Fatal Vision

by Joe McGinniss

  "And did she know where she threw them away?"

  "Yes, she threw—she indicated that the heel was worn or broken and she discarded them in a trash can."

  "Now, did you ask Miss Stoeckley whether she would be willing to come here to this inquiry and tell us what she knows about her whereabouts on February 17, 1970?"

  "Yes, I did."

  "And what, if anything, did she say?"

  "She said no, she would not come."

  "Did you ask her why she could not come?"

  "She indicated that she didn't want to become involved."

  Because it was classified as an investigative proceeding, the preliminary hearing—unlike a court-martial—did not confer the power to subpoena unwilling witnesses.

  "Did she give you the name of the other young ladies with whom she lived in the building next door to Mr. Posey?" Segal asked.

  "No, she did not. She said she did not remember the girls' names."

  "Did you ask Miss Stoeckley anything about who her male associates were?" Segal continued. "Yes, I did."

  "Were the answers as vague as all the other answers? First names?"

  "First names, yes, sir."

  "Did she tell you what is the last thing she can remember doing prior to 4 A.M. on February 17th?"

  "Yes, leaving the house she was living in, alone, and driving in the car. Just driving aimlessly, she said."

  "Did she have any idea about what time it was she left the house?"

  ‘ ‘ Sometime—midnight or after.''

  "Did she indicate how she fixed the time when she left the house?"

  "No, just knew in her mind that it was midnight or after." "You mean she knew in her mind, or that's all she chose to tell?"

  "Well, that's what she told me."

  "Did you ask her for a description of the owner of the car she was driving?" "Yes, I did."

  "And what, if anything, did she tell you in that regard?"

  "He was a white male, former enlisted man in the Army, and she couldn't go into more specific details. I asked her to describe the man to me as best she could and she said he was twenty or under and a white male, dark hair."

  "But did you ask her for any specific points of identification?"

  "Yes, she could just give me a general description."

  "When you say, ‘she could just give' you—you mean she could, or that's all she chose to give you?"

  "I couldn't read her mind. That's what she gave me."

  ‘'How about her demeanor?" Segal asked. ‘'Did she strike you as being frank, candid, and open?"

  "Yes, she struck me as being frank."

  "Candid and open, is that right?" Segal asked, his voice rising.

  "Right."

  ‘ ‘ And you thought a person who did not know the names of the persons she lived with was being frank, candid, and open?" "Yes."

  ‘ ‘ And you thought that her inability to tell you the last name of the owner of the automobile she used for the evening was also frank, candid, and open?"

  "Yes."

  "And you thought that her telling you that she could not remember where she was for approximately four hours because she was smoking marijuana, is a frank, candid, and open answer?"

  "That's the answer she gave me, and I couldn't get anything else. I could only take it at face value."

  "Well, the face value of that statement is a lie, since you know that marijuana doesn't have that effect on persons."

  "I've never tried it. I do not know."

  "I didn't suggest that. I said, based upon your experience as an investigator, you still felt that she was being frank, candid, and open when she told you she couldn't remember her whereabouts when she was smoking marijuana."

  "What else could I say?"

  "You could say she was a liar and ask her to be more specific about what she was doing and where she was." "I possibly could have." "But you did not, sir?" "No, I did not."

  "Did you make any attempt to find the car she talked about?"

  "She said the man's now out of the Army and left the area."

  Segal paused and stared at the witness. "You know, Mr. Ivory," he said, "I really find it very difficult to accept the idea that you just listened to this lady's statements point-blank and said, 'Well, that's it,' and wrote her off as a suspect in this case. It just defies all sensibility to think that this is the way investigations are handled. That it is just standard to take a series of very vague explanations and say, 'Oh, well, that's the end of it. We won't be able to check this person out in a triple murder case.'

  "In my career I have been involved in over five hundred murder cases. I've represented seven thousand defendants in thirteen years and I have never heard of a true suspect being handled this way. Did you go back to the address next to Mr. Posey's house to make any inquiries?"

  "I have never been there myself."

  "Has anybody made any inquiries as to who are the persons who are on the lease in the apartment in which this girl lived?" "I'm sure they have, sir." "Well, now, why are you sure it has been done?" "It seems like a rather elementary thing to do." "I agree, but what I ask you is—" "I don't know from my own personal knowledge." "You don't know, then, whether anybody has attempted to

  find out who is on the lease for the apartment in which this girl used to live?"

  "Of my own personal knowledge, no sir."

  "Now did you talk to any of the other residents of that building or in the immediately adjoining buildings to see if someone might know something about her whereabouts or her activities?"

  "I conducted no background investigation in that area."

  "I don't mean a background investigation. What I am saying is, what did you do to cross-check her story by checking with neighbors or people who lived in that building or the adjoining building?"

  "I have done nothing."

  "Is there any reason why not?"

