Fatal Vision

by Joe McGinniss

  Dupree asked the defendant if he had anything to say. MacDonald stood. He was wearing his best pin-striped suit. Jeff MacDonald: Most Popular, Most Likely to Succeed, Princeton, med school, the Green Berets, the childhood sweetheart, the two little girls, the farm in Connecticut, the medical career—even the boat and the sports car and the condo and Sheree Sizelove—all ashes now, as far as he was concerned. Dust and ashes.

  He said only this, speaking in a loud, though slightly husky voice: "Sir, I'm not guilty. I don't think the court heard all the evidence."

  Judge Dupree sentenced him to three life terms in prison, to be served not concurrently, but consecutively. It was the harshest sentence he could administer, the death penalty not being applicable under federal law.

  Then a U.S. marshal approached, carrying handcuffs, and Jeffrey MacDonald—his face betraying no more emotion than does the surface of a glacier—held his arms out in front of him, as requested.

  With the handcuffs secured around his wrists, and with Bernie Segal's immediate motion for bail denied by Franklin T. Dupree,

  MacDonald was led out a rear door—a door through which he had never walked before. He did not look back. If he had, he would have seen Freddy and Mildred Kassab sitting side by side in silence, staring at his departing figure until it disappeared behind the door.

  CONCLUSION

  IF I HAVE WALKED WITH VANITY

  If I have walked with vanity, or if my foot hath hasted to deceit; Let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know mine integrity.

  Job 3-1:5—6

  I suppose from the start I had suspected that there must be more to the case against MacDonald than he had suggested to me on the day that I met him. The Justice Department does not try a man for murder nine and a half years after the crimes just because his father-in-law is mad at him. But certainly I had arrived in Raleigh bearing the same presumption of innocence which was to be required of the jurors. As the weeks passed, however, the doubts grew.

  There were the fibers and the bloodstains and the footprint, and of course the blue pajama top whose forty-eight holes matched the twenty-one in Colette's chest. All this was new to me, and it began to grow rather unsettling as I rode to and from the courtroom with MacDonald and over to Chapel Hill with him on the weekends to browse through bookstores, and to Durham to stroll with him across the campus of Duke University, which he said reminded him so much of Princeton, and as I sat up late with him—and his mother—watching Saturday Night Live.

  It was not the sort of thing one spoke about over the Kappa Alpha dinner table, but he had not been badly hurt in 1970. Those twenty-three stab wounds that he had referred to on the Dick Cavett show: they had never existed. A bump on the head, two slight cuts from a knife, some fingernail scratches (and this was long before I learned that a piece of skin had been found beneath one of Colette's fingernails) and a neat, clean incision, one centimeter long, between two ribs, just deep enough to cause the partial collapse of one lung. This was all that had resulted from his struggle against three armed attackers: a struggle during which he was aware—he said—that he was fighting for his own

  life and for the lives of his wife and children. ("He's either lying," Franz Joseph Grebner said in 1970, upon learning the limited extent of MacDonald's injuries, "or else he's the biggest pussy in the world.")

  I had by now seen the pictures of his wife and children. I had seen too many pictures too many times. I had seen pictures that had been taken when the bodies were found, and I had seen pictures taken at the autopsy, after the blood had been washed off. The crack in Kimberly's skull looked like an aerial view of the Grand Canyon. She had been a five-year-old child. Kristen had been two and a half. She had been stabbed more than thirty times in her chest and back. I had seen slides showing the holes in her heart.

  And Colette—pregnant Colette, the childhood sweetheart—her skull fractured, both arms broken as she had raised them in front of her to ward off blows, and her chest penetrated—not once, as had been the chest of her husband—but dozens of times, by both knife and icepick, weapons which had been thrust into her up to the hilt.

  Jeffrey MacDonald had not needed a single stitch to close his wounds. "Not even Mercurochrome," as Mildred Kassab had said. For years he had been saying that he'd been knocked unconscious and had almost been killed by the attack upon him in his living room—yet not one drop of blood had been found there.

  At the hospital, his vital signs had been normal, while back at the apartment the CID photographer had to leave because he was about to get sick to his stomach.

