The following are excerpts from newsgroup messages posted to the newsgroup alt.true-crime in 1999. Passages in italics indicate messages from posters who believe MacDonald is guilty (> or >> indicates a direct citation of a previous message); those in normal type, written by me, argue the defense side of the case. Screen names and other identifications have been omitted.

This first citation was written in response to another poster’s message. My reply follows.

> My prophet is not and NEVER WILL be McGinniss. I am SO tired of you stating
> this. I have read "Fatal Justice", I have read "Fatal Vision", I have read
> the newspaper articles, the magazine articles, watched teh TV show appearances
> and specials...I STILL FIND HIM GUILTY. Not JUST because of McGinnis's book,
> but because of EVERYTHING - IN TOTAL.

I'm just wondering, how have you come to conclude that Dr. MacDonald is guilty? What is it that has convinced you of his guilt? Let's talk about it for a moment.

We all know what convinced the jury, and Joe McGinniss, of MacDonald's guilt in 1979. We also know that the government case at that trial was largely false. I don't think anyone can dispute that the prosecution's argument was built on lies, deceit, false evidence, false testimony, etc. Remember that the jury convicted him not because they were convinced he did it, but because the prosecutors had shrewdly eliminated all other possibilities by suppressing exculpatory evidence, and thus the defense had no way to challenge any government claims about the evidence, and the jurors had to agree that he must have done it because his story could not have been true based on what they had been shown.

The one thing the prosecution's case lacked was a motive. They were unable, nor did they even attempt, to explain WHY Dr. MacDonald had murdered his family. Joe McGinniss filled in that blank in FATAL VISION by concocting the famous amphetamine-psychosis theory, and by extension creating a character akin to Conrad's Kurtz to represent the "real" Jeffrey MacDonald. Again, I think we can all agree that McGinniss' theory, and his character, are far from the truth.

Therefore, given what we know now, that the prosecution scenario does not hold water, that their most essential contentions were false, and that McGinniss' "why" is the product of the writer's imagination, what is left to convince us of MacDonald's guilt?

As a general point of logic, you can't prove a negative; i.e., you can't prove something did not happen. The only way to prove I was not in Guatemala last night is to prove that I WAS, in fact, somewhere else. Oh, sure, you won't find any of my hair, blood, skin, fluids, or clothing fibers anywhere in Guatemala, you won't find anyone in Guatemala who saw me there, and you won't find any record of my purchasing an airline ticket to go to Guatemala, but that's not necessarily proof. The only real proof would be, for example, my ticket stub from last night's Mets game, my signature on the credit card slip I bought it with, and the foul ball I caught in the fourth inning (it would also help if a TV camera picked me up, and if I could describe the game), all of which "proves," beyond reasonable doubt, that I was at Shea Stadium in Flushing, Queens.

So, let's say that the only way to prove Dr. MacDonald did not kill his family is to prove that someone else did. (The prosecution actually used the reverse of this at his trial, essentialy proving he did it by showing that no one else could have.) But a defendant does not have to prove his innocence, so for now, let's shift the burden of proof back to the prosecution, where it belongs in any court of law, and ask, "What proof do you have that Dr. MacDonald murdered his family?"

What proof do you usually need to convict someone of murder? Well, for one thing, you need a murder weapon. You have that. You have to show that the defendant owned or had access to the murder weapon. Questionable. The wooden club is about the only thing that definitely came from the household (outside). Everything else has been debated.

You usually need the defendant's prints on the weapon, or some other proof that he, and only he, had actually used it. That, you don't have.

You need to place the defendant at the crime scene at the time of the murder, or at least show the lack of an alibi. Not too difficult here.
You need physical evidence to reconstruct the crime, and since physical evidence is almost always largely circumstantial (not to mention fragile), you need the crime scene to be well-controlled, well-preserved and
well-catalogued. Not the case here.

Perhaps most importantly, you need a motive. Killers need a reason to kill, or at least a mental or psychological condition that makes them capable of killing. You DO NOT have that.

Now, let's look at MacDonald's story and afford him the same presumption of innocence we are supposed to afford to all criminal defendants. Let's also give him the benefit of the doubt as a man who had been physically and emotionally traumatized and may not remember everything perfectly, but also remember that the only way to prove he didn't do it is to prove that someone else did.

You have a defendant who claims he was attacked and his family murdered by outside assailants. He has described them, including a woman with a blond wig and floppy hat, carrying a candle. You have blond wig fibers, fresh candle wax, and a burnt match in key locations at the crime scene. You have an MP who spotted a woman fitting this description only a few blocks from the house. You have multiple sightings of this woman in the company of men, also fitting MacDonald's descriptions, in the vicinity before and after the murders. The woman has been identified, the woman has confessed (though not necessarily reliably) on multiple occasions. The woman has no alibi.

You have scores of unmatched (not belonging to the defendant or the victims) prints, hairs, fibers, bloody gloves, and other evidence in key locations at the crime scene. You have unmatched fibers on the murder weapon. You have unmatched hairs, with roots intact, in the hands and fingernails of all three victims.

You have a defendant who was known to be a target of local drug users.

You have a defendant suffering multiple stab wounds, head contusions, and a pneumothorax.

You have a defendant with no motive, no psychosis, no history of violence (domestic or otherwise).

So, in the end, what do you have? Aside from a headache, what you have is an awful lot of confusing and contradictory information, two polarized interpretations of the available evidence, and a lot of speculation. What I believe, and you are free to disagree, is that Dr. MacDonald was, at the very least, wrongfully convicted in both the courts and the public mind.

Another poster replied to above; the following is the ensuing debate. For the sake of brevity, only my posts are provided in their entirety. Excerpts from the other party’s messages are in italics. > indicates what (s)he wrote; > > indicates his/her citation of my writing.

Thanks for your response.

I'm not sure I have the energy to respond to EVERYTHING you wrote, but I'll see what I can do. You'll forgive me, the Mets are on right now.......

> > I don't think anyone can dispute that the prosecution's argument was
> >built on lies, deceit, false evidence, false testimony, etc.
>
> I can and do dispute it. I think some errors were made as I think they are in
> all cases, but I think the majority of the evidence presented was the truth.

If you believe that, then there's no point in continuing this discussion. I don't want to have to bring up the lies (yes, lies, not errors) regarding the pajama fibers on the club, the hair and fiber entwined, the blood on the hallway floor, etc. In fact there is not one prosecution claim that has not at least been called into question, if not flatly refuted, by the FOIA materials. Yet, if you believe the 1979 trial evidence is as sound now as it was then, then we may as well give up now.

> I don't know which jury members you are referring to, but I know it's not all
> of the jury. There was one of them on tv very recently and he said that he
> still considered MacDonald guilty and it was his testimony which convinced him
> because it was so obviously fake. It is MacDonald's words from the 911 call
> onward that convince me of his guilt. Me and at least one juror.

The absence of blood in the hallway was cited as a key reason for the conviction. I don't remember where I read that; it may have been Janet Malcolm or Potter/Bost.

> What convicted MacDonald was his story coupled with
> the blood evidence and his lies.
>
> > "What proof do
> >you have that Dr. MacDonald murdered his family?"
>
> For me, it is all the lies he told. There was probably other stuff that may
> have come up at the trial that I am unaware of. But I know he lied about what
> happened and I know he staged the scene, and I absolutely think him guilty.

You use the words "obviously fake," "the lies he told," "I know he lied," "I know he staged the scene." How, exactly, do you "know" these things? How can you know them without presupposing his guilt? You cite his "lies" as "proof" that he murdered his family, but do lies constitute evidence? Like I said, you can't prove a negative. The only way to prove that something didn't happen is to prove that something DID happen which makes the other thing impossible. The only way to prove a lie is to prove an incompatible truth. Now, you're thinking that such a truth WAS proven, by the prosecutors in 1979, which brings us back to the original point, which is the integrity of the prosecution's case. Clearly, you believe in it and accept it at face value, because otherwise you could not so confidently conclude that MacDonald lied about the killings.

Many of us, on the other hand, question the integrity of the government's case based on what we have learned since 1979; in other words, we do not believe the prosecution proved him guilty in 1979, because (unbeknownst to the jury at that time) their "proof" has turned out to be at least questionable, if not false. If you cast aside his conviction for a moment, and look at the case with an un-jaundiced eye, given everything we know today, I'll ask again: what convinces you of his guilt? You can't say, "His lies," because you can't know that he's lying. You need evidence. What do you have?

> >Perhaps most importantly, you need a motive. Killers need a reason to kill,
> >or at least a mental or psychological condition that makes them capable of
> >killing. You DO NOT have that.
>
> Pardon my french, but that last statement is pure bullshit. We're all capable
> of it and whether we do it or not depends on many things. But, given the right
> set of circumstances, each of us could kill someone.

