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In June's Journey, you have the chance to solve a captivating murder mystery and reveal deep-seated family secrets. Use your keen eye and detective skills to guide June Parker through this thrilling hidden object mystery game. June's Journey is a mobile game that follows June Parker, a New York socialite living in London. Play as June Parker and investigate beautifully detailed scenes of the 1920s

while uncovering the mystery of her sister's murder. There are twists, turns, and catchy tunes, all leading you deeper into the thrilling storyline. This is your chance to test your detective skills. And if you play well enough, you could make it to the detective club. There, you'll chat with other players and compete with or against them. June needs your help, but watch out.

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Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. That's June's Journey. Download the game for free on iOS and Android. Listen up. I'm Liza Traeger. And I'm Cara Clank, and we're the hosts of the true crime comedy podcast, That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast. Every Tuesday, we break down an episode of Law & Order SVU, the true crime it's based on, and we chat with an actor from the episode.

Over the past few years, we've chatted with series icons like BD Wong, Kelly Giddish, Danny Pino, and guest stars like Padgett Brewster and Matthew Lillard. And just like an SVU marathon, you can jump in anywhere. Don't miss new episodes every Tuesday. Follow That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. Dun-dun!

I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the last 25 years writing about true crime. And I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator who's worked some of America's most complicated cases and solved them. Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes. And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.

Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a 21st century lens. Some are solved and some are cold, very cold. This is Buried Bones. ♪♪

Hi, Paul. Hey, Kate. How's it going? It's going really well. I was thinking about you today because we talk about stress. We talk about relieving stress. And I thought I'd share, since we're still getting to know each other, I thought I'd share with you a little bit about some of the various things I end up doing to relieve stress. Maybe you don't think it's weird. A lot of my friends think it's really weird. So both of my daughters have twin 12-year-old girls, and both of them have immense anxiety. I'm sure they got it from me. So

So one of the things that I've done with the kids since they were tiny, tiny like babies is drive around mindlessly for hours listening to music. We don't even talk. We just listen to music, blast music. I'm sure it's really annoying to everybody in our neighborhood.

So one of my daughters the other night was so beyond stressed. So I drove with her for two hours last night listening to 80s music. Two hours barely talking, just driving and listening. Okay. Do you do stuff like that? What do you listen to when you're driving in your Jeep around the mountains of Colorado? Are you a music guy? I very much am a music guy. When I'm driving, you know, I, of course, as people know, I've never listened to a podcast before.

I have my music playing. You know, I'm kind of curious. You're driving around with your daughters. I mean, is the bass thumping? I mean, is this like, you know, rap from the 1980s?

It is some. Okay. It is some hip-hop barbecue is what my Pandora, some of that, which, you know, we try to get the clean versions on all of it. But mostly it's 80s music as in, like, I was just listening to Kenny Loggins by myself. I also do that right before this show, which is now that I'm saying it aloud, moderately embarrassing, that I do. But I went out for eight minutes and drove all around the neighborhood just blasting Kenny Loggins. Okay.

Who sang Footloose, in case you didn't know? I was going to say, is this like Footloose or is this like Loggins and Messina from back in the 1970s? I think it's the Footloose one. It's the Footloose one. You're dating yourself. I was born in 74. Well, I'm a little bit older than you. Not much though. I know, but I'm young at heart. I'm very, very young at heart with music. So I often say my parents live very close to us and I often say that we're one Taylor Swift song away from my parents, which my kids love. But

The music, so what do you listen to? I'm going to predict old school. Like, are you like a Bruce Springsteen fan? Is that what your genre is? No, you know, I do listen to classic rock. You know, I'll go back and, you know, the Eagles, you know, from the 70s. I graduated high school and the hair bands were huge. So Def Leppard, Van Halen, you know. And I think, you know, when you're in high school, it's such a formative age for music. It really sets the stage for what you'll probably listen to for the rest of your life.

But then I do get into some of the heavier stuff, particularly if I'm working out or if I'm driving around and I'm just not really happy with the world, then that's when the five-finger death punch comes out or whatever.

Other similar types of bands. But even when I was active, you know, I would frequently be going to various crime scenes, like for the Golden State Killer investigation. And I'm thinking about the case, but I've got the music going. I think best when I have music. Yeah. When I take my, what I call my old man nap, I put my headphones on and I have my music playing. I never fall asleep. Music is core to who I am. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, me too. And for me, there's two places where I come up with the best ideas or ideas. I don't know if they're the best, but I do come up with ideas often.

And one is in the bathtub. I think it's the white noise that really helps from the bath. And the other one is driving around and listening to music. It's meditative for me and so healing. And so I think I have a lot of contained excitement about this show. And so when I drive around right before the show, it helps me calm down and just sort of get in that good mindful place to be able to deliver all this information to you. But we do have very different tastes in music, although I do love some Def Leppard. I really do. Yeah.

Anyway, you know, this music thing for me is a way to decompress. And I think we're both going to need some Kenny Loggins after this episode coming up because it's very stressful. But it's so rich with forensics that I just see every time I made a note and I... What happens on my documents is...

I have this really intense research document that Maren, our researcher, gives us, and then I add to it. And I have all of these what I call Paul Holes highlights where I'm going to tell the story, and then I'm going to stop and ask you questions. And there are so many Paul Holes highlights. I think this needs to be a two-parter. So I'm telling you all up front, you better stay committed to this story because this is a two-parter.

