Original subtitles

Rview, take one.

Soft sticks. Mark.

So, what brings you here today?

(smerling laughs)

all right, I want to start with your story

inside the story, like you do in the book.

Um...

Christmas 1991-- could we start there?

Can you remember that day?

I do remember the day.

♪ ♪

morris: Early that morning,

I suggested to my wife we should just go up

and look at the jeffrey macdonald crime scene together.

Um...

What better way to spend christmas?

♪ ♪

I get interested in stuff

because I get bothered by stuff.

And what's really interesting about the macdonald murder case

is how many, many,

many people have gone back over this.

It's a case that resists definitive explanations.

♪ ♪

wandering in that wilderness of conflicting evidence

and interpretations,

of mistakes, of errors...

Certainly in this case,

the mystery is about what happened

in that house.

I went into it with the hope that I could crack it...

...That I could come to some kind of conclusion.

But you don't know

whether truth is going to be difficult to find

unless you try to find it.

The wife and two young daughters of an army doctor

were found dead in their home in fort bragg, north carolina.

Mike wallace: You may remember the crime, back in 1970...

One of america's most sensational murder cases...

...One of the most bizarre murder cases...

The most complicated murder case in history.

Macdonald says the murderers were three men and a woman,

shouting, "acid is great! Kill all the pigs!"

it's a baffling story, the more you begin to look into it...

Newswoman: Jeffrey macdonald's life became

the subject of a book, a popular miniseries...

...A television movie called fatal vision.

Newsman: The bestseller portrayed macdonald

as a cold-blooded killer.

Newsman 2: Today macdonald was sentenced

to three life terms in prison.

(echoing thud)

man 2: Something really, really bad happened here.

-It was a miscarriage of justice. -Macdonald: Well...

I cannot overcome fatal vision.

Morris: What happens when a narrative

takes the place of reality?

It's almost as if nothing really happened in history

unless it has been recorded in a movie.

Or in a television series.

Newswoman 2: A new book by acclaimed author and filmmaker

errol morris says that the case may be more complicated

-than previously thought. -Macdonald: I did not...

Hurt my wife and my children.

Woman: That evening I was wearing a blonde wig

-and floppy hat. -Man 3: An innocent man

-is in jail today. -Woman 2: The man is guilty

-as can be. -I am innocent.

He's lucky I haven't gone out and killed him.

Macdonald (echoes): I am not that monster.

(phone dialing)

(line ringing)

(phone ringing)

morris: How old were you when this happened?

Mica: That was 1970-- I would have been 23.

I was an mp at fort bragg,

1968 to 1971.

And I was one of the first mps

in the house at 544 castle drive

the night of the macdonald murders.

Mica: February 17, 1970,

was, uh, quiet.

It was drizzly, rainy, cold.

(distorted police radio transmission)

-(siren wailing) -about 3:40 in the morning,

we got a radio call for a disturbance.

When we get to the call,

couple cars are already there.

I run into richard tevere.

We're standing on the steps in front of the entrance

to castle drive, and I believed

that there was a disturbance and possibly a stabbing.

-(siren approaching in distance) -we couldn't...

Gain entry to the house,

so I took my flashlight and I went around the back.

The rear door was ajar.

I pulled out my weapon,

and I put a round in the chamber...

Not knowing if there was somebody still in the house.

I took one step in to the...

What was, I guess, the bedroom.

There was blood on the wall, blood on the ceiling,

blood all over the place.

That's when I saw her, a woman lying on the ground,

covered with blood,

and, uh, a male lying next to her,

who I didn't know at the time was jeffrey macdonald.

At first I thought

it was a homicide-suicide.

Uh, but then he started to move.

I got down next to him

and started giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

He wakes up, and he's saying, "check my kids, check my kids.

I heard my kids."

tevere: From the master bedroom,

we just took a few steps,

looked into the first, smaller bedroom,

and I could see the girl.

She was lifeless.

And then I went into the second bedroom,

and I saw, again,

a very young girl, lifeless.

There was blood dripping down the side of the bed,

and there was a puddle of blood on the floor.

I, uh...

Never in a million years expected to...

Walk in on something like that.

So it was a lot to, really,

process at the time.

Ivory: Within five minutes,

we were at the house.

There was an army ambulance

and a number of mp cars

already there.

In the house, it looked like the living room

had been caught up in some sort of struggle.

There was a man on a gurney being wheeled out.

He was unconscious.