I will not pardon your "French;" I don't think that unpleasantness is called for. I don't agree that EVERYONE is capable of killing. I really believe it takes a special kind of personality, in special circumstances, to take someone else's life, especially one's own flesh and blood. That's the reason there aren't a lot more murders than there are; if it were that easy to kill, especially considering how flippantly some of us use expressions like, "I'll kill him for doing that!" there'd be very few of us left.

> >You have scores of unmatched (not belonging to the defendant or the victims)
> >prints, hairs, fibers, bloody gloves, and other evidence in key locations at
> >the crime scene.
>
> You have also Christmas tinsel for goodness sake. Doesn't that give you the
> idea that sweeping and vacuming might not have been done on a regular basis?

Note the words: "in key locations". There is always meaningless, non-descript debris at a crime scene, but the prosecutors seemed very selective as to what was meaningful and what was not. (more on that in a moment...)

> >the crime scene. You have unmatched fibers on the murder weapon.
>
> A murder weapon that was laid down on the floor.

The minute you start speculating like that, you begin to compromise ALL of the physical evidence. You can't have it both ways. ANYTHING can be explained away in this manner, not just defense arguments and not just prosecution arguments. Try to apply the same standard to ALL the evidence. Remember, also, that the prosecutors falsely claimed that those unmatched fibers were actually pajama fibers. Are you saying that if they're pajama fibers they implicate MacDonald, but if they're unmatched foreign fibers they don't matter?

> This is not addressed to me, but I do disagree with you. I think he had his
> day in court, and his day in appellate court, and he's squandered tons of money
> given from people who support him and it's all for naught. I do not believe
> that the dna evidence will exonerate him and I do believe that if it does not,
> we will never be told.


Thanks again for your response. I can see you believe very firmly in the prosecution's 1979 arguments, and in the integrity of the judicial system with regard to this case. I can appreciate that. Faith in the system is essential to its effectiveness, and its survival. I myself used to believe that it was exceedingly difficult to convict an innocent person. I still believe the system works more often than it doesn't.

However, when it comes to THIS case, after years of reading and study, I have found cause to question that integrity. Reading FATAL VISION several years ago did not convince me of MacDonald's guilt. What I have learned since then has convinced me of his innocence. So for now, I guess we'll just agree to disagree.

Now, if you'll excuse me, the Mets just scored.

> I will try to explain my thoughts on this. First of all, I believe that
> MacDonald lied to the 911 operator when he told her that "I might be dying
> too". He was a doctor and he knew quite well that his wounds weren't serious
> but he had to exaggerate them for his story to have a chance of being believed.

Again, you're presupposing his guilt right from the start. Assume, for a moment, that he's innocent, if you can. The man has just been attacked and found his wife and daughters murdered. He's been physically and emotionally traumatized. He may not be fully aware of the extent of his own injuries. He may also be exaggerating to get the operator to hurry up with the ambulance.

> I know he staged the scene because Kimberly was in the bed with the covers
> pulled up and her blood and Cerebrospinal Fluid was on the floor at the
> entrance to the master bedroom. That means that that was where she was when
> the massive head injury occured.

Prosecution argument from 1979.

> I believe that Colette tried to save Kristen
> and that that is why her blood is in Kristen's room.

Another prosecution argument from 1979.

> I belive that Colette was
> dragged under her arms back into the bedroom because the state of her clothing
> indicate that that's what happened. By dragging her that way it caused the
> bottoms of her pajamas to slide down and they were pulled up, accidently
> trapping her right hand inside the pants. This is proof of staging the scene.

I don't know about that. This sort of thing is usually highly circumstantial; i.e., it can be explained in many different ways. They could have gotten that way when MacDonald laid her on the floor from the side of the chair. There's also no blood trail and none of Colette's pajama fibers in Kristen's room or the hallway. The crime scene photos were taken after she was examined and moved. I'm not sure I'd consider this "proof."

> I have read and thought about all the different things that have been posted
> here. Someone posted that rather than excluding Colette from being the one to
> leave the bloody palmprint on the footboard, what the report actually said was
> that it was inconclusive. I have always believed that it was her bloody hand.

Why? Based on what?

> I don't pay any attention to fibers and hair fragments in a house that
> still had Christmas tinsel in the carpet. Neither should you.

The prosecution did. The pajama fibers were essential to their case.

> I have heard much about these hairs with skin attached, but I've not found
> anything just like this in my reading. For that I will have to wait for the
> dna evidence. I repeat that I would be Happy for him to be innocent.

I appreciate the sentiment; I'm very sorry, but I'm not sure I believe you.

> People who choose to believe him innocent like to denigrate the babysitter
> and Mrs Kassab and maybe even Ron Harrison for saying they knew of an icepick

> in the kitchen. When initially questioned the two women didn't remember one
> and so they are accused of lying when they later remembered it.

Sound familiar?

> I happen to
> believe that they were telling the truth. This makes it very likely that all
> of the murder weapons came from the home.

"...VERY likely that ALL..." is a bit of a leap, I think. Even if they did, the assailants could have used them as well.

> There was no forced entry into the
> home. We only have MacDonald's claim that the back door was unlocked.

And only the presumption of guilt to indicate that his claim is false.

> We have no fingerprints,

Au contraire.

> no walking back and forth between the victims tracking blood
> which you would suspect from drugged hippies

MacDonald should have tracked blood between them as well.

> The only thing I can tell you that will be brief is that I know enough about
> injuries to know that he is lying about his. I know and have seen enough about
> injuries sustained in fights against assilants to know that that's not how he
> was injured. Quite a few people attacked on the head with baseball bats will
> come into the ER with little globs of brain tissue all over the place. In their
> hair and on their clothes, sitting there like grey jello. Someone did this to
> a five year old girl in the house, but not MacDonald.

I got hit in the head with a baseball bat once, when I was 8. I was catching and the batter hit me. Hurt like hell. No gray jello to be found.

> I also know that he was never unconscious. Anyone with a medical
> background would know this. People who are waking up from being unconscious
> act in a certain way. The one thing they don't do is awaken when someone
> kneels next to them and immediately start spouting descriptions of the
> 'intruders'. I can't believe that anyone believes that. Here he supposedly is

> lying where he dropped unconscious (but comfortably with his head resting on
> his dead wife), the stimulus of someone kneeling beside him makes him regain
> consciousness. You or I would take a little time to look around, probably ask
> the MP who he was, and generally re-orient ourselves to where we were and what
> was happening. But MacDonald didn't do that. He jumped right in with "There
> were 4 or them. One woman floppy hat long blonde hair ......."

Uh...actually, I think the first thing he said was, "Check my kids."

> In a nutshell, it is these lies which convince me. If he wasn't guilty
> then there was no reason to lie.

Hmm...it seems to me that you're substituting "lies" for things you personally don't, or can't, believe. If a person tells me that Jeff Bagwell should be the MVP in the National League, just because I think it should be Robin Ventura doesn't make that person a liar.

> Don't forget that he lied in his testimony at
> the Article 32 hearing and exaggerated his wounds to make it seem that he was
> severely injured. This was one of the things that made Freddy Kassab decide
> something was fishy.

I don't agree with you here. I think Mr. Kassab had a rather tainted memory of MacDonald's wounds, as I'm sure MacDonald himself did as well. I don't think he claimed any specific injuries that didn't exist. You know what happens to people's stories over time. If you get mugged by some 5-foot-6 skinny guy in a sport coat who sticks a Swiss Army knife in your back and takes your last $20, by the time 6 months have gone by and you've told 30 people about it, he's 6-foot-6, 230 pounds, with a black leather jacket and a .45 stealing $500.

Your responses still indicate a presumption of guilt. You seem remarkably confident in your ability to discern MacDonald's supposed "lies," but if you let the possibility of his innocence enter your mind for just one moment, and look at the evidence as we know it today, you might see things differently.

> I think it would be better
> to just throw all that evidence out the window and look at something else for
> conviction.

Whoa, wait a second...did I read this right? You want to throw the fiber evidence out the window? You DO remember there's no motive, right? How on earth can you prove him guilty with no motive and no material evidence?

> Like his telling lies about what happened.

Oh, right, I forgot. Presumption of guilt.

> sometimes changed his story when new evidence was learned by him.

Example, please?

> I wouldn't say that I believe very firmly in the prosecution's arguments.

Yes, you do. You must. There's no other way, and no other reason (other than McGinniss' theories), to believe so firmly in his guilt. If you don't believe the prosecution's scenario, then there is no other evidence that MacDonald killed his family. There IS evidence that others did. Presumption of innocence requires us to consider that.

> I've decided what I have based on what little of the evidence I have been
> fortunate enoough to obtain.

OK. But have you looked at ALL the evidence? Have you read FV, FJ, Malcolm, Bost's short study, "Tainting Evidence" (Kelly/Wearne) etc.?

