Fatal Vision

by Joe McGinniss

  "Did his pajama top match his pajama bottoms?" a grand juror asked.

  "We don't have the bottoms of his pajamas," Woerheide said. "They were thrown away in the hospital and were burned. But if we did have the bottoms, I think I can predict—and I feel very confident and I think Mr. Stombaugh would agree with this— that you'd find a lot of Type O blood on the bottoms.

  "You see, Kristen was stabbed in her front and she was stabbed in her back, and she was stabbed very deeply both front and back, and her body was down over the edge of the bed, and there's a pool of her blood on the floor, and I think he sat on the bed and he had her on his lap, across his lap, while he was stabbing her."

  Dr. Robert Sadoff, the psychiatrist who had examined Jeffrey MacDonald in Philadelphia in the spring of 1970, and who had testified at the Article 32 hearing that he was incapable of having committed such a crime, was the last psychiatrist to be interviewed by Woerheide. Now, four and a half years later, he did not seem nearly so certain of his opinion.

  In preparation for the interview, Worheide had been provided with a copy of a report Dr. Sadoff had delivered to Bernie Segal in 1970. Inadvertently, however, an original, raw report—not the modified, edited version—had been delivered. In this initial report, the psychiatrist had referred to a polygraph test which had apparently been administered to MacDonald, with surprisingly unfavorable results. "There must be some distortion in the polygraph test," Dr. Sadoff had reported to Segal.

  This was the first item about which Woerheide asked Dr. Sadoff.

  "As I recall now," the psychiatrist said, "there was a polygraph test. And frankly, it looked as though he did not do well on the test, or the test results were equivocal. My recollection is that it was equivocal, and not as I would have expected it to be: that he would have passed with flying colors."

  Knowing that polygraph evidence, in any event, would not be admissible in court, Woerheide did not pursue the matter further.

  "In arriving at your conclusions in regard to Dr. MacDonald's capacity to commit this crime," he said instead, "I take it you relied on what Dr. MacDonald had told you personally?" _

  "Yes."

  "You accepted his story at face value. You didn't question the veracity of any of the details that he recounted to you. Now, had you been furnished with additional information, which information, let's say, was scientifically reliable, and refuted what Dr. MacDonald had told you, do you think it would have caused you to modify your conclusions?"

  "To the extent that I would have felt compelled to reexamine Dr. MacDonald and confront him with the evidence that I had, and the story that he told me, and find out why they were different. Based on what I found out from that confrontation, I would assume that I could have changed my conclusions, yes."

  Woerheide then presented to Dr. Sadoff a summary of the testimony of Paul Stombaugh before the grand jury: the forty-eight icepick holes in MacDonald's pajama top corresponding to the twenty-one icepick holes in his wife's chest; the fabric impression on the sheet that indicated MacDonald had carried his wife's body from the bedroom of his younger daughter to the master bedroom where it was found. The analysis of fabric impressions, he said, had the same degree of scientific validity as did the identification of fingerprints.

  "It is becoming increasingly confusing," the psychiatrist said. "There is a problem in dimensions here. One is, you're dealing in a fairly precise science with what you have. And you're talking to a psychiatrist who is dealing in a fairly broad arc, not so scientific. And I'm not sure how to judge the scientific evidence that you've got here. I am terribly impressed with what you have done. But I don't know how to—how to—all I can say is I found no serious psychiatric illness within him."

  "Did you find any insecurity on his part so far as his masculine role was concerned?"

  "There was, a—a—an Achilles' heel, let's say, in this area of masculinity or virility. But I have to find it very unlikely from a psychological standpoint that he could have committed this crime."

  "On the basis of the information that was available to you at the time that you examined him."

  "Yes, that's right."

  "But it is possible that having further information made available to you, you might revise that?"

  "There are a lot of things I'd have to go through. With the new information that I now have, I would have to discuss this with him.

  "However, as I indicated, what you are talking about is the sledgehammer to my nail file, in a sense. In the face of the overwhelming amount of scientifically oriented material that you have presented here today, I am not so sure that a psychiatrist right now is the proper person to be talking to."

  "Well, each of the other psychiatrists and psychologists who have examined and tested him have testified before the grand jury and they did discuss his personality traits and I don't think there was any disagreement among any of them.

  "They all said, in fact, that he did have an Achilles' heel—his Achilles' heel being his masculinity, his fear of latent homosexuality, and that having the Achilles' heel, given certain special circumstances, such as fatigue, an argument about something like bed-wetting, differences of opinion about how to solve the problem, Colette seeking advice from somebody other than Jeffrey concerning how to deal with this thing, such as the professor of her psychology class, and him staying awake for a

  long period of time, not going to bed at the same time as his wife, when he comes to bed finally and finds the bed wet and so on and so forth, in an ensuing argument if Colette had said certain words, she could have triggered a violent reaction. Are you in agreement with that?"