There was a female on the floor of the master bedroom.

There was a blue pajama top laying across her chest.

That was strange.

And then, I noticed, in the headboard

in the master bed,

there was a bloody imprint of the word "pig."

hodges: It's the worst thing,

in my 53 years in law enforcement,

that I've ever walked into.

Uh, it was a gruesome scene to see a, uh,

a mother and two daughters mutilated like they were.

And, uh, it's, uh...

It's a s-- it's a scene that you ain't gonna forget.

Colette macdonald was stabbed

multiple times in the neck and chest.

Both arms were broken.

And she was pregnant.

The older girl had been stabbed.

And had a blunt instrument wound to her head.

And the younger girl had been stabbed numerous times.

Ivory: My partner did a 360

around the house.

He went out and he came back in and he said,

"I think I found the murder weapons."

there was a club, a knife

and an ice pick.

(siren wailing in distance)

hodges: At that point, I went to the hospital

to try to interview macdonald.

When I got there, I was briefed by a doctor.

Gemma: There were some scrapes

on his abdomen and on his chest,

some small puncture wounds which didn't seem

to be very serious at all.

It's not life-threatening.

He was...

In no real acute distress.

Hodges: When I went in, we identified who we were,

and said, "what can you tell us about what happened?"

he said that he and colette had been listening to a record.

He dozed off on the couch, and she had went to bed.

He heard colette hollering,

"jeff, jeff, why are they doing this to me?"

he woke up.

Hippies had broke into the house and attacked him and his family.

He'd seen two white males,

black guy in an army jacket,

and a woman with long blonde hair and a white floppy hat,

wearing boots.

And she was saying,

"acid is groovy, acid is groovy,"

and was holding a candle.

He had tried to fight 'em off.

Somehow, my pajama top,

I don't know if it was ripped forward

or pulled over my head.

-Colette (echoing): Jeff! -Macdonald: All of a sudden, it was in my way.

-I couldn't get my hand free. -Colette: Why are they doing this to me?!

Macdonald: I was grappling with him, and I saw,

you know, a-a blade.

I-I really didn't even defend myself.

It was really too-too fast.

Kimberly (echoing): Daddy! Daddy!

And all this time,

I was hearing screams.

Kimberly (echoing): Daddy! Daddy!

♪ ♪

next thing I remember was lying in the hallway

at the end of the hallway floor.

And I-I went down, um, to the bedroom.

My wife was lying on-on the floor,

next to the bed.

I tried to give her artificial respiration,

but the air was...

Was coming out of her chest.

So, uh...

I went, picked up the phone,

and, uh, I said my name was captain macdonald

and I was at 544 castle drive

and I needed a doctor and an ambulance.

I dropped the phone,

and I went back to check the kids,

check their pulses and stuff and, uh...

(inhales)

I don't know.

It kept hitting me that, really, nothing

had been solved when I called the operator.

So, I went in, you know, into the kitchen,

picked up that phone and a sergeant came on.

He said, "can I help you?"

so I told him that I needed a doctor and an ambulance,

that some people had been stabbed,

and I thought I was going to die.

By this time, I was finding it really hard to breathe,

and, uh, and, um...

The next thing I knew, an mp was giving me

mouth-to-mouth resuscitation

next to, next to my wife.

What a strange, strange, strange story.

A product of the times, the craziness of the times.

Remember how violent and crazy the '60s were.

Nixon: Tonight, in south vietnam, american units

will attack the headquarters for...

Mine eyes have seen...

Dr. Martin luther king has been shot to death.

News anchor: Senator robert francis kennedy died today.

News anchor 2: Guardsmen opened fire on the students, killing...

Morris: It was a time of confusion and anger.

With each escalation, the world comes closer

to the brink of cosmic disaster.

And then, we have the manson murders.

News anchor: In a scene described as reminiscent

of a weird religious rite,

five persons, including actress sharon tate, were found dead.

Miss tate was eight months pregnant.

Not far away, a middle-aged couple was found murdered.

Morris: This was one of the cases of the century. It's everywhere.

News anchor: The word "war" had been carved on his chest.

With blood, the killer had scrawled "death to pigs."

morris: The mansons are arrested in December of 1969,

just months before the macdonald murders occurred,

in February of 1970.

The army has suspects, but no prime suspects

in the bizarre murders of the wife

and two young daughters of an army doctor.

Captain jeffrey macdonald was reported in fair condition.

