Jeffrey MacDonald /// Part 1 /// 464 | Forensic Files

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a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] what I heard was acid is groovy kill the
pigs and I believe I heard that twice at first that was the first thing that I remember hearing but it's very jumbled
because that's mixed up with my wife screaming Jeff help me and my daughter's screaming
[Music] she looks dead all right [Music] she's saying acid is groovy kill the pigs
ever didn't read she looks dead [Music] the following is an adaptation from the book American Justice great crimes and
trials by Paul Begg and Martin Fido Dr Jeffrey McDonald was an Army captain in the prestigious Green Berets the
crack special teams operation unit of the American Army trained for particularly hazardous roles
McDonald was a good soldier he worked hard and graduated from Princeton University
while still a student there he got married in 1963. Jeffrey completed his medical studies at Northwestern
University in 1969. 1969 was the year of Charles Manson and his so-called family's arrest for the
horrific murders of Sharon Tate and her house guest followed by those of Mr and Mrs labianca so it was appalling to
learn that in February of 1970 the hippies had struck again another household had been violated
another family had been savagely done to death their blood too had been used for crude
graffiti 1970 the McDonald family of four was living at Fort Bragg a large military
base in North Carolina Department was located at 544 Castle Drive military police provided security
in the early morning hours of Tuesday February 17th Jeff McDonald calls the military police his voice was weak and
croaky his message alarming and imprecise help 544 Castle Drive stabbing 544 Castle Drive stabbing hurry
Duty police raced to the house on Castle Drive in the living room they found signs of a
struggle in the main bedroom Dr Jeffrey McDonald and his wife Colette are found lying on
the floor Colette is dead she was savagely battered and covered with blood on the wall the word Pig had been
scrawled in her blood the couple's two daughters both lay dead in their bedrooms
the murder weapons were found outside the back door McDonald was taken to the military
Hospital he had a severe stab to the chest which punctured along his story the family had gone to bed he
reported except for him he stayed up reading and dozing off in his pajamas on the couch in the sitting room he awoke
to find four hippies in the house three of them men the fourth was a woman Jeffrey struggled with them but they
overpowered him and tied his hands before clubbing him over the head when he finally came round the house was
cold and silent the hippies were gone Jeffrey went upstairs to find blood stains on the
floors and walls his whole family had been brutally massacred the military police were
working under severe handicaps their normal employment does not involve solving serious crimes let alone the
notoriously difficult stranger murders that can give experienced detectives serious problems the MPS are normally
used to breaking up drunken brawls pursuing enlisted men who have gone AWOL and perhaps handling the odd case of
pilfering they are usually enclosed Barracks too where guards on the gates mean all entries and exits have been
checked and the whole Community can be sealed off for immediate investigation in a crisis before Bragg was an open
base the public had the right to enter and pass through parts of it was not possible to close everything
down at once and hope the hippies would be caught in a trap this is True Crime garage
[Music] I just screamed the acid is groovy killed the pigs hit him again he was crying and said we did it he said
they didn't mean to kill anybody but so things just went bad she looks dead all right Captain we are going to dive
right into this week's timeline and we're going to start with the McDonald family timeline leading up to the day in
question because there is a lot to cover here in our two fantastic episodes here
in the garage in 1943 both Colette Catherine Stevenson and Jeffrey McDonald were born Colette's father Edward passes
away in 1954. in 1956 Colette's mother Mildred starts dating a man named Freddy casab
these will all be major players in this week's case in 1963 Jeffrey and Colette are married Jeffrey is still a student
at Princeton University at this time a little back story here Captain they grew up in the same area went to the same
High School Jeffrey McDonald and Colette Stevenson are kids that grew up together
went to school together together they dated on and off in high school in fact they were a bit of high school
sweethearts yeah but there were some time periods where they were not together in a relationship but they
start seeing each other again at college and while Jeffrey's still in college they get married in 1963. this is
because Colette is already pregnant with Jeffrey's child so in 1964 their first daughter is born her name is Kimberly
Catherine McDonald the McDonald's then moved to Chicago where Jeff starts medical school at Northwestern
University just three years after their first daughter in 1967 their second daughter is born this is Kristen Jean
McDonald now 1969 Captain is going to be a very busy year for Jeffrey and the McDonald family this is because Jeffrey
joins the U.S army so first Jeff reports to Fort Sam Houston Army Medical in San
Antonio for six weeks then he is off to Fort Benning in Georgia for three weeks of paratrooper training then Jeffrey
McDonald was sent to Fort Bragg in North Carolina he is assigned to the Green Berets as a surgeon for the Special
Forces Group one thing that will come into question later as we're going through the case itself the
investigation in the actual murders is Jeffrey McDonald's army training Green Berets are a Special Forces Unit they're
able to handle very difficult situations most of the time they are trained in martial arts and hand-to-hand combat and
all kinds of different tactical strategic fighting moves like Kung Fu but we have Jeffrey McDonald here who is
sent to the green Braves as a surgeon so he is not trained the same way that they would train these typical ground
troops normally they have some kind of boot camp and some initial training but specialty soldiers they're going to go
through a different training after the initial trade correct he receives this boot camp type training he receives this
paratrooper training which is kind of above and beyond anyway he never gets into the martial arts or any of that
because it's understood that it's very unlikely as a surgeon that he will actually see any real Combat yeah I mean
if you ever watch the show MASH it wasn't like they were Kung Fu Fighting right only if you were absolutely forced
into some very difficult situation yeah but that's when you just yell I don't know karate but I know crazy
that same year shortly after arriving at Fort Bragg Jeffrey and the McDonald family of four move into the apartment
on base and officers housing this is the 544 or 544 Castle Drive residence this takes place in 1970. so the setup here
is we have a family of four the victims are going to be the wife and the two daughters the only sole survivor will be
the husband and of course the wife and daughters are killed either late on February 16th or very early on February
17th the following will be Jeffrey McDonald's account of the events leading up to that and what took place during
the attack brought on by these Intruders starting with Saturday February 14th Lieutenant Ronald Harrison made a visit