And it really is a pretty intense story. So I'm excited to present it to you. Okay, well, let's get going. Okay, well, let's set the scene.

So this is a case that I know that you've either worked on or heard of, the Jeffrey McDonald case. And I know some of you have heard it also, but this is going to be a little different. So when I say Jeffrey McDonald, what do you think of? For me, I have some familiarity with Jeffrey McDonald, but it's another horrific case in which an entire family has been killed, except for the man, the husband in this case, Jeffrey McDonald.

Donald. And the big question is, is he responsible? Or just like in some other very notable cases, is it the fugitive type of scenario where the one-armed man has come in and has committed this crime? And I know there's other details, but the first thing that pops into my head is, okay, this is one of those cases of who did it and

what could be done today to prove the case one way or another. And I think one of the things that's interesting about this case is there's so much forensics, but it's 1970 forensics. So this is a whole kind of new world. I really live in 1910 to 1940 forensics. So this is an area where forensics is growing a lot.

So it'll be interesting to see the difference between what investigators did in 1970 and what you would do now, as well as what a good defense attorney could do to this case. So I think your perspective will be interesting. And often when I present you with these historical cases, every so often we're going to have a case that people have heard of before. Not going to do Jack the Ripper. I can guarantee you we're not doing Jack the Ripper. Not going to do Jack the Ripper or we're not going to do Lizzie Borden, but...

But I think every once in a while will pop up a case where I just kind of go, boy, I've always read about this, but I've just never been 100% sure. And then that's where you'll be helpful. And the one thing that I will say is, you know, this case which happened in 1970, this is my area of specialty in terms of the era of cold cases. I worked cases from the 1960s through the 1970s, predominantly, of course, newer cases.

But in terms of the state of investigative tactics, forensics...

I'm very, very familiar. In fact, a lot of the forensic testing that was being done in the 1970s, that's what I was trained on when I first started in the 1990s. So that shows how static forensics was for those decades. So I'm very familiar with that. And so I'm very interested to see what you tell me about this case, because even though I'm familiar with it, I really haven't done a deep dive into the forensics, into the crime scene, etc.,

Well, it'll be interesting. This is 1970, North Carolina, Fort Bragg. So we're on a military base. And you are going to have to fill me in on how military procedure works when they're investigating cases because I know only JAG, and it's because it was a good TV series.

And that's it. And I was probably like feeding my kids at the time. So I'm not really sure if I picked up on all that much. But I haven't worked on a case that came out of the military where the military actually prosecuted, or in this case, they actually didn't, but where the military was in charge of the initial investigation rather. Sure. So we've got 1970, North Carolina. This is an interesting era for me. So we're coming out of the 60s. And I like to explain the context of history because...

Actually, all of these little details play into this story. So you've got Nixon in office. We're in Vietnam. And in fact, Nixon would order the invasion of Cambodia just a few months after this took place.

There are anti-war protests, sometimes some very violent ones, lots of clashes between government and protesters and the police and protesters, a lot of tension, a lot of racial tension. And there is a pinning of the so-called hippie movement in the 60s against this growing far-right movement that's trying to take control of the morals that supposedly have gone awry in America during this time period.

So what we have is Jeffrey McDonald, who was in the military. He was a captain and a surgeon. So he was a Green Beret trauma surgeon with the military. He lived with his family. He had two little girls and a wife at Fort Bragg, and they had a house there. And Jeffrey McDonald was pregnant.

fairly nondescript before this happened, I think. Someone who's in a career in the military seemed to be respectable. When you dig deeper, there are obviously some pretty big issues, but he came from kind of a hardscrabble life. He grew up in poverty. His father was strict, not physically abusive, it sounds like, but certainly verbally abusive. So he was emasculated, I think, quite a bit.

growing up and, you know, ended up becoming a surgeon. And now he's got this lovely family with these two little girls. All of this comes to a head really on the morning of February 17th, 3.30 in the morning, because Jeffrey McDonald has called the military police just in utter panic. So he's 26 at the time, and he has called emergency services. And when he's hung up the phone, the police arrive, they come to his house, and he's unconscious.

So he's laying on the bed. They start looking around. They're trying to wake him up and being very careful because there's blood. And he is laying across the mutilated body of his 26-year-old pregnant wife, Colette. She is laying on her back on the floor of their bedroom. And on the headboard above the bed is the word pig written in blood.

So let's just start there. What is the significance of that? Well, I think, you know, you set the scene in terms of the politics that were going on at the time. Coming out of law enforcement, you know, we all know that PIG is a derogatory term to refer to law enforcement officers.

But I think during this era, PIG, even though it is towards law enforcement, probably had a greater meaning to the hippie movement in terms of it was really representative of the government that was trying to oppress, you know, their thoughts of what their rights should be. And so that's what I'm guessing. And

And I'm kind of curious, you know, backing up a little bit. You said he calls. He calls the emergency services with the military. Okay. But so he's conscious when he calls. And when they arrive, he has now collapsed over his dead wife. Who's on the floor of their bedroom. Right. Okay. What are you thinking so far?