  There were a lot of nights I did not sleep in Raleigh. It got worse toward the end, particularly after Helena Stoeckley had testified. It was not so much what she had said or hadn't said—it was Jeffrey MacDonald's absolute lack of reaction to her presence.

  If his story were true, she was the woman who had participated in the slaughter of his family and here she was, after nine and a half years, twenty feet from him in the courtroom. Yet he showed no anger; no sorrow; not even curiosity. There was anger at the judge, of course, for not permitting the "Stoeckley witnesses" to testify; there was anger at Brian Murtagh and Paul Stombaugh and Mildred Kassab. But toward the woman who had—he said—destroyed the people he had loved most, and who had reduced his own life to dust and ashes, he displayed less emotion than he did while watching Gilda Radner perform on Saturday Night Live.

  * * *

  Two days after his conviction I drove with his mother and Sheree Sizelove to visit him at the Federal Correctional Institute at Butner, North Carolina, where he was being held temporarily, pending a decision on where he would be sent to serve his term.

  In the visitor's lounge, which was not dissimilar to a bus station cafeteria, MacDonald, wearing canvas slippers and shapeless, gray, prison-issue clothing, embraced first his mother, then Sheree Sizelove, then me.

  We sat at a small, Formica-topped table. Sheree, who had flown to Raleigh from New York after the verdict, had brought clippings from the previous day's New York Times and New York Daily News. Each paper had printed a front-page story about the conviction, accompanied by a picture of MacDonald, in pin-striped suit, being led from the courtroom in handcuffs.

  He read the stories through from start to finish. When he was done he looked again at the pictures on page one. He had made the Daily News before, but this was the first time that a photograph of him had ever appeared on the front page of the Times.

  When the visit was over, he gave the clippings to his mother, so she could file them in the scrapbooks which she had been maintaining for nine and a half years.

  ' 'If we can prove that he did it,'' Jim Blackburn had said, "then we don't have to prove that he's the kind of guy who could have done it."

  They had, indeed, proved that he'd done it. Not to the satisfaction of his mother, or Sheree Sizelove, or his friends from Southern California, but his mother and Sheree Sizelove and his friends from Southern California—unlike the jurors—had not attended every session of the trial.

  For Blackburn and the jurors it was over. But not for me. Having learned all I had learned during the summer, I now felt I needed to know more.

  As I left MacDonald there, behind the bars and concrete walls and steel doors of Butner—having just had him tell me that he hoped I was a friend who would stand by him—it was not possible simply to accept the jury's verdict. I had to try to learn more about what kind of man he really was.

  I flew home the next day and the day after that a letter arrived. MacDonald had written it even before I'd been to see him. He had written it on the morning of Thursday, August 30, 1970— the morning after his conviction.

  Zero Hour + 18

  I've got to write to you so I won't go crazy. I'm standing in my cell only because they don't allow chairs in solitary. I'm trying to fathom—trying to figure out what the fuck happened. Those words from the foreman's mouth crashed into my brain & I can't think straight. Just as I felt, "Finally—justice and maybe som
e peace down the road,"—he said "Guilty" of 2nd Degree murder. The room was spinning and I couldn't hear the rest. I remember the tears on many jurors' faces, and I remember the look of "Please, forgive me," on the faces of the black juror and the lady who cried so much—but I really can't remember the jury polling except how forceful the guy with the pinched face in the front row (3 in from the right, I think) said, "Guilty," 3 times. He really believed it. I can't understand how it happened—12 normal people heard a good portion of the "evidence" (not all of course) and bought the gov't line of bullshit. Was it just because the gov't said so? Were our jury selection people wrong?? I guess so—they were so right-wing, middle class, they couldn't believe the gov't would falsify evidence, or fake it, or redo it, or build an imaginary web of circumstances based on vicious Mildred Kassab now remembering, "Something was wrong in that house."