to the McDonald residence this would be in the evening hours during the visit Harrison and McDonald discussed the
Sharon Tate murder yeah that's from the Charles Manson case the conversation comes about because Harrison spotted an
issue of Esquire magazine sitting on on the coffee table on the cover of the magazine was quote Lee Marvin is afraid
evil lurks in California Harrison picked up the magazine looked at it and McDonald basically told him the issue
was a must read Harrison flipped through the magazine while McDonald told him about the Articles inside McDonald's
said that there were articles about the Sharon Tate murder and a cult in California yeah that'd be the Charles
Manson cult the two had a five-minute conversation that mostly included joking but also discussed in a serious manner
the witch the sorcerer the Black Swan and the acid goddess these are all from articles in this particular magazine
they both agreed it was unbelievable what was happening in California they went on to discuss drugs and people who
take drugs McDonald's says from what I've read and medically speaking that marijuana isn't so bad but the harder
stuff he had some serious concerns with so we're setting it up in this manner because this is an important part of his
account because what happened was just the year before was the Sharon Tate in Mr and Mrs labianca murders right
Charles Manson and Manson's family killing people invading homes in California and this now where an early
1970. the trials hadn't even started for Manson and his followers yet this is big
big news and of course this is something that McDonald's discussing with his friend the Conversation Piece was the
magazine itself but this is also a topic of discussion in homes around America at the time because what went
down in California was just so heinous and so unbelievable yeah it's one of the big bang moments it's like everybody
knows where they were at when Kennedy was shot everybody remembers hearing about the Manson Murders everybody knows
where they're at on 9 11. there's one of the big bang moments this will lead us to Sunday the 15th on Sunday February
15th McDonald went to work at the hospital in Hamlet North Carolina he reports nothing unusual happening that
day he says that he treated a small number of patients and worked all day long now to be clear Captain this is a
24 hour shift that he worked from Sunday at 6 a.m to Monday at 6 a.m probably too
long for a surgeon to be working steady the hands my friend yeah I mean I don't want to be the guy that goes into
surgery on the 22nd hour right I don't think he's performing surgeries I don't know exactly what he's doing he is a
surgeon what else is he supposed to be doing shining shoes well he says that he took two naps while on shift and says
that he slept for approximately five and a half hours total that day and he went
on to say that that would be about what he would sleep on a normal night at home
on Monday February 16th and I want everybody to pay really really close attention to
everything that is said here take some notes if you're able to after only if you're driving his shift McDonald went
back to his home at the base and had breakfast with Colette and the kids it sounds like he may have taken a nap or
slept at some point during the daytime on that Monday at 4 45 PM McDonald and his two daughters leave the house to go
see the horse that he bought for the family for Christmas the pasture is about five miles from
their house what's the horse's name you know what I I did know this at one point I didn't
put it in my whole story we'll call him Rusty I think I think you can actually easily find the horse's name but I I
can't recall what it is at this point at 5 pm McDonald's daughter's ride and feed the
horse and then they return to the home arriving around 5 30 to 5 40 p.m the McDonald family of four they sit down to
dinner together for a short dinner at 6 10 p.m his wife Colette left the house for an evening class at the University
of North Carolina this was a extension school that was located on the military base Colette was taking child psychology
courses at that time we should point out some some things here about the family and Colette and Jeffrey before we move
on too far Jeffrey McDonald he's a doctor he's a surgeon but he's in I mean he's incredibly smart of course doctors
and surgeons are incredibly smart anyway but we're talking about schooling at Princeton and Northwestern University
where he graduated near the top of his class right the people that knew these individuals very well would tell you
that Not only was Jeffrey McDonald incredibly intelligent but Colette might have been smarter than than Jeffrey and
Robert so her life is a little bit on hold because she's staying at home and raising their two children but we see
here when he's at home when he's able to be home between these long shifts she's
able to go and continue her education McDonald's said that after Colette left that he cleaned up dinner and played
with the kids for a while his daughter Kristen went to bed between 7 and 7 30 p.m these are very young children
Kimberly stayed up watching TV McDonald's said he fell asleep on the living room floor which was pretty
common Kimberly woke him up around 8 pm and he knows this to be accurate as far as the
time goes because he says that Kimberly and him always watched a show called Laugh-In together it was Kimberly's
favorite TV show so she woke him up so they could watch the TV show together at 8pm and then after the show he says he
put Kimberly to bed in her bedroom at 9 00 PM McDonald returned to the living room to watch the Bob Hope special that
was on that night right at 9 40 p.m Colette returned home and at that time she changed into her PJs joined McDonald
in the living room where they watch TV together McDonald would say that because they had two children because he works
so much because Colette is continuing her education they had very little time to spend just one-on-one the two of them
so it was very common the late night they would spend an hour or two together either watching
TV listening to records or reading or just talking about their day that was kind of their time once the kids were
put to bed and once all the busyness hustle and bustle of the day-to-day life was done he says that Colette went to
bed around midnight McDonald's says he may have dozed off but spent some time reading a book and watching Johnny
Carson at the same time here's Johnny at 1am he shut off the TV and continued reading his book
at 1 30 a.m Jeffrey McDonald says he went to bed and he noticed that dishes were not done so
he decided all right I'm not going to bed just yet I'm going to take care of these dishes so he washes the dishes and
straightens up the kitchen a little bit he says this is to you know earn some points with his wife yeah some brownie
points yeah you don't you don't want to upset mom or the wife by not cleaning up
the dinner that he probably promised to clean up McDonald's says that sometime during the last hour that he was up that
night that Christy got out of bed and went into the master bedroom and fell asleep next to Colette her mother so
when he goes in to go to bed he found her in the bed on his side of the bed right she had wet the bed and there was
a large wet spot on his half of the bed great yeah long day just did the dishes go you almost fell asleep on the couch
but now it's time to go to bed one you see your daughter there so you're like oh great I gotta move her oh no