> But questioning that integrity doesn't automatically lead to a defendant's
> being innocent. Sometimes the defendant is guilty and the prosecution bumbles
> things.

Of course, you're right about that. OJ is a fine example. But sometimes, the defendant is innocent, or even may be innocent, and the prosecution rigs the case to get a conviction. Their job is not so much to find the truth as to GET CONVICTIONS.

> You have no idea how much I would love to know what convinced you. All of the
> things I've heard cited from others are not at all convincing to me. I think
> using poor Stoekley to pin the murders on is just pathetic, and don't see what
> the big deal is about some hairs and fibers. Except that the defense didn't get
> material on them. That doesn't make them evidence. You will take vacumings
> from anyone's house and find hairs and fibers that belong to different people
> who don't live there. This is why I don't understand why this is considered so
> important.

I'll get to your second point first. As I said previously, there will always be debris at a crime scene, but you can't pick and choose what's important and what isn't. Surely not all of the fiber evidence is meaningful, but some of it is. Is there any way to tell which is which? Of course not, so you have to apply the same standard to all of it. Unmatched fibers on the floor may be just flotsam, but blond synthetic fibers in a hairbrush I think are very significant.

As for your first point, remember I wasn't convinced after reading FV. I didn't buy McGinniss' nonsense and I just didn't feel the evidence was conclusive. I found the PJ top folding experiment especially ridiculous. I never got the sense that he was lying from reading his words in FV. (I skipped over the "Voice of JM" sections to save time, so I'm only referring to interviews & testimony.) Then, once I started finding out about the FOIA materials (beginning with a taped segment of "20/20" that originally aired on 10/19/90), and read FJ, I was convinced. Briefly, it was:

1. The prosecution's evidence, as presented in FV, seemed to me to be circumstantial at best.
2. FOIA materials have shown that evidence to be highly questionable, if not patently false.
3. The behaviour of the prosecutors and judge in witholding those materials from the defense and jury, and in manufacturing the case against MacDonald.
4. That there WAS evidence to corroborate MacDonald's account and that the prosecutors willfully suppressed that evidence.

I know what you're thinking: willful suppression of evidence does not make a defendant innocent.

If, as you claim, you do not believe in the government's physical-evidence case, then you have no motive and no material proof of guilt. It seems to me your belief is based more on faith and intuition than anything else; you just "know he's lying." In a country where we are supposed to presume innocence, in a case where the defendant has no motive and no concrete proof against him, and where there is evidence to support his account of the event, I cannot find him guilty.

> >I appreciate the sentiment; I'm very sorry, but I'm not sure I believe you.
>
> You can believe whatever you like. But you and ***** are both wrong if you
> think someone has to hate him and want him to be guilty to think him so.

The former, no. The latter, more likely. Please understand I'm not even remotely suggesting that you're ignorant or closed-minded just because you disagree with me. I just don't see how you can still find him guilty based on what is known today if you want to believe he is innocent. There's plenty of evidence that points to his innocence, which has been re-hashed time and time again in this group, in FJ, Bost's study, Kelly/Wearne, and http://www.crimelibrary.com/macdonald/mac/macmain.htm.

> >I got hit in the head with a baseball bat once, when I was 8. I was catching
> >and the batter hit me. Hurt like hell. No gray jello to be found.
>
> I really don't feel that this remark deserves a response but I will anyway. I
> don't know if you are aware of this or not, but adult males intent on harming a
> victim can often swing a baseball bat harder than an 8 year old 'batter-up'.

d:-)
(smiley w/baseball cap)

I know, I know. Of course the circumstances were entirely different; I simply found the anecdote amusing. But it's also possible to get hit without doing that much damage, especially if the victim is able to ward off the blows to some degree. As Mel Brooks said, "There's two sides to every Schwartz."

> When I first got interested in this thread I didnt' remember squat about this
> case. I did remember reading something a long time back but I had to go out
> and buy all three of the books that have been discussed here. My initial
> interest was in his being proven innocent. But after I had read it all and
> read the discussion of the evidence and went to the websites and downloaded the
> actual peices of evidence, I came to the conclusion that these protestations of
> innocence are just wishful thinking.

I'm probably going to regret this [ d:-) ], but please be specific. Which websites are you referring to? Which pieces of evidence?

> I found not one thing that made me think
> he was innocent. I[m not saying that I didn't find some things that were

> messed up by the prosecutors etc. but nothing to support anyone else doing the
> murders.

I'm at a loss here. If you read FJ or Bost's short study or Kelly/Wearne or crimelibrary.com, I just don't see how that's possible.

> Frankly I was sorry to come to that conclusion because I would much
> rather it had been a stranger that had done that to that family. I keep
> thinking about Kristen having defense wounds on her little hands and probably
> looking at her daddy killing her. I don't understand how on earth you can
> defend that man.

Because I believe he was wronged by the system. He suffered a terrible loss and a terrible injustice. Please, show me one piece of material evidence that proves MacDonald guilty. (Your personal disbelief of his account does not amount to MATERIAL evidence.)

> MacDonald lost his presumption of
> innocence when he was convicted of three murders.

Here we go again with the conviction. You say you don't believe the prosecution arguments which resulted in that conviction, yet you keep citing it as proof of his guilt. If the conviction is based on lies, it's meaningless when discussing guilt or innocence. Convictions have less to do with the truth than with the judicial process itself. As I said, I believe the justice system works more often than it doesn't, but in this case, THE SYSTEM FAILED. IT DIDN'T WORK. The conviction was WRONG. The prosecutors LIED. The judge hamstrung the defense. Even some of MacDonald's detractors in this group concede that he did not receive a fair trial. He was WRONGFULLY CONVICTED.

> I'm sure you do have trouble seeing how I come up
> with my beliefs because I have the same difficulty understanding how you can
> feel the way you do.

You're right. Maybe we should end the discussion.

> I don't understand why you would look for a motive for a man to kill his
> pregnant wife and two little girls. What motive could there possibly be? Yet
> you read the papers and watch the news. You know similar things happen all the
> time. These cases are all without motive.

Please name one. I can't think of one. I've heard of people killing their families in murder-suicides, but they usually are the result of financial difficulties, child custody battles, etc., meaning they ARE motivated. MacDonald had ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to kill his family. He had nothing to gain and he gained nothing. Neither the prosecutors nor McGinniss ever suggested that he WANTED to kill them.

> I believe this is probaboy the
> exact thing that is considered to be temporary insanity. Rage can do this to a
> person, some people anyway. Rage can make monsters of all us to some
> degree.

So can Joe McGinniss.

This has been an interesting discussion, but you still have not provided one shred of material proof that Jeffrey MacDonald killed his family. You have cited only the (fraudulent) 1979 conviction and your own intuition. You clearly don't believe MacDonald's account, but remember you can't prove a lie except by proving an incompatible truth, which so far, you haven't even attempted.

> I do know though, that MacDonald's
> testimony alone was enough to convince one of the jurors about his guilt and
> that he is still convinced regardless of Fatal Justice.

Remember that the jurors had only been exposed to the prosecutors' version of the evidence, which obviously jibed with MacDonald's account and thus would give them the impression that he was lying. Remember also that "So-and-so thinks he's lying," whether that so-and-so is Freddy Kassab, Brian Murtagh, Joe McGinniss, a juror, yourself, or anyone else, is NOT evidence.

I recently read an article called "Non-Verbal Cues Are Easy to Misinterpret" by Daniel Goleman (New York Times, 9/17/91, page C1) for a grad school course. The article shows that, "...people's confidence in their ability to read character through [non-verbal] cues very often exceeds their actual skill, particularly in some crucial situations. For example, one recent study found that few people recognize the non-verbal cues that reveal whether someone is lying, though most people believe they can usually catch a liar in the act."

Dr. Paul Ekman, a psychologist at UCSF, tested 509 men and women, including 34 Secret Service agents, 60 Federal polygraphers, 126 police detectives, 110 court judges and 67 psychiatrists. Only the Secret Service agents did "better than chance." Dr. Ekman's study bore out an earlier (1986, UVA) finding that people's confidence in their ability to detect lies has little relationship to their actual ability.

"The fear of being disbelieved looks the same as the fear of being caught lying," says Dr. Ekman, who authored a 1985 book, "Telling Lies," detailing the specific non-verbal cues that indicate lying.

> > Even some of MacDonald's detractors
> >in this group concede that he did not receive a fair trial. He was
> >WRONGFULLY CONVICTED.
> >
> I disagree with you about his trial, but I would point out that wrongfully
> convicted is not the same thing as innocent. I believe he was not wrongfully
> convicted.

You're right about that (even "not guilty" is not the same as "innocent," as I'm sure OJ knows), but you honestly think he got a fair trial? If, as you've said, you do not accept the prosecutors' claims (in other words, if you do not believe that everything the prosecutors claimed was absolutely true), how can you justify the conviction?

