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The summer of 1969 was an odd time to be alive. Specifically, the 10 days between August 8th and the 18th.
Depending on what comes to mind, it was either the summer of love or the summer of death. On August 8th, members of the Manson family broke into Sharon Tate's house and murdered everyone inside. Seven days later, on August 15th, the first and only successful Woodstock kicked off. Both stories made headline news, and every military conservative type in the country saw the same image.
A picture of drug-fueled hippies committing violent and sexual acts and spitting in the face of an angry God. One such man was Jeffrey McDonald, a decorated army doctor living with his pregnant wife and two daughters in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. On the outside, Jeffrey was a straight shooter,
He was a family man, a God-fearing man, the kind of guy who condemned the use of drugs, especially LSD and other hallucinogens. But there's a demon inside Jeffrey, a demon that hasn't been exorcised in over 50 years. A little after 3:30 a.m. on the cold and rainy night of February 17th, 1970, dispatchers at Fort Bragg answered a distress call from their golden boy.
Jeffrey spoke faintly on the other line. Help. 544 Castle Drive. Stabbing. 544 Castle Drive. Stabbing. Hurry. Military police, or MPs, found a bloodbath when they arrived. Jeffrey was face down on the floor, his head resting on his dead wife's chest. She'd been stabbed repeatedly, 37 times, according to the coroner.
Both her arms were broken, likely while defending herself. Things got worse as they explored the apartment. They found Jeffrey's daughters, one five, the other two years old, bludgeoned and stabbed to death. Blood and brain matter littered the crime scene. Personnel at Fort Bragg hadn't seen anything this violent since Vietnam. Who could have done this? Who could have murdered this innocent and highly regarded family?
Jeffrey had quite the story to tell while he recovered in the hospital. He regaled investigators with a tale of drug-induced rage, Manson worshiping hippies, and ritual chanting. But as they pieced together the crime scene, parts of his story didn't add up. Something else happened that night, and they suspected Jeffrey had something to do with it. Part 1: Humble Days Jeffrey McDonald grew up poor in Queens, New York.
Born in October 1943, the country was knee-deep in World War II, and military pride had never been higher. His father, Robert, was a strict man. While he never struck his children or his wife, Dorothy, he demanded nothing short of excellence. His kids would be something someday. He'd make damn sure of it. Jeffrey lived up to his father's expectations.
He checked every box a young doctor-to-be could. He was elected student council president in high school. He was voted most popular and most likely to succeed. He was even crowned king in his senior year. Colette Stevenson was his queen.
The two began dating freshman year of high school and, as the story goes, fell in love at a screening of 1959's A Summer Place. Whenever Colette heard the film's theme song, she'd remember holding hands with Jeffrey on the balcony. If it came on in the car, one of them would always turn up the radio. But young love faded, and Jeffrey fell for another girl named Penny Wells. He and Colette went their separate ways for college.
But Jeffrey felt compelled to keep in touch. Poor Penny fell out of the picture, though in hindsight, she's probably happy things didn't work out. Robert's hard-nosed approach to parenting worked out for Jeffrey. His high school grades were good enough to earn him a three-year scholarship to Princeton University in Trenton, New Jersey, where he began his journey to becoming a doctor.
Meanwhile, Colette attended Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, about four hours north in upstate New York. Jeffrey and Colette rekindled their high school romance, sending letters back and forth whenever they could. In Jeffrey's own words, she'd grown into a shy young woman with a slight fear of the world in general. He felt like her protector, like he had to shield her from the evil lurking around every corner.
Soon, he began hitchhiking to Saratoga Springs to spend the weekend with Colette. But young lovers do much more than kiss and cuddle. Colette got pregnant in 1963, forcing her to drop out of school. To Jeffrey's credit, he did the stand-up thing and married her that same year. They honeymooned on Cape Cod, and their first daughter, Kimberly, was born on April 18th, 1964.
Jeffrey moved his family to Chicago in the summer of '65. While he attended Northwestern University Medical School, they shared a one-bedroom apartment, and Colette accepted her role as a housewife while Jeffrey pursued his degree. It wasn't easy, but the trio eventually upgraded to a quiet, middle-class neighborhood to welcome their second child, Kristen, in 1967.
