The Jeffrey MacDonald Case, by xiulan

[xiulan]

Jul 5, 2017 1:16:18 GMT albion said:

Thank you Xiulan. Great posts and info.

It sounds like these MP's were not prepared for a case such as this one. Were these MP's specifically trained in this type of investigation? From what I have found on the web, it appears they dealt more with crowd control, bombs, and terrorism. Do you know what happened to these MP's after? I follow a couple of other cases with a similar LE performance, and I found that even though these cases were mishandled, some of the LEO's went on to a surprisingly successful career. Are there any instances of that with these MP's?

I was surprised also to see how unique this group was.

"About
The 503D Military Police Battalion (Airborne) serves distinctly as the Army’s only Airborne Military Police Battalion. At home and abroad, the paratroopers of the 503D Military Police Battalion (Airborne) stand ready to support the XVIII Airborne Corps."

"Reorganized 1 November 1970 to consist of Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment, 503d Military Police Battalion (Companies A, B, and C concurrently inactivated at Fort Bragg, North Carolina)"

Have you read about this case? They have ties back to Fayetteville and drug smuggling via North Carolina and Florida. And then it turns out that a previous rape case matched via DNA, sort of like the Earons case. And the rape victim and the murdered boys father worked together at a strip club in the past.

www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?28203-TX-Cheryl-Henry-22-amp-Andy-Atkinson-21-Houston-21-Aug-1990

No, I hadn't read about that case. Thank you for the info. Something else that struck me about these guys was a number of them went through school at Gordon together during a time period where there were many nefarious experimental programs going on and the MPs were apparently directly involved in oversight and so forth.

[albion]

The MacDonald Case is just so odd. Especially when it is compared to this case that happened 35 years later. In both instances justice doesnt seem to have anything to do with the outcome.


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_of_Phillip_Esposito_and_Louis_Allen

"The fragging deaths of Phillip Esposito and Louis Allen occurred on June 7, 2005, at Forward Operating Base Danger in Tikrit, Iraq. Captain Phillip Esposito and First Lieutenant Louis Allen, from a New York Army National Guard unit of the United States 42nd Infantry Division, were mortally wounded in Esposito's office by a Claymore mine and died.

Military investigators determined that the mine was deliberately placed in the window and detonated to kill Esposito and Allen. Staff Sergeant Alberto B. Martinez, who was in the officers' unit, was charged with two counts of premeditated murder. In 2006, two years before the trial, Martinez volunteered in a plea bargain to plead guilty to murder in exchange for a life sentence without parole; Lt. Gen. John Vines, commander of the Army’s 18th Airborne Corps and the convening authority, rejected the deal. In the court martial, Martinez was acquitted on December 4, 2008 at Fort Bragg, North Carolina."

[nowhereman]

I remember when the miniseries was broadcast, Gary Cole was so amazing in that. I've never read McGinnis' book. Seems like an awful lot of circumstantial evidence combined with mishandled evidence, scary they were able to obtain a conviction.

[tomsawyer]

I read about this case years ago, including hearing the defense arguments. The man is a psychopath and murdered his family. His story does not fit with the evidence and there was no gang of murderous hippies in the house. He killed them. That's why he was convicted and is in prison to this day (unless he has since died).

[relish]

Tragic case but no way to avoid one or two of these in every generation, IMO. If you are going to be the victim of a crime make sure it is a run of the mill crime in which your story quickly makes perfect sense to the investigators and the public and everyone else. Otherwise, if you start describing bizarre circumstances and at least one other person was murdered but you were not, the simplistic and vindictive human tendency is to point back at the describer and show no shame in concocting any preposterous tale to assert and define his guilt.

Minus the tragic aspect it would actually be beyond hilarious that MacDonald was ever convicted, and that people actually believe in his guilt.

If you have the burden of that bizarre story you need tons of extreme luck to have it verified and ultimately shove the lughead investigators and prosecutors away from you. The Charles Holden and Kay Mortensen cases are examples of extremely odd tales that were absolutely true but law enforcement was zeroing in on the wrong person(s), until just enough evidence surfaced to prove the truth of the original story.

[jtf]

In 1979, a jury convicted Jeffrey MacDonald of killing his pregnant wife, his 5 year old daughter, and his 2 year old daughter. The prosecution presented over 1,000 evidentiary items which included hairs, fibers, bloody footprints, fabric damage, and bloody/non bloody fabric impressions. This mass of inculpatory evidence led to MacDonald's conviction in less than 7 hours. The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology completed DNA tests on 29 exhibits in 2006.

The test results further inculpated MacDonald as evidenced by the fact that a broken, bloody limb hair found clutched in his wife's left hand matched MacDonald's DNA profile. MacDonald advocates have continually pointed to allegedly exculpatory evidence in this case. Their pet suspects were Helena Stoeckley and Greg Mitchell, but none of the physical evidence in this case was sourced to either suspect. No matching DNA, hair, fingerprints, fibers, or bloody footprints were found at the crime scene.