Before you answer, "Because he did it," remember what I said before: jury verdicts are more reflective of the judicial process than of the truth.

> >You clearly don't believe MacDonald's account, but remember you
> >can't prove a lie except by proving an incompatible truth, which so far, you
> >haven't even attempted
>
> I don't understand the meaning of this paragraph.

All it means is this: All you have cited so far as "proof" of MacDonald's guilt is your own belief that he lied about the events. But as a point of logic, you can't prove a negative, except by proving an incompatible positive. The only way I can prove I was NOT in Guatemala last night is to prove that I WAS, in fact, in New York. The only way to prove that what he said did not happen is to prove that something else did.

Watch any episode of "LAW & ORDER." What do you need for a murder conviction? You need motive, opportunity, physical evidence and eyewitnesses. With MacDonald, you have only opportunity. (The physical evidence that convicted him in 1979 was false.) With the intruders, you have motive, opportunity, physical evidence, eyewitnesses, and confessions.

I don't see how you can find a man guilty of such a horrendous crime when he had no reason to do it and there's no real evidence that he did do it.

> I think I may understand now what you were meaning. I would say in this case
> that we can prove that MacDonald was not unconscious because he was found in a
> position which was carefully staged. I don't think anyone has disputed that he
> lay himself down next to Colette's body and positioned himself. This is not
> what happens when someone falls unconscious. They just drop to the ground in a
> heap.

This is speculation. You did not see what happened so you cannot conclusively "prove" that it happened a certain way. Just because you don't believe it doesn't prove it false or make it impossible.

> I think we can prove that he was not severely stabbed because he had a
> normal hematocrit upon admission to the hospital. I think it's important to
> realize that it wasn't just that he didn't require transfusions, he actually
> had a completely normal blood count.

Just because he was not "severely stabbed" and/or did not bleed profusely doesn't mean he wasn't attacked. The non-severity of his injuries compared to the others' has always counted against him, but in and of itself is not proof of guilt.

> I think we can say that his claiming to try to resuscitate all of the victims
> was a lie, because Ron, who is a doctor, posted that with a pneumothorax it is

> impossible to do that, because of pressures within the lungs.

Impossible to succeed, maybe, but not impossible to try.

> It can go on and on, but I'm sure you're aware of that. Each of us looks at
> this case differently I guess.

That's for sure.

> I still don't understand why hairs found in the house that were not MacDonalds
> are considered exculpatory evidence. It's not like they were matched to
> anyone, and they could normally have been there from who knows how long.

A couple of reasons why:

1.) This is the most important thing to consider: The prosecutors claimed there was absolutely no evidence of intruders; no foreign hairs, no foreign fibers, no foreign fingerprints, etc., no evidence whatsoever that anyone but the MacDonalds had ever been in that apartment. THIS WAS THE CRUX OF THE GOVERNMENT'S CASE. We now know that such evidence DID exist. Regardless of the material's probative value, the prosecutors falsely claimed that it did not exist at all. Why? Because the presence of foreign hairs and fibers opens up the possibility that there were intruders in the apartment.

2.) The hairs and fibers were found in key locations, e.g., the hands of the victims. An unmatched hair on the bathroom floor is one thing; an unmatched hair (esp. with root intact) in the hand of a murder victim is something else. The black wool fibers found on the murder club (which, as we all know, the prosecutors falsely claimed were pajama fibers) were also found on Colette's mouth.

> I'm
> sure this is what is being dna tested and I'm real interested in the results.

Yes, it is; we're all very interested in the outcome. Tests should begin in a couple of weeks; results are due by October, according to an article in yesterday's Boston Globe.

> I don't know of any physical evidence that there were intruders. The only
> things that I know of being discussed is the blond fibers in the hairbrush, but
> in my reading Stoekley says that, although she does not know where she was that
> night, she did not wear the blond wig that night. I have found no place where
> she's quoted as saying she was wearing it that night.

In her videotaped confession to former FBI agent Ted Gunderson in 1981, she claimed not only that she was wearing the wig (this is in the excerpt I saw on "20/20"), but also that she had used Colette's hairbrush on it.

I don't ever remember reading about any claim by Stoeckley that she had not worn the wig that night; only that she had discarded it after the murders.

There's a lot more than the wig fiber, all of which is outlined in the various books and websites. Some of it is mentioned in the Globe article. Give it a read and let me know what you think.

> We now know that such evidence DID exist.
>
> Well, of course it did, but what does it have to do with MacDonald's
innocence.

Because it suggests that others committed the crimes. Because it refutes the prosecution's central, essential claim. Because the case against him falls apart if there is evidence that the intruders he described did exist and were in the apartment.

> The presence of foreign hairs and fibers that could definately be matched up to
> real people would have done so. What was found was not that type of evidence.
> It only proved that someone else had ever been in the apartment.

Yes, contrary to the prosecution's assertion. A definite match to a specific suspect would have certainly pinned the murders on that suspect; problem is that from Day One, as far as Army investigators were concerned, MacDonald was the ONLY suspect, so there was really no one else to match them to. Chances are, if key evidence does not match the suspect, then someone else probably did it.

> >2.) The hairs and fibers were found in key locations, e.g., the hands of the
> >victims. An unmatched hair on the bathroom floor is one thing; an unmatched
> >hair (esp. with root intact) in the hand of a murder victim is something

> >else.
>
> I agree, but it isn't much of something else until it's matched with a suspect.
> Until then it's just a hair that didn't match MacDonald.

That's precisely the point! Other people's hairs were found in the victims' hands; Jeffrey MacDonald's were not. That suggests to me that someone else killed them.

> One thing I've
> wondered on occasion is were these hairs tested against the girls and Colette
> or just MacDonald?

The hairs did not match any of the MacDonalds.

MacDonald was convicted in 1979 because the prosecutors convinced the jury that IT COULD NOT HAVE BEEN ANYONE ELSE. But we know now that that's not true. The evidence suggests that it WAS someone else.

> If the prosecution's central, essential claim really was that there was no
> evidence that anyone had ever been in that apartment then it does indicate that
> was a false assumption. The idea is ludicrous however, for we all know that
> this was transient military housing.

Of course it's ludicrous! But that's what the prosecution claimed: NO FOREIGN MATERIALS WHATSOEVER.

> Knowing that, why would you assume that
> anything found not coming from the MacDonald's must have come from
> intruders doing the murders? Some of the evidence collected contained items
> on the floor that had obviously been there for months. (Christmas tinsel).
> I just can't see why you are so positive that some hairs and fibers that did not
> match MacDonald had to have come from intruders.

I didn't say it MUST have; I only said it COULD have, which is still very significant in a physical-evidence case such as this one. The prosecution, by witholding the lab notes and not allowing the defense to see or test any of the evidence, was able to pick-and-choose which items to present to the jury. The defense never got a chance to do the same. You think that's fair?

> Had they been matched to the people
> who were suspected of being the intruders that would have been very
> exculpatory, but they're just un-identified hairs and fibers.

Let me say this again, just to be clear: THERE WERE NO OTHER SUSPECTS. No one in the Army CID or the FBI ever attempted to match any item of evidence to anyone except Jeffrey MacDonald. The reason why these things have not been tied to any specific individual is that no one ever tried to do so. The Army CID and FBI did not try, nor did the prosecutors allow the defense to try. The forthcoming DNA testing will be the first attempt in the history of this case to match any piece of evidence to anyone other than Jeffrey MacDonald.

> What do you mean here? Was there key evidence that did not match
> MacDonald?

YES! Foreign hairs in the victims' hands, foreign fibers on the murder weapon, unmatched finger- & palm prints, bloody gloves, blond wig hairs, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc...............................................

> I have read of no evidence that suggests that it was someone else.

Foreign hairs in the victims' hands don't suggest it was someone else?
Foreign fibers on the murder weapon don't suggest it was someone else?
Blond wig hairs and unmatched candle wax, when MacDonald claimed he saw a woman in a blond wig carrrying a candle, don't suggest it was someone else?
Unmatched finger- and palm prints at the murder scene don't suggest it was someone else?
Bloody gloves not belonging to MacDonald found at the murder scene don't suggest it was someone else?
Identification, sightings, confessions, and polygraphs of the intruders don't suggest it was someone else?
The prosecutors having to resort to lies and suppression of evidence to get and maintain a conviction doesn't suggest it was someone else?

What, exactly, WOULD suggest that it was someone else?

> The only
> thing I find remotely questionable is that MacDonald was able to give a
> description that fit Stoekley and the black man so closely.

Remarkable, isn't it? How do you suppose that happened?

> Another thing that may hinder
> our seeing eye to eye on this is that I am only concerned with his innocence or
> guilt of these murders. I am not concerned enough about the fairness of the
> trial that I would want there to be the chance of a guilty man getting away
> with murder. That's why I may seem to be rather offhand about the conduct of
> the prosecutors. It's not that I think misconduct is okay.