she peed she peed the bed and she's two so this is fairly common that she would get up sometime in the middle of the
night and creep in and go sleep with Mom and Dad in their bed it's still one of those moments where you're like can I
freaking just win one right just let me win one today could have slept easier at
the hospital yeah so he says he picked up Christy carried her back to her bedroom placed her in her bed then he
gives her a bottle now he decides rather than he's not gonna go sleep in the wet
spot nobody wants to sleep in the wet spot regardless of how it got wet so he decides you know what rather than waking
up my wife changing the sheets you know fixing everything up she's fine she's sleeping her half the bed is is fine
he decides it will be easier if I just go and sleep on the couch for the night go sleep on the couch in the living room
wake up take care of it in the morning right right he says at that time when he goes to bed when he goes to go to sleep
on the couch he remembers specifically that the only lights on in the house were a kitchen ceiling light and the
main bathroom light McDonald says he fell asleep within a matter of three to four minutes
he says he never had trouble falling asleep some of us do he never had any trouble falling asleep it seems like
very likely because he's tired from doing so much all of the time yeah McDonald's says that the next thing that
he is aware of he's awakened by a scream coming from his wife he hears his wife screaming he's in the
living room and he says the living room when he wakes up to hearing the screaming it's mainly darkness in that
room he describes this as a very loud scream and he said it was definitely Colette's voice he says quote things all
happened at once he says I was sitting up I was hearing this very piercing scream then she said quote meaning
Colette quote help Jeff why are they doing this to me there were people at the foot of my couch he says in the
living room these people are three males and he says then I saw a female behind the three
males so I saw a total of four people so four people is all that he ever says that he saw during this entire event
says I heard Kimberly screaming at the same time and I started to get up and said either what's going on or what the
hell's going on or what's going on here okay so let's paint this picture a little bit better those are his words
I'm going to give you the Colonel's words picture this he says he wakes up in near
Darkness he's hearing his wife scream Jeff why are they doing this to me notices three males standing at the foot
of his couch he's in the living room Colette's in the bedroom master bedroom he notices a woman standing behind the
three males and then he's hearing his daughter scream now at the same time he says at the same time so I'm going all
right same time either all three of these things are happening at the same time wife screams notices the people
daughter screams or his words would indicate that the he hears his daughter screaming at the same time as some other
event meaning either his wife screaming or at the same time that he notices these people in the living room with him
he says what's going on what the hell's going on he doesn't remember exactly what he says to these people when he
sees them now Jeffrey says there were two men at the foot of the couch and the third man was between the couch and the
coffee table they were all facing him he says he saw a woman behind the two men at the foot of the couch he goes on to
say all I really saw was that it appeared to be a girl with long blonde hair and a big floppy hat I had the
impression that she was holding quote like a candle in her hands he says this because mainly there was
sort of a light on her face he does go on to say that it could have been a flashlight he says there was a light
coming from the kitchen and the hallway there is enough light to see the figures
of these people the silhouette of these people but not so much enough to see details of these people want to be clear
the McDonald's house it's connected to other houses correct yes it's it's an apartment on base so it's on base
officer housing and yes they share walls with other officers in their family and
it's pretty large I'd almost say that it's almost seems like houses that are connected as opposed to what we would
assume as Apartments connected it really seems like a pretty large space the building itself no I'm saying the
individual units that are connected you can go online and see diagrams that people have made 3D diagrams uh if you
want to dive into the structure in the layout of the house yeah I don't know the square footage of of the apartment
itself but it's kind of that's what I'm looking for now the easy way to describe
it would be long it's rectangular and from my understanding Captain the living room that he's in and the if you
want to call it the upstairs level or the bedrooms is really only separated by a step or
two if this diagram is correct it looks like the front of the house is roughly 52 feet
and the depth of the house is roughly I'd say 28 to 30 feet okay he goes on to tell us that two of the three men were
white and one of the males was black he says that the black man was wearing an army fatigue jacket he says that he
started approaching me he raised something over his head and swung it down towards me I started to fall back
and I put my arm up to fend it off this attack he's trying to fend off then he hit me on the forehead at which time I
literally saw Stars I was knocked backwards onto the couch I was becoming more confused I struggled
back to a sitting position and he raised the club up again and started swinging it down I sort of fended it off he says
I grabbed his arm and slid down onto the club so I was holding the club with my hands
at this time I saw sergeant stripes on his sleeve so he's saying one of the attackers the black male is wearing an
army fatigue jacket and it's this man who is striking him with something in the forehead
and during the scuffle with this guy he notices sergeant stripes on the army fatigue
jacket while this was occurring he says that the girl he's referring to this this is a grown woman but he keeps
saying girl while this was occurring the girl was saying quote acid is groovy and
killed the pigs someone said once or twice hit him again it may have been the girl that said this Jeffrey McDonald
says I'm not sure yeah well Jeffrey's given us a lot of details but it seems like he's also questioning the details
as he's giving them he goes on to say I was holding on to the club at which time
the struggle became more confusing I'm guessing this is because he's been struck in the head with this club but
then I developed a terrific pain in my chest my right chest I assumed I was being punched I thought I had been
punched in the chest really really hard maybe the wind was knocked out of me I let go
of the club and I began grappling with the other two men at this time my shirt so McDonald is wearing his pajamas he's
wearing pajama pants and a button-up long-sleeve pajama top he says at this time my shirt was either pulled over my
head or it was ripped I have the feeling it was ripped because I don't remember something being pulled over my head in
any case my shirt ended up wrapped around my forearms and partially around my hand
I'm still struggling with these guys I had the impression that one of the white guys that I was struggling with was
wearing gloves I hit one of the men not sure who in the face in the face I grabbed one of the men and I was holding