In essence, the main arguments for Stoeckley and Mitchell as viable suspects involve 2nd and 3rd hand hearsay testimony. Most of this testimony was the result of Stoeckley's penchant for confessing to being present at the crime scene and implicating Mitchell and others in the commission of this horrible crime. The FBI deemed this group as the Stoeckley Seven, but all of these individuals were cleared by the CID in 1971, and the FBI in 1981. Similar to Stoeckley/Mitchell, there was no physical trace of their presence at the crime scene, and several of them called Stoeckley's claims "insane," and the "the ravings of a madwoman."

www.macdonaldcasefacts.com

[kemo]

Somehow the Legend of Poor Dr. Jeff never seems to go away. He still as his supporter/groupies who have been funding his defense/PR campaign.

The story of someone Falsely Convicted has a lot of appeal; particularly if you find the purported victim to be someone sympathetic or appealing.

While a lot of the “exonerating evidence” that his defenders can present in short sentences is easy to understand and draw quick conclusions, the actual forensic case that was presented to the jury is rather complex. There is no way to try to explain it in a web post.

Too many folks who have drawn a conclusion based on a short Web summery of the case are reluctant to spend the time and effort to sort through the forensic aspects of the case, particularly since the available literature that accurately presents this evidence is generally perceived as “anti-McDonald; pro government “.

[jtf]

KEMO: The good news is that the current number of COMMITTED MacDonald advocates is only a fraction of the support he received from 1988-2000. The two main reasons for his dwindling support group includes the inculpatory DNA test results, and the government's destruction of the defense at the 2012 evidentiary hearing. Inmate and his defense team have never been able to produce a single evidentiary item (e.g., DNA, hairs, fibers, fingerprints) that was definitively sourced to a known intruder suspect. For the past several decades, the FBI has deemed unsourced evidentiary items to be "forensically insignificant."

At the 1979 trial, the defense put forth unsourced fingerprints, candle wax, fibers, and hairs as being proof of hippie home invaders. The jury didn't buy it nor have the appellate courts. The government's case, however, has stood the test of time as evidenced by the mountain of sourced evidence that links inmate, and only inmate, to this horrible crime. This includes fibers from his torn pajama top being found under Colette's body, under Kristen's and Kimmie's bedcovers, under Kimmie's pillow, entwined with Colette's bloody head hair, and under Kristen's fingernail.

In addition, bloody fabric and non-fabric impressions were found on bedding used to transport Colette and Kimmie back to their bedrooms. The bloody impressions proved beyond all doubt that someone wearing MacDonald's torn pajama top carried Colette's bloody body from Kristen's room to the master bedroom. Three bloody footprints formed in Colette's blood were found exiting Kristen's room and one of those bloody footprints matched the left foot of Jeffrey MacDonald. Inmate also claims his pajama top was torn in the living room during his fight with three armed men, and that he took off the pajama top when he "found" his wife dead on the master bedroom carpet.

Blood stain analysis of inmate's pajama top proved beyond all doubt that Colette deposited her blood on the pajama top in 10 locations BEFORE the garment was torn. Six blood stains were found on the dislodged pajama top pocket and four stains were found on the left side of the garment. The locations of the four stains were on the left shoulder, left front seam, left sleeve, and left cuff of the garment. The pajama top had a 72 inch tear which began at the neckline, traveled down the left front seam, and left sleeve down to the cuff. Despite this massive tear, no fibers were found in the living room where inmate claims the garment was torn.

I could on (e.g., Pajama Top Theory, weapons, blood evidence in the bathroom/kitchen), but the mass of inculpatory evidence speaks for itself.

www.macdonaldcasefacts.com

[albion]

Setting aside "reasonable" doubt, or Occam's razor, its seems odd that the military investigation led no where.

In relation to the Earons, where is the military presence now? What was the exact number of crimes committed against civilian LE and then what were the number committed against military families? I would hope the military would somehow address this fact.

I am guessing I need a bit more explanation for this part. As it stands, it sounds very convenient.
"Inmate and his defense team have never been able to produce a single evidentiary item (e.g., DNA, hairs, fibers, fingerprints) that was definitively sourced to a known intruder suspect. For the past several decades, the FBI has deemed unsourced evidentiary items to be "forensically insignificant.""

[jtf]

ALBION: The military investigation hardly "led no where." The CID investigated this case not once, but twice. Both investigations led to the conclusion that Jeffrey MacDonald murdered his pregnant wife and two daughters. The CID's reinvestigation took 3 years to complete and the final report was 10,000 pages in length. At trial, MacDonald was convicted of three counts of murder in less than 7 hours. Once he was imprisoned, the burden of proof shifted to MacDonald, so he had to produce evidence that linked specific individuals to the crime scene. This included DNA, hairs, fibers, fingerprints, and footprints.

For the past 37 years, MacDonald and his rotating band of lawyers have been unable to produce the goods, but that hasn't stopped him from puffing up the significance of unsourced household debris. Despite the fact that his residence had prior tenants, MacDonald has long argued that unsourced hairs/fibers/fingerprints were evidence of hippie home invaders. The appellate courts held MacDonald to the high standard of proof (e.g., evidence sourced to known individuals) and concurred with the FBI's position that every domicile contains unsourced DNA/fibers/hairs/fingerprints.

www.macdonaldcasefacts.com