Fine, but you're basing your belief in his guilt on the fact that the jury convicted him, which was a direct result of the prosecutors' conduct. Do you see the flaw in the logic here? If you're not concerned with the fairness of the trial, how can you lend so much credence to the outcome of the trial? If the evidence that convinced the jurors was false, and the trial was unfair, where's the proof of his guilt?

> I don't think that MacDonald described the woman as wearing a wig,

I think he described "blond stringy hair" that either "looked like" or "could have been" a wig.

> and the
> woman in question did deny wearing one that night.

When? To whom? Where did you get this from? To my knowledge, she did NOT deny wearing it. She ADMITTED wearing it, to Prince Beasley, to Ted Gunderson, to Fred Bost.

> I've given this some thought and I think there is another explanation for all
> the things you bring up.

Which is................? Regardless, there's always "another explanation." That's why physical evidence is usually circumstantial and why you usually need a motive to convict someone of murder.

> I also think there's an explanation for why he
> described her so well, I just don't know what it is.

Not a terribly convincing argument, I'm afraid.

> Well if the fingernail scrapings can be definately linked to Greg Mitchell
> through the dna testing that would do it for me.

So you're waiting for a specific individual to be positively identified as the killer, as opposed to simply "someone other than MacDonald." OK, I can accept that. But could you, for the moment, apply the same standard to Dr. MacDonald? You're looking for proof that Greg Mitchell did it; where's the proof that Jeffrey MacDonald did it?

> What I suppose is that he had seen her and the black man recently enough for
> their descriptions to come to mind when telling his story. Maybe he saw them
> walking down the street carrying candles when everyone else was seeing them.

A very far-fetched and McGinniss-esque supposition. It's not impossible, but I don't think it's likely. Obviously, there's no proof either way.

I was re-reading my response and something occurred to me. I want to highlight something you wrote in one of the above passages:

> I am not concerned enough about the fairness of the
> trial that I would want there to be the chance of a guilty man getting away
> with murder.

Read that again a couple of times. Read it very carefully. Think about what it means.

> I am not concerned enough about the fairness of the
> trial that I would want there to be the chance of a guilty man getting away
> with murder.

I find this idea very disturbing, and very dangerous.

Nobody wants to see a guilty man get away with murder. But what you're saying is that you'd prefer a person be unjustly convicted as long as there's a chance that he's guilty. Better to have an unfair trial than risk freeing a guilty man. If it's even possible that he did it, then he must be punished.

Please tell me that's not what you mean.


I feel like I'm engaging in a "tastes great - less filling" debate. We've come full-circle once again.

> I know of one
> juror who said he formed his opinion of guilt based on MacDonald's testimony.
> This is what my own opinion is based on.

The opinion of one juror. Your belief is based on the opinion of one juror. One. Am I reading this right? One juror? One person's belief is enough to convince you?

If you read FJ or TJATM, you'd know that most of the jurors did not want to convict, but felt they had no choice because they had seen no evidence to support his story, specifically no blood or fibers in the hallway area where he said he had lain unconscious. But we know now that there WAS blood and there WERE fibers in that location. You think the jury would have convicted him if they'd known that? You think they'd have convicted him if they'd known about the blond wig fibers, candle wax, foreign hairs in the victims' hands, or Stoeckley's confessions? If they'd known that the pajama fibers on the club, and entwined with Colette's hair, both of which were touted as crucial evidence by the prosecution, did not even exist at all? If they'd known how badly botched and contaminated the crime scene was? Not on your life. Two words: reasonable doubt. But the prosecutors eliminated reasonable doubt by seeing to it that the jury was never made aware of any of this.

To quote prosecutor James Blackburn from the recent A&E "American Justice" piece, referring to the jury: "I think they were waiting for him to...show them some piece of evidence that would prove that he didn't do it. I think the jury wanted to believe him, and they wanted to believe that he could not have done this. But they kept waiting for the single piece of evidence. It never came." Ironic, isn't it, considering that Blackburn was part of a prosecution that possessed, and knowingly suppressed, such evidence. Ironic, also, in that it implies presumption of guilt, i.e., that the defendant must prove his innocence.

From FJ, pp245-246, re: the authors' 1988 interviews with jurors: Fred Thornhill "blamed the conviction on a 'lack of defense.' In short, that MacDonald was unable to prove his innocence...Arnold Clary, another of the jurors interviewed in 1988, said that throughout the trial he wanted to acquit MacDonald...Eddie Parker...wasn't at all satisfied with what he had seen...He said, 'We should have been told more about that woman.'...To him, there had been no real proof in either direction...'I still don't think Doctor MacDonald's guilty...I'll tell anybody I don't feel like he's guilty.' "

You can doubt the veracity of Potter and Bost all you want. Write to them and ask for the tapes of the interviews, if you don't believe them. Read Janet Malcolm and you'll find the same sentiments among many of the jurors.

One juror still thinks he's guilty? That's your proof?

> The proof of his guilt was the words spoken by him about the crime.

> I think his lying about what happened
> does that.

[Sigh] Here we go again...HOW DO YOU KNOW HE LIED? If you don't believe him, or even find his story impossible to believe, that's one thing, but that's YOUR opinion. You CANNOT come to such a conclusion unless you presuppose guilt, which you have to have done because, as you have stated, the jury convicted him and because ONE juror still thinks he's guilty.

You CANNOT conclusively state that a person lied UNLESS you can prove an incompatible truth. Yet.....

> The proof of his guilt was the words spoken by him about the crime.

You don't believe him; THAT IS NOT PROOF!
Your one juror doesn't believe him; THAT IS NOT PROOF!

[RE: MacDonald's description of Stoeckley and the black man]
> I do find myself wanting to satisfy myself on this point but I
> don't see any way to do that.

And what does that tell you?

> Better to have an unfair trial than risk
> >freeing a guilty man.
>
> Yes. I know it's not PC but it's the way I feel.

Do you have any idea what you're implying here? Forget about political correctness. This is how fascist police states conceptualize criminal justice. Persecution first, fairness (maybe) later. Guilty until proven innocent. It's downright frightening.

All the discussion about what you or I would do as jurors were we privy to the FOIA information is meaningless when you realize one simple fact: The actual jury never got to consider any of it. If the jury had known of the hair and fiber evidence, they could have considered it, given it whatever weight they saw fit, and drawn their own conclusions, but they never got the chance.

If they had known of Stoeckley's confessions, they could have considered them and made their own decisions about them. They never got the chance.

If they had known that the prosecution's key evidence was false, they could have considered it. But they never got the chance, and thus had to accept the prosecution's claims as the truth.

What you or I would have made of this information as jurors in 1979 is irrelevant. The point is that the actual jurors never saw it and never got the chance to weigh ALL the evidence and draw their own conclusions.

As for MacDonald's testimony, even he will admit that his performance was less-than-stellar. But I just re-read it in FV, trying to imagine him being very edgy and ticked off, and I have to tell you, there was nothing in his words that jumped out at me as being untrue or highly questionable. In fact, the only untruths I could find were in Blackburn's cross-examination questions, when he asked MacDonald to explain the various fictitious bits of government evidence, essentially making him prove his innocence, which he couldn't do and shouldn't have to do. Obviously, MacDonald couldn't explain how those pajama fibers got on the club, because there were no pajama fibers on the club. Not that he, or the jury, had any way of knowing that. It's no wonder he fared so badly. If someone kept asking me to explain findings that weren't true, but nobody knew they weren't true, I'd look like a liar too. The jurors were probably influenced more by his attitude than his words.

> >Eddie Parker...wasn't at all satisfied with what he had
> >seen...He said, 'We should have been told more about that woman.'...To him,
> >there had been no real proof in either direction...'I still don't think
> >Doctor MacDonald's guilty...I'll tell anybody I don't feel like he's
> >guilty.' "
>
> If I understand his statement correctly it seems that he is saying that he
> thought him innocent all along and voted guilty. Do you know why he did that?
> Was there pressure on him from the rest of the jury?

Yes. Re-read the begginning of the "Post-Trial Admissions and Confessions" chapter in FJ for the details.

> I thought that was what we were doing here. You tell me your
> opinion and I tell you my opinion.

Yes, that's true, but I have a really bizarre idiosyncrasy that drives my students nuts: I expect people to support and back up their opinions. When I showed "Titanic" to my freshmen after they read "Romeo & Juliet," I had one student complain that he hated the movie. I asked him why and he replied, "Because there were no black or hispanic people in it." I furrowed my eyebrows, calling upon my knowledge as a Titanic scholar and told him, "Well...there were no black or hispanic people on the Titanic." Immediately he said, "Yes, there were." Calmly I assured him, "No, there weren't." He said, "Yes, the waiters and stuff." I asked, "Where are you getting this from?" He turned away and said, "Forget it." But I wouldn't let him off the hook. He tried, but obviously he couldn't back up his claim. The point, as I explained to him, was not to prove him wrong, but to show that you can't throw opinions around so casually, because there's a word for opinions formed in the absence of knowledge: PREJUDICE.