Tevere: We immediately started looking

for these crazed people running around fayetteville,

emulating what had happened in california.

It put the entire fort bragg and fayetteville area

into a, you know, panic alert.

Everybody was concerned about,

you know, "would they come back into the housing area again?"

you know, "what do I do to protect myself?"

what about my family? What about my kids?"

hodges: When I went home, my wife

had a butcher knife and a police pistol under a pillow.

She figured if it was hippies, I guess,

that they were still running loose out there, you know?

And if they did it one time, they could do it again.

Fort bragg is part of fayetteville.

Fayetteville was called "fayettenam" at that time.

Tevere: It was a melting pot for a lot of different scenarios.

There were hippies, and there were a lot of guys

that came back from vietnam that had drug issues.

Hodges: There was an area called haymount hill

that was really bad for drugs.

We went there and rounded up

a bunch of hippies that halfway matched

the description that macdonald had given.

And none of them denied they were on drugs,

but they all denied

having anything to do with the murders.

Or knowing anybody fitting the descriptions.

Then, her name came up.

Helena stoeckley.

A city police officer named prince beasley

clamed that helena fit this description.

I had seen helena on many occasions,

with these other people that, uh,

dr. Macdonald gave the description of.

Ivory: Prince beasley called my office,

so I made it a point to go down and talk to him.

When I got down there, she was there.

I interviewed her and found no leads at all.

Absolutely no information that would tie her to the case.

It was just-- added more to the confusion.

Ivory: It was...

About halfway through the first day.

At that point, we went back to the house

to take a closer look at the crime scene...

...To find out

what the story was, what actually happened there.

Hodges: It didn't really add up to anybody broke into the house.

What had happened, it happened inside that house.

When you get right down to it, macdonald's the only one

that possibly could've done it.

Announcer: This is cbs news with walter cronkite.

The army has changed green beret doctor jeffrey macdonald

with the murders of his pregnant wife

and their two young daughters

of fort bragg, north carolina last February.

It said the case will be referred...

News anchor: A military article 32 hearing

is scheduled to begin at fort bragg

with special forces captain jeffrey macdonald.

News anchor 2: An article 32 is the military equivalent

of a civilian preliminary hearing.

Malley: I was just getting ready to leave for infantry school

when I saw the story about the murder at fort bragg.

I thought, "you know, he looks familiar."

and then I read it, and I was shocked.

I thought, "this has really...

"got to be wrong.

"I mean, I don't know why it's wrong, or how it's wrong,

"but it's got-- I mean, why would jeff macdonald

do something like this?"

and I kept saying, "I h-- to me, it makes no sense,

because I know the guy."

jeff was my roommate sophomore year,

in, um, I-in college.

We went to princeton,

but jeff left at the end of our junior year

to go to medical school, and I went to law school.

Y-you could think, you know,

"I wonder if jeff's got-- gone crazy.

I wonder if jeff's taking drugs. I wonder..."

y-you know, th-- all those things you can think of,

'cause I haven't s-- I hadn't seen him in a year or--

more than a year.

But none of that made any sense, about the person that I knew.

Then I got a letter from jeff

saying that he is gonna request me to be

part of the defense team.

I told him, "you know, I'm barely out of law school."

he needed to have a trial lawyer.

News anchor: The mother of green beret captain jeffrey macdonald

has hired a lawyer to defend her 26-year-old son.

The lawyer, bernard segal, says he has started

his own investigation of February's slayings.

(excited chatter)

segal: With all my heart, I tell every one of them

that jeffrey macdonald did not kill his family.

Malley: Bernie segal had a reputation as being

one of the upcoming criminal trial lawyers in philadelphia.

Segal: He is innocent of the charges against him.

Morris: So, cliff, why did you sit down to do this interview?

You asked me. You're the only ones who have.

Nobody ever asked me. I was sort of surprised.

Article 32s are normally quiet investigations.

But this case was a big deal.

And so,

when they asked me to be the lead prosecutor,

hot dog that I was, I said, "gee, that'd be wonderful."

♪ ♪

douthat: You've got to realize there was

an anti-army feeling at the time.

♪ ♪

in this case had so much publicity.

It was on the headlines every day.

It had everything-- ivy league school,

doctor, green beret, all-american boy,

pregnant wife, children,

homicide, and the

pressure was on the army to perform.

♪ ♪

beale: This tragic murder happened,

and it was just awful.

