The MacDonald family murders

Watch Now. Listen on Apple. Listen on Spotify.

This case asks the question: could or would a successful doctor, husband & father who had never previously demonstrated aggressive tendencies suddenly snap & brutally murder his entire family without warning? Or were four hippie intruders unknown to the family responsible as the husband claimed, who entered the home & began a frenzied attack on a pregnant woman & two young children, leaving the husband alive with only a small puncture wound?

In 1970, the MacDonald family consisted of 26-year-old Jeffrey MacDonald, his 26-year-old pregnant wife, Colette & their two young daughters, 5-year-old Kimberley & 2-year-old Kristen, who the family fondly referred to as Kimmie & Kristie.

The family lived at 544 Castle Drive at the largest military base in the country, Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Their home was in a four-unit red brick apartment building where they occupied a one-story end unit. Colette was pregnant & their baby was due to be born five months later in July.

Military police arrived at the MacDonald home in the early morning hours of Tuesday, February 17, 1970 after they received an emergency call from Captain Jeffrey MacDonald, a Green Beret trauma surgeon. 911 dispatchers on Fort Bragg’s military base received the call at 3:42 am where MacDonald indicated that his wife & daughters had been attacked.

Within ten minutes, the military police arrived at the darkened home where they found the front door locked. When their knocks went unanswered, they made their way around to the back of the home where they found the back screen door closed & unlocked with the back door wide open.

As police entered the home, they eventually came upon MacDonald in the primary bedroom. He was lying face down with his head resting on Colette’s chest, an arm draped around her neck. As first responders began attending to him, he suddenly sat up & yelled, I’m gonna kill those goddamned acid heads! He instructed investigators to check on his daughters as he believed he heard them crying.

26-year-old Colette’s body was sprawled across the floor; she was lying on her back with one eye open & one breast exposed. The medical examiner later determined that both of her arms had been broken, likely while she was raising them in an attempt to protect her face from her attack. She had been stabbed 21 times with an ice pick to the chest; 16 were to the left side while five were on the right side. Her trachea had been severed in two locations. Investigators found a bloodied & torn pajama shirt draped over her chest & a paring knife on the floor next to her body which MacDonald later indicated he’d removed from her chest. The autopsy determined one final devastating detail, Colette had been 5.5 months pregnant with their son.

The word PIG had been written in Colette’s blood down the headboard in eight inch capital letters.

5-year-old Kimberley was found in her bed lying on her left side. She had been severely beaten across the head with a club that resulted in skull fractures from at least two blows to the right side of her head & she suffered 8-10 stab wounds to the neck.

2-year-old Kristen, like her sister, was found in her bed, lying on her left side in a room across the hall from Kimberley’s. A baby bottle was positioned close to her mouth. She had been stabbed 33 times in the back, chest & neck with a knife & 15 times with an ice pick. Two of the knife wounds penetrated her heart while the wounds inflicted by the ice pick had been shallow. Defensive wounds were located to her hands.

When MacDonald eventually recounted his family’s movements in the hours before their murders, he told investigators that on Monday afternoon, the day before the murders, he took the girls to see their horse they’d named Trooper so they could feed & ride him. The girls had been given their Shetland pony on Christmas morning 1969, only months before their murders since the family eventually planned to relocate to Connecticut.

They were back home by 5:45 pm & MacDonald showered & changed into his pajamas. They had dinner together as a family & Colette headed out to attend an art class at Fort Bragg’s North Carolina University extension.

After his wife left, he played with the girls for a bit & then put Kristen to bed right around 7 pm. He & Kimberley played a game together until he fell asleep for about an hour while Kimberley watched her favorite show, Laugh-In before she went to bed.

Colette was back home at about 9:40 pm & after she & MacDonald watched part of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson together on the couch, she headed to bed while her husband stayed out on the couch & ended up falling asleep.

He woke up sometime before 2 am & began washing the dinner dishes from the night before & then made his way to his bedroom. However, he found Kristen asleep on his side of the bed & realized that she’d wet the bed. Rather than waking Colette & changing the sheets, he moved Kristen to her own bed & headed back to sleep on the living room couch.