In light of this seemingly unrelated anecdote...

> >You CANNOT conclusively state that a person lied UNLESS you can prove an
> >incompatible truth. Yet.....
>
> Well, I have done so to my satisfaction. But not to your satisfaction, hence
> your not agreeing with me about his testimony.

... Bingo.

> There is proof when you look at
> the medical records, when you read his statements etc.

For heaven's sake, WHERE? This is what I've been asking you all along, WHERE IS THE PROOF? Everything you've brought up so far (and I can go back through all the posts if you want) is purely a matter of conjecture and/or interpretation, i.e., you disbelieve his statements, or find them impossible to believe, and conclude that he lied. I know of nothing in the medical records or anywhere else that unequivocally PROVES MacDonald lied about the murders.

> It's too simplistic to
> state that just reading his testimony constitutes the proof.

That's what I've been telling you, but that's what you've been doing.

> I don't think that the prosecution not showing this
> stuff to the defense had any affect at all on the innocence or guilt of
> MacDonald.

Of course not, but it certainly had a profound effect on the verdict. It's just this sort of prosecutorial misconduct that makes it possible to convict the innocent. And it does happen, regardless of what many people would like to believe. Did you know that 61 convicts in the United States have been exonerated and freed by DNA testing? (Source: AP) That, to me, is a staggering number.

> All I'm saying is that even granting you the
> misbehavior regarding the fibers and hairs, I would rather that than MacDonald
> getting free while guilty of murder.

And what if he's innocent? Surely the possibility remains, doesn't it, even in your mind? What if the DNA testing proves him innocent? Only then will the prosecutors' conduct be wrong? Only then do we concern ourselves with fairness, truth, and justice? Until then, do we persecute and imprison all of the accused, just in case they might be guilty? Just to be sure they don't get away with a crime they may or may not have committed?

>And what if he's innocent? Surely the possibility remains, doesn't
> >it, even in your mind?
>
> No, I believe that he did the murders.

That's not what I asked. I know what you believe. I'm merely asking if the possibility exists. I don't believe he committed the murders, but the possibility does exist that he did. Remote though I believe it to be, it does exist. I don't think anyone can be 100% certain.

> What if the DNA testing proves him innocent?
>
> If the DNA evidence proves him innocent then I will be wrong in my beliefs
> about this case.

So the possibility DOES exist.

> DNA evidence that shows only that it is from someone other
> than MacDonald is not proof however. Is not even meaningful really.

How can you say that when the central prosecution argument was that it could not have been anyone else? The prosecution didn't have to argue that it could not have been Greg Mitchell or Helena Stoeckley, because the jurors never knew of their possible involvement (other than Stoeckley's perfunctory and useless testimony). The prosecution merely argued that it could only have been MacDonald, because there was no evidence that anyone else had been in the apartment. If that contention is false, then there is no case against him!

I remind you that there is no evidence that Jeffrey MacDonald killed his family.

> Justice is what I'm concerned with. Behavior of the prosecution or the defense
> isn't about justice a lot of the times, but about winning.

OK, but if you believe that, and you believe that the prosecution behaved badly in this case, doesn't that at least raise a spectre of doubt in your mind?

> Until then, do we persecute and
> >imprison all of the accused, just in case they might be guilty? Just to be
> >sure they don't get away with a crime they may or may not have committed?
>
> Is this what I said? No, it's not. So why are you asking me these questions.
> I've told you repeatedly that I am concerned that the guilty be found guilty
> and the innocent be found innocent. To me that's the meaning of justice. I
> have never said one word about wanting to persecute the accused just because
> they might be guilty. You know this perfectly well. There's a reason you're
> doing this but I don't know what it is except maybe to flame?

Forgive me, I have no intention of doing that. I'm merely trying to point out the danger in what you're saying; you're so thoroughly convinced of MacDonald's guilt that maybe you don't realize what you're implying as a general principle. Of course, everyone wants to free the innocent and punish the guilty, but how do we determine who is innocent and who is guilty? This, I think, is the flaw in your logic. Your interest in justice is laudable, but we all know that the innocent are not always found innocent and that the guilty are not always found guilty. The only way to make sure that neither of those things happens is to have a fair trial; the system can't work any other way.

As I said earlier, I don't think anyone can be 100% sure about this case. I'm not 100% sure. But even if he is guilty, if a conviction is obtained through lies, deceit and suppression of evidence by an overreaching, overzealous, corrupt prosecution, it is still wrong. That's how the justice system is supposed to work in America, at least in theory. Fairness is supposed to be paramount.

Sadly, the higher courts have seen fit to, for all intents and purposes, excuse the prosecution's behaviour, much as you have, based on their ongoing belief that MacDonald must be guilty anyway. But if he IS guilty, why did the prosecutors need to manufacture, misrepresent, and suppress evidence in order to obtain and maintain a conviction? If he did it, there should have been evidence that he did it, but there wasn't (as COL Rock found at the Art. 32 in 1970), so the FBI lab and Brian Murtagh had to, essentially, make it up, then cover their tracks by not allowing the defense to see what they'd done.

> It's just that in the case of
> MacDonald I don't believe there's any chance at all that he didn't do it.

No chance at all, huh? That's too bad.

> As long as
> lawyers on both sides are more concerned with their personal aggrandizement
> than with justice there will be a problem. This comes down to individual
> integrity, and what can the system really do about that?

You're absolutely right about that; court cases, both civil and criminal, are usually more about the lawyers than the participants. An idealist will tell you that most lawyers are honest when it comes to trying their cases; a cynic will tell you that all lawyers are scum. The reality is somewhere in between. Keep in mind that the appeals process is more about procedure and propriety than truth and justice, which I guess is what the system attempts to do about it.

> The other thing that
> seems a distressing problem is that, particularly with the advent of DNA and
> other technological marvels in the crime labs, the jury needs to be better than
> average in intelligence and education in order to understand. Do you agree
> with this? I know that the person testifying about it goes into detail about
> it, but I just think it's too much for the majority of the people to truly
> understand. It makes me wonder is our system is really suited to distributing
> "justice for all". (Actually, it makes me sure it's not.) I would be most
> interested in your thoughts on what could be done to improve things.

This is a fundamental flaw in the trial-by-jury system, but it may be a necessary evil. The constitution guarantees the right to a trial by "a jury of peers," or something like that, essentially allowing the general public (rather than a select few) to determine what is right, to hear both sides and decide what they believe. And the jury verdict in criminal cases must be unanimous. It's very true, though, that juries very often have a hard time understanding some of the more complex issues, including forensic science, psychiatry, even the laws of which they're instructed prior to deliberation.

I think George Carlin said it best: "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize that half the population is stupider than that."

The problem, though, is if you train and hire professional jurists to deliver verdicts in either civil or criminal cases, you're taking the reins of justice away from the people and placing them in the hands of a select few, which is elitist and unconstitutional. The whole point of jury selection is to weed out people with grudges, agendas, foreknowledge, etc., and the only way to do that is to cast a wide net. With a limited pool of professional jurists, it would be much more difficult. There have been a great many methods of dispensing justice throughout history; the framers, in their wisdom, determined the trial-by-jury system to be the fairest. Is it?

> You're a
> very interesting poster to converse with. I've enjoyed myself the last few
> days. You might be thinking that I pay no attention to what you write because
> I don't change my mind, but that's not true at all.

I'd be lying if I said the thought hadn't occurred. Normally I'm pretty convincing.
d:-)

(You know I'm kidding, right?)

Seriously, though, I've enjoyed it too. I probably won't have the time or energy to devote to this NG once school starts next week, but hopefully our discussion has given some people some insights into this case, maybe even got people thinking or reevaluating their positions.

> As for the guilt or
> innocence of MacDonald, I have decided that yes, there is always the
> possibility that he didn't do it even though I believe that he did. We have
> access to so little of the actual evidence, and even in Fatal Justice we are
> limited to what the authors considered significant.

We will ALWAYS be limited to what the authors consider significant; that's the whole principle behind writing non-fiction.

> I have read that the
> reports on this case retrieved through FOIA fill boxes and boxes, and when you
> compare that to what we have access to even from the Bost website, it is
> dismally clear that we're dependant on both sides deciding what is significant
> for us to know. Sort of like a jury.

Oh, absolutely. The full scope of the evidence in this case would fill my 4GB hard drive ten times over, which is why we rely on lawyers and writers to sift through it and interpret it for us. But, when those interpretations differ, we're left only to wonder, and discuss, and argue, and wish we could just travel back in time for a moment so we could finally learn the truth.

The following are in response to a different individual who replied to one of my above posts.