But, uh, fortunately, I was in the right place

at the right time and the general offered me

the chance to be the judge.

Of course, when I say "judge," technically I was

the legal advisor to the article 32 officer...

Colonel rock.

This article 32 was the biggest one I've ever seen.

We knew-- we being the defense team--

we're not rolling over here.

Somers: I don't think any of us

at that point had a real grasp

of just how complex this was going to turn out to be.

Rock: This hearing will come to order.

Somers: In order to establish

what was found from the beginning,

you have to call the witnesses

who were on the scene at the beginning.

And that would be mica.

The government calls specialist fourth class mica.

Mica: When they started the article 32,

I testified the 5th of July.

It was my birthday.

Somers: What was the weather like that morning?

Mica: It was raining.

It rained off and on all night long.

Somers: Did you note any unusual

pedestrians or disturbances

in the early morning of the 17th of February

in that castle drive area?

Mica: No, sir.

Somers: According to captain mcdonald's story,

four intruders came into his house.

Did you see any mud or foreign debris

on the floor of the hall, which traversed the living room?

Mica: No, sir.

Somers: I was trying to establish

an amazing lack

of evidence of anyone

having come into that place.

When you glanced into the living room,

dining room, kitchen area, did you notice any

particular disarray in the dining room area?

Mica: Not in the dining room.

Somers: The dining room could not have been

more than six feet at most away from where all

this fighting was taking place.

Yet cards, which were standing up on the table,

are still standing.

Which I find almost impossible

if there had been a fight there.

Mica: In the living room, there was

a coffee table overturned.

Somers: How was it lying, on its top or--?

Mica: On its edge.

Somers: The cid investigators knocked that coffee table

over again and again

and again.

It always fell on its top.

How this table could have been sitting on its side

on top of this stack of magazines

as a result of being

knocked over in a fight

is inconceivable.

I have no further questions.

Malley: The prosecution said, "everybody knows

that the guy who is accused did it anyway,"

and so, they felt they have an authority that nobody else has.

They had no idea, no idea,

what real defense counsel could do.

Segal: At this time,

I want to show you some photographs

that have been supplied to the defense by the government.

Douthat: We got

the witness statements and whatnot from the various mps

and the crime scene photographs,

and they didn't necessarily jive.

Segal: Specialist mica, do you ever recall

seeing the telephone in that particular fashion?

Mica: Yes, sir.

Segal: Do you ever recall the handset being where it appears to be

in this photograph?

Mica: No, sir, not that I remember.

What happened was,

photographer came in, he started taking photos...

...And he got so upset and sick that he couldn't continue.

So you had one set of photographs I-in the beginning,

then you had a time lapse

by the time they brought a second photographer in.

And they had two different sets of photos they were using.

Douthat: To me, the first thing you do is secure

the crime scene, and that was not done.

Segal: What is different in this photograph

than as what you recall seeing?

Mica: Well, it shows this red thing here.

I thought it was more or less down the steps

in front of the stairs.

Malley: Bernie's view was, "you know,

"once you start pulling those little threads out,

the garment might fall apart," and it turned out, it did.

Segal: What is different about that white flower pot

in the photograph than as what you recall seeing?

In this photograph, it is standing

on what appears to be its base.

I remember it as being on its side.

Beale: There was a flower pot

that got stood up.

They had moved the clothing.

Somebody put the phone

back on the hook.

It really started to raise questions

in your mind of, "gee whiz, what were they doing?

Who was moving all this stuff?"

segal: I would like, if you could assist us, specialist mica,

to help us determine

how many people were in the macdonald house

at the time the medics came and removed captain macdonald.

Mica: There were just too many people in there.

At one point, somebody said,

"how long is it gonna be before they, you know,

remove the bodies," they said, "oh, it's gonna be hours,"

and this guy's like, "ugh."

he walked across, sat on the couch.

I said, "get off the couch."

segal: That white flower pot,

how had it gotten from its position

lying on its side to standing on its base?

Mica: I believe it was that man who sat on the couch

I believe he sat it upright.

Segal: I have nothing further of this witness, sir, at this time.

Douthat: Once we started to cut

the feet out from under them, we began to feel pretty good.

Bernie decided,

"let's go back to the table going over.

That was a big deal for them."

and if you look at the photographs,

there was a rocking chair in front of the table.

And we figured, "wait a minute, what happened was,

"is the-the coffee table hit the chair, spun the chair around,

"it stopped the momentum, the magazines fell

and the coffee table landed on top of 'em."

we asked colonel rock to try and settle it.