The next thing he recalls was waking sometime before 3:30 am to the sounds of his wife’s screams, Jeff! Jeff! Help! Why are they doing this to me? When he stood to see what was happening, three men began to attack him. According to MacDonald, there were four intruders in his home; three men & one woman. Two of the men were white while one was black. The black man was wearing a green Army jacket with sergeant stripes & one of the white men had acne scars on his chin & cheeks. The woman had long blonde hair, wore dark clothing, white boots & a floppy hat. She was holding a candle while chanting, Acid is groovy & Kill the pigs.

According to MacDonald, the men struck him with a club & stabbed him in the chest & during the attack, his pajama shirt was torn off over his head to his wrists. He utilized the shirt as a shield from stabs from the ice pick until he felt a sudden pain in the right side of his chest. He told investigators that the shorter of the two men wore gloves that may have been surgical.

MacDonald indicated that at some point he lost consciousness & when he awoke on the hall steps to the living room, he ran from room-to-room & attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on his daughters. When he found his wife, he pulled a Geneva Forge knife from her chest & when he determined that she had no pulse, he draped his pajama shirt as well as a bathmat over her body & called the police at 3:42 am.

MacDonald was transferred to Womack Army Medical Center & treated for his injuries that included a partially collapsed lung as a result of a single stab wound between his two ribs & right torso. The wound measured five-eighths of an inch in depth that the surgeon described as clean, small & sharp. Beyond this wound, the injuries were minor & superficial & he was released from the hospital after nine days.

Jeffrey Robert MacDonald was born in 1942 in Queens, New York to Robert & Dorothy MacDonald. He was the second of three children with a younger sister & an older brother. Dorothy described her son as a happy child with a sunny disposition who was athletic & very much agreeable. On top of being Senior Class President & captain of the football team, he was voted most popular as well as most likely to succeed at Patchogue High School.

After graduation, he was off to Princeton University where he reconnected with Colette Stevenson, a girl he’d known since 12 or 13-years-old & dated during high school. After the couple realized that Colette was pregnant with their first child, they went on to marry on September 14, 1963 & Kimberley was born seven months later on April 18, 1964.

After three years at Princeton, the family relocated to Chicago in 1964 after MacDonald was accepted into Northwestern University’s school of medicine. Kristen was born on May 8, 1967 & MacDonald graduated from medical school the following year.

Colette struggled during childbirth with her daughters & both babies were delivered via C-section. After Kristen’s birth, she lost a large volume of blood when she began bleeding internally so when she discovered she was pregnant with their third child, Colette worried about her health during her upcoming delivery which was expected in mid-July.

MacDonald joined the Army on July 1, 1969 & the family of four eventually relocated to Fort Bragg, North Carolina where he went on to hold the rank of Captain. In September 1969, MacDonald was assigned to the Green Berets as a Group Surgeon to the 3rd Special Forces Group.

Colette Stevensen was born to parents Edward & Mildred Stevenson in 1943. She was raised by her mother & step-father, Mildred & Freddy Kassab in Patchogue, New York after her father committed suicide in the spring of 1955 when Colette was 13 & her mom went on to remarry Freddy.

Colette realized she was pregnant with Kimberely during her junior year of college at Skidmore where she hoped to one day become a teacher after obtaining an English Literature degree. She ended up dropping out so she could live at Princeton where MacDonald was in school. According to her father, Freddy Kassab, Colette strongly disliked confrontation & avoided it whenever she could while MacDonald described his wife as having an intuitive sense about people & a wry sense of humor.

5-year-old Kimberley was a wonderful student at her school on a post in Fort Bragg; she was gentle, reserved & loved to read & draw. 2-year-old Kristen was described by her father as outgoing, precocious & very much the tomboy. She loved animals, the outdoors, birthday parties & was a joy to all who knew her.

It just so happened that military police officer Kenneth Mica, who responded to the MacDonald home & heard the description of the three men & one woman, had seen a young woman with blonde hair wearing a floppy hat standing near the road while he was enroute to the crime scene. Fayetteville police detective Prince Beasley heard the description of the woman & soon identified her as Helena Stoeckley, a local drifter, drug addict & police narcotic informant who was the daughter of a retired Fort Bragg colonel.

Helena & her boyfriend, Greg Mitchell, were known to hang around with a group they referred to as their cult & two of the members just so happened to match the descriptions of two of the alleged men involved in the murders; the black man wearing the Army jacket & the white man with acne scars.