> Do you strongly believe that the prosecution is required to present
> every bit of "household debris" collected at a crime scene?

No, of course not. But they should allow the defense access to that "household debris" and let the defense and jury draw their own conclusions, rather than falsely claim that it does not exist at all.

In any state court, there are rules of discovery and disclosure. The prosecution is compelled to hand over to the defense any evidence which the defense feels might be exculpatory, even if the DA doesn't believe it so. Unfortunately for MacDonald and Segal, in a Federal court, it's up to the judge. Enough said.

> People confess to crimes they never committed all the time. These
> "confessions" from incredible witnesses, with internal inconsistencies
> were worthless and deemed such by the Judge and the prosecution.

Doesn't mean they were right.

> Why
> muddy the waters with the "drug-crazed ramblings" of these mental
> cases.?

That's a bit of a prosecutorial attitude. Why not let the jury decide?

> The prosecution presents the case for guilt of the defendant, and IS
> free to pick and choose the evidence it wishes to present.

Prosecutorial attitude again. How can anyone defend a case if the prosecution controls ALL of the evidence? Of course the prosecution can present whatever they like, but shouldn't the defense be afforded the same right?

> In this
> case they chose to ignore the household debris from a contaminated
> crime scene.

Yes, they did, but not only did they ignore it, they falsely claimed that it didn't exist, and refused to allow the defense to verify or challenge that claim. You, the prosecutors and judges may view this material as irrelevant "household debris," but the defense clearly views it differently and so might the jury have, given the opportunity.

Oh, and as for the "contaminated crime scene," the prosecution claimed that it wasn't contaminated. The jury didn't know that either.

> JM was never convicted by Joe McGinniss and "Fatal
> Vision".

In the courts, no. In the public mind, yes he was, absolutely; more so by the TV movie than the book.

> Obviously, Jeffrey would have best been served by not taking the
> stand. He would be a free man today, had he not personally convinced
> the jury of his guilt. Segal admitted this to me in a private
> communication.

No one disputes that. But the prosecution's lies clearly affected his testimony and performance, and the jury's reaction thereto.

> Deny that he repeatedly asked about the well-being of his kids, who
> under either scenario were DEAD, and he well knew that. Deny that the
> kids were found lying on their sides under the covers. Something
> intruders would likely do :-)

Deny all you want, I'll tell you the same thing I've been telling ******: just because you don't or can't believe it doesn't make it impossible or untrue.

> I wish to compliment you on your demeanor and attitude on this
> case. As opposed to our resident "true-believer", you can rationally
> debate this subject without personal attacks, rolling on the floor
> laughing or blind zealotry. Jeffrey needs more like you on his team.

Thanks very much, I do appreciate the compliment. Logic and reason are usually the best ingredients for a healthy debate.

> We know that the zealots that believe JMac is innocent, would never
> even consider the possibility that JMac might have, just might have,
> killed his family.

I know you're not referring to me. I agree that it's possible, I just don't believe it's true, or even likely. One possibility I entertained after reading FV was that if he did it, he was somehow unaware that he did it because of the "drug psychosis" McGinniss postulated; in other words, he really and truly believed himself innocent. I know, I know, it doesn't make any sense. Further reflection and research quickly discounted the idea. For one, the prosecution alleged that he killed Kristen deliberately; also, McGinniss' theory turned out to be a crock anyway.

> But if you would condescend to consider for a
> moment that possibility...what proof, other than circumstantial
> evidence and a phony story, would be "evidence of JMac's guilt"? His
> blood and fingerprints, fibers and hairs belonged in that house.
> Short of a videotape, or an eye witness, I can not think of any
> evidence that the ProMacs would accept as proof of guilt.

Well...you may be right about that. I think it works both ways, though; MacDonald's detractors won't accept anything as proof of innocence either. Circumstantial evidence, by definition, doesn't "prove" anything. You're absolutely right that it's virtually impossible to prove anything with physical evidence if the crime scene is the defendant's own home, because as you said his blood, hair, clothing fibers, etc. would have to be there. The prosecutors knew that and sought to prove that no one else was there. If no one else was there, if his story could not have been true, then it must have been him. The jury agreed.

Unfortunately, the prosecution's central claim turned out to be false. There WAS evidence that others could have been there, and the government knowingly witheld that evidence from the defense, which in retrospect severely compromises the case against him and calls the verdict into serious question, though it doesn't necessarily prove his innocence.

The prosecutors also attempted to find physical evidence that DID constitute proof of guilt, but two of the three key exhibits (PJ fibers on club & entwined with Colette's hair) were patently false, and the third (the PJ top folding experiment) scientifically unsound at best, utterly ridiculous at worst. With all this in mind (possible evidence of intruders and no concrete proof of guilt), the case against MacDonald all but dissolves.

Can there be concrete proof of guilt? Without those aforementioned key prosecution exhibits, I don't really know what could be left.

I'll tell you what would convince me. Obviously, if after DNA testing the hairs from the victims' hands turn out to be his, that would be pretty powerful proof. I don't think anyone honestly thinks that will happen, but I guess it's conceivable. Just as obvious, if he ever breaks down and confesses, that would work too, but he'll never do that. He won't even apply for parole, for heaven's sake, to at least get himself out of prison. He'll NEVER admit to it. If someone comes forward and says that MacDonald had privately admitted it to him, that might sway a few people, though I doubt many among his supporters will believe it (especially if it's, say, Joe McGinniss). I don't think that'll happen either. If MacDonald IS guilty, he's done a pretty thorough job of convincing himself that he isn't.

If he had a motive it would be a lot easier to believe in his guilt. If he had a reason to kill his family; something to gain, like insurance money or an inheritance; or if Colette threatened him somehow with regard to his career, or to take the kids away from him, or something...that would be a huge piece to the puzzle. But we all know that was not the case; he had no reason to kill them and did not benefit from it.

It would also help if he had a history of domestic violence, like OJ did; If he routinely beat up Colette and/or the kids, or even did so one time (we all remember the tape of Nicole's 911 call), or just slapped her around occasionally; if he had a propensity to snap and lash out at people, maybe beat up one of his troops or struck one of his patients; a reputation for being short-tempered and prone to violence or violent outbursts. Then it might be easier to believe that he lost control and killed them in a violent rage, but even then it might be a stretch. People may fly off the handle, but they don't become murderers so easily.

If there was a consensus among psychiatrists that he was insane or pathological; if that "boundless rage" McGinniss wrote about was true, but it's not. And we all know that the psychiatric consensus is quite the opposite.

If there were no alternative scenario; in other words, if Stoeckley et. al. were never identified or never existed, or if they had alibis. Forget about the reliability of the witnesses and confessions; there's still the possibility of these people's involvement, even though MacDonald's detractors don't believe it. I could be wrong about this, but I don't remember OJ's defenders coming up with an alternative scenario or any other suspects, let alone evidence that COULD HAVE tied those individuals to the crime.

If there was truly no evidence of intruders in the house; no foreign hairs or fibers, no blond wig hair, no candle wax, etc. If the prosecution's description of the crime scene was true, which we all know it wasn't. If it were easier to prove that he had lied about the murders, or if there were more definitive proof thereof. As it is, it's wide open to interpretation and speculation.

If there was solid evidence of guilt, along the lines of those aforementioned, albeit fictitious, prosecution exhibits, e.g., his prints on the weapons, or his hairs in the victims' hands or skin under their fingernails; maybe the victims' hairs or skin under HIS fingernails; if there were fingernail scratches on him, which the prosecution claimed there were but the medical records show there weren't.

If he had taken and failed the sodium amytal test during the grand jury hearings. If he had failed the polygraph he took for "Playboy" in the mid-'80s. If he had not told his story under hypnosis during the trial (I think this is in FV.)

I've been sitting here for a while trying to think of more, but I can't right now.

Again, you may be right; I don't think there's anything that can convince MacDonald's supporters of his guilt, short of what I mentioned in my 6th paragraph. I also don't think there's anything that can convince his detractors of his innocence, if the FOIA materials and "Fatal Justice" haven't.



This is in response to yet another individual who replied to someone else.

> > Well sure. You want to believe Dr. MacDonald is guilty though there is
> > not a shred of evidence of guilt while there is pile of evidence his
> > wife and daughter were murdered by intruders.
> >
> There was a lot of evidence, granted. But as you know, I still don't think
> that Jm's story fits. We could argue about that until the cows come home &
> we would still not agree.
> You think that the evidence supports intruders committing the crimes, I do
> not. I cannot put it any more plainly than that. I have read the books, I
> have watched the programs, I have viewed all of the evidence that I have
> been permitted to view. But as far as I can see, the evidence does not fit
> the story that Jeffrey MacDonald tells. And his story is what screws him,
> IMVHO. It's not a matter of what I believe, its a matter of what his story
> tells. What I believe means nothing, I wasn't there.

