sentences. And, in media appearances like his interview on The Dick Cavett Show, meanwhile, MacDonald appeared suspiciously at ease. That huge standard protects us from miscarriages of justice. I personally delivered a copy by hand to every congressman and every senator in the country.. WS: In every murder of a spouse, the remaining spouse is the number-one suspect and is almost always charged. Four men walking to a car, a silver four-wheel drive pulling alongside and obscuring them from view, and then Oueida writhing on the ground, before he hobbles for his life, back towards the Coburg Mosque, where he had just finished afternoon prayer. This note says: 'Brian, Im giving you this lab report. Wadea died in February, 1972; Aelyas in October, 1987. I would have said to the jury: they were not there, and neither was I. A portrait photograph of Wadea (left) and Aelyas (right) Kassab. He adamantly denied all charges but was at a loss for words during cross-examination by the prosecution. The couple sued MacDonald in 1987 to try to prevent him from profiting from Joe McGinniss book Fatal Vision, which served as the inspiration for the mini-series. Brian Murtaugh says, Sure, Ill give it to him. Even after the conviction, the Kassabs remained haunted by the heinous crime. The chanting blonde, meanwhile, had not been found. There was violence. Bettmann/Getty ImagesA neighbors dog and MP guards securing the MacDonald property. One thing about this case is never in doubt no matter whos talking: If Wade Smith had been able to lead and give his closing remarks, MacDonald would be a free man today. But even though Jeffrey MacDonald has spent decades behind bars, his case doesnt seem to be closed just yet. He moved to California to become the director of emergency medicine at St. Mary's Medical Center in Long Beach. I used to joke with him when I saw him around Hey Jerry, isnt there something you want to tell us? But he couldnt, and he likely would have gone to his grave carrying the secret of what Helena told him had it not been for that hearing. In this case, it carries particular weight: police are trying to break the hold, in some cases, of family ties that go back generations. The Jeffrey MacDonald murder case is one of the most disturbing in living memory. His honesty and humility regarding these losses give the story its poignancy. My wife and I can sit for hours and days and not talk to each other, but were both thinking, you know. Freddy Kassab had inserted himself into the 1970 military hearing and made himself the center of a media circus, holding news conferences and firing off letters to members of Congress. Staying on top of the machinations of the underworld can be difficult, Detective Inspector Clark said, but the increased strength of police intelligence meant they were able to increasingly charge gunmen, regardless of whether their victims spoke. To realize he had done it, and Colette loved him, and when you sit back and picture in your minds eye what happened that night, with him attacking, and I know from the autopsy reports what was done to the two children, you cant help but visualize in your mind, though we dont talk about it, Freddy Kassab told The Washington Post in 1984, just as the popular mini-series Fatal Vision, which depicted the crimes, was airing across the country. The shootings can be over particularly petty reasons, not just the drug trade: women, a perceived slight, or, increasingly, a prison feud. Many think this woman could have been Helena Stoeckley, a drug abuser and professed member of a witchcraft cult who repeatedly confessed to having been at the MacDonald house the night of the murders, but recanted her story whenever she seemed to fear prosecution. Silverglate predicts that even after examining the new evidence, Judge Fox will not grant Jeffrey MacDonald a new trial. The family claims his body has never been found. The Tibas, Haddaras, Chaouks, Kassabs, and Kheirs are north-west Melbourne's version of the Five Families, the major players in the New York mafia. The military hearing found that the charges against MacDonald were not true. MacDonald had only one stab wound, which the hospital surgeon later described as a clean, small, sharp incision that made his left lung partially collapse. In the early '80s, I whipped through a dog-eared copy of Fatal Vision, Joe McGinniss sensational true-crime novel about the killings. Use census records and voter lists to see where families with the Kassab surname lived. Thereafter their lives ran close and parallel courses. {{ post.roar_specific_data.api_data.analytics }}. Similar to the Chaouks and Haddaras, the Kassabs and the Kheirs who are related clans remain a factor, although their involvement is more peripheral than before. Since adapted into a documentary series of the same name directed by Marc Smirling, the project aims to detail how much evidence Morris believes was lost, mismanaged or glaringly unreliable from the start. First responder Kenneth Mica discovered the bodies, with MacDonald laying wounded but alive next to his battered and lifeless wife. Who else is going to fight this thing if not me? Kassab said, who had moved to Florida from his Long Island home the year before. Colette MacDonald and her daughters suffered horrific violence as they were killed on February 17, 1970 at their Fort Bragg home. He didnt do that. But for every Khayre, a case most people have heard of with a clear link to the north-west, there are dozens more that barely make a ripple. WebIn July 1974, a Federal judge acted on a citizen's criminal complaint by Kassab and others, by putting the case before a grand jury. Jeffrey MacDonald, a bright young man with everything in life to look forward to, lost his wife and children to senseless, horrific violence. WebIn July 1974, a Federal judge acted on a citizen's criminal complaint by Kassab and others, by putting the case before a grand jury. I think that one of the problems MacDonald had was that they expected him to undertake to find these killers, to go on a mission to find them. All rights reserved. Since 1979, the MacDonald case has continued to trouble those who delve beneath the surface of the