Jeffrey McDonald murders

[philmore]

Anyone remember this one? I grew up in Fayetteville and remember it and all the surrounding times.
My family knew the family of the Stokely girl who supposedly could exhonerate McDonald. She couldn't in the long run and died from drug abuse a little later.
Also the mother of one of my best friends growing up worked as a civil service employee on Bragg. Her Colonel was in charge of on base housing at the time and she took the last walk thru of the unit the McDonalds occupied before it was renovated. The crimes took place in around 1971 and that viewing was around 1982 or '83. Everything was still in the fridge, blood stains on the floors and walls, etc.
After reading Fatal Vision, the book about it, and hearing the trial as it occurred, I think he was guilty. But in the slightest chance he was not, he knew who did it. That was discussed but the evidence did not point to an outside party involved.

Anyone care to discuss it? Do you remember anything particular about it?

[angel71242]

I don't think I remember this one - or if I do the memories are too vague. Food and bloodstains were still there 11-12 years later? Wow! That's crazy!! That would have been something to go on that tour in the 80's and see all that still!!

[philmore]

I am sorry for not getting back on this sooner. Been out of town and out of a computer for awhile too!

The murders were committed by Jeffery McDonald in Fayetteville in about 1971. He was an Army doctor, Special Forces, so initially he was given the benefit of the doubt. The initial crime scene was compromised by letting the garbage be removed, flushing toilets, foot traffic, etc. Evidence was lost such as a cut out section of floor with a bloody footprint on it.
The father in law (McDonald's wife Collette's father) saw discrepancies in court records and McDonald's statements and conduct afterwards and started the ball rolling on an investigation of him.
The prosecutors pieced together several lines of evidence, enough to show there was no one else there that night except the family and that the murder scenes showed McDonald's rage and then premeditated killing of his children. Collette was pregnant at the time as well.
McDonald tried to make it sound like the Manson murders and hired a writer to support him and write a book about his innocence. After spending time with McDonald, the writer felt he was guilty and wrote the book Fatal Vision about it. Joe McGuinness is the writer - the same guy hired to write the unauthorized story about Sarah Palin and her family, so he is a journalist and not a lawyer. But he followed the trial, watched and listened to Mcdonald and became convinced he was a sociopath and capable of it. During one appeal of his life sentence, they exhumed Collette because a coroners report noted hairs clutched in her hands when she was fighting for her life. The hairs might indicate a third party involved, being blonde hairs - McDonald said one of the hippies involved had a blonde wig. The hairs, however, were Collette's own blond hairs.
Interesting tragic story. The old apartment was blocked up for years. I tried to take some pictures thru a gap in the plywood sheeting over the windows but they did not come out.

[angel71242]

What a wild story!! That's something else that he got Joe McGuinness (who I have definitely heard of!) to write his story and he comes to the conclusion the guy is guilty!! That's cool that you got to see the apartment it happened in - even if you only got to see it from the outside!

Thanks for telling us the story!

[calebir]

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