Hours before the murders, at about 10:30 pm, detective Beasley had also seen Helena & at the time she was wearing a blond wig, floppy hat & knee-high boots & she was in the company of a black man.

According to Helena’s youngest brother, Gene, before his sister became addicted to drugs, she’d been upbeat & musically talented. Her boyfriend at the time, Greg Mitchell, was a Vietnam vet who developed a heroin addiction while fighting overseas.

Investigators immediately instructed police to search cars around the military base in hopes of finding the four suspects that MacDonald described, but they were unable to locate them.

Investigators located four murder weapons at the crime scene; one was inside while the remaining three were outside. A Geneva Forge knife was located on the bedroom floor next to Colette’s body that MacDonald indicated he removed from her chest. A wooden club was found just outside the back door while an ice pick & an Old Hickory knife were found 20 feet from the back door, lying side by side under a bush near the utility room door.

The Geneva Forge knife from the bedroom was a paring knife with a dull, bent blade & a babysitter of the family told investigators that she recalled seeing this knife in the kitchen. This knife made 2 cuts to MacDonald’s pajama shirt & there was a minute trace of Colette’s blood on the handle.

The Old Hickory knife was also a paring knife, but had an extremely sharp, straight blade & appeared to be wiped clean of blood. This knife was responsible for cutting the pajamas worn by Colette & Kristen & was traced to either Fort Bragg or Pope Air Force Base.

The ice pick also appeared to be wiped clean of blood & was responsible for making puncture wounds in MacDonald’s pajama top as well as the pajamas worn by Colette & Kristen. It’s believed that the ice pick originated from the MacDonald home as during Christmas less than two months earlier, Colette’s mother, Mildred, utilized it for the ice trays. She went on to testify that it was stored in the kitchen drawer.

The club was a worn piece of wood that measured 31 inches in length & it was eventually found to originate from a wooden slat under Kimberley’s bed. The club had traces of Colette & Kimberley’s blood as well as two pajama seam threads attached that contained Colette’s blood. Blunt trauma injuries to Colette & Kimberley’s bodies were inflicted with this club. Wooden splinters were found in Colette’s left hand, under her body, on top of the primary bed, under the covers in Kimberley’s room & on top of the bed in Kristen’s room. There were no splinters located in the living room where MacDonald indicated he’d been struck with the club.

On February 23, less than one week after the murders, searches for the four intruders were halted.

Despite the struggle that MacDonald described between himself & his attackers in the living room, only a coffee table had been upended with a pile of magazines scattered beneath the edge as well as a flower plant that had fallen to the floor. Neighbors indicated that they’d heard no signs of a struggle that night, but they had heard Colette shouting in an angry voice.

Investigators found a March 1970 issue of Esquire magazine in the living room that featured an article on the Manson Family murders. It was not lost on investigators that this case was eerily similar to what happened six months earlier in August 1969 when Charles Manson’s followers murdered Sharon Tate, who was also pregnant, in Los Angeles. Written across the wall of her home, in Tate’s blood was the word PIG. Investigators found finger smudge in blood along the edge of the magazine, but the blood could not be positively linked to MacDonald.

As the investigation continued, authorities began to realize that the evidence within the home did not match MacDonald’s version of events. Threads from his pajama shirt which he indicated was torn in the living room, were found in the primary bedroom, some under Colette’s body as well as the girl’s bedrooms, but none in the living room where he indicated that the attack against him began. There were 48 puncture wounds to the shirt which were far more than the amount of wounds that MacDonald suffered.

Police were able to identify blood stains from each victim, but their location didn’t support MacDonald’s story. Because each of the four members of the MacDonald family had different blood types, this allowed investigators to reconstruct their movements from the night of the attack. MacDonald was type B, Colette type A, Kimberley type AB & Kristen type O.

A fragment from a surgical glove was located inside a sheet in a pile of bedding at the foot of the master bed which was stained with Colette’s blood. Gloves matching these fragments were found under the kitchen skin in the home & MacDonald’s blood was located on the kitchen cabinet where the surgical gloves were stored as well as on the right side of a hallway bathroom sink.

Kimberley & Kristen’s blood was also found on MacDonald’s glasses as well as his pajama shirt.