Beale: Colonel rock and I went over

to the quarters where the murders took place.

He wanted to try this little experiment with this table.

How'd it land-land on its side?

He kind of laughed and said, "so much for that theory."

(indistinct chatter)

segal: The crime scene handling by the, uh, army cid

is a primary example of a crime scene investigation gone mad.

27 different people marched through the crime scene,

destroying a great deal of what was potential evidence there,

without a doubt.

Morris: The deaths were horrible.

And we're talking about his wife, his children.

We're talking about two little girls.

Kimberley and kristen, five and two.

If jeffrey indeed was responsible

for these murders...

...What was the motivation?

Why did he do it?

Rock: Does counsel for the accused

have any further witnesses at this time?

Segal: Yes, sir. Mr. Kassab, please.

Would you state what relationship you are

to captain jeffrey macdonald?

I am his father-in-law.

Douthat: Did you ever hear jeff macdonald

raise his voice to your daughter in anger?

Freddy: No. Never at any time.

They were the happiest I'd ever seen them.

Malley: We interviewed a lot of his friends, his family,

his-his former patients, to show what kind of a guy he was.

Everybody liked jeff,

including freddy kassab.

Segal: Can you describe his attitude and conduct

towards his children?

Freddy: Every time you'd turn around,

he had one of the girls playing with him.

Man: Do you and mildred miss colette?

Oh, god, yes.

And the children.

Man: Life hasn't been quite the same?

Freddy: It's never been the same since that day.

Stevenson: I remember standing there, waiting,

and then seeing...

...Beside my sister's coffin,

two little coffins about this big

being put into the ground.

It broke me. It broke me.

-Morris: When we spoke the first time... -Yes.

Morris: ...You seemed at wit's end

with this constant retelling of this story.

Every year, somebody wants to throw a rope around my legs

and drag me through the family pool of blood again,

and I have to go through all of it and learning too many things,

uh-- remembering things I don't want to remember anymore,

and I'm not gonna do it anymore.

That was... That was it.

But I've come to understand that it's not going to go away.

I'll tell my story.

I'll tell what I can.

♪ ♪

my mother wanted a girl desperately.

She had had stillborn children.

Each one was named colette.

I remember one of my mother's catholic friends saying,

"how will god ever know which colette is which?"

tried to deter her.

"don't do another colette."

but yet, my sister was colette three.

My mother dressed her to a fault.

She was the most picturesque thing

you ever saw in your life.

Smerling: When did you meet colette?

Kindergarten.

You know, you walk in the first day,

and, you know, you look to find somebody.

Right from the beginning, we were kind of buddies.

She was funny, she was lighthearted.

She was my best friend.

But as close as I was to her...

...She camouflaged a lot of things.

The only thing she shared is when her father died,

how sad, how devastated she was.

We were really much closer

than most mothers and daughters,

because as a little child, she lost her father,

and I meant...

More to her because of that.

And then, when I married freddy,

she just loved him as a father.

Man: How old was colette when you first met her?

Freddy: When I first met colette,

she was approximately 13 years of age.

I was courting her mother.

Um, it was quite a while back now.

Stevenson: Colette loved freddy.

She loved him very, very much.

Man: You have also

known jeff macdonald for a long, long time.

When did you first meet macdonald?

I first met macdonald

probably within a month or two after I met colette.

They were in junior high school together,

and he would come over to the house.

Mildred: He and colette dated through high school.

We thought he was a... An especially nice boy.

Very nice.

Reich: Jeff was a football star.

He had charisma.

Everybody liked him.

He was outgoing.

Uh, he was friendly.

He was just everything.

Smerling: How quickly did jeffrey and colette get married?

Reich: She was 20.

I came back from school, and

she called to say she was getting married.

And, you know, I was a little surprised,

but then I realized she told me

why they were getting married, so...

Smerling: And why was that?

She was pregnant.

Man: I take it you and mildred were pleased

when they decided to get married?

Freddy: Oh, yes.

He was a nice, presentable young man,

good potential for the future,

so therefore we saw nothing wrong

with them getting married.

Freddy: May I add one thing?

Segal: Yes, you may.

Freddy: If I had another daughter,

I'd still want the same son-in-law.

(crowd chatter)

my daughter and two grandchildren...

(clears throat) excuse me.

...Suffered in excess of 80 stab wounds.

