At the crime scene, the . In the sense that, with the Innocence Project, what youre really looking for is good, solid forensic evidence that will include or exclude somebody.. They said the dead marshals claims couldnt be trusted because travel records and testimony from other marshals showed he had gotten his facts wrong about the trip. For example, one of the killers had written pig on a door in the blood of Sharon Tate. In 2012, defense lawyers tried to introduce new DNA analysiswhich wasnt available during MacDonaldss original trialof three human hairs found at 544 Castle Drive. Kitchen. You can download ACDSee at: http://www.tucows.com/preview/194958.html. Smerling is the director of the documentary series "A Wilderness of Error," which examines the MacDonald case. Jeffrey MacDonald (pictured with his wife, Colette, and one of his two daughters, Kimberly) was convicted in 1979 of having murdered his family in 1970. This was the issue found with blood smeared on it in the MacDonalds living room. This was done by scanning the diagram and then overlaying interior and exterior walls, doors and furnishings. After all, The Jinx ended with an apparent live-mic murder confession from the real estate heir Robert Durst. His condo had parking out front for his sports car and was on the water in the back to accommodate his 34-foot yacht. The perpetratorswhy dont they kill him? But still, unfortunately, there are remnants there as far as our community goes.. A piece of skin that was found under Colettes fingernail, possibly from her scratching her attacker, disappeared after it was collected. The prosecutors countered that one of the hairs (it was the one from Kristens fingernail) may have been an incident of crime-scene contamination, and the other two could have been in the home long before the homicides. ABOUT CRIMEDOOR. (Notably absent is MacDonald, with whom Smerling said he had scheduled an interview that got abruptly canceled; an official at the federal prison in Cumberland, Md., where MacDonald is incarcerated declined interview requests for this article, citing coronavirus concerns.). As investigators descended upon the apartment, one of them picked up a camera and photographed the scene. MacDonald has been in and out of courtrooms since the summer of 1970 to assert his claim he is innocent. Doesnt the image above look a bitstretched, as well as degraded in quality? Many horrific things happened. Talk about the case has faded as people who were alive at the time of the murders and the trial have died, said Pitts. Hollywood writers, slamming 'gig economy,' to go on strike, Texas family called police 5 times before shooting spree that killed 5, Canadian folk singer Gordon Lightfoot dead at 84, 7 people found dead during search for missing Oklahoma teenagers, 2 hospitals under federal investigation for denying abortion care, Met Gala highlights: Rihanna ends carpet, Kim Kardashian pays tribute. U.S. district court and 4th Circuit Court of Appeals judges rejected requests for a retrial in 2014 and again in 2018. But the plan backfired spectacularly after McGinniss became convinced of MacDonalds guilt and wrote a scathing 976-page tome arguing that the ex-Green Beret was a narcissistic sociopath who barbarically murdered his family in an amphetamine-induced rage. And then I started thinking, Hey if anybody breaks in, he could have killed me with the hammer. So I put it back in the toolbox.. Her hands were cut in what appeared to be defensive wounds. One of the most important jobs of an MP is to preserve a crime scene to protect the evidence for the investigators, Culbreth said. It was released by authorities in 1984 . All rights reserved. She owned a large hat and blonde wig but disposed of both after learning about the tragedy, according to court records. These images now reside in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, part of an extraordinary historical document: a nearly 100-page album of unflinching crime photos from the dawn of the 20th century. So that kind of raised some eyebrows.. In 2012, MacDonald finally got a new hearing. February 2007Recently, a poster on the Crime and Justice/Jeffrey MacDonald discussion board claimed, in the Bloody Footprint thread, to have supposedly analyzed the crime scene photos of Jeffrey MacDonald's footprints in the hallway of 544 Castle Drive and the photo of Colette's foot. MacDonald was discovered alive next to his wife with non-life-threatening wounds on his face and torso, a collapsed lung and a mild concussion. THE JEFFREY MACDONALD CASE - GREEN BERET MURDERS, CID Laboratory Reports, transcriptions, cross-references and Resources, This page was created for researchers of the murders of Colette, Kim and Kristen MacDonald. I think if I did that, Scott, I would give a lot away, Smerling said. Hallway. What is not in dispute is what happened at 544 Castle Drive in the early morning hours of February 17, 1970. Down the hall from the master bedroom, 5-year-old Kimberley and 2-year-old Kristen were in their beds. 544 castle drive crime scene photos. In 1970, Thompson was the news director at WFNC radio and one of the first reporters to arrive at the MacDonald home. Paul Woolverton. MacDonald, there had been stabbings, and he needed a doctor, military police and an ambulance to come to his home at 544 Castle Drive on Fort Bragg. And if he didnt do it, the government railroaded a man who was totally innocent and lost his wife and children.. connect@underthelights.org (205) 612-7070. Utility Room. For researchers of the murders of Colette, Kimberley and Kristen MacDonaldDebunking FrmrCSIs alleged analysis of the bloody footprints. Jul 16, 2013 - 544 Castle Drive on Fort Bragg, N.C., is the residence where Jeffrey MacDonald lived with his family. )Click here to see how the JPEG algorithm results in degradation and loss of pixel data, and to see why this is one primary reason why JPEG images would never be used in any sort of high-end analysis of the type FrmrCSI claims to have done. Wilderness is not that kind of show. The marshal died in 2008. These spotty effects and other degradation would not be in the raw, high-resolution scan from which the JPEG was made, so, from that aspect, one can say that the JPEG format is, interestingly, both a lossy format and one that adds unwanted data to an image that was not in the original high-resolution scan. (9) Supposedly having analysis software analyze this final overlay image. To some, it sounded like a copycat killing modeled after Charles Mansons sadistic cult. Fifty years after his wife and two young daughters were brutally murdered, and 41 after he was convicted of the crime, the case of former Army surgeon Jeffrey R. MacDonald . "It might be better for everyone concerned that it is being torn down," Hodges said. One found a back door to a utility room open. On May 1, 1970, the Army charged MacDonald with three counts of murder. Prosecutors speculated MacDonalds rampage followed an argument with Colette that