  "Well, I would say, with that having occurred and with his having an Achilles' heel—if someone hits the Achilles' heel at the wrong time, either during a time of fatigue or when he is under the influence of alcohol, I would say that it is possible he would be capable of striking a blow."

  "And once the blow is struck, I assume that things could get out of control?"

  "They could."

  "There could be general chaos?"

  "He could lose control," Dr. Sadoff said.

  3

  On January 21, 1975, Jeffrey MacDonald was called back to Raleigh to testify again before the grand jury. His degree of hostility and defensiveness had intensified greatly since August, and his sarcasm and anger were in evidence almost from the start.

  "We have a few loose ends," Victor Woerheide said. "Let's go back to April of 1970 when you went to Philadelphia and you were interviewed by a psychiatrist and interviewed and tested by a psychologist. Now, were you interviewed or tested by anyone else during this period of time?"

  "No," MacDonald said.

  "Specifically, were you given a polygraph test?"

  "We had some discussion about it, but the answer is no."

  "I don't mean a polygraph test by a polygraph expert connected with the Army or connected with the government investigators, but a polygraph operator let's say privately retained to examine you?"

  "No. I'd have to discuss any more answers on that with Mr. Segal."

  "I see," Woerheide said. He moved on. "As you know, when you were here before we asked you about various girls or ladies that you knew and one of those was Penny Wells. In the course of the investigation we have contacted some of them. There is a name I don't think we have mentioned to you. That is Laura Talbot. Do you recall her?"

  "No."

  "Well, it's going very far back but do you remember being employed by Atlantic Construction, Inc.?"

  "Yes, I do."

  "And do you recall when that was?"

  "No. It was summer employment one of my years in college, I think."

  "Well, specifically, do you remember it was the year of 1964?" "No, I don't."

  "Well, do you remember where you worked in 1964?" "No, I'm sure you know."

  "Well, when I mentioned Atlantic Construction, does that refresh your recollection with respect to Laura Talbot?" "Yeah, I think she was a secretary working there." "Oh, a
nd tell us what happened?" "I balled the girl. Big deal, she was a secretary."

  Among the findings made by Paul Stombaugh at the FBI laboratory in Washington was that the stain on the bed of Jeffrey and Colette MacDonald was consistent with the urine of a person having Type AB blood—the blood type of Kimberly MacDonald— as opposed to the Type O blood of Kristen. Woerheide now confronted Jeffrey with the contradiction between this fact and his statement that it had been Kristy who had wet the bed the night of the murders.

  "In regards to the bed-wetting problem in the family," Woerheide asked, "you say Kimberly never wet the bed?"

  "Well, not now. She was five years old. When she was a baby she wet the bed. I mean, every kid wets the bed.

  "When did she stop wetting the bed?"

  "Kimberly? I don't know. When she was about two, I suppose."

  "And thereafter it was not a problem?"

  "No."

  "Doctor MacDonald, I'm sort of skipping around here. There was a bloody footprint in Kristen's room, and the footprint is your footprint. Now, can you tell us how you got blood on your foot in that room and how that footprint happened to be made?"

  "I have no idea, sir."

  "Well, when you were in the room did you feel any blood under your feet? Any slipperiness, or wetness on your feet?"

  "No, I wasn't thinking about that. I'm sure you would have been."

  "Well, when you were in the room, Kris was in the room?" "That's right."

  "Was there any other person in the room?"

  "Not that I know of."

  "Well, let me ask you this: did you see the bedspread or the sheet from the master bedroom in that room?" "No, I didn't."

  "When you were in Kris's room, did you have your pajama top on?" "No."

  "When you went from Kris's room the first time, did you carry anything with you?"

  "No, not that I can remember."

  "When you left Kris's room the-second time, did you carry anything with you?" "I don't believe so."

  "Doctor MacDonald, we have been told that this bloody footprint that I have referred to—the impression it made on the floor indicated that you must have been carrying something because of the dimensions of the footprint itself.''

  "Who told you that, the Army?"

  "That is the information we have."

  "Well, it's very suspect information, Mr. Woerheide."

  "Sir?"

  "Very suspect information. They can't even take fingerprints much less make decisions about them."

  "We're told that fibers and threads from your pajama top were found in Kris's room and in Kim's room. They were found on the beds, under the covers of the beds. Can you tell us how that happened?"

  "No. I presume it would be contamination from me or from the other people who were in the house that night. If you'd stop trying to prove that it was just me you may think about some of the other choices."

  "Well, we are trying to consider all the possibilities—"

  "You're not trying to do anything."

  "—and hoping you could be helpful to us—"

  "No, you're doing the same thing."

  Woerheide paused. He allowed thirty seconds to pass. The room was silent. Then he said, "I'm told some fibers were found under Kris's fingernails. Can you tell us how that happened?"