  I am now a convict. Convicted of murder of my family. Colette and Kimmy and Kristy had come back so strong to me over the past three months it was like 1970. The 9 years had been swept away and I knew it would be a slow painful recovery for the next 1 to 2 years when the "not guilty" verdict came down. Now—I just don't know. My brain has never felt like this. In 1970 I was so numb with grief I just plodded through the motions. The night of April 6th 1970 was brutal—but I don't remember the pain like this.

  The fucking walls are closing in. Every once in a while a warden or a shrink comes around and asks how 1 am. Someone in my voice answers, "OK—just taking it one day at a time." What I mean is that "I'm going crazy—I'm trying to hold on 1 sec. at a time." I wish the guards here were brutal—you could focus on some uniformed asshole and out-tough him (even if that meant not falling for the hint of a threat or an insult). Here the fucking guards are all "correctional officers" who went to at least 2 yrs. of college & discuss things like, "The first 24 hrs. are the worst," and "Keep a low profile"—Do you know those lectures?

  Why the fuck am I in Solitary? The warden says for my benefit, so inmates won't test the new "Fast gun from the West." I don't really want to talk to inmates but a little more light in the cell and a window bigger than 8" by 8" looking at another solitary cell across the hall would help. If I don't run soon I'll go nuts.

  Last night was the longest ever. The guard looked in my window with a flashlight every 15 min. for 12 hrs. (suicide watch). The few times I fell asleep a flashlight would immediately penetrate my eyeballs. I can't figure out what the fuck I'm supposed to kill myself with. They only allow plastic spoons with the meal, the guard sits right outside my cell, and checks every 15 mins. I guess I'm supposed to have smuggled something in, despite the 3 strip searches, the 6 gates we went through, and my room, which is bare except for a welded, one piece bed, a single piece toilet with sink above it and a stand bolted to the floor (for food and toiletries).

  I want to see Bernie because I love him & he is probably hurting beyond belief & wants to know he is not to blame. I want to see my Mom because no matter how I look, by seeing me she will be better (and I probably will be, too). I would also love to see my best friends—including (I hope) you. But in all honesty I'm crying too much today and do cry whenever I think of my close friends. I feel dirty & soiled by the decision & can't tell you why, and am ashamed. I somehow don't feel that way with Bernie & Mom but think today it would be difficult to look at you or shake your hand—I know I'll cry and want to hug you and yet the verdict stands there, screaming, "You are guilty of the murder of your family!!" And I don't know what to say to you except it is not true, and I hope you know that and feel it and that you are my friend,

  Jeffrey MacDonald remained in solitary confinement at Butner for six days. He wrote me a letter every day, sometimes more than one a day.

  I knew my Mom was strong but she surprises even me. What an incredible person to pull it all together and be so optimistic so soon after the crushing defeat. Someday when this is over I hope I can return just part of her love and caring. ...

  "Its strange how 48 hrs. can alter your perspective so much. If you had asked me Wed. AM would I accept a victory through the court of appeals, I would have laughed at you.

  Now I am pleading for my lawyers to argue the best case ever in front of 4th Circuit in order that I may win a more hollow victory than anyone ever previously guessed I would accept. Like Lenny Bruce said—when it's your ass-hole they are pouring hot lead into, then tell them you'll withhold secrets from the enemy (& not before). Of course I'll accept a 4th Circuit victory. It will be more difficult to face my friends than it would have been with a victory last Wed at 4:45 p.m.—but I'll do it. I hope my friends accept it—and the rest of the world that thinks I got off on a technicality will have to wait for your book. If they won't read your book, fuck them. Then they are worse than the jury. I can't get my mind off the tear-stained faces. Why couldn't they have had the courage to vote the way I'm sure the majority felt in their gut—proof of guilt was not beyond a reasonable doubt. ...

  Have you ever been strip-searched? You strip naked and they look in your ears, armpits, mouth. The guard says 'Lift it up,' and you lift first your penis, then your scrotum. You then turn around, bend over & spread your cheeks. You then lift up each foot so the guard can see the bottoms of your feet. After they search your clothes, shoes, socks & underwear you put it all back on. It's always slightly sweaty because either you're on the way to a visit and are anticipating the pleasure/pain of it—or you are coming from a visit and are suffering from the new-each-time separation from the real world.