  "Well, time. Some other things."

  "Has anybody checked the electric bill, gas bill, and telephone bill for the particular apartment in which this lady lived?"

  "Of my own personal knowledge, I do not know."

  "A telephone bill might reveal long-distance or toll calls which would be of some interest in regard to who the person is calling, would it not?"

  "Correct."

  "To your knowledge, that has not been done." "That's correct."

  "Mr. Ivory, you really can't say to us that Miss Stoeckley was being frank, open, and candid. She was following her rules, which are not to tell outsiders who her friends and associates are."

  "She said to me she only knew them by their first names."

  "Of course the telephone company, gas company, and electric company and landlords don't generally function on the basis of just first names, do they?"

  "That's correct."

  "That avenue of investigation might produce last names, might it not?"

  "That's correct."

  "Is it fair to say that on the basis of what has been done up to now it could not be considered that the investigation of Miss Stoeckley's whereabouts on February 17 is complete?"

  "It is not complete."

  "Did you talk to her about her interest in witchcraft?"

  "The subject came up, yes."

  "Well, what was she asked to explain or to tell?"

  "Well, when was she explaining the type of dress that she wore—sometimes black, sometimes purple—she said, 'Yes, I dress like that because I—the people there consider me a benevolent witch.1 "

  "Did you ask her what she meant by that?"

  "Yes, she said a good witch as opposed to the witching practices of black magic. I asked her if she was serious about this and she said, 'No, I'm really not a witch. It's just what people say.' "

  "That's just what people say about her?"

  "Yes."

  "And she modestly declined to determine whether she was a witch or not?" "Yes."

  "Does that strike you as a rather unusual conversation you were having with her?"
"No."

  "It was not?" "No."

  "Normal kind of freaky conversation you have with hippies, right?"

  "That's right."

  "Hippies are particularly trustworthy, truthful people?" "Some are. Some are not very."

  "Did you ask Miss Stoeckley why she sat on her front porch the day of the MacDonald family funerals wearing black clothes and with a wreath on her front porch?"

  "There was no mention made of a wreath. She said she was dressed in black simply because she sometimes dressed in black. She attached no significance or no relationship between the two."

  "Well, how did she happen to remember that she was wearing black on the day of the MacDonald family funerals?"

  "I believe she said she read a newspaper article about it, or she heard it on TV or radio."

  "Mr. Ivory, did you ask Miss Stoeckley whether she was in the MacDonald house on February 17th, 1970?"

  "Yes, I did."

  "And what did she say?"

  "She said no."

  "Did you ask her how she knew she wasn't there if she could not account for her whereabouts between midnight and 4 A.M.?"

  "She said she does not know where the house was, she does not know Captain MacDonald, she knew nothing about it, and she's sure if she had been there she would have known it."

  "Could she explain to you why she was sure that she would remember being there since she couldn't remember where she was at all?"

  "I imagine she-thought if she was involved in what happened there she would most assuredly remember it."

  "She felt that she would remember? Is that right?"

  "That's what I said."

  "That's what she said."

  "That's what I said she said."

  "Where does she live today?"

  "I have no idea where she is right now."

  Toward the end of the Article 32 inquiry, at Colonel Rock's request, Jeffrey MacDonald was examined by a panel of military psychiatrists at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C.

  The chief of the panel then testified at the hearing. He said that while he did not believe it to be within the proper realm of the psychiatric expert to try to assess whether a particular individual was capable of committing a specific act of violence, he had found no evidence in Jeffrey MacDonald of "mental disease, defect or derangement," and he did not have the impression that MacDonald had "fabricated or contrived" his account of the murders, leaving the distinct impression that he considered it most unlikely that MacDonald had committed the crimes. The psychiatrist added that he had found the defendant to be a "warm, engaging, personable young man."

  MacDonald himself testified for three days. There were several new details in the story he told, and some slight variations from what he had said on April 6.

  He now recalled, for example, that on the afternoon of Monday, February 16, he had spoken to the coach of the Fort Bragg boxing team concerning a trip to Russia that the squad would soon be taking. MacDonald had been working out with the team, he said, and had been asked to serve as team physician. It was possible that upon Colette's return from her class on Monday night he had mentioned to her the possibility that he would accompany the team on the trip.

  He also said he now remembered that the course she had been taking was not "something literature" as he had said on April 6, but child psychology, and that during that Monday night class she might have mentioned to her instructor the problem they were having with Kristen's bed-wetting and the child's recent tendency to want to sleep in her parents' bed.

  "This kind of thing occurred, oh, once a week," MacDonald testified. "Several times a week she would come into bed with us, but she would only wet the bed about once a week, once every two weeks.

  "We were relaxed about it. One of us would get up and leave the bed, or else we'd put Kristy back. Occasionally, we'd wind up playing musical beds. I would move first, and then Kristy would go back to her own bed and I'd go back to my bed. Something along that line. Not the same thing happened every night.