Jeffrey graduated from med school in 1968 and moved his family, once again, to Bergenfield, New Jersey, a stone's throw over the Hudson River on the New York-New Jersey border. He interned for one year at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York, specializing in thoracic surgery, or things to do with the chest, lungs, esophagus, and ribs. But the grueling hours put a significant strain on his marriage and family,
He was exhausted in his free time and hardly interacted with his family. They say things are always dark before dawn and the McDonald family had never been darker. But Jeffrey completed his internship and took Colette and the girls on a much needed vacation to Aruba before joining the army. Part two, Dr. McDonald. Jeffrey joined the army in the summer of '69 and spent six weeks in Houston undergoing basic training.
While in Texas, he volunteered for the Green Berets to become a special forces doctor. From there, he moved to Fort Benning in Georgia to complete paratrooper training, knowing full well he could be sent to Vietnam. But because he was a Green Beret doctor, his services were better kept on the home front. Finally, as the summer of '69 ended, Jeffrey reported to Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
He worked as the resident surgeon for the 3rd Special Forces Airborne Group, meaning Colette and the kids could finally join him. They lived at 544 Castle Drive in Corregidor Courts, a section of the Army base reserved for officers. Their apartment was one of four units in a brick building that featured a one-story apartment on each end and two two-story apartments in the middle. The McDonald family lived in one of the end units.
MPs provided security as Fort Bragg was an open military base. Meeting the general public had the right to come and go as they pleased. Colette had the perfect nuclear family. She and Jeffrey were well-liked among their army neighbors. They fought and argued occasionally, but who didn't? They had two beautiful daughters who'd grown into their own distinctive personalities. Five-year-old Kim was smart, shy, and very feminine, just like her mom.
Meanwhile, Kristen was an obnoxious two-year-old tomboy who'd defend her older sister with her life if anyone bullied her. Before settling at Fort Bragg, Colette had accrued two years of college education. Hoping to earn a bachelor's degree in English literature, she dreamt of teaching part-time while living on the base. Colette was three months pregnant by Christmas of 1969.
that McDonald's had a son on the way with plans to relocate to a farm in Connecticut. In preparation, Jeffrey secretly bought the girls a pony and surprised them with it on Christmas morning. Kristen and Kim agreed on the name Trooper in honor of Jeffrey's military service. Before the year's end, Colette penned a letter to some old college friends
She wrote how her life had never been so normal, how she'd never been so happy. Once their son was born in July, their family would be complete. Jeffrey was a captain now, with plans to study advanced medical training at Yale once his stint with the Green Berets was over. Then, tragedy struck. Part Three: Manson Did It. On February 16th, 1970, Jeffrey took the girls to the stable to play with Trooper in the afternoon.
They came home for dinner, after which Colette left for night classes at North Carolina University, which had an extension in Fort Bragg. Jeffrey showered and changed into a set of old blue pajamas before settling in front of the TV with Kim and Kristen. Jeffrey put Kristen to bed around seven, but instead of sleeping in her own room, Jeffrey put her in the master bedroom. Then he and Kim stayed up to play a game on the coffee table.
He eventually dozed off for an hour, but awoke just as Kim's favorite show, Laugh-In, was starting. But she couldn't stay up much longer and went to bed around 9:00 PM. Colette came home before 10:00 to watch The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, but she only lasted past the opening monologue. She went to bed while Jeffrey stayed up. Around 2:00 AM, Jeffrey decided to call it a night.
After doing the evening's dishes, he walked into his bedroom to find Kristen had wet his side of the bed. He carried his youngest daughter to her room and, not wanting to wake Colette, grabbed a blanket from Kristen's room and passed out on the couch. Moments later, Jeffrey woke to Colette screaming, "Jeff, Jeff, help! Why are they doing this to me?" He jumped from the couch but was attacked by three men, two white and one black.
A white female with long blonde hair, wearing knee-high boots and a floppy white hat, seemed to be their leader. She stood in the doorway with a lit candle, chanting, "Acid is groovy! Kill the pigs!" The men attacked him with a club and ice pick, as their female ringleader egged them on. They pulled his pajama top over his head to bind his wrists, but Jeffrey used it to ward off the ice pick.