media narrative. It sickened me and it enraged me.. The defendant has no obligation to prove anything whatsoever. Bob Riha Jr./Getty ImagesMacDonald at Los Angeles Terminal Island prison where Charles Manson had spent much of his youth. But his story crumbled under scrutiny and he was charged with killing his family. A finger squeezes a trigger until the chamber empties. Appearances didnt help MacDonald, either. Judge Fox is also a good man. The persistence paid off and in 1974, a grand jury indicted Jeffrey MacDonald on three counts of murder after seven months of testimony and evidence, according to Vanity Fair. To do so, they are increasingly trying to appeal to the maternal side of these families, and helping mothers and their children escape the criminal elements in their home, before another brood is infected. A lengthy trial heard Moustafa and Kassab had gone to the Brunswick panel beating shop to confront Moustafa over $50,000 in cash and $10,000 in aftershave they believe he had stolen. Two members of the Tiba family have been charged in relation to the shooting. These were the families police identified in 2011 as causing most of the trouble in the band, which stretches roughly from Coburg North to Campbellfield, then in an arc around to Altona in Mundane things that Jeffrey MacDonald has not been able to do for over 30 years. And absolutely nothing fit, Kassab told the Orlando Sentinel in 1989. A crime scene was left open to bystander traffic. Bettmann Archive/Getty ImagesRep. Jeffrey MacDonald was arraigned in May 1975 and pleaded not guilty. It has witchcraft in it. MacDonald invited author Joe McGinniss to write a book about the case before it had reached a verdict. Family members of radio personality Casey Kasem have settled a lawsuit against his widow that alleged her neglect and physical abuse led to his death in 2014. Such is the power of a good story. WebIn 1971, his father-in-law, Freddy Kassab, became progressively suspicious of MacDonald and sought formal reopening of the case. Waters rubbished that explanation. And she told him she had been there, at the MacDonald home, the night of the murders. That was my closing argument. Ive had many cases in court. They hoped to get a confession, but she stated firmly that she had never been inside MacDonalds home contrary to previous claims she purportedly made to defense attorneys during witness hearings. One is titled Memoirs by Wadea Kassab; it is 210 pages and was written in 1954. The lead prosecutor for the case, Jim Blackburn began to analyze every piece of evidence from the trial, including MacDonald's pajama shirt, which was draped over Colette's body, and the bedsheet she was wrapped in. Since MacDonald was convicted of the murders in 1979, considerable evidence of his innocence has come to light. In July 1974, a Federal judge acted on a citizen's criminal complaint by Kassab and others, by putting the case before a grand jury. Some criminal networks were recently identified as having more than 1000 members, of various ages and ethnic backgrounds; unlike the five families, they were not simply the first generation of children born in Australia to parents hailing from northern Lebanon. Two-year-old Kristen had 33 knife- and 15 icepick wounds in her torso, while five-year-old Kimberly was bludgeoned to death. In addition, DNA testing on evidence that was recovered from the fingernails scrapings of one of the victims and a hair found under another victim did not match MacDonald. He holds dual bachelor's degrees from Pace University and a master's degree from New York University. Morris researched the MacDonald case for 20 years and knows each labyrinthine turn of its progress through the criminal justice system. McGinniss made the murders sound like the work of a diabolical genius, a man who could transform in a moment from a loving father to a homicidal maniac, and again, in the blink of an eye, to a calculating conman. Colette had been stabbed 16 times and punctured 21 times with an ice pick, while 5-year-old Kimberley was killed by six blows to the head and eightto 10 stab wounds, according to a. Jeffrey MacDonald had also been at the home at the time, but he suffered only minor injuries compared to what his family endured. McGinniss stark rendering of Picture #1 stuck in my mind until recently when a friend from North Carolina told me that Errol Morris had published a book suggesting MacDonald was innocent. Next, the defense decided to call the suspected blonde woman Helena Stoeckley as a witness. Aelyas followed Wadea to the United States in 1899. Mr Oueida has been overseas for most of the time since the attack, predominantly in Lebanon and Dubai a haunt for a string of Australian organised crime figures. Inside The Assassination Of Detlev Rohwedder, The Politician Who Tried To Unify East And West German Businesses, Someone Just Paid Over $81,000 For A Blood-Stained Lock Of Abraham Lincoln's Hair, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch, Steve Liss/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images. Then, meet Christopher Scarver the man who killed cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer. The story many of us think we know tells that MacDonald's wounds were superficial. It didnt make sense. At the time, Kassab still believed the real perpetrators of the crime had been the four hippies that MacDonald said had broken into the home. Released and honorably discharged by the Army, MacDonald seemed to be in the clear. 741 Immigration & Travel. In 1982, she sat down with Gunderson and Beasley in a taped interview, claiming that she had been part of a satanic cult that had killed the family because MacDonald was not cooperative in helping heroin addicts during his time at Fort Bragg. He did interviews. We would frequently meet at the crime scene and brainstorm the whole scenario. Both brothers married women in Syria and brought them back to the United States. He claimed that he had been asleep on the couch when at least four drug-crazed hippies broke into the home and savagely killed the family. He could get an answer by the end of this year. Thank you. 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