What they want the public to believe is

that a sane man--

and they charged premeditation, mind you--

sat down and planned

to perform such an act.

I don't believe anybody in this country would believe that.

That a sane man would do this.

Somers: You can't explain this

horrendous event logically,

because if indeed macdonald did it,

he was in no frame of mind to be logical.

I believe

if the story fits the physical evidence,

then you probably have a good story.

If it doesn't fit the physical evidence,

then it's a loser.

Jeff's never fit that evidence.

(doors open)

attorney: The government calls

specialist fourth class craig chamberlain.

Somers: There is only one story

that fit that evidence.

Chamberlain: I was called in

to the head of the lab and said,

"there's a murder case at fort bragg.

We need you to go there as a member of a team."

probably the most important evidence was that

each member of the group of four

in that family had a different blood type.

Somers: Jeff had b blood,

colette had a blood,

kimberley had ab blood,

and kristen had o blood.

So you could trace

where everybody's blood was in that unit.

Chamberlain: Macdonald had said

he was assaulted in the living room.

Smerling: Do you remember where blood was found in the living room?

It just wasn't there.

But there was a massive amount of blood

in the master bedroom where colette's body was found.

Somers: Our theory was that an argument ensued

in the master bedroom with colette.

That argument

begins to escalate.

At some point, macdonald picks up this stick,

and he starts beating her.

Kimberly (echoing): Daddy! Daddy!

We believe, while this is going on,

kimberley, his older daughter, gets out of bed.

He has the stick in his hand.

He swings it around,

and it hits her...

Right across the side of the head,

crushes her skull.

I mean, knocked it in a couple of inches.

At this point, he is a physician.

He knows she is either going to die,

or she is going to have serious, serious consequences

of that wound.

I believe he takes kimberley

back to her bedroom.

Attorney: Specialist chamberlain,

I see that you have drawn two oblongs on this picture,

and they seem to be labeled "ab."

would you tell us what that means?

Chamberlain: That means I determined

there was ab blood within these areas.

Somers: That's kimberley's blood

in the entrance to the master bedroom.

Smerling: Kristy's bed--

do you remember how much blood was there?

Chamberlain: There was a lot of blood on the bed clothing.

The sheets that had colette's type a blood indicated on it.

It was like, "why is colette's blood in the kids' room?"

somers: At some point,

colette goes into kristen's room

as though she were attempting

to protect her youngest child,

and jeff hits her in the head.

She falls, and she bleeds

all over the top part of the bed.

Jeff's got to figure out, what does he do now?

(camera shutter clicks)

under the table in the living room,

an esquire magazine was found.

Chamberlain: There was type ab

blood on the edge of the, uh, magazine.

Somers: How did ab blood get into the magazine?

It's kimberley's blood. She sure didn't put it there.

In that magazine was an article about the manson killings,

including the word "pig" written in blood.

The theory was that

jeff consulted the esquire magazine,

and he says, "I got it.

"a bunch of hippies came in.

But wait a minute."

he can't tell them

that some hippies came in and just beat up two of them.

He goes back into kristen's room,

and using a knife,

he stabs her.

(blood dripping)

we know she was awake, because kristen

had wounds to her hands.

Then he stabs his wife repeatedly with

the ice pick.

And then he staged "pig" on the headboard.

Chamberlain: Written on, uh, the headboard

was "p-I-g."

no fingerprints involved in that.

Somers: We found fragments

of surgical gloves in the bedroom.

No.

We found b blood in the kitchen

on the floor.

We look in the cabinet under the kitchen sink.

There was a whole package of surgical gloves.

That has to be macdonald.

Unless there's somebody else in there bleeding,

and his story doesn't have

any of them bleeding.

Captain macdonald had a laceration

between his ribs that resulted

in a collapsed lung.

Chamberlain: In the bathroom,

there was blood drippings around the sink.

It was type b blood,

which was jeffrey macdonald's blood type.

Somers: I think he inflicted that wound

on himself very carefully.

And that is essentially the way

in which jeffrey macdonald became a murderer.

-(siren wailing) -(indistinct radio chatter)

when we first started getting interviewed

before the article 32, I bring the girl up,

and they're like, "what girl?" I said, "the girl I saw."

(laughs softly)

I got to say, I thought...

...Excuse my language-- bullshit.

Bullshit.

Mica, at that point,

sounded like he wanted to be an investigative hero.

Mica: I knew what I saw.