MacDonald later testified that he may have rinsed off his hands while assessing his own injuries before calling for help. There was no blood or fingerprints found on the phone that MacDonald indicated he utilized to call for help.

Despite the fact that it had been raining heavily on the night of the attack paired with MacDonald specifically claiming that the female intruder’s boots had been soaked with rainwater, the only footprint observed at the scene was a bloody bare footprint located in Kristen’s bedroom that led from her bed to the doorway.

A private investigator that MacDonald went on to hire in 1984 created what came to be known as the Gurney Theory as a way to explain the presence of the footprint. He argued that while he was on a gurney, preparing to be wheeled out to an ambulance, he grabbed the door frame to Kimberley’s room & climbed off the gurney. In the process, he stood at the entrance to Kristen’s room with blood from Colette contaminating his feet. However, this was unlikely as the distance from the gurney to the footprint was about four feet & the prints were exiting Kristen’s room which wasn’t consistent with where the gurney had been positioned. Some authorities present also indicated that MacDonald never climbed off the gurney.

By mid-March forensic testing results further contradicted with MacDonald’s version of events. According to MacDonald, his pajama had been ripped off during the initial attack that began in the living room & he used his shirt to protect himself from the stabs. However, Kimberley’s blood was found on his pajama shirt despite the fact that he wouldn’t have been wearing the shirt at the time he ran into her room.

Despite the fact that investigators found each victim in their own rooms, Colette’s blood was found in Kristen’s bedroom. Blood evidence indicated that Kimberley had been attacked as she entered her parent’s bedroom & investigators questioned why the attacker would have taken the time to move her back to her own bedroom where she was ultimately found.

Based on the evidence found within the home, authorities theorize that an argument began between MacDonald & Colette in their bedroom which eventually turned physical. They believe that Colette may have hit her husband on the forehead with her hairbrush which resulted in a mark that didn’t break his skin.

As MacDonald began to retaliate, he first struck his wife with his fists & eventually, with a piece of lumber. Based on the large amount of blood as well as brain serum found at the entrance of the primary bedroom, investigators believe that Kimberley may have walked into her parent’s room after hearing a commotion & was struck at least once in the head, possibly by accident. It’s possible that she got in between her parents to stop the fighting & as he swung the club back, he may have struck Kimberley in the head.

Once MacDonald believed that his wife was dead, he wrapped Kimberley in the bedding from the primary bed & carried his mortally wounded daughter back to her room as a trail of blood led from the primary bedroom back to Kimberley’s room. After he placed her in her bed, he stabbed her 8-10 times in the neck. While this was happening, Colette regained consciousness & went to Kristen’s room, draping her body over her in an attempt to protect her. He then entered Kristen’s room & continued to beat Colette with the club as evidenced by blood sprays on the walls & ceiling. He used the primary bedding once again, this time to wrap Colette’s body & transfer her back to their bedroom. As he left Kristen’s room, he left a bloodied footprint behind. With no ridgemarks, it couldn’t be definitively proven that the print belonged to MacDonald, but the configuration fit his foot.

After Colette & Kimberley were deceased, he went back to Kristen’s room & killed his 2 ½-year-old daughter as she lay in her bed for the sole reason that she was a witness & was old enough to be able to say, Daddy hit mommy.

He placed his torn pajama shirt over his wife’s body & continued to stab her in the chest with an ice pick. After he wiped fingerprints from the weapons, he threw them out the back door. He then utilized a scalpel from the supply closet, entered an adjacent bathroom & stabbed himself once in the chest while he stood next to the sink. He then disposed of the surgical gloves, used the phone to contact the police, wiped down the phone & went to lie down next to Colette’s body & waited for the military police to arrive.

MacDonald was interrogated on April 6, 1970 where he recounted his version of events & once again spoke of the four intruders who were responsible for killing his family. When they questioned if he inflicted the stab wound that caused his lung to collapse, he denied the accusation. He denied that any of the murder weapons originated from his home despite the fact that it was later discovered in 1971 that the piece of lumber used to bludgeon his family matched wood from Kimberley’s bed slat. He had no explanation as to why the fibers from his shirt as well as blood evidence contradicted his version of events.

Investigators questioned the lack of disorder & damage within the home that wasn’t consistent with an attack involving four intruders who had no motive to harm his family. During this time, MacDonald was accused of murdering his family & staging the crime scene. He agreed to take a polygraph test only to change his mind. That evening, he was relieved of his military duties & placed under restriction pending further inquiries.