  "No."

  "You have no idea?" "I have no idea."

  "I'm told that when they recovered the sheet and the bedspread they found some fibers and threads and hairs and I'm told that among these was a hair from Colette's head that was twisted around a thread from your pajama top. Do you have any idea how that happened?"

  "No, I don't. Was this before or after I was dragged across the floor and everyone was in and out of the house?"

  "These were found when the things were examined."

  "You mean after twenty people ran in and out of the house a couple of times and everyone moved everyone and this is the critical evidence?"

  "Doctor MacDonald, I'm also told that on the top sheet of the bed in Kris's room they found a large amount of Colette's blood which indicated massive direct bleeding by Colette in that area. Do you have any idea how Colette's blood got in that location?"

  "Nope. Unless it was from my hands."

  "I am also told that the footprint going out of the room was in Colette's blood."

  "I'm sure I had bloody feet," MacDonald said.

  "How did they get bloody?"

  "From blood on the floor."

  "Well, I'm told there was none of Colette's blood on the floor there. The blood was Kristy's blood."

  "Well, I had been in the master bedroom first, Mr. Woerheide."

  "So you think you picked up Colette's blood in the master bedroom and you tracked that footprint on the floor going out of Kris's bedroom as a result of having blood from the master bedroom on your foot? Is that correct?"

  "I don't know. You're asking me for explanations that I can't give. I don't know. Maybe it was a lab error. Maybe they mistyped the blood. With their record, I wouldn't see that as an unlikely possibility."

  "Okay, where would you say you were when you started bleeding as a result of the injuries that you sustained, Doctor MacDonald?"

  "I never noticed much blood on myself. I don't know." "Well, you had all these injuries when you were lying on the floor in the hallway there, did you not?" "Yes."

  "Were you bleeding at that time?"

  "I don't remember seeing any. I suppose I was."

  "How heavily were you bleeding?"

  "I just told you. Apparently you are not listening. I didn't see any blood. How can I then say I was bleeding heavily?"

  "Well, at one point you went in the bathroom and looked at yourself in the mirror and saw that you had blood on you. Did you observe then that you were, in fact, bleeding?"

  "No. I've told you that ten times."

  "Well, I'm also told that splinters from the club were found in the master bedroom and in each of the children's bedrooms but none were found in the living room. Now, do you have any explanations as to that?"

  "First of all, Mr. Woerheide, there's a lot of traffic up and down that hall, including a stretcher. The second, I have no idea. I can't answer that. Seems to me the club was used in the other rooms after it was used on me,"

  "Well, what would that signify now? Colette and Kimberly were screaming when you awoke. That's what woke you up. And yet, at the time they were screaming these four people were in the living room with the club striking at you. And yet it is the club that they were striking at you with whose splinters are found in all three bedrooms. Now do you have any theory that explains this?"

  "Only that it sounds to me like the club went from where I was into the other rooms."

  "When you were in the master bedroom, did you notice the word on the headboard—PIG?"

  "No, I didn't."

  "How close did you get to the headboard?"

  "I don't specifically remember. The only thing I remember is being next to Colette."

  "Well, the fibers from your pajama top were found behind the headboard, in the area where a person would be standing if he wrote the word PIG on the headboard."

  "Hmmm. Maybe one of the assailants did it. Did you ever think of that?"

  Unruffled by MacDonald's sarcasm, Woerheide proceeded. "Now in the area of the living room by the couch," he said, "a very close examination revealed no fibers or threads from your pajama top, but there are so many scattered across the master bedroom that you can still go into the house and check the rug and pick up almost as many as you want. Now, can you explain that?"

  "No, except that when I took off my top, there's where I took it off. Picked it up and moved it a couple of times. The doctor who examined my wife testified that he moved it. Just seems to me that that's an explanation."

  "Doctor MacDonald, when you were here before, I showed you a couple of knives and an icepick, and as I recall you said you didn't have an icepick and you didn't recall either one of those knives as being
in your house."

  "That's right."

  "Witnesses have testified before the grand jury that they observed items that appeared to be the same as these in your house prior to February 17th."

  "Uh-huh. Witnesses now, four years later. That's good. That's good police work. How much did you pay them? More than you paid the grave robbers?"

  "Doctor MacDonald, in the master bedroom of your house fragments of a rubber glove were found and these fragments were found to be identical, so far as the material from which they were made, to the rubber surgical gloves that were kept under your kitchen sink. And your blood type was found in the area where the rubber gloves were kept. Can you tell us about that?"

  "No. I have already testified that I may have gone to that sink. I have already testified that we had gloves in the house." "Did you put on the gloves?" "That night?" "Yes."

  "Not unless I put on gloves when I was doing the dishes."

  "Well, there was blood on these fragments of rubber gloves I'm talking about."

  "I didn't scatter fragments of rubber gloves around the master bedroom."