All his training wasn't enough to fend off three acid heads. They overcame and knocked him unconscious before moving on to his wife and kids. They were gone by the time Jeffrey came too. He hobbled from room to room, attempting mouth to mouth resuscitation on his dead daughters. Finally, he discovered his pregnant wife, stabbed over 30 times with an ice pick and paring knife. He removed the knife to try and find a pulse, but it was too late. She was gone.
He draped his pajama top over her body and phoned for help. That's Jeffrey's version of events and the story he stuck to since 1970. MPs found Kim in her bed, her skull fractured, and her body stabbed between eight and 10 times. Across the hall, they found Kristen lying on her side, dead from 33 stab wounds, with a baby bottle still in her mouth.
On the headboard above the couple's bed, they found the word "pig" written in Colette's blood. Jeffrey sat up and yelled, "Jesus Christ! Look at my wife! I'm gonna kill those goddamn acid heads!" They transported him to Womack Hospital to treat his wounds as he shouted, "Let me see my kids!" While in the hospital, doctors discovered that Jeffrey's wounds were minimal compared to his wife and daughters.
While they were brutally mutilated, he only suffered some cuts, bruises, and scratches to his face and chest. None were life-threatening, and none required any stitches. There was one stab wound between two ribs on his right torso, which the staff surgeon described as clean, small, and sharp. It only penetrated 5/8 of an inch, enough to cause his lung to partially collapse. Jeffrey also had a bump on his head,
but it wasn't enough to break the skin. Meanwhile, MPs scoured every block looking for three suspicious men and the girl in the floppy hat, but nobody ever turned up and they abandoned their search by 6:00 AM. Headlines in the Fayetteville Observer read, "Officer's wife, children found slain at Fort Bragg." Crime reporter Pat Reese wrote, "How Colette and the kids were the murder victims of a ritualistic hippie cult."
He either had inside information on Jeffrey's story or assumed the killings were Manson related. Even in a military town, people went gun crazy. They began nailing their windows shut and sleeping with hammers under their pillows. Later that morning, MPs found the murder weapons outside the back door. Among them were an ice pick, a kitchen knife, and a 31 inch piece of bloodstained lumber with blue threads attached to one end.
It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to know these weapons came from the McDonald House, but their wielders wiped them clean of fingerprints. Jeffrey claimed he'd never seen them before. CID agent John Hodges was the first on the scene to begin the Army's in-depth investigation. Even though Fort Bragg was a public military base, how did these four acid heads slip in and out without anyone noticing? John's main suspicions arose from two areas.
The severity of Jeffrey's wounds compared to his family's and the lack of struggle in the living room where Jeffrey claims he fought three attackers. The only signs of a fight were a knocked over coffee table and a pile of bloodstained magazines pinned underneath. Nobody ever found any fibers from Jeffrey's pajama top in the living room, even though he claimed they attacked and stabbed him. However, they did find fibers under Colette's body and in the girls' bedrooms.
They found one pajama fiber under Kristen's fingernail and a skin fragment under Colette's. Unfortunately, the skin fragment was lost during the investigation. They found blood-soaked splinters in all three bedrooms, likely from the piece of lumber they recovered outside. Jeffrey claims he called for help after trying to resuscitate his daughters, yet there was no blood on his phone. Finally, MPs recovered the blood-stained fingertip of a surgical glove
the same kind Jeffrey kept in the kitchen. Then there's the question of weather. According to Jeffrey, the floppy hat woman's boots were dripping with water, yet the only print found at the scene was a bloody bare footprint leading out of Kristen's bedroom, away from her bed. If four people broke in on a stormy, rainy night, wouldn't they track muddy footprints all over the house? Their neighbors, only separated by a brick wall,
said they didn't hear any fighting or struggling that night. One of their 16-year-old daughters regularly babysat for the McDonald's. She said Jeffrey and Colette seemed different in recent months. They hardly talked to each other and rarely said hi. By February 23rd, Colonel Robert Krawanek, the man in charge of Fort Bragg's military police, told them to stop looking for the four intruders. They had a new suspect in mind. Part four.
a statistical anomaly, and the acid queen of California. Forensic testing in 1970 wasn't what it is today, but the McDonald crime scene was so ripe with evidence that even the most primitive methods would have disproved Jeffrey's acid head story. Most of it is thanks to a statistical anomaly.