Four days later, on April 10, MacDonald was assigned an Army lawyer but chose to hire civilian defense attorney, Bernard Segal, to defend him. Less than a month later, on May 1, 1970, the Army formally charged him with three counts of murder, something he maintained he was innocent of.

MacDonald was brought to an Article 32 hearing, a preliminary military proceeding to determine what charges, if any, should be brought against a suspect for trial by court martial. Segal, MacDonald’s attorney, cited examples of incompetence on the Army’s CID (Criminal Investigation Division), accusing them of contaminating the crime scene & losing key pieces of evidence.

Military policeman Kenneth Mica was the first to testify on the behalf of the defense & spoke about the blonde woman he saw about a half-mile from the MacDonald home wearing a wide-brim hat on a street corner in the early morning hours after the murders. Given the time & the rainy weather, he found this unusual.

In August, Segal was approached by a delivery man, William Posey, who suggested that 17-year-old Helena Stoeckley might have been the blonde woman who attacked MacDonald’s family. According to Posey, she had been in the company of 2-3 young males in a car that was parked outside her apartment at approximately 4 am on the morning of the murders & she had been wearing both boots & a floppy hat. Months later Posey spoke with Helena, who said that she & her boyfriend couldn’t get married until we go out & kill some more people.

When Helena was questioned regarding her whereabouts on the early morning of February 17, she gave vague & contradicting answers. She said she’d driven around aimlessly with her boyfriend & was out of it from using the psychedelic, mescaline so she couldn’t say for sure if she’d been near the MacDonald house or not.

MacDonald testified over the course of three days in mid-August & some of his testimony contradicted information he provided investigators during his police interview on April 6. He said he slightly moved Colette’s body, lying her flat on the floor after he found her propped against a chair. He also admitted to infidelity during his marriage on two occasions, but indicated that Colette had been unaware.

A clinical psychologist testified that MacDonald lacked strong emotions in regard to the loss of his family & concluded that he was able to muster massive denial or repression to such a degree that the impact of the recent events in his life has been blunted.

On October 13, 1970 Colonial Warren Rock, the presiding hearing officer, determined that there wasn’t enough evidence against MacDonald to proceed to trial. Rock suggested that Helena Stoeckley be investigated by civilian authorities & all charges against MacDonald were dismissed on October 28, 1970.

In December 1970, MacDonald received an honorable discharge from the Army & he relocated to New York City where he briefly worked as a doctor. He then moved to Long Beach, California in July 1971 & began working as an ER physician at St. Mary Medical Center. He was also an instructor at UCLA’s medical school as well as a medical director of Long Beach Grand Prix, a lecturer on identifying & treating child abuse, & a participant in the development of a national CPR training program.

MacDonald was living in a $350,000 (equivalent to $2.6 million in 2025) Huntington Beach condo where he was known to date many women, eventually settling down with 22-year-old flight attendant, Cindy Kramer in the late 1970s.

In the years after his murder charges were dismissed, MacDonald received an abundance of support from the public while he wrote letters to various magazines & newspapers about his willingness to further publicize the background & legalities of the case. Throughout the years, he made many media appearances & granted press interviews. During one, he claimed to have sustained 23 wounds during his attack, some of which he described as potentially fatal.

Colette’s step-father, Freddie Kassab, initially believed in his son-in-law’s innocence & during the Army’s Article 32 hearing, both he & Mildred, Colette’s mother, testified in support of MacDonald. However, by November of 1970, Kassab had begun to grow suspicious as MacDonald had been reluctant to share the 2,000 page transcript from the Article 32 hearing. MacDonald also told Freddie that he & some Army buddies had tracked down, tortured & murdered one of his family’s alleged murderers which was a blatant lie.

It was MacDonald’s appearance on The Dick Cavett Show on December 15, 1970 that pushed Freddy to the other side. MacDonald came off as very casual & dismissive & it was at this point that both Freddie & Mildred publicly turned against their son-in-law. Colette’s brother, Robert, recalls the Cheshire cat-like smile on MacDonald’s face as he only spoke about how his rights had been violated & barely mentioned the brutal way in which his family had lost their lives.