  "My wife and I had slightly different feelings about how to handle it. She said she didn't mind getting up and putting Kristy back in her own bed, or giving her an extra bottle. I suggested that we do the same thing we had done with Kimmy—she went through that phase for a matter of weeks and we put her back in bed and she cried for about three hours one night but she stayed in her bed and that ended the problem.

  "Colette said it wasn't worth the effort. She said she would bring it up in her child psychology class and see what—you know, your own family would never believe your word as a physician—she said she would bring it up with her professor at the university.

  "I didn't object to that because I knew he was going to say what I said, and I believe that night when she came back she might have said something like, 'We were talking about bedwetting tonight,' and I said, Terrific, what did you learn?' Something like that. I'm not trying to be facetious. It's just so unimportant to me.

  "Actually, I don't remember what we talked about. Really nothing significant. Really nothing stands out at all. It was just a routine evening. We enjoyed the time together. It was just— well, we did discuss the—the possibility that I was going to Russia with the boxing team, as team physician."

  In describing the attack by the intruders, MacDonald said that after the black man had hit him with the club for the first time, he "literally saw stars and was knocked back flat on the couch." Later, as he struggled back to a sitting position, he had felt "a rain of blows" on his chest, shoulders, neck, and forehead and had noticed the glint of a blade. "Now, sometime during this," he said, "my hands were sort of bound up in my pajama top, and I honestly don't know if it was ripped or if it had been pulled over my head."

  Contrary to his April 6 assertion that he had not moved the body of his wife, MacDonald now said that when he first saw her, "she was a little bit propped up against a chair and I just sort of laid her flat."

  He described entering the hall bathroom to check the extent of his own injuries and said, "Oh, yeah, I also rinsed off my hands. I don't know why. Your guess is as good as mine. I guess it's because I'm a surgeon at heart."

  Most significantly, he now said that after picking up the kitchen telephone to repeat his call for help he might have washed his hands again in the kitchen sink.

  "I know it sounds ridiculous," he said, "and I've been questioned extensively about it, and I don't know. I just—I have the feeling that either before or after the phone call I was rinsing off my hands for some reason.

  "I know that on April 6 I said I did not think I washed my hands in the kitchen, but the next day my lawyer said the easiest way for a witness to remember something is to have to write it, and I spent the next several days writing out every single thing I could remember, and I think the logical sequence of events is clearer to me now. I would have to say I remember more now than I did then."

  He remembered, for example, that while examining himself in the hospital either late on the afternoon of February 17 or at some point on February 18, he had noticed—in addition to the wounds observed by the physicians who had attended him—two bumps on the back of his head, two or three puncture wounds in his upper left chest ("I would have guessed them to be icepick wounds"), three puncture wounds in his upper left bicep ("which I would take to be icepick wounds"), and a series of "approximately ten" icepick wounds across his abdomen, all of which had already healed without treatment and none of which had penetrated the abdominal wall. Since the wounds did not require medical attention, he had seen no reason to mention them to anyone.

  He said that upon his discharge from the hospital he had been so afraid for his own safety that he had borrowed a pistol and had slept with it under his pillow every night until after the armed guards had been posted at his door, following the announcement that he was a suspect.

  He said he was "absolutely certain" that neither of the two paring knives nor the icepick had come from his house, though the club might have come from a pile of scrap lumbe
r he had kept in the backyard. He repeated that he had never owned an icepick.

  He said he had enlisted in the Army because he wanted to serve his country in Vietnam and that he had wanted so much to become a Green Beret that he had "told less than the truth" about a back injury suffered while playing high school football because he feared it might prevent his acceptance.

  He said that, "very, very infrequently,, he'd had a sexual encounter with a woman other than his wife. The only two times he could recall were the night in San Antonio with the Army nurse named Tina, and once, earlier that year, with a different woman, when he had been at Fort Sam Houston for his physician's basic training course. He said Colette had not known about either of these instances.

  Tearfully, MacDonald concluded his testimony by saying he had loved his wife "more than anything in the world," and that their time together at Fort Bragg had been "by far" the happiest, least stressful period of their married life.

  Colonel Rock was quite obviously impressed by Jeffrey MacDonald: by his military bearing, his obvious sincerity, and by the sense of loss and sorrow that he communicated so effectively.

  In a report filed on October 14, 1970—slightly more than a month after the conclusion of the hearing—the Investigating Officer wrote: "After listening to the lengthy testimony of the accused and closely observing his actions and manner of answering questions, it is [my] opinion that he was telling the truth."

  Colonel Rock also wrote: "A significantly large number of character witnesses testified in behalf of the accused, covering a life span from age 12 through high school, college, medical school, internship, and military service. They testified to qualities [that made him seem] what can best be described as, The All American Boy.'