All four members of the McDonald family had different blood types. Jeffrey was type B, Colette was type A, Kimberly was AB, and Kristen was type O. Because of this extremely rare blood anomaly, CSIs could track all four family members as they moved around the house on February 17th.
For starters, they found traces of Kimberly's blood on Jeffrey's pajama top, even though he wasn't wearing it, or so he claims. When trying to resuscitate her, they only found Jeffrey's blood in two significant quantities, in front of the kitchen cabinets where he kept the surgical gloves and on the right side of the bathroom sink.
CSIs found Colette's blood in Kristen's room, which was odd since all three victims were attacked and found in separate rooms. According to Jeffrey's story, evidence also showed Kimberly's blood and brain matter in the master bedroom. But why would a group of drug-crazed home intruders carry the girl back to her bedroom after bludgeoning her to death? Assuming that Jeffrey did, in fact, kill his entire family and nobody else entered the home that night,
Investigators believed the following scenario. Kristen wet Jeffrey's side of the bed, something she'd done repeatedly. This was the last straw, and an argument ensued between Jeffrey and Colette. The verbal fight turned physical, and Colette struck Jeffrey with a hairbrush, explaining the tiny bump and bruise. Overcome with rage, Jeffrey struck back, first with his fists, and then with a piece of loose lumber.
Kimberly heard the struggle and walked into their bedroom, but Jeffrey didn't see her and accidentally struck her in the head with a lumber, cracking her skull and sending brain matter flying across the room. Assuming Colette was gone, Jeffrey carried Kimberly's body into her bedroom and stabbed her to ensure she was dead. From there, he proceeded to Kristen's room to finish the job.
But before he could bludgeon her to death, Colette awoke, stumbled into her youngest daughter's bedroom, and dove on top to shield her from Jeffrey's blows. Her heroics weren't enough. Jeffrey killed them both, causing Colette's blood to spill onto Kristen's bed. He then wrapped Colette's body in a sheet and carried her back to the master bedroom, leaving a bloody footprint behind in Kristen's room.
With all three dead, Jeffrey concocted a plan to blame the murders on four Manson-loving hippies. He grabbed a medical glove and used Colette's blood to write "pig" on the headboard. Then he took off his pajama top, draped it over her chest, and stabbed her repeatedly with an ice pick. Finally, Jeffrey grabbed a scalpel from the supply closet and stabbed himself in the chest, enough to slightly collapse his lung but not cause significant damage.
All that was left to do was drape himself over Colette's body and wait for the MPs to arrive. But how much of Jeffrey's story did he make up on the spot? If what investigators believe is true, that this all occurred in a fit of rage, where did Jeffrey find the time to make up his elaborate story? Pinned beneath the flipped over coffee table was a copy of Esquire magazine. According to investigators, it was the March 1st, 1970 edition titled "Evil Lurks in California,"
"Lee Marvin is Afraid." The issue contained several articles about the Manson murders and sex cults in California. CIDs believe Jeffrey took his cues from an article called "Princess Lita's Castle in the Air." The piece spoke of a California acid queen who wore a floppy white hat and carried a lit candle. They counted 18 similarities between the McDonald family crime scene and the stories in "Esquire."
They also found Colette and Kimberly's blood on the front cover, putting the magazine at the crime scene whenever the murders occurred. The only unanswered question surrounding the magazine is how it came to be in Jeffrey's possession in mid-February. The issue in question, referred to in court documents among other sources, is dated March 1st.
A search of Esquire Classic for articles related to Charles Manson between August 1969, when Sharon Tate was murdered, and March 1st, 1970, two weeks after the McDonald family murders, returns only one article titled, "Charles Manson's Home on the Range," written by Gay Talisi and published in the March 1st issue. Why did Jeffrey McDonald have a copy of Esquire magazine that wasn't supposed to come out for two more weeks?
We're sure there's a reasonable explanation, but what if there's not? Part Five: Article 32. With a mountain of evidence at their disposal, investigators grilled Jeffrey about the pitfalls in his story and his stab wounds. CID investigator Will Ivory asked him straight up, "You didn't do it yourself, did you?" Jeffrey denied stabbing himself and killing his family. He also denied that any of the murder weapons came from his house.
but investigators found that the piece of lumber used to bludgeon Colette and the kids matched wood from Kimberly's closet. Jeffrey was in the middle of building Kimberly a new bed frame. Jeffrey had difficulty explaining the signs of struggle, or lack thereof, at the crime scene. When CID arrived, they only found a tipped-over coffee table and an out-of-place flower pot on the floor beside the table.