I'm looking at a crime scene photo of his wife, Colette, laying on her back in the bedroom. And of course, Jeffrey McDonald is not pictured in the photo, though I see some blood stains that are transferred to her pant legs on the front. I'm looking to see where the phone is.

And I'm not seeing the phone in the photo. So, you know, I'm kind of curious, was this phone that he used somewhere else in the house? And did he have enough capability after he makes his phone call to get all the way back into this bedroom to his wife? And then why is he collapsing at that point? So I need to know more about his injuries now.

and the timeframe from the call to the emergency services to the time that they actually arrive at the house. Well, and I think what we're going to find is the blood is going to tell a big story. I think that'll be even the bigger tell for you is where all the blood is. Because, right, you would think if he's bleeding, he's bleeding wherever the phone is, but that's not necessarily the case. Something that strikes me is you said he was a captain. He's a surgeon. Yep. He's a Green Beret surgeon. Mm-hmm.

Now, I'm not familiar in terms of what type of training a Green Beret surgeon would have outside of the medical school aspects, right? Right. But he's a captain, which tells me he likely graduated medical school. And I believe these doctors start off at that captain rank. I think that's the way, at least at one point in time, it worked with the Air Force.

So he has not been out of medical school very long. If he's only 26 years old. Right. So he's new in the military, but he's also probably been through, I'm assuming, some level of boot camp, some level of military training, self-defense training, firearms training. So he's not just your average Joe. And I don't know if being a Green Beret surgeon, if he has received any type of special forces training that would

elevate his skill sets to defend himself. And I think that's going to become important as we move through this case. Yeah, so I think that his education is really interesting considering where he came from. So he got his undergrad degree at Princeton, and then in 65, he went to Northwestern University Medical School.

He graduated from medical school in 68, three years. Okay. Is that surprising or is that normal? Well, I think general medical school, that's normal, but then he specializes in trauma surgery. Well, what's interesting is he does a one-year internship at Columbia Presbyterian in New York, specializing in thoracic surgery. Then he joins the Army. Okay. In June 28th of 1969, and this happens February 17th, so seven months later. So he's only been enlisted for seven months. So this

This is a little education on what it takes to be a surgeon, I guess, in the military. He did a six-week physician's basic training course. And then he volunteered to be the Army Special Forces, and he became a Special Forces physician. He went to Fort Benning, Georgia. He did a paratrooper training, but it doesn't look like he was deployed anywhere. There just wasn't time because this didn't happen.

And it doesn't sound like he is somebody that is going through and becoming well-trained in terms of combat. No, I don't think so. You know, hand-to-hand combat. Okay, that's really what I was trying to figure out is, you know, I have to assess him. Mm-hmm.

and his capabilities as we find out what happened inside this house. Well, let me give you some more context. What happened a few months before in 1969 was the Manson family murders with Charles Manson. I don't know if you remember this, but in blood, they sprawled, kill all the pigs, and they put pig everywhere. So whomever put pig on this wall, we're assuming Jeffrey McDonald, seems like he's trying to emulate what had happened with the Manson family.

Well, and this is what often is seen, is when somebody is trying to stage a crime, they rely upon what they have seen really in pop culture, whether it be in the magazines back in the day, like True Detective magazines or the TV shows.

or the movies, that's kind of what they rely upon to inform themselves as well. What does this type of crime look like? So I can replicate it. They don't recognize that those of us that actually see real crime go, no, that's not what this type of case is going to look like. But also we have to watch out for the possibility of a copycat

type of crime. Just because, you know, Jeffrey McDonald is somebody that is under suspicion early on in this investigation and the parallels to the Manson case, gotta assume, okay, maybe there's some other individuals out there that were inspired by what they saw with the Manson murders and decided to do a similar attack.

out there in North Carolina. The writing of the word pig, which parallels what happened in the Manson family, there's a certain philosophy behind that word during this time. So this could be an attack that I would say is mission-oriented. They are trying to send a message by committing this attack. So that's where, you know, as we go through this, I need to start assessing, okay, what appears to be more likely, right?

somebody, an intruder coming in from the outside trying to do this missionary type of attack, or we have a husband who's deciding that he needs to eliminate his family for some reason. And part of this is, you know, I always go back to my father when I would read a case and say, well, I really think this guy's guilty. And he always said, it doesn't matter what you think. What can you prove in court? So this is a little bit of that case. What can you prove?

And what did they think they could prove in 1970 versus would this survive, would this case survive now, and how would it survive in a court in 2022, 2023? Sure. Okay. So they are looking at Collette, and they search the rest of the house, and they find McDonald's two daughters, five-year-old Kimberly and two-year-old Kristen, and they're both dead in their bedrooms also. So amidst this, police officers walking around, military personnel walking around,

McDonald wakes up and he starts screaming, Jesus Christ, look at my wife. I'm going to kill those goddamn acid heads. So this is, you know, what we had talked about before, that this is all pointing to those damned hippies who are ruining the world. And the Manson family murders had just happened five months before. So this is all very familiar, I'm sure, to police.

He goes on and gives an account, which is that he was lying on his couch asleep. Colette was in her room. The girls were in their room. And he is woken up, you know, three o'clock in the morning to Colette screaming, Jeff, why are they doing this to me?