on to his hand I looked and I saw a blade in his hand and I realized at this point I was being stabbed I was not
being punched I never really got on My Feet Again the long sleeve pajama top was still on my arms the so it was he
says in my way so I he was using it as like a buffer right they're trying to strike him or stab him or hit him with
things and he's got this pajama top that's now wrapped around his forearms and hand and he's kind of using it as
almost a shield he goes on to say at this point I was aware of being hit on the left shoulder and head and I started
falling I sort of fell towards the stairs at the end of the couch is the hallway it comes out right there and the
hallway is two stairs up from the living room I just sort of fell that way and then I saw right in front of me a knee
in the top of a boot I was under the impression that it was a female that I was looking at I saw a knee in the top
of a boot and I had the impression of the boot being wet that that is the last thing I saw before I woke up
[Music] [Music] [Music] all right we're back cheers mates cheers to you Colonel Hallelujah to the people
in the back cheers to all you snow-covered Critters out there let's continue on Captain with Jeffrey
McDonald's account of what went down that night okay when we left off he says that he's
been knocked out basically you know they've he's been attacked and then this is the last thing I remember was seeing
a wet boot who he believed belonged to the woman that he spotted in the living room
before he blacks out or goes unconscious yeah at this point he thinks he was hit
in the head multiple times by multiple individuals and also possibly stabbed he goes on to say that the first
recollection that he had when he woke up was that I was on my stomach on the hallway floor and my arms were still
wrapped in this pajama top my teeth were chattering and I thought I was going into shock I got up at which time I was
dizzy and confused I had a pain in my chest and it was hard to breathe so I went down to our master bedroom
I probably turned on the lights my wife was lying off of the bed and on the floor her feet were toward the hallway
her head was toward the bed she was sort of next to the bed partially leaning against the Green easy
chair that is next to the bed she didn't look good at all she looked very bad there
was a knife sticking out of her chest and as I was coming into the room I started taking off this top he's
referring to his pajama shirt right so my hands were free and when I saw the knife I pulled it out of her chest and
sort of tossed the knife while pulling a knife from somebody's chest might be a very awkward or maybe uncommon thing I
think for a normal victim but we do know that he's a surgeon so maybe that is the
reason why he did so he goes on to say that I then tried to give her and this is his words artificial breathing
simulation so maybe that's fairy doctor speak I don't know but CPR well not CPR he's simply giving her mouth to mouth
resuscitation at that time but he says that the air bubbles the air bubbles were coming out of her chest and neck
when he trying to breathe for her think about that when you're eating your lunch
yeah he says that it's then that he realized that he the fact the sad fact that he would not be able to revive her
he said that there was no way that she could sustain her own breathing he's a surgeon so he's going to act a little
differently I think than most people he says he then stopped doing the mouth to mouth and he says I didn't know what to
do so I covered her chest with my pajama top under the theory that if she's not dead she's at least in deep shock
and you go over and Elevate their legs and lie them flat he says I don't know if it was now or
later that I checked her pulse but at this point I realized that I had heard Kimberly yelling also
what I think he means here Captain is that he remembered hearing Kimberly yelling before he was knocked out not
that she's yelling at this exact moment yeah because he reported hearing his wife yell and also possibly one of his
children y'all now he's remembering that so he says I got up again and it was getting harder for him to breathe at
this time he says I went down the hallway into Kimberly's room Kimberly was in her bed on the right side of the
bed I saw what I thought were stab wounds I didn't notice any other wound I just saw a lot of blood I don't know if
it was now or later I tried to give artificial respiration I think I checked her pulse I turned around went out of
the bedroom and into the other bedroom this would be the other little girl's bedroom
I found Christy lying in her bed she had a lot of blood on her I checked her pulse and remembered trying to breathe
and give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and the same thing happened that happened with
this okay he's giving this these statements in an interview and this is his recollection not with police right
this is an interview that's not being conducted by police so he's starting to say
I believe that that the same thing happened when he gave mouth to mouth to his wife and seeing the air bubbles
coming from the chest and the neck right I'm kind of guessing here because he says the same thing happened that
happened with and then the notes state that the interview stopped for about 10 minutes
because they needed Jeffrey McDonald to you know regain his composure to carry on with the actual interview we don't
get him to finish that sentence when the interview picks up he says I ran into the hallway and I just stood
there not knowing what to do I noticed blood on my hand so I went to the master bathroom rinsed my hands off and dried
my hands off with some toilet paper or something and dropped it either on the toilet or on to the floor I remember
coming back into the master bedroom so I was back to Colette his wife I checked her Carotid pulse I took away
my pajama top and looked at her chest wounds again and at this time I kind of knew all of this probably occurred in
just a matter of a few minutes it was getting very hard for me to breathe my head was really hurting and I was
getting dizzy and I just didn't know what to do there is a phone in the bedroom so I went over to the phone
picked up the phone and I dialed zero the operator came on and I said something to the effect like this is
Captain McDonald or Dr McDonald I'm at 544 Castle Drive and there has been some people stabbed and we need ambulances
doctors and MPS and she said referring to the operator is it on post or off post meaning where he's calling from and
Dr McDonald says I said what the hell are you talking about she repeated is this on post or off post right Dr
McDonald said for Christ's sake what difference does that make she said well if it's on post it's an MP matter
military police matter I said it is on post she said well you have to contact the military police and with that he
says I just laid down the phone or dropped the phone he says I went back to Kimberly and I went back to Christy
check them for pulses and possibly gave them mouth to mouth again that part's a little confusing to me Captain because
it seems to me like he's already decided there's nothing more he could do for at
least two of these three victims I don't want to bring up too many things that I
find suspicious because that's something that we're going to be going over but the fact that he he does all these
things and checks on so many people before he tries to call for help it's definitely something that I think needs
to be noted he goes on to say that he didn't get any pulses and again he says he finds himself standing in the hallway