Four drugged out hippies breaking into your home and killing your family would probably make a bigger mess, especially if Jeffrey and Colette fought for their lives. As he claims, Jeffrey was formally relieved of his duties on April 6th, 1970. He hired a civilian defense attorney named Bernard Siegel to work his case and penned a letter to Colette's parents, professing his innocence.
Jeffrey said the army would never admit their mistakes. And Freddy Kassab, Colette's stepfather, believed him, for now. An Article 32 hearing is like a preliminary hearing in civilian law. In short, when a military member has been charged with a crime, an Article 32 hearing determines if there's enough evidence to proceed with a formal trial.
Jeffrey's Article 32 began in July 1970. He and Siegel's defense strategy hinged on the clumsy and unprofessional handling of the crime scene. And they had a pretty strong argument. For starters, an ambulance driver stole Jeffrey's wallet from the house. He also picked up a flower pot and set it next to the coffee table.
the same flowerpot investigators used to prove their lack of struggle theory. Siegel talked about CIDs trampling all over the house and destroying any traces of evidence that might prove Jeffrey's story. According to his book, "A Wilderness of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey McDonald," author Errol Morris claims that CIDs lost several pieces of crucial evidence before the Article 32 hearing.
Those pieces include a thread found beneath Kimberly's nail, four torn tips of surgical gloves found in the master bedroom, Jeffrey's pajama pants, and skin fragments found beneath Colette's fingernail. Siegel called Kenneth Micah to the stand, the responding officer to Jeffrey's call en route to the McDonald home.
He testified that on his way. He saw a blonde woman wearing a wide brimmed hat standing on the corner about a mile from 544 Castle Drive. He remembered it being unusual, seeing how it was late and raining. And while on the topic of rain, a 2020 FX documentary titled "A Wilderness of Error," the same as Morris's book, revealed a private conversation between Colonel Rock and Major General Ed Flanagan.
Flanagan asked, "But what about the grass and mud?" To which Rock replied, "14 MPs hadn't carried any in either." Many point to the lack of muddy footprints as evidence that Jeffrey killed his family. But if 14 MPs didn't track any mud, then it's plausible that four assailants didn't either. By August, Siegel had already built a strong case in Jeffrey's defense, and it was about to get stronger.
A delivery driver named Will Posey claimed the attacker Jeffrey saw that night was his neighbor, a local 17-year-old drug addict named Helena Stokely. Will claims that she was in the company of two or three young men in a car parked outside her apartment around 4 a.m. on the morning the McDonald's were killed. She was known to wear a long blonde wig, knee-high boots, and a floppy hat. Those wardrobe staples seemingly disappeared after February 17th.
two weeks after the murders. Helena mentioned to Will how she needed to leave town since the police were harassing her about the McDonald murders. They questioned her regarding her whereabouts that night, but she was so high on mescaline and LSD that she couldn't remember. Will also testified that Helena needed to kill more people so she and her boyfriend could get married.
While taking the stand to defend himself, Jeffrey spoke on his rumored infidelity, admitting to having been unfaithful on two occasions. A leading theory is that Colette discovered his affairs and confronted him about it, leading to the fight and murders. McDonald swore Colette never knew and referred to their time at Fort Bragg as the happiest time in their marriage. A criminal psychologist ran several tests on Jeffrey's mental state,
They said he exhibited an extraordinary absence of anxiety, depression and anger regarding the murders and that he was able to muster massive denial or repression. On October 13th, 1970, Colonel Rock dropped the charges against Jeffrey due to a lack of evidence. He ordered CIDs to look into Helena Stokely, but to keep Jeffrey as a person of interest.
He received an honorable discharge from the military and moved out to Long Beach, California. There, he lived in a $350,000 Huntington Beach condo and fell in love with a 22-year-old flight attendant named Candy Kramer. Part 6: Second Time's a Charm The McDonald murders and their proximity to Charles Manson attracted nationwide attention.
every talk show host wanted a piece of Jeffrey. Newspapers ran front page stories and overwhelming public support fueled the acid head theory. But Jeffrey's new life didn't sit well with Colette's stepfather, Fred Kassab. While he supported his son-in-law initially, citing his strong conservative values and decorated army career, he was irked when Jeffrey refused to hand over a copy of the 2000 page Article 32 transcript.