After Freddie finally obtained the transcript from the Article 32 hearing, he immediately noted the inconsistencies & blatant lies that MacDonald provided. MacDonald claimed that he sustained life-threatening injuries during the attacks, however, Freddie couldn’t help but think of the time he visited MacDonald at the hospital less than 18 hours after the attack. His son-in-law was sitting up in bed, eating with nothing more than a small bandage on his body while the wounds described during the hearing were proved inaccurate based on hospital records.

Freddy was also alarmed when in only weeks of his daughter & granddaughter’s murders, MacDonald had begun dating a young woman who was working at Fort Bragg.

After he reviewed the crime scene for several hours this only further convinced him of MacDonald’s guilt & at that moment, Freddie made the decision to do everything he could to bring him to justice. On April 30, 1974, the Kassabs, their attorney & CID agent Peter Kearns requested that a grand jury indict MacDonald for the murders & the following month, a judge agreed.

The grand jury convened on August 12, 1974 in Raleigh, North Carolina where 75 witnesses were called to testify, MacDonald being the first. His testimony spanned over the course of five days. When referring to the wounds he sustained during the attack which conflicted with his medical records, he blamed it on malpractice. Surgeons from Womack Hospital who treated MacDonald testified that other than the punctured lung, he was not in any great danger, medically.

MacDonald was portrayed as a controlling person who was very affected by what others thought of him. Former chief of psychiatry, Bruce Bailey, testified that MacDonald did not suffer from a mental disorder, but in a moment of extreme stress, he could have been capable of murdering his family. Another psychologist indicated that had he killed his family, he would have the ability to completely block the episode from his mind.

MacDonald’s pajama shirt played a large factor in the evidence that painted the picture of what happened on the night of the murders. Paul Stombach, chief of the FBI’s crime lab chemistry section, testified that MacDonald’s pajama shirt had been heavily bloodstained before it was torn & that the 48 holes it contained had been inflicted while the garment was stationary rather than in motion, as MacDonald reported. 17 of the puncture holes were found in the back of the garment yet MacDonald received no stab wounds to his back. Womack Hospital medical records could only verify four puncture-type wounds on his body.

The cuts were inflicted by the ice pick that was located outside the back door of the home & the majority of the blood on the shirt was from Colette which was found on four locations prior to the point that it was torn. This conflicted with MacDonald’s story of his shirt being torn off in the living room when he realized intruders were in his home. He indicated that he utilized the shirt as a shield from the knife slashes, meaning, it would have been torn before it became saturated with Colette’s blood.

The club used to bludgeon both Colette & Kimberley that MacDonald indicated he had no knowledge of, had been sawed from a mattress slat in Kimberley’s room. A single hair found in Colette’s hand was from her own body rather than a blonde-haired intruder.

When MacDonald was called back to testify on January 21, 1975, he was very sarcastic when questioned about his infidelity & the forensic contradictions between his version of events & the physical evidence.

On January 24, 1975, the grand jury formally indicted MacDonald on three counts of murder & he was arrested within the hour in California. However, he was released on a $100,000 bail one week later with funds that were raised by friends & colleagues which allowed him to be free for the next 4.5 years until his trial.

It wasn’t until July 16, 1979, over 9 years after Colette, her unborn son, Kimberley, Kristen were murdered, that MacDonald was brought to trial. The trial was held in Raleigh, North Carolina & MacDonald maintained that he was not guilty & felt confident he would be exonerated.

The prosecution painted a picture for the jury as to what led to the family’s deaths. It all started with an argument between Colette & MacDonald that quickly escalated to rage that resulted in a sudden, frenzied attack on his wife. It’s possible that Kimberley’s death had been an accident & he chose to murder 2-year-old Kristen in cold blood.

Over the next 6.5 weeks, 60 witnesses testified & hundreds of items were placed into evidence.

Paul Stombach from the FBI’s crime lab was back to discuss MacDonald’s pajama shirt as he described the 48 smooth, cylindrical holes from the ice pick which were pierced after it had been placed upon his wife’s chest. Because of the lack of fraying & tearing, the garment had been stationary rather than what MacDonald indicated that the shirt was used to defend himself while his attackers sliced at him. Evidence proved that Colette had been repeatedly stabbed while the shirt was laying on her body. The garment would have been folded & all 48 holes to the shirt could have been made by 21 thrusts of the ice pick as the holes were in an identical pattern.