He says he doesn't even get as far as the bedroom when he is confronted by four people in his living room at this point, and they're all armed with knives. Okay, so he's asleep. Wife wakes him up. He gets up, and these four intruders are already further inside the house. I mean, they go back to the bedroom.

Do we know what their supposed point of entry into the house is? You know, he doesn't say. And I think 1970, I've said this before, we didn't always lock our doors into the 80s and late 80s in my house. I imagine they don't lock their doors, but what do you think? On a military base? I was going to bring that point up. On base, there is an enhanced

feeling of security just because you have a very controlled population in there. You have, you know, military police that are very active at night. So I could see where, yeah, people could have just walked in and there would be no signs of forced entry anywhere in this house. Right.

And this is what he says next. And I want you to listen carefully to this description and tell me what you think. So, of course, the police say, who are these people? Have you ever seen them before? Can you describe them? And this is the description he gives. Two white men, one black man wearing an army jacket,

and a young woman with a floppy hat, white boots, and a short skirt carrying a lighted candle and chanting, acid is groovy, kill the pigs. Have you ever heard of a witness giving that detail of description in the midst of fighting with four people and then discovering his wife and two little girls were murdered? And I'm assuming there's no lights on in the house when this attack occurs. I would assume, right. I think what strikes me is

two white guys, black guy that has an army jacket on, very, very limited detail, but extreme amount of detail focused in on the woman. What do you think that means? Well, knowing a little bit about this case, I get suspicious about that because there was a woman that would be seen on a routine basis in the area that ended up kind of matching this description. Okay. And it's almost as if

He's seen this woman out in the world, out there on base or outside of base, and knows how to describe her. And then the fact that she fits the description of the acid heads or the hippie look that he's inserting this woman into this crime. And the woman is going to become very important later on for a couple of reasons. So he gives very detailed descriptions and

And the police write all of this down. And then they say, well, how did you get hurt because he's bleeding? He says that the three men attacked him with something like a bat or a club as well as an ice pick until he lost consciousness. So, okay, let's just think about offenders who are carrying around bats and an ice pick.

Put your mind in the head of some 60 radical hippies who are out to send a very political message violently. Are these the weapons you would choose or would you choose something different? You know, that's so hard to say, you know, because this,

They can be effective weapons. You have sort of the force multiplier of multiple offenders present. So in terms of the ability to physically dominate just by sheer numbers is there. You have three men and then, of course, the woman is there.

The choice of weapon, I think, is just going to be more predicated on what was available to the offenders than anything else. You know, most certainly you could be armed with four guns, with four intruders, you know, but then you have the issue of noise when you're firing the guns on a military base, the clubs, the ice pick. What was the extent of his injuries? So he,

says that he was attacked with the bat or the club and an ice pick. He lost consciousness. And when he woke up, his pajamas were mysteriously torn. He had some pretty serious injuries. So the doctors later determined he had a collapsed lung caused by a puncture wound on his chest. And apparently he had been stabbed in between two ribs.

So, that seems serious to me. I mean, was he lucky to survive that kind of an injury? But he's only stabbed once? It sounds like it. So, he's got some nicks on his hand. He's got cuts and bruises and fingernail scratches on his face and his chest, but they are not reporting the nicks that I thought a lot of times come with stabbing someone multiple times because there's so much blood the knife slips, but maybe that's not an absolute rule and it's just a myth I've been perpetuating forever. Right.

Well, when we start talking about stabbing, you know, you have a bladed weapon and the victim is trying to ward off the bladed weapon. You know, this is where, yes, you do get defensive injuries on the forearms, on the hands, on the fingers. And these defensive injuries can be very,

very significant. Imagine the force somebody is using with a knife in order to kill. It's not gentle stabbings. There is a lot of force, and these knives will just slice right through. I mean, fingers will be taken off, massive incisive wounds, a lot of blood is occurring from these defensive injuries. So it really speaks to the level of violence and how aware the victim is of the attack.

And so if I have a victim that has numerous stab wounds, but no defensive injuries whatsoever, now I start questioning, do I have a situation where the offender is so much more dominant than the victim, the victim could not fight back, or the victim was rendered vulnerable?

unconscious or somehow incapable of fighting back. Because anybody, once they recognize that somebody is now coming at them with a knife, they are going to assume a defensive posture. That's just the way we respond to that type of threat.

Well, so with McDonald's cuts and bruises and fingernail scratches on his face and his chest and this particular stab wound, is there a world where someone actually did this to him? Does that match up? He's got some defensive wounds, it sounds like. What I would like to know is the extent of the injuries to the wife and the two little girls. It's extensive and really sad to recount, frankly, but I will.

Experience the glamour and danger of the roaring 20s from the palm of your hand in

In June's Journey, you have the chance to solve a captivating murder mystery and reveal deep-seated family secrets. Use your keen eye and detective skills to guide June Parker through this thrilling hidden object mystery game. June's Journey is a mobile game that follows June Parker, a New York socialite living in London. Play as June Parker and investigate beautifully detailed scenes of the 1920s

while uncovering the mystery of her sister's murder. There are twists, turns, and catchy tunes, all leading you deeper into the thrilling storyline. This is your chance to test your detective skills. And if you play well enough, you could make it to the detective club.