Remember, Jeffrey admitted to cheating on Colette twice during the hearing, and we can assume he didn't want Fred to know. Attempting to dissuade Fred, Jeffrey claimed that he and some army buddies tracked down one of the murderous hippies and killed them. But that wasn't enough, and Fred finally got his hands on the transcript.
After reading it, he called Jeffrey's story a tissue of lies and launched a multi-decade crusade to see Jeffrey convicted for murdering his family. On Jeffrey's infidelity, Fred and his wife discovered that their one-time son-in-law had rekindled his relationship with Penny Wells by 1969 and began dating another young girl employed at Fort Bragg. Fred petitioned every legal body he could to reopen Jeffrey's case.
He returned to the crime scene, which had been undisturbed for over a year, and compared the evidence to Jeffrey's testimony. But because the murders were handled in military court, and Jeffrey was no longer in the army, the case hung in legal limbo. In April 1974, Fred and his lawyers pleaded their case to a district court judge who agreed to assemble a grand jury and indict Jeffrey for murdering his family.
The case bounced back and forth for another five years, with each side winning and losing multiple times. The grand jury agreed to charge Jeffrey with murder in January 1975, but an appeals court dismissed the charges again in 1976. They said Jeffrey's right to a speedy trial had been violated, overruling a different court's ruling from '75.
Then, in 1978, the US Supreme Court voted 8-0 to reinstate the charges. Jeffrey finally saw his day in court on July 16th, 1979. Jeffrey's defense team employed the same strategy as before. Meanwhile, the prosecution took a more dramatic approach. They reenacted scenes from Jeffrey's story to disprove them, such as how 48 smooth puncture holes were found in his pajama top
Jeffrey claims the attackers bound his hands with the PJ top and he used it to defend himself from their ice pick stabs. The prosecution called Paul Stombaugh, a 25 year FBI vet who oversaw the Greenville, South Carolina crime lab in the late 1970s. Paul testified that the smooth cylindrical puncture wounds on Jeffrey's pajama top could have only been made if it was stationary. If it was moving, the punctures would be jagged and torn.
He believes Jeffrey draped it over Colette's body and stabbed her 21 times. Based on how the pajama top was folded when MPs found it, the 21 stabs would lead to 48 holes. Prosecutors James Blackburn and Brian Murtaugh staged a reenactment of Jeffrey's story with a similar PJ top wrapped Brian's wrists.
James jabbed him with the same ice pick found at the crime scene, and the holes it made were jagged and elongated instead of smooth and cylindrical. Brian also suffered a wound on his hand during the reenactment, whereas Jeffrey suffered no such injuries during the alleged attack. Thinking he had an ace up his sleeve, Siegel called Helena Stokely to the stand.
Before the trial, Siegel tried to convince Helena to confess to the McDonald murders. He promised her immunity due to the statute of limitations and painted Jeffrey as a man who'd spent years suffering unjustly, but Helena wouldn't bite. She took the stand and denied any involvement in the case. On August 29th, 1979, after six hours of deliberation, the jury returned with their verdict, guilty.
They convicted Jeffrey on one count of first-degree murder regarding Kristen's death and two counts of second-degree murder regarding Colette and Kimberly. Judge Franklin Dupree imposed a life sentence for each murder, but the guilty verdict was just another hill on a never-ending roller coaster.
Jeffrey spent over a year in prison when, on July 29th, 1980, an appeals court overturned his conviction and reinstated his bail. They voted two to one, claiming the nine-year delay between the murders and his trial violated his sixth amendment right to a speedy trial. Jeffrey walked out of jail on August 22nd after posting $100,000 bail or just over $360,000 today.
He returned to Long Beach, California and in 1982, announced his engagement to his new bride to be. But days after putting a ring on her finger, the Supreme Court voted six to three that Jeffrey's Sixth Amendment rights were not violated. They reinstated his multiple life sentence and Jeffrey returned to prison. But his story still wasn't over. Jeffrey bounced between appellate courts for the next 38 years.