Meanwhile the defense called forensic expert, James Thorton, to the stand who indicated that he’d wrapped a pajama shirt around a ham & stabbed it with an ice pick as it was moved back & forth which resulted in perfectly cylindrical holes without tearing at the edges.

Following this testimony, a prosecutor reenacted the alleged attack on MacDonald by wrapping a shirt of the same material around his hands in an attempt to fend off blows with an ice pick which resulted in jagged, elongated tears rather than smooth & cylindrical holes.

The prosecution was hampered by the lack of motive for the murder of his entire family as MacDonald had no history of violence or domestic abuse.

Under oath, Helena Stoeckley denied being responsible for the murders or having any knowledge of who was responsible. She indicated that she couldn’t remember where she’d been on the night of the murders.

MacDonald testified on August 23 & 24 in which he spoke of his family & how close they’d been & the fact that he’d never remarried because he couldn’t forget his wife & children who he thought of daily. He said he worked 80 hours a week in order to distract himself from thinking about the loss of his family. As on previous occasions, he could offer no plausible explanations from the evidence that contradicted his version of events on the night of the attack.

Defense attorney Segal presented three areas of candle wax in the MacDonald home; two in Kimberley’s room & one on the coffee table in the living room, that supported MacDonald’s story that involved Helena chanting while holding a candle. However, Colette was known to have a love for candles & all three spots differed in chemical composition, proving that they’d come from three different candles & there were no trails of wax drippings around the house.

MacDonald’s defense team argued that unsourced fibers had been found at the home that proved home invaders had been present; two fibers were found on the club & three on Colette’s body. Three of the five differed in chemical composition, indicating three different sources though each were dark woolen fibers. Home movies & photos depict the MacDonald family wearing multi-colored stocking caps & dark-colored sweaters, but much of the family’s clothing was discarded after the Article 32 hearings.

Closing arguments were delivered on August 28 & 29, 1979 where the prosecution reinforced that it was MacDonald who murdered his family while the defense portrayed him as a loving father & husband & the lack of motive. The jury was left with three choices: Not guilty, guilty of first-degree murder or guilty of second-degree murder.

After 6.5 hours of deliberation the jury returned on August 29, 1979 with their verdict. MacDonald was convicted of one count of first-degree murder in the death of 2-year-old Kristen & two counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of Colette & 5-year-old Kimberley, all the while he sat emotionless. He was given three life sentences, one for each murder to be served consecutively.

However, MacDonald ended up being released from prison on a $100,000 bail on August 22, 1980 after the court of appeals reversed his conviction on the violation of his sixth amendment rights to a speedy trial. On his release, he returned straight back to work as Director of Emergency Medicine at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Long Beach. In March 1982 he announced his engagement to Randi Dee Markwith.

Two years after his release, on March 31, 1982 the Supreme Court ruled that MacDonald’s rights to a speedy trial had not been violated & he was rearrested & returned to federal prison with his original sentence.

Various appeals were denied & MacDonald’s medical license in both North Carolina & California were revoked.

In June 1979, MacDonald invited author Joe McGinnis to write a book about his case & he was given full access to MacDonald & the defense team. The book, Fatal Vision, was published in August 1983 & portrays MacDonald as a narcissistic sociopath who was guilty of murdering his family. The book alleges the motive for murder was the fact that MacDonald had been regularly taking Eskatrol, an amphetamine, to lose weight which, paired with lack of sleep, may have resulted in an unplanned fit of rage.

MacDonald expected Fatal Vision to support his innocence so he went on to sue McGinnis for fraud in 1987, but the lawsuit resulted in a mistrial.

MacDonald’s lawyers were given permission to pursue DNA testing which began in December 2000 on the limited hair & blood evidence. They hoped the evidence would prove that Helena Stoekley & her then-boyfriend, Gregory Mitchell, were responsible, but it proved that neither matched what was tested.

Mitchell died in 1982 of cirrhosis of the liver at age 31. He repeatedly confessed to the murders before his death. Helena died at age 30 in 1983 of acute pneumonia & cirrhosis. Over the years she confessed to being at the MacDonald home, but withdrew her confession at other times. She also claimed that she had an affair with MacDonald & tried to buy drugs from him, both of which claims have been dismissed.