There, you'll chat with other players and compete with or against them. June needs your help, but watch out. You never know which character might be a villain. Shocking family secrets will be revealed, but will you crack this case? Find out as you escape this world and dive into June's world of mystery, murder, and romance. Can you crack the case? Download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android.

Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. That's June's Journey. Download the game for free on iOS and Android.

So the pathologist came back with the report. Colette had been stabbed 16 times in the chest and the neck with a knife, 21 times in the chest with an ice pick, and she was beaten six or more times in the head with a club. Both of her arms, I mean, this still keeps going, both of her arms were broken. And it sounds like those were the defensive wounds.

she was trying to defend herself. I mean, is this not the definition of overkill to you? Well, you have three different weapons being used. Blunt force weapon, a knife, and an ice pick. The fact that her arms are broken from blunt force trauma, and she also has blows to her head,

That suggests that the first weapon used on her was the blunt force object, this club, because she is assuming a defensive posture. She's being attacked and she's receiving blows as she's shielding herself from this club.

Now, she's stabbed multiple times with both an ice pick and a knife, yet she has no incisive injuries to her hands, to her forearms, which you would typically see. So at this point, I think she's been rendered unconscious, if not outright killed by the club. And then she has been stabbed by both the ice pick and the knife. What's going on with the two little girls?

So five-year-old Kimberly was, just like her mom, hit in the head multiple times. Five years old. She had been hit with such force that her skull had shattered and there were eight to ten knife wounds in her neck. So this is a five-year-old. I hate retelling these kinds of stories, except I do think it's important. And this was just terrible.

So do you want to take these one by one or do you want to know about the two-year-old? Tell me the two-year-old and then I will summarize. Okay. So we have Kimberly who had trauma to her skull and eight to ten knife wounds in her neck, the five-year-old. The two-year-old, Kristen, had one finger that was cut to the bone. A defensive wound is what pathologists think that she tried to shield herself from the attack. She had more than 30 stab wounds on her back, her chest, and her neck.

with most caused by a knife. 15 were from an ice pick also, is what they said. So there were stab wounds, half from a knife, half from the ice pick. So this is several different kinds of weapons. At this point, I'm weighing the two theories I brought up. The intruder with four attackers versus the husband eliminating his family. And we see the extensive amount of violence that's done to the wife and the two little girls.

The two little girls are not a physical threat at all. No. The biggest threat to the intruders inside this house is who? McDonald, and why isn't he dead? So they just hit him in the head a couple of times and stab him once and then go and inflict this massive amount of trauma on him.

on the lesser threats inside this house. That doesn't pass muster from my assessment on the intruder theory. This is more in line with McDonald, who I believe...

probably kills his wife with the club. Was the two-year-old, did she have any blunt force trauma to her head? It doesn't say that. It says it's all stab wounds. Okay. So she's the one who's putting up the least resistance. Right, and she may be asleep. The five-year-old, you know, he goes in. I believe he takes out Colette first with the club. He goes in, probably kills Kimberly with the club.

and is now staging a scene to make it look like multiple offenders by using multiple weapons. He goes back, and then now he's stabbing each one. And this is where probably the two-year-old girl is being killed. And then he's also using the ice pick. Now he has to make it look like he was actually attacked. This is where it's like, okay, the biggest threat in the house has the least amount of injuries possible.

to him, and he's the one who survives. This is where I immediately am suspicious on McDonald going, okay, yeah, I mean, he's got a stab wound in between the ribs that caused his lung to collapse. That sounds horrific, but it's nowhere near what the rest of the family experienced. So that...

It's contrary to what I would expect to have happened if I have four intruders, three men who are now going in and in this frenzied attack. I think McDonald would have been killed and he would have had as extensive, if not more injuries than his wife and two little girls.

I think you could say if there were one intruder, he could say, listen, I fought like hell and the guy gave up and left. And that's how I end up with these scratches on my hand. I fought hand to hand with this guy. He left. That's how I survived. But with four people, take out the woman, three people, there's just no way that's going to happen. No, you know, and when you look at the scratches that he has, where is he getting those from? You know, if he's not doing them to himself, he's getting those from his wife when he's attacking her.

So this is what's interesting. There are a couple of things I think that are interesting here. Let's put your profiler hat on real quick. So if you are in the head of Jeffrey McDonald and he is trying to essentially set up hippies from the 60s who are high on drugs, acid and out of their minds and wanting to make this political message happen in his house...

He is using all of these different weapons, so he's thinking this through. So is this overkill anger on his part? I want to eliminate my family? Or is this overkill, I am trying to show just how screwed up these hippies really are,

Do you think there's a level of anger that you see? Can you do this to your kids and not be angry? I mean, can you be that cold-hearted? There are plenty of offenders that do it because they want to change their life. It's not out of anger. Their motive is they want to change their life. You know, whether that is because they want to move on to a different relationship. There's financial reasons. From my perspective, the extent of the injuries on Colette and the two little girls, number one, was to ensure that they were killed.

Number two was to replicate what was done in the Manson family murders. And so this is part of the staging. This is why there's multiple weapons being used. Do you think there were a couple of fatal stabs and then the rest was performative on his part? Or do you think this was just unleashed emotion? I'm trying to figure out

there's a motion in these results or if this purely was performative for the police, for the investigators? If I were to, and it really is somewhat of an educated speculation. Right. But, you know, when we start talking about, is there an anger retaliatory type of crime being committed? I would say yes on Colette. Something may have touched him off that night and he attacked her, violently attacked her with the club.