saying to himself what's going to happen he says that he then went to the kitchen
there's there's another phone in the kitchen area he says I went to the kitchen phone through the dining room
picked up the phone and the operator was already on the line she had never broken the connection he
says I said this is Captain McDonald at 544 Castle Drive just a minute I'll connect you to the MPS there apparently
that's what she's saying to him he says that he heard some dial tones and clicks and then a military police
officer came on the line and said can I help you McDonald's says I said people have been stabbed and I asked repeatedly
for an MP for doctors and ambulances I told them I'm at 544 Castle Drive he said they're on their way McDonald's
says again he dropped the phone at this time he says I'm all covered in blood from the kids and from Colette I rinsed
off in the sink I started out of the kitchen and that's really the last thing I remember the
next thing I remember so he's blacking out again the next thing I remember I was being given mouth to mouth by an MP
officer when I was awakened I was right next to my wife on the floor in the master bedroom I remember there's people
all around me and all I could see was the MP shiny helmets I saw this circle of people and they
were all talking yelling and screaming put that down don't touch her they put me on a stretcher I kept asking about my
kids everyone kept telling me everyone's okay they took me to a hospital where they were treating me
he said everyone during the treatment process kept telling him to calm down that everyone's okay but finally a
doctor came in to check on him and he says it was a doctor that he knew and had worked with at one point and he said
I kept asking him over and over how are they he said no one's told you I said no
he said they're all dead he paused and said I'm sorry to tell you yeah McDonald says I was crying for a
while then the doctor came back in and asked what he could do and McDonald's said call my mother and call my in-laws
and have them come right away but don't tell them what happened but question for
you because the the the initial 9-1-1 call talking to the operator putting the phone down going to the hallway coming
back talking to the operator putting the phone down again does that remind you of
any case that we've covered hmm it reminds me a lot of the the Scott Peterson the the staircase murders
that's right where the 911 call where it seems like he's panicking but then he's
backing away from the call and then getting back on the call Oddly enough another military man as well yeah now
according to just general knowledge this is all agreed upon by all parties involved on February 17th at 3 42 a.m
you know because we do not have McDonald filling Us in with any exact times here
when all of this is taking place right so at 3 42 a.m dispatchers at Fort Bragg were notified by a chief operator of the
Carolina telephone company regarding a call for help that they received the operator patched the call through to
Fort Bragg where Jeffrey McDonald reported that quote some people had been stabbed at his res evidence and that he
needed MPS and Medics and ambulances when the MP and Medics arrived McDonald was found on the master bedroom floor
lying partially on his stomach with one of his arms across Colette's upper body McDonald tells MPS and Medics that he
and his family were attacked by four hippies and will Circle back to that real quickly McDonald is then
transferred to Cape Fear Hospital for treatment Colette Kimberly and Kristen are all pronounced dead they are
transferred to the morgue at Cape Fear Hospital it's interesting how many cases are similar but this one is kind of
amalgamation of multiple cases of one the Chris Watts case the the Scott Peterson case and and then you mix in
the Sam Shepard case and now you have the Jeffrey McDonald case so some things real quick that I want to touch on in
his account that might clear some things up it might just muddy the water is even
more I don't know but as the captain said we're going to go through this in a very compartmentalized way
but I wanted to touch on some of these things before we simply forget to get to them so he says the very basic General
description that's in the papers and put out to everybody immediately is that this Jeffrey McDonald this respected
doctor this respected Green Beret member of the army he says that we are attacked by four
hippies there's some pretty major dispute going on if that was in fact what he said because people this case is
one of the most debated cases I think to to to date I mean it's up there with any of the other
ones that you hear people that that start off having a very intelligent discussion
that heightens to yelling and screaming matches because people are so decided one way or the other did Jeffrey
McDonald kill his family or did this group of four hippies kill his family like he says yeah some people would say
it's so debatable that to debate itself you'd have to be a master debater well one of the very first things that
comes into question is he gives a description of the attackers and people are saying well he's calling
them hippies yet one of them had on an army fatigue jacket to which he says he noticed sergeant stripes yeah but look
we've all seen Forrest Gump right when he goes to the Capitol and he and they have the protesters they have the
hippies protesting Vietnam and he gets mixed up in them there's a lot of so-called you know quote-unquote hippies
and what were they wearing they're wearing Army fatigues it was very fashionable and the mid 60s to to mid
70s well and I think the description of hippie sometimes can be open to interpretation a little bit yeah or go
go see a bunch of footage of John Lennon performing and he's constantly wearing what Army fatigues and he's he was the
definition the the biggest icon of the hippie movement well in what McDonald would later say is I never said the word
hippies I never said it was four hippies I simply described the four people that
I saw right and somebody from the Army or somebody from the newspaper changed it to a very General description of four
hippies now I can kind of believe that because we've been doing this long enough Captain I've seen things get
skewed in the news and in the papers because it sells copies we've talked about it many times it gets clicks on
the internet obviously that's not a concern Back in 1970 but it also gets people talking and it gets people tuning
into the news what would have been on everyone's Minds is what we just talked about earlier the Manson family yeah
Sharon Tate yeah the crazy hippies that broke into Holmes and murdered everybody
inside and and wrote things on the walls yeah and I I bet if you look back at what of whatever articles were written
about the Manson family and these quote unquote so-called hippies if that was lingo that was used in those reports
that's why that lingo was used in this case now very interestingly though we have a similar situation here at the
McDonald home after the attack so all four of the people are attacked inside the home three of them are left
dead and on the wall in the bedroom I apologize not on the wall it was on the headboard to the the bed in the master
bedroom somebody wrote the word Pig in blood right which is with Colette's blood we
would later figure out yeah which is something that was rumored I don't think it was confirmed in the the Manson
Murders but supposedly there was the words Pig Written in Blood and those murders as well well yeah and that that