He fired Siegel as his legal counsel and new lawyers tried to leverage DNA evidence as it became more mainstream in the late 80s and early 90s. By the mid 2000s, hairs found around the apartment were all proven to come from a McDonald's head. They did find three unknown hairs, one from a bed sheet, one beneath Kristen's fingernail and one between Colette's legs. None of them matched the DNA profile of a McDonald family member or any known suspects.
In 2021, Jeffrey sought compassionate release due to his old age and waning health. But District Court Judge Terrence Boyle denied his request, citing that the compassionate release law only applies to those convicted on or before November 1st, 1987. Part 7, The Many Confessions of Helena Stokely.
As of December 2022, Jeffrey McDonald is still behind bars, recanting the same story he's been telling for 50 years. He's also among the only people still alive with direct ties to the case. Aside from Jeffrey, Helena Stokely was the only thing close to another person of interest. In 1980, after Jeffrey's initial release from prison, his team hired Ted Gunderson to track down and investigate Helena.
Ted was a retired FBI special agent working as a private investigator at the time. He was known for diving into high-profile cases like the death of Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedy assassination. Gunderson obtained written statements from Helena in August of 1980 that she killed Jeffrey McDonald's family. She told Gunderson she was part of a satanic drug cult with a grudge against Jeffrey.
According to Helena, Jeffrey refused to treat drug addicted patients. They planned on killing his family, but leaving him alive out of pure vengeance. According to Fatal Vision, a 1979 book and made for TV movie about the case, Helena only confessed after being promised financial and emotional assistance. But Ted Gunderson isn't the only person she admitted this to.
According to Helena's mother, her daughter confessed twice to being at the McDonald House the night his family was killed. Jeffrey fought tooth and nail to get this new information in front of a judge, but nothing ever stuck. Helena died in 1983 of acute pneumonia at 30 years old. On her deathbed, she allegedly told her brother Eugene that she was in Jeffrey's home that fateful night.
In 2012, Eugene said as much in court, claiming Helena confided in her mother one final time when she knew she was dying. Part Eight: The Never-Ending Mystery. The truth is hard to come by in this story. Nobody knows who's telling it. The Jeffrey McDonald case is among the most highly controversial and widely argued true crime stories of the 20th century. Two crucial books tell different sides of the case.
In 1979, Jeffrey invited author Joe McGinnis to listen to his story and to write a book about the trial. Joe was granted complete access to Jeffrey and his defense team, but ultimately sided with the prosecution. His book, "Fatal Vision," paints Jeffrey as a narcissistic sociopath who is 100% guilty of killing his family. "Fatal Vision" offers an interesting theory into the motive too.
Joe claims Jeffrey was taking an amphetamine called escutrol to keep his weight under control. Jeffrey was also working incredibly long hours as a Green Beret doctor. Between his social, familial, and work commitments, Dr. McDonald suffered from severe sleep deprivation. After his daughter wet the bed, Jeffrey sunk into a drug-induced, sleep-deprived fit of rage and murdered his family.
Jeffrey was furious when Fatal Vision didn't paint him favorably. He sued McGinnis for fraud, claiming he hired the author to write a positive spin on the story. In Jeffrey's mind, McGinnis had already formed an opinion long before writing the book. The lawsuit ended in a mistrial and the two settled outside of court for $325,000.
A wilderness of error, the trials of Jeffrey McDonald takes the other side, claiming Jeffrey was wrongfully convicted. Author and filmmaker Errol Morris claims that many of the facts in Fatal Vision are untrue and irresponsible. While writers, lawyers, and Supreme Court justices argue over who killed Colette, Kim, and Kristen, one fact stands out.
A pregnant mother and her two young children were brutally murdered on February 17th, 1970. All three were laid to rest in Washington Memorial Park in New York. Initially, their graves were inscribed with the name McDonald. They were changed years later to Colette's maiden name, Stevenson. Hey guys, thanks for listening. I wanna give you all a quick heads up regarding some upcoming political ads you may start hearing leading up to this year's presidential election.
These ads do not represent my own political viewpoint. So if you hear a political ad play on the podcast and it's not in my own voice, then it has absolutely nothing to do with me personally as a podcaster. Thank you again for being a dedicated listener of mine, and I can't wait to have another amazing year with you guys. I'll see you in the next episode.