Now, he may have pre-planned it, you know, because maybe he is trying to, you know, change his life circumstances. When you look at the stab wounds, and I'm, you know, looking at, you know, stab wounds and the distribution to the little girl's bodies, both of them,

they are very tightly clustered. You know, it's not like it's all over the body. Like, you know, you have multiple people who can only gain access onto these tiny little bodies in order to stab them. These stab wounds are clustered in, you know, like a three-inch circle in this girl's neck, et cetera. The one girl has a little wider distribution of the stab wounds on her back. But, you know,

This shows that they obviously could not put up any resistance and may not have even been aware that their life was being taken away from them if they were even awake at the time that the violence started on them. So this, in all likelihood, with the little girls, these were elimination homicides. And the number of stab wounds increased.

in part, was to ensure, like the tight cluster of stab wounds to one girl's neck, it's to ensure that she's killed. But then there may be a performative aspect to try to show a level of frenziness to try to support the acid heads coming in.

Yeah, four of them too. Okay, so let's talk about those weapons. The police look around the house and they find the weapons. They collect a knife from the master bedroom and they find a club and an ice pick in the backyard. All of these came from the McDonald house. Now, before you comment on that.

Jeffrey McDonald said that when he came to briefly, long enough to call emergency services, he went into the bedroom and he found Colette. He took the knife out of her. She had a knife stuck in her. He took it out, which is why the police didn't find the knife in her. He tried to resuscitate her. It didn't work. He picked up the phone. He called emergency services.

So the weapons are all there. Everything is there. And the source of the weapons was from inside the house. Right, all of them. Now, intruders, when I've worked homicides or even serial sexual assaults, the offender often will equip themselves with a weapon from inside the victim's own house.

Joe D'Angelo did that. You know, he would go in and grab a knife out of the kitchen drawer before going into the women's bedroom. That seems so risky, Paul. Doesn't it seem risky to you? Why not bring your own weapon? Well, in part, you can go into any house and find something to kill. So these offenders have the confidence that they will be able to find something, whether it be a bludgeoning weapon, whether it be a knife, whether it be

strangulation, you know, cordage, they will be able to find that. It's riskier to the offender to be out prowling in the middle of the night carrying a weapon, you know, because if they are contacted by law enforcement, now they have some explaining to do. So this is where individuals, you know, oftentimes individuals that have criminal experience maybe have been caught, they're on parole.

they can't risk being found with a gun on them or a knife on them. So they rely upon what's going to be present in the victim's house. So the fact that these weapons all came out of the McDonald's house, for me, doesn't differentiate the intruder versus the husband theories.

But it is interesting, you know, in terms of, oh, they're all in the house. And where were these weapons supposedly located prior to the crimes? How much did the intruders have to search for these weapons to find them? That'll be interesting, too, because his theory about these hippies is falling apart really quickly.

The investigators don't believe him. They contact the Criminal Investigation Division of the Army, which is the CID, and they soon charge him with the murder of Colette and Kimberly and Kristen. I know zero about the CID. I put you in charge of that. Did you do any research? Well, you know, I've worked with military investigators and forensics people over the decades and

So I am familiar with how they operate, how they approach cases, as well as their training and experience. And the unfortunate aspect with relying upon for a case like this, relying upon CID and whatever forensics personnel who responded out to the case,

This is well above their experience and expertise levels. You think about where these investigators and crime scene personnel come from out of the military. Well, there are people that went into the military and then they specialized. How many cases are occurring like this on military basis? Yeah. Very, very few cases.

And so this may, again, I'm just, I'm guessing, but it's an educated guess. This may have been the very first multiple homicide case any of these investigators or CSI personnel ever worked at that point in time.

The individuals that I've known in the military have always been well-intentioned and, you know, they really try hard. They just don't have the same level of experience or expertise that homicide investigators or CSIs in your busier cities and civilian population have.

And this is where the military needs to do a better job. When they get a case like this, they need to pull in the experts. And the experts are not other military people, nor are the experts the FBI in a case like this. You need to pull in from your local law enforcement if you have a reasonably sized city with experienced people nearby.

They should be the ones that are coming in and minimally at least advising and watching and making sure things are being done right from both the documentation and evidence collection as well as the early investigative steps. But that is what rarely happens on military installations.

So all that you're saying seems to turn out to be true with this case. The investigation itself has a huge amount of physical evidence, which is wonderful for them. The problem is that they missed some things and some things have become corrupted and it's a big problem for the military's case against Jeffrey McDonald. So let's talk about the bits of evidence. There's a little bit of blood on Jeffrey McDonald's glasses, just a tiny fleck of blood.

And at this point, they don't know who it belongs to. He has left a footprint, and we could tell just from his shoe size, or somebody has, in Colette's blood. But he could explain that away by saying, you know, when I was walking around, this is just what happens. Yeah.