definitely happened in both of those well I'm just saying actions at the time of this murder since the trial didn't
happen I just wonder if that was actually confirmed you see what I'm saying yeah and this we should be clear
here we already pointed out that this account that he's given is an account that he is given to an a person
conducting an interview a reporter this is not his words to the MPS when he's interviewed right after the attack
although he would tell us that this is the same thing that he told the military police right I've seen that version it
is very similar but the things that that are a little wonky again the word hippies he says he never used the word
hippies and second it's very quickly pointed out to McDonald during the investigation that the triple homicide
investigation that are you sure that this woman was holding a candle and in his initial statement he does say candle
I believe she was holding a candle because I saw some kind of flickering glowing light on her face they say you
know we didn't find any evidence of of wax of candle wax in the living room right but just because she's holding a
candle doesn't mean that they're going to find wax on the floor well and this is what's interesting he may have been
altering his statement to play along with what they were finding or not finding at the scene because in this
interview he's saying it may have been a flashlight I don't know I didn't see a candle I didn't see a flashlight I
simply saw the light shining up on her face yes it could be multiple things it could be a a candle it could be a
flashlight it could be a knife that was somehow reflecting light onto her face as said McDonald's mother is called and
his in-laws are called they obviously rush to Fort Bragg and unfortunately there's going to be funeral services
held for three on February 21st a little background story though to talk about Freddy and Mildred kasab
so this is his in-laws right Colette's father died when she was very young and Freddie casab married her mother when
Colette was still pretty young and remember we said that these two had a relationship in high school they were
friends boyfriend girlfriend that sort of thing on and off the kasabs Freddie and Mildred knew Jeffrey well well
before the two ever got married and this Freddy kassab I look him up sometime or
if you read up want to read further on this case you'll find the same thing I believe you'll find the same thing that
I thought this guy is he's a very likable guy but he's also very personable he seems to be
very personable with everybody and what I mean is that he treated Mildred's daughters and and her children as if
they were his own and he he raised they loved him dearly and Freddie kassab loved Jeffrey McDonald dearly and
immediately after this this was a weird case because they're going to go and look for these whatever you
want to call them four hippies the MPS are they're not going to find anybody they don't find anybody matching that
description they don't arrest anybody matching that description and after days and days
people go from feeling bad for Jeffrey McDonald to deciding well maybe he is lying maybe he's the one that is
responsible for the murder of his family and it's Freddy kassab his father-in-law
I think this is a rare thing I don't think we've seen this in a lot of cases Captain right Freddie casab goes to bat
for Jeffrey McDonald 100 stands by this guy he says you know you you'd have to be crazy to think that Jeffrey McDonald
would kill his family he was very vocal about it and he stood in front of the media and the newspapers and told all of
them that they are crazy for claiming that Jeffrey McDonald would kill his fam right because normally what happens
oh well they had some fights they had some money problems uh my my son-in-law he was a little bit
of a hot head right that's normally what you hear that it's a possibility or we couldn't believe it at all with the
other Scott Pearson case right couldn't believe it at all but then more things that are uncovered you start going well
maybe this is a possibility yes maybe it is a possibility and then you have to go
well if he did do it what is the motive for it there's that is another question mark
another big question mark in this case did he have a motive to kill his family some say that it was because he was
angered that the child wet his bed and then it started as a small argument that escalated greatly again this uh you
know the more and more and I know that you have been uh researching cases years before I ever
did but again this guy you're gonna tell me that this guy his daughter probably wet the bed
multiple times but he went to go to bed and and she wet the bed and he he decided to then kill everybody and then
he's gonna make up this story about these Intruders and it's it's very similar to JonBenet
Ramsey oh JonBenet Ramsey wet the bed and so the mother decided Well she has to die and Colette we should point out
was pregnant with what would have been the third child for the McDonald family and did they know what the sex was I
believe this time it was going to be a boy so she was well into her pregnancy and look McDonald had affairs he went
outside of his marriage not once not twice probably I I don't want to put a number on it 5 000 million I'm not going
to put a number on it I I don't know for certain but I know that it was as gajillion of a number according to all
the reports and everything that I've read over the years that it was multiple times well hold on let's get this out of
the way so he's a scumbag cheater right but well anyway it was known to some people that that Colette and Jeffrey had
argued and fought about this type of cheating behavior before that it was kind of a long ongoing argument so so
he's a cheater we know that she was it's like the common thread the guy is a cheater then he murders his
wife and sometimes he murders his family but is there any financial troubles I mean he they're living
on Fort Bragg and he's a surgeon so he probably makes decent money as a Green Beret surgeon I
don't think that we have any kind of money issues I mean he purchased a horse for his daughters for Christmas Rusty
just months before this and I think that there's not money issues because look one given the time period 1970 people
spent their money and lived a little quite a bit differently actually back then than they do today but take that a
step further they're living in officer housing he is working in his profession that
will pay him handsomely at some point being a surgeon they're just a young family you know
they're just a young family with two little kids and they're they're coming up through the world they're building
their family they're building their their life and you know so if if money was an issue I don't think it would be a
long-term issue right I also wonder if his father-in-law knew about his infidelity I believe that he did and I
say that because it's obvious to me that Colette had expressed the difficulties in the the trouble with her marriage to
her mother and given Freddie casab's personality him being so personable and so loving
and trusting to his wife and and her children this is not a guy that it strikes me that you keep stuff from this
guy when he walks into a room it's very obvious he's in charge of the whole room he he takes over a room in
that manner but he's also like I said extremely personable and loyal to the people around him this all took place as