  I can now think of Colette & Kim and Kris and not go crazy. And I can separate Colette from Bobbi. And I can even squeeze Sheree in there and not confuse it all. But 12 tear-stained-faces keep intruding. The foreman's voice keeps me awake. Couldn't the son of a bitch have found 'reasonable doubt'? ...

  In the first moments that followed the jury's announcement of its verdict, Franklin T. Dupree, Jr., had denied Bernie Segal's plea that MacDonald be permitted to remain free on bail pending appeal. The judge had said, however, that he would consider a written motion to that effect. Segal filed such a motion on September 4. . ' *

  The next day, with Dupree not yet having ruled on the request, the process of transferring MacDonald from Butner to the Federal Correctional Institution at Terminal Island, California, was begun.

  Despite the ominous sound of its name, Terminal Island was, under the circumstances, as desirable a destination as MacDonaid could possibly have hoped for. A low-security institution on the outskirts of Long Beach, just fiften minutes from St. Mary's Hospital and less than half an hour from his Huntington Beach condominium, Terminal Island did not, as a rule, house individuals convicted of homicide. In fact, of the more than five hundred inmates, MacDonald would be the only one serving a life sentence.

  It was not, then, Terminal Island itself that was objectionable from Jeffrey MacDonald's point of view: it was the means by which he would get there. Early on the morning of September 5, MacDonald was placed aboard a Bureau of Prisons bus to begin the long journey west. Unlike Greyhound or Trail ways, the federal prison transport system did not offer express service to the coast. A prisoner would ride the bus to wherever its next stop happened to be. There, he would be held—for hours, days, or weeks—until the next leg of his journey could be scheduled.

  MacDonald's first stop was the federal penitentiary at Atlanta. From there he wrote to me on Thursday, September 6, expressing (among other sentiments) his displeasure at his attorneys' decision to permit his transfer while the bail question was still under consideration by Judge Dupree.

  Fucking lawyers are a pain in the ass. They charge you coming & going and for all their little expenses, lose goddamn cases when they shouldn't be lost, promise you the world all the while, and don't know shit about what they are doing. They operate like mail order physicians. The whole profession sucks. . . . Every prisoner along the way fell over laughing when they heard I could have stayed at Butner until the bail was settled. Everyone in the system knows the single worst thing about t
he prison system is the method used for cross-country transfer: up at 4 A.M., into bus at 5:30 A.M., chained & manacled (ankles, waist & wrists) & drive to next prison. It may take 4 hrs. or 14. No one cares. You stay in chains the whole time (ankles, wrists & waist) so if the bus overturns you can burn to death instead of escaping. The bus is caged, barred, partitioned & has 3 hacks (guards). You can't have anything. No shoelaces. No contact lenses. No books, magazines. If you want to pee, you struggle down the alley in chains, spend 10 minutes getting your fly open & pee down a big hole in the back of the bus. Holding tank, but no chemicals of course. The coffee runs out at noon, so from noon until 9:45 P.M. you get nothing. The sandwiches are bread & 1 (I mean one) slice of corned beef 1W wide, or bologna. If the air conditioner breaks, tough. (No windows to open.) Each night you spend 2 hours getting photographed & fingerprinted at some Federal hovel, and then get put in Solitary. No possessions at all. No books, letters, watch, contacts, deodorant.

  Every guard & prisoner at Atlanta knew I was coming. The prisoners were OK—every guard said. 'Keep your fucking back to the wall—Don't let anyone next to you. Some crazy mother-fucker will kill you here for a headline,' and on & on. By the time you get to Solitary you're begging for a single cell—and then you find out some inmates ('walk-arounds') have keys to the cells & walk in every once in a while to 'check things out.' You can't beat the son of a bitch to a pulp for scaring the shit out of you because you don't want Thorazine & a strait jacket. It's clear that you're being measured & if you're cool & handle yourself OK you suddenly get a bar of soap or a cup of (real) ice water through the foot slot. Or the dude across the hall tells you which hack to watch out for. Or someone says, 'He's the Green Beret who got screwed—leave him alone.'