I'm assuming they could match the footprint to his. How reliable is that going to be, a footprint to his footprint? What do you think? Does it come back to the sample like we always say? It really does. It comes back to the quality of the evidence. If you have a bloody footprint, let's say on a good surface,

where you don't see a lot of distortion, you might be able to say, well, this footprint is within the size range of the suspect or of Jeffrey McDonald in this case. It is possible that in that bloody footprint, there's ridge detail. The bottoms of your feet and your toes are

have the same types of ridge detail that your hands do. And they can be used to do a comparison. So if I have somebody who's left a bloody footprint at the scene where I have ridge detail, then I'm going to be getting inked

footprints from the suspects and having a latent print examiner or fingerprint examiner do a comparison to say, hey, can we eliminate or is it somebody, is this person's ridge detail matching up with the evidence? So it really depends on what they have.

I've seen cases in which they're trying to do a comparison of bloody footprints or shoe prints on carpeting. And it's like, no, no. Now, this is just an odd question, but does your footprint somehow correlate to your handprint? Like, could they match you, Paul Holes, your handprint with your footprint? Is there- No, no. Okay, so everything's unique. But would your left match with your right foot?

No. You know, and we had a previous episode when I talked about the extreme variability of ridge detail in fingerprints. The same thing is with footprints. It's just that we rarely get ridge detail in footprints at a crime scene, and we don't have databases of footprints, you know, for law enforcement because that's such a rare form of evidence. But it is just as varied from person to person. But

It falls under the same issues when it comes to, well, how strong can an expert state? How unique is that footprint? Does it identify the person or can you put a statistic on it? It's very rare, but just like DNA, it's very rare, but they use statistics. And that's where some of the criticisms with the fingerprint science has been over the years now.

So speaking of fingerprints, we're going to talk about fingerprints in a second. More evidence they collected was a tiny bit of a surgical glove that was found underneath the headboard where Pig was written in Colette's blood. A little bit of a surgical glove. Of course, we know he's a surgeon. And there is a supply of gloves found underneath.

In the kitchen. Okay. And they theorize that Jeffrey McDonald, after the murders are done, he puts on these gloves so that he can, of course, avoid having any sort of fingerprint in the pig. I wonder if he actually, would it make sense for him to use those gloves during the murders? And that's why they're not reporting that he's got lots of little nicks from the knives or the ice pick?

Well, it's possible. And the fact that you only have a fragment of the glove tends to indicate that that glove was subjected to some force. Yeah. You know, versus, you know, after everybody's killed in the house and now he's putting gloves on in order to write the word pig, you know, unless in haste he, you know, rips the gloves off and they do, they can tear depending on what kind of surgical glove it is. If it's just your simple latex glove, yeah, they can very easily tear. But that can be a very critical item of evidence

evidence because it's possible that the wearer of that fragment was

has left the DNA on one surface of that fragment. And in this day and age, we could potentially go after that DNA and see, you know, is it just Jeffrey McDonald's DNA or do we have foreign DNA on that fragment of the glove? So the latex, so a latex glove would be a good, I don't know if you'd call it conductor, what would you call it for DNA? It would have sticky DNA on it? Is that wrong? That's probably wrong. Okay.

This is why I do this show, folks. Gloves are an amazing form of evidence if they've been left behind. You know, you think about an offender wearing a glove, whether it be latex or leather gloves, you know, their hands are inside those gloves.

So in this day and age, the sensitivity of the DNA process can pick up the wearer's DNA on the glove. In addition, when you're wearing gloves, if you're nervous going to be committing a crime like this, you might be sweating, you're wiping your forehead with that gloved hand. So now you're transferring DNA to the outside surface of the glove.

I've even got a case in which the woman, the victim, bit the down on the glove that the man had on when he was strangling her and she left her bite mark on the glove and her DNA. So gloves, you know, on one hand you go, oh, they may not have left any fingerprint evidence in the scene because they thought ahead to wear gloves. But there's so much evidence if you have a glove or part of a glove in this case left behind that could be critical to helping solve the case.

But in 1970, I don't think it was particularly helpful. Do you remember we're in 1970, Paul? I think it was useless for them. They could only say that somebody wore those gloves during what they think happened during the crime. Well, sure. You know, they were so limited with the type of testing. You know, they may have been able to determine if there was blood on the glove. Right.

But no, they would have been limited, very limited. They would not have been able to try to identify a source, you know, like even with ABO testing, you're not going to get ABO results from such a small amount of material on the outside of this glove or inside of the glove.

But this is something where it's a homicide. Quite frankly, this is a quadruple homicide because Colette was pregnant. And this is that type of evidence that if this was an unsolved case that should have been preserved to this day, and it would be that fragment of glove would be something, one of the things that I would really be focusing in on to do DNA testing.

So let's talk about blood because blood is, this is one of the most interesting parts to me. So listen to this. There's an unequal distribution of blood throughout this crime scene. And what makes this so unique is, you know, there's no DNA analysis. So they can't say definitively, this is Jeffrey's blood. This is Colette's blood. This is Kristen's blood. And they aren't able to pull that apart in 1970 in almost all cases, four people in the same house.

somebody is going to have the same blood type because they can do blood typing. But here's the trick with this case. All four of them had different blood types. So they knew exactly where everyone was because everyone had a different blood type in that house if there are only four people at this crime scene.