said captain on February 16th and 17th 1970 it wouldn't be until July of 1970 when Jeffrey McDonald is going to have
to go to trial for the murders of his family and I and I should clear that up and clean that up a bit because that's
not exactly what's happening here it's it's what the Army calls in article 32 hearing to the civilians out there I
would liken this to like kind of like a grand jury hearing where we're going to decide if there's enough evidence here
to charge this guy and bring him to court but because it took place at Fort Bragg on Military property it's the
military's jurisdiction yeah so hold on a second so what we have is a guy that claims that these Intruders
killed his family but it doesn't seem like we have a lot of evidence that there's even Intruders
in the house so as far as the investigation goes that's kind of why they're forced into this
you know hey we we don't have much evidence that there's even other individuals there
so now we need to look at the most likely suspect in a crime like this the husband and then from that they're
trying to determine if there's enough evidence against him to take him to trial the short of it Captain regarding
this article 32 hearing that's conducted by the military they decide that there's
really not enough evidence to go forward and try Jeffrey McDonald for the murders
of his family in fact they dismissed the case with the suggestion that the MPS or
maybe even civilian police and law enforcement agencies look for these four people that
McDonald's says broke into the apartment and murdered the family I mean cases especially that are this horrifying you
want to get them right because if you don't get it right you can't ever charge him again and I think this is one of
those cases where we can spend the time doing the storytelling and telling you what happened and how it played out and
this thing was a monster of a story to tell because it's a story that that spans decades and decades right of
action in and outside of the courtroom and we'll get back to the storytelling portion a bit but what I think is really
key here in this case is that we look at what we know we look at the facts we examine it here in the garage and see
what our opinions are as well as the listeners out there to figure out if Jeffrey McDonald is in fact guilty of of
these murders so let's start with the autopsies so the following is a list of wounds that were inflicted upon the
McDonald family and we'll go through these victim by victim starting with Colette McDonald
Colette sustained several blunt trauma injuries to her head and arms she was struck at least six times in the head
with a blunt object resulting in lacerations to her right Temple left temple forehead and on top of her head
all of these lacerations were deep enough to expose bone she also received two blows under her chin resulting in
extensive bruising to the left front chin area and the right front chin area there was a small fracture in the
midline portion of Colette's skull the blunt trauma injuries to Colette's arms were defensive type wounds you see that
very often so you're seeing obvious signs of she was attacked with a club or something of that nature struck in
her head area and she's trying to block these blows during this scuffle using her hands and
forearms right and what's interesting here is these injuries the blunt force trauma to
her head would be consistent with Jeffrey McDonald what he says he was attacked with in the living room yeah
and to believe his story you have to believe that somebody started to attack her and that she woke up then she
defended herself Colette's right wrist was fractured and the inner aspect of her upper arm bore an extensive bruise
and a superficial abrasion the fingers and hand of her right arm had extensive black and blue marks associated with
abrasion so this is not a a one and done attack that happened very quickly this is a fight right that we're seeing here
we know this by Colette's injuries her left arm was also fractured in two places so defending herself and being
struck so hard that whatever she's being hit with is breaking bone as she's trying to fend it off does law
enforcement have any clue to what this object would be yes in fact it's believed that all of the murder weapons
and I say all because there are different types of attacks here right different types of wounds indicating
different murder weapons all of them were found at the crime scene so one was a it's been referred to as a
club and some statements McDonald says that he believed he was being hit with a bat the best way to describe this
quote-unquote club is it's like a slat that you would use for a bed and it's believed well I shouldn't
say believed it seems to be damn near 100 proven that this wood this wooden slat came from the master bed
from Jeffrey and his wife's bed in the master bedroom noted Colette also had nine deep knife wounds to the front of
her neck and seven deep knife wounds to her chest and 21 puncture wounds to her chest area and but you were also saying
that the the knife was found at the scene of the crime as well yeah so from my understanding here Captain what we
have is we have uh four murder weapons one is that club that we just kind of described which you think is a slack
that came from the master bed that's that's what investigators have stated so do investigators also believe that the
not only the slack comes from the house but the knife comes from the house as well so there were two knives and an ice
pick so those are your four murder weapons remember McDonald's account he pulled
the knife out of Colette's chest and just kind of tossed it or threw it down so that goes what they find at the scene
backs up his story for that portion at least that one sentence because they find a knife in the master bedroom on
the floor but they find the club The Ice Pick and a knife outside of the apartment so they
find them basically what you would call the backyard even though this is a shared space right they have a front
door to the apartment and a back door to the apartment when officers arrived at the scene they
found the front door locked and secured they found the back door open and it's right at a bush near this back door at
the base of a bush where they find these murder weapons like so if four people went into the house killed this family
they must have got in through this back door maybe it was left unlocked and when they left they of course left
the back door unlocked left the door slightly ajar and it would appear that they just tossed the weapons down as
they were fleeing the apartment but you're right Captain one very difficult thing that I have with this story is
that McDonald's says that he didn't recognize some of these items and yet the MPS and the detectives would tell us
that they believe that they have reason to believe that all of these items came from the McDonald family from from their
home right you have to picture this this story starts to become very incredible very fast did these four
individuals happen to find an unlocked back door to the McDonald family home enter with no weapons
go around the house collecting weapons of Their Own and then using these weapons on the
family and then toss them aside as they flee the crime scene it could have been a mixture of both yeah I mean they could
have found some of the items there they could have brought maybe one or both of the knives with them but the the police
and law enforcement have said the knives belong to the McDonald family is that because they think they're a part of a