I figured,

it's gonna come up sooner or later.

So I went to the defense and I told 'em.

Bernie segal says, "I'm gonna put you back on the stand."

segal: Specialist mica,

you're the same witness who was previously called

and testified in these proceedings?

Yes, sir.

Segal: Does that drawing resemble

any person that you believe to have seen?

Mica: It could, sir.

Segal: Who do you believe it could represent?

Mica: Possibly the girl I saw on the corner that night.

(reporters clamoring)

segal: A woman who had been uncovered by myself was in fact a person

whom the civilian authorities should investigate

for complicity in the murders of dr. Macdonald's family

and assaulting him.

Douthat: It was on the headlines that day.

And people were sending us letters

and-and calling us on the phone.

And some of them were crazy and some of them were right

on the money and-and were trying to be as helpful as they could.

And we came upon a guy named posey.

Segal: The defense calls william edward posey.

Douthat: He said that he had this neighbor

that was strange, to say the least.

And then, on the night that the murders took place,

he saw her come in in the middle of the night

in a mustang car.

He was getting out of the car and going to the house.

Segal: Would you describe

what her normal wearing apparel was?

Posey: Well, she had a big old white floppy hat

that she wore.

And she had a pair of white boots that she wore a lot.

Douthat: She fit the description of the person

that jeffrey macdonald described and mica described.

Her name was helena stoeckley.

All the stuff hanging out there about stoeckley...

...Everything pointed to her.

What in the world would somebody be out there

dressed just like the hippie that macdonald described,

that had just attacked him?

That-that really did raise some interesting questions.

♪ ♪

smerling: Now you're waiting for colonel rock

-to make his decision. -Douthat: Mm-hmm.

Smerling: How long did that take?

(exhales)

a month, six weeks? Uh, it took a while.

We kind of heard it was coming down, and every now and then,

we'd get a whiff of what was gonna happen,

but we didn't know.

Colonel rock had been given a job

that was the headlines of every paper,

and he was gonna get it right.

Smerling: Can you read it for me?

Yeah. Yeah, well, sure, I can read it.

Um...

"high security report

"on the meeting between colonel rock

general flanagan and captain beale."

I remember flanagan was

the commanding general of special forces,

and colonel rock, his job was to make a recommendation

as to whether this case ought to go forward

with an actual trial.

Must have been an exchange between them.

"rock offered the statement that 'I searched high and low

"'for points that show jeff did it,

but they ain't there.'"

"flanagan said,

"'but what about the grass and mud?'

rock said, '14 mps hadn't carried any in, either.'"

"flanagan said, 'but what about the coffee table?'

rock recounted the entire sequence of events."

"flanagan asked if there was any evidence for anyone else

being in the house."

"rock covered all the points, and also posey."

"'is there anything else the government can do now

"to solidify the case?'

rock said, 'no, you shot your wad.'"

(laughs softly)

"rock then said,

"'the army had already spent large sums,

"'and to spend any more money

would make the army look like fools.'"

yeah.

Yeah.

No, I don't. But that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Malley: This case was a big deal.

And I think the army thought,

"we got to wrap this up quickly.

"um, it's-- it-- you know,

"cbs evening news knows about it,

and that's not what we want."

cronkite: The army today

cleared captain jeffrey macdonald,

a green beret physician, of charges that he murdered

his wife and two young daughters nine months ago

in their fort bragg, north carolina apartment.

The army said that five weeks of closed-door hearings had not

produced sufficient evidence to support the charges.

We have all of these myths about our system.

How it works,

the importance of a level playing field.

Fairness, equality before the law.

Here you have a tangled mess

of people all trying to figure out

what's real

and what's make believe.

What really happened versus what we think really happened.

Why the fascination with criminal trials?

Because it's an attempt to grab ahold of the world,

to figure out what's really out there, to find truth,

to find something that you can grab ahold of and shake.

After hearing the decision, captain macdonald said

he wanted to get out of the army, start a new life.

Macdonald (over tv): I have said, in the future, that more investigation

will be done into certain suspects

that were brought out by us in the hearing.

Reporter: Do you plan to do any investigating of your own?

Uh, no comment.

Helena: Dear kathy,

today on the news, I heard that they had definitely dropped

the charges against macdonald.

Remember how I didn't have an alibi

for the night of the murder?

Believe me,

I am in deep, deep trouble.

Love and peace. Helena.

Captioned by media access group at wgbh access.Wgbh.Org