Helena was also said to have made a confession to a private investigator in October 1982, that members of her cult had targeted MacDonald since he refused to treat heroin & opium addicted patients. According to her brother, Gene, three months before her death in October 1982, Helena traveled to visit her mother with her infant son. During their time together she told her mom that she was there during the murders & indicated that MacDonald was innocent.

In March 2007, after his mother told him about Helena’s confession, Gene reached out to MacDonald’s second wife, Kathryn MacDonald. Greg Mitchell’s friends also reached out to her regarding his confessions. John & Chris Griffin came forward in September 2012 after reading about an evidentiary hearing in MacDonald’s case. They indicated that Mitchell had been doing electrical work for them in 1980 or 1981 & during an alcohol-fueled interaction, he tearfully admitted to killing MacDonald’s family.

In August 2002, MacDonald married Kathryn Kurichh, a children’s drama school owner & operator, while he was incarcerated. The two initially met decades earlier in Baltimore, but reconnected in 1997 after she wrote him a letter offering legal assistance, convinced he was innocent. Over time the relationship became romantic & he eventually transferred from a California prison to a facility in Cumberland, Maryland.

25 years after the trial, federal marshal Jimmy Britt suddenly came forward in 2005 with an affidavit stating that when he had driven Helena five hours from Greenville, South Carolina to Raleigh, North Carolina for the trial, she told him that she’d been in the MacDonald home during the murders & specified seeing a hobby horse inside. She elaborated that she’d tried to ride the horse but one of the springs was broken, something known only to the family.

Britt went on to say that Helena also told her story to prosecutor James Blackburn & indicated that she’d been at the MacDonald home for drugs. This was when he threatened to charge Helena with murder during a pre-trial meeting if she testified that she had been at the MacDonald home on the night of the murders. This was something that Blackburn denied & said that Britt had not been present. It was later revealed that Britt had not been the one to drive Helena which meant that he lied on the affidavit.

Blackburn went on to be disbarred & jailed in 1993 for ethical violations, after he was convicted of embezzlement & fraud.

The results of DNA testing were released in March 2006 & hair found in Colette’s left palm proved to belong to MacDonald rather than an alleged intruder. A single hair found under Kristen’s fingernail measuring one-fifth of an inch did not match a MacDonald family member or any known suspect. There was also the discovery of a blond, 22-inch wig hair found at the scene that was too long to match any of the children’s dolls.

In 2012 an evidentiary hearing was held in Wilmington to consider the new evidence, but on July 24, 2014 claims regarding DNA evidence & statements relating to witnesses who indicated MacDonald’s innocence were rejected.

Despite the fact that MacDonald was eligible for parole in 1991, he did not apply at that point, however he did apply for a May 2005 parole hearing & his request was immediately denied & he had to wait fifteen years to try again. During the meeting with the parole board, Colette’s brother, Robert Stevenson, was able to face MacDonald as he said, My joy in you, Mr. MacDonald, is that you are the complete sociopath that you are. And that you’re never going to admit what you did. And that I’m going to have the pleasure of knowing that you’re going to stay here & rot in jail for the rest of your life.

In 2020 he requested parole on two occasions, but both times he later withdrew his requests. In April 2021, request for a compassionate release was rejected upon the grounds of his ailing health. These laws apply only to those with crimes that happened after November 1, 1987.

MacDonald continues to serve his three life sentences in a Maryland prison & his homicides have come to be known as the Fatal Vision murders because of McGinnis’ best-selling true crime novel as well as the 1984 TV miniseries about the case with the same name. In an ironic & tragic twist, child star Judith Barsi, who played 5-year-old Kimberley MacDonald, was murdered by her own father at age 10 in July 1988. We covered Judith’s case in our bonus episode 72 released on January 22, 2025.

The home in Fort Bragg where three members of the MacDonald family as well as their unborn son lost their lives, was demolished in March 2008.

A now 81-year-old Jeffrey MacDonald maintains his innocence & has sought to get his case reopened, arguing that there is evidence that proves he was wrongly convicted. His efforts have all been unsuccessful.

References:

Recent Posts

Previous PostThe murder of Catalina Gutierrez

Next PostThe murder of Aimee Willard

Leave a Reply Cancel Reply

Stay in the loop, join our newsletter