set the answer is I I do not know what they're basing this off of I don't have any reason to not believe this statement
because this thing has gone to trial you know the article 32 hearing and then we
have the actual trial of Jeffrey McDonald later and it seems to be agreed upon that that
these items came from the apartment Kimberly McDonald was struck at least three times in the head with a blunt
object Kimberly's right cheek right ear and right mastoid area had overlapping black and blue marks and irregular
abrasions her right eye was recessed and she had a fractured nose which was deviated to the right her left cheekbone
was fractured and a piece of the cheekbone was protruding through the skin Kimberly skull showed multiple
fractures in the dome portion of her skull was fractured through its entire thickness it's it's horrific to describe
these things and and I I hate having to say these words but to put it simply her
head was bashed in I mean that's how brutally she was attacked and they found eight to ten deep knife wounds on the
right side of her neck this is one of those weird cases captain and again I'll throw this warning out to you because
you cannot unsee these things you can find crime scene photographs colored photographs online of the McDonald crime
scene unfortunately you can see these victims pictures of these victims how they were found that night when MPS
responded to the call Kristen McDonald sustained 12 knife wounds to her upper back four wounds to her chest and one to
the neck two of the wounds to her back penetrated her heart causing massive internal bleeding
15 shallow puncture wounds were found in her chest as well as multiple cuts on both of her hands there was a through
and through laceration of the skin involving the middle of the right ring finger so
this young girl is attacked she stabbed as said but again we're seeing obvious signs of defensive wounds here the she
has these wounds to her hands and fingers because she's putting them up trying to prevent whatever attack is
going on at that time you know the knife attack the laceration that we just discussed about the middle of the right
ring finger was deep enough to expose bone and the index finger of the right hand revealed a triangular flap of skin
so using the hands to try to fend off this attack this brings us to Jeffrey McDonald the
man that says that he was sleeping on the couch and wakes up in the middle of the night and he's being attacked by
three men in the living room he says that he's attacked there he says that he hears his wife screaming in the
bedroom he hears his daughter screaming in her bedroom now his injuries are as such McDonald's sustained bruising over
the left eye beneath the hairline a stab wound of the upper left arm a stab wound
of the left bicep he also received a laceration of the left index finger and a stab wound to the left abdomen in the
form of an upside down V if you can picture that several small puncture type wounds were present on the upper left
chest remember he said when he came to he was confused that would be from the strikes the blows to
the head he said that it became increasingly more difficult to breathe well this is going to be because he
stabbed in the abdomen in the chest area and one of these stabs is powerful enough it went between two of the ribs
on the right side of his chest which resulted in a collapse right lung so of course he's having difficulty breathing
during this time we went through all of that for me to say and I don't want to speak for the
captain here because again this is a case that everybody has their own opinion on it and some of them are very
strong some people are very strong in their opinions on this case but we go through all of that for me to tell you
this what I see here and what I question here is I have three female victims Colette and her two small young
daughters on these three individuals I see Overkill yeah on Jeffrey McDonald I see
exactly what he described in his defense it's exactly as he would describe it wounds I would expect to see on him
given his account of what happened however how does four people kill three individuals so brutally to the point
that they're their bodies their clothing their beds are covered in blood yeah and the one
major threat you have in this house I was just going to say that is the Green Beret that's sleeping on the couch
and he does not have anywhere near the number of blows stabs blood on him yeah because look if if you're
one of The Intruders you don't know who this guy is you're you're on Fort Bragg if you don't
know who this guy is all you can assume that is he's an officer of the military right
and maybe if you know anything about Fort Bragg maybe you know he is a part of the green braids I don't know if they
separate the people like that in the housing let's take that all out of account any Intruder that goes into any
house who's their biggest threat to them the two-year-old girl the five-year-old
girl the mother or the husband probably the husband and you're going to have what he tells
you at least two males and a female in the same room to attack him with multiple weapons
and like you said the other ones their their bodies are mangled and he somehow is alive yeah we know
this from seeing these other attacks in other cases where people break into a home
or you know home invasion type cases BTK type cases the first thing that they do is neutralize the threat Jeffrey
McDonald is the number one threat to these Intruders maybe they neutralized him it seems like
they if we believe McDonald that they did a good job to neutralize him let's say that but then why the overkill on
these other three individuals why didn't they finish the job on Jeffrey McDonald are
we to believe McDonald that he just was able to fight them off better than his other family members
foreign [Music] us back here in the garage tomorrow same bat Time same bat Channel and until then
be good be kind and don't litter [Music] thank you foreign

Jeffrey MacDonald /// Part 1 /// 464

Part 1 of 2 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

This week Nic & the Captain tell the story of one of the most litigated murder cases in American criminal history. Doctor and Army officer Jeffrey MacDonald was convicted of murdering his wife and two children. The man says he is innocent. Jeffrey claims the murders were committed by four intruders in the middle of the night. He says they tried to kill him as well. Join the guys in the garage for a beer and hear one of the most debated murder cases to date.

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Brief Summary

Dr. Jeffrey McDonald is accused of murdering his family in 1970, raising questions about his guilt and the investigation's findings.

Key points

The McDonald Family Tragedy. A family of four is brutally murdered in their home, leaving one survivor.
A Disturbing Call for Help. Jeff McDonald calls military police, reporting a stabbing at his home.
A Night of Terror. Jeffrey McDonald recounts the horrifying events of the night his family was attacked.
The Devastating News. After the attack, McDonald learns the tragic fate of his family.
The Manson Family Connection. The discussion shifts to the Manson family murders and their impact on public perception of hippies.
Freddy Kassab's Loyalty. Freddy Kassab stands by Jeffrey McDonald despite growing suspicions against him.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

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Host welcomes listeners.

1:01WatchNov 8, 2022

Tension

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