Now, when you say different blood types, are you saying just ABO system? Yes. So they were all distinct and they were able to point exactly where the blood was at each. Okay. They knew where Jeffrey was. And they had not really been able to do that with other cases because statistically sounds like that's an anomaly. Well, that would be an anomaly. Right now, I'm spinning through my head the inheritance aspects of the ABO system and

and tried to determine. Because this, right now, the assumption is that Jeffrey McDonald is the father of the two girls. Yeah, oh God, Paul, don't go down this. I know, it makes sense. You're right. No, I hadn't even thought about that, of course. Or that she's the mom, or maybe she's the mom. I mean, who knows? So this was beneficial. The four distinct blood types was beneficial because here's the scene. So I'll just explain where the blood is everywhere.

And then you could tell me, you know, and let's just assume all things being equal that Jeffrey McDonald is the father of the two little girls, Kristen and Kimberly, and Coletta's the mother. And so we've got four different types of blood out there. Jeffrey McDonald says that these four hippies attacked him in the living room. There's

very little, if any, blood in the living room at all. There is his blood in the cabinet, near the cabinet where the surgical gloves are being stored and in the hallway bathroom next to the sink. Okay, now what does that mean for the gloves? If he's bleeding, okay, now I'm excited. So if he's bleeding, why is he going and getting gloves on? Well, he's a surgeon. So one possibility is he's recognizing that he has a stab wound

in which has penetrated into his thoracic cavity. And, you know, part of first aid when you have a sucking wound where, you know, you need to prevent your lung from collapsing is to put an occlusive like plastic material over. And maybe his first thought was, oh God, you know, my lung is collapsing. Now I need to put the glove over it. So there's an innocent explanation under the circumstances. But at the same time, we've also got the word pig here.

written apparently by gloved fingers. And then there's a fragment of the same type of glove found in that proximity of that. And then so you go, maybe this is when this bleeding is showing, you know, his after violence is now staging of the crime scene and recognizing, well, I'm not going to write, you know, the word pig using,

bare fingers, you know, because I'll have blood transferred onto me and then I might leave bloody prints. I need to put gloves on. So you can see where there's two explanations and each explanation kind of points in a different direction.

So I'm going to end this part one of this episode with the distribution of blood. Distribution of blood in this case is all of the blood is in the two bedrooms. There is a ton of Colette's blood in the master bedroom, but her blood is also in Kristen's bed. And one of the girls has brain matter at the entrance of her parents' bedroom.

So, how would all of this happen? There's no blood anywhere else with the exception of Jeffrey McDonald's blood, you know, in the two places we discussed. Everything is in the bedrooms. Wouldn't four hippies be tracking blood everywhere after such a violent scene? Well, you know, part of understanding how a crime scene changes in the very early stages after violence is

yes, you would think if there is a ton of blood that is on the floor and you've got four people who are now frantically running from room to room that there would be a lot of blood being tracked around. But,

But many people don't take into account that a lot of the blood, like I'm looking at crime scene photos around Cassette, a lot of the blood that's on the floor is what came out of her as she laid there over time. It wasn't necessarily there at the time the offender or offenders are walking around her body.

So this is part of just having the experience and thinking about, okay, what was present when the offenders were there? And then how has the crime scene changed, not only purposefully by first responders or family members, but also just due to the passage of time? How does that change? And I've been at crime scenes where I'm looking at a body laying in the middle of the street. I'm watching.

the blood pool form and I'm watching the blood flow start to go down the street, you know, and then the insects coming in everybody else. So I've seen that type of evolution. So as I'm looking at this,

going, okay, if you have four offenders inside this house, the girls, the two little girls, the blood is isolated pretty much to the bed. I see some blood that has flowed down onto the floor on the older girl's bedroom. But again, that's after a passage of time. The distribution of Colette's

This is where, okay, what is Jeffrey McDonald's statements about his movements after he's gone and touched Colette? He's laying on top of her. Did he go over and check on his daughters? He's possibly transferring Colette's blood just due to him checking on his daughters after he wakes up.

The brain matter is something where, okay, who's, you know, which daughter it was. It must be the five-year-old because she's the one that has the crushed skull injuries. This also is something that could have been deposited during a beating on the offender. Let's say it's McDonald. And because it's a kind of a chunk tissue, as he's walking, it just drops off and it just coincidentally drops off outside the bedroom or he brushes it off.

So there's so many different explanations. I don't think with what I'm seeing and what you're telling me that there is enough blood pattern evidence that really can be used to reconstruct much about this crime. Well, and this is the tease I'm going to leave you with. So much went wrong with this investigation that the army, the CID said, we can't hold him. We can't charge him. He's free to go. Mm-hmm.

So this has been such a good case. And next week, we'll discuss what ends up happening with Jeffrey McDonald. So we'll see you then. All right. Sounds good.

This has been an Exactly Right production. For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com slash buriedbones sources. Our senior producer is Alexis Amorosi. Research by Maren McClashen and Kate Winkler-Dawson. Our mixing engineer is Ryo Baum. Our theme song is by Tom Breifogle. Our art

work is by Vanessa Lilac. Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer. You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at Buried Bones Pod. Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded Age story of murder and the race to decode the criminal mind, is available now. And Paul's best-selling memoir, Unmasked, My Life Solving America's Cold Cases, is also available now.