If I could just interject here; yes, you're right, the supporters and detractors can and will argue forever about the evidence and will never agree, even if MacDonald gets a new trial and is freed. (Unless, of course, the DNA testing implicates him directly, which I don't think anyone except Brian Murtagh believes will happen.)

The key point of contention seems to be the FOIA evidence, which the supporters believe supports MacDonald's account of the murders, and the detractors believe does not.

MacDonald's supporters seem to acknowledge that there are still discrepancies between some of the details of his account and the actual physical evidence, but we choose to chalk that up to faulty memory on his part (not unreasonable considering the circumstances), the bungling of the crime scene, and the element of chance, while the detractors interpret that as deliberate lying by MacDonald. While the supporters cite things like blood, hair, fiber evidence, etc. (what *** usually calls *****’s "mantra" and describes as "worthless"), detractors cite their disbelief of various elements of his story, i.e., that they don't believe that he, or the hippie intruders, or the neighbors, or the victims, or whomever, would behave the way they would have if MacDonald were innocent.

One thing, though, that the detractors seem to fail to recognize is that the key evidence used against him at trial was either false, misrepresented or manufactured by the prosecutors. Remember, that (supposedly) same evidence proved him innocent in COL Rock's eyes in 1970. None have sought to deny that those were not blue pajama fibers on the murder club, Blackburn's "most important piece of evidence" against MacDonald. None have sought to deny that the hair-and-fiber-entwined did not exist. None have sought to support Stombaugh's absurd folding experiment. None have sought to support the bloody footprint/bedspread claim. This was the "proof of guilt" that the prosecutors needed to convict MacDonald; that plus the equally false claim of no foreign forensic evidence whatsoever. None, also, have attempted to explain why the prosecutors felt the need to manufacture, misrepresent, and suppress evidence.

When you eliminate these claims and look back at the trial, what are you left with? Suspicion? Disbelief? A few discrepancies? An angry, irritated, defensive defendant? There is evidence to suggest he didn't do it; where is the evidence to suggest that he did?

To be fair, those of us who believe in MacDonald's innocence cannot answer all of the questions, cannot explain the remaining apparent discrepancies in MacDonald's account. I still don't know why there was no blood on the couch, but in postulating that he just flat-out didn't bleed on it, I don't think I'm completely beyond the realm of possibility. Detractors may not believe it, but is it impossible?

We need to understand, also, that MacDonald, if innocent, did not actually witness the murders. (For those who have not read TJATM, McGinniss blurted this out on the stand during cross-examination.) According to his account, he was awakened, attacked, knocked unconscious; by the time he came to the intruders were gone and his family dead. He did not see what went on in those bedrooms, so no one can really know how anything found in there got that way. He can't have any idea how Colette's blood got in Kristen's room, or Kimberly's in the master bedroom entrance (assuming, of course, correct typing), because he didn't see what happened. Were they killed before he was attacked, during, or after? He has no way of knowing.

I submit that no matter what the circumstance, human behaviour is essentially unpredictable, and that no one can state with absolute certainty that anyone would or would not behave a certain way in any situation. I submit also that, with regard to MacDonald's account of the murders, "truth" is not synonymous with "perfect in every detail."

Supporters believe there is enough in the FOIA evidence to indicate that MacDonald was telling the truth about the attack on his family. Detractors disagree.

Supporters cannot believe in his guilt because they don't think that a false conviction (emphasis on conviction), circumstantial evidence, and a few unanswered questions are enough.

Detractors cannot believe in his innocence because they don't think that a false conviction (emphasis on false), circumstantial evidence, and a few unanswered questions are enough.

You hit the nail on the head.

This is my own commentary to the newsgroup.

Hello, all.

I wonder if I could offer a little commentary on the MacDonald case – not the case itself, but the discussions that have gone on in this NG – without drawing the ire of either side. I've been reading the posts for several months, participating on and off since early June, and I've been thinking lately about the increasing hostility between camps.

While I agree with *** that the posts are probably dwindling because of their increasingly distasteful abrasiveness, I think both camps are equally liable in that regard. (No offense, ***, and I'm not defending anybody; I don't know what transpired between you and ***** over the summer, but your recent posts have displayed a venom that was not present in June.) Everybody's trying to change everybody else's opinion, but that's not going to happen; the sides get frustrated because their message doesn't seem to get through, and the tone changes from healthy, positive debate to the less-productive "I'm-right-you're-wrong" mode. *** seemed to think that **** was "destroying" ***** in a recent thread, telling ***** (s)he was "totally losing," but that's only because (s)he agrees with ****'s arguments; I happen to agree with *****, so it seemed to me that (S)HE was winning. In reality, it's not about winning -- nobody was really "winning" because neither argument was inherently stronger than the other, nobody proved anything, and nobody convinced anybody to change their opinion. And the reason why that happens is that there are so many contradictory "facts" in this case that impressions depend very much on what we choose to believe.

I'll illustrate what I mean; please bear with me before a new debate develops. Helena Stoeckley confessed multiple times to being involved in the murders. She also denied involvement on various occasions, and also denied memory. So basically, here you have the same woman, at different times, making three contradictory statements:

1. I was involved.
2. I was not involved.

3. I don't remember if I was involved or not.

These three statements are all entirely incompatible with one another and thus effetively cancel each other out, therefore none is sufficient in and of itself to draw any conclusion. Yet, depending on which side we're on, we
do. Supporters believe #1, and that #3 indicates a POSSIBILITY that #1 is true; Detractors believe #2, and that #3 indicates a PROBABILITY that #2 is true. To simplify, supporters compute yes + no / Idon'tremember = YES, while detractors feel that yes + no / Idon'tremember = NO.

Now, rather than open up a whole new debate about Stoeckley, I'll try to sum up both sides:

Supporters believe and lend more weight to the confessions, claiming the details thereof indicate she knew too much about the crime and the crime scene not to have been there, also citing the multiplicity thereof, forensic evidence (blond wig hairs, candle wax, etc.) suggestive of her presence, the multiple sightings, her similarity to MacDonald's description, the lack of an alibi (i.e. no proof she WASN'T there), the possibility that the inconsistencies and contradictions in her accounts may have been deliberate in the absence of immunity, or spotty memory, or both, that anyone would deny being involved in a crime (happens in my classroom all the time on a much less profound scale; adolescents especially have a hard time with accountability. I can watch a kid talking to her neighbor for a full minute and ask her to be quiet; the inevitable response: "I wasn't talking!"); in other words, that she would have a reason to deny if involved but no reason to confess if not, the polygraph results, the Jimmy Friar phone call........

Detractors find the denials to be more compelling, in part because one was made under oath at the trial, claiming that she did not confess until her involvement was suggested to her by authorities, that the details she knew were either public knowledge or shown to her during the trial, that the forensic evidence could have come from other sources (or that there's no proof it's hers or Greg Mitchell's), that no hair, blood or fingerprints were conclusively or specifically matched to her or Mitchell, that the confessions should be ignored because her mind was clouded by years of heavy drug abuse, that the inconsistencies, contradictions and denials indicate that the confessions are invalid, that the Army, FBI, lower and higher courts all dismissed her and the confessions and were unmoved by the
forensic evidence, that MacDonald could have gottten the idea from having seen her on the street with the candles....

Obviously, none of these points is airtight proof of anything. Nobody "wins" these arguments. Each side makes valid points; the other side just doesn't believe them. What supporters find plausible, detractors find laughable; what detractors find likely, supporters find ludicrous. What we generally believe about Jeffrey MacDonald's guilt or innocence seems to dictate what we believe about the details, not vice-versa. More examples:

In a recent conversation I had with ******, (s)he pointed out that Stoeckley denied wearing the blond wig that night. Stoeckley also admitted wearing the blond wig that night. Which is true?

In that same thread, ****** mentioned a trial juror who still thinks he's guilty. I pointed out jurors who think he's innocent. Whom do you listen to?

(Sidebar: Many opinions on this case seem to be driven by what other people think. Supporters cite Ken Mica's sighting of the floppy-hatted woman, but are reminded by detractors that Mica thinks MacDonald is guilty. Which is more important?)

**** quoted Dr. Bronstein's testimony that MacDonald "received absolutely no icepick wounds whatsoever." Yet the medical documents clearly indicate that he did. Which is true?

Mildred Kassab said in 1970 that there was no icepick in the house. In 1974 she said there was. Which is true?

Colette's 1969 Xmas cards indicate she was happy and all was well. Vivian Stevenson says the opposite. Which is true?

Freddy Kassab described his badly wounded son-in-law in letters to Congress, then later letters stated emphatically that MacDonald was NOT badly wounded. Which is true?

(Sidebar: Could these last 3 examples be indicative of the very phenomenon I'm exploring here?)

As with any debatable issue regarding this case, our answers to these questions will reflect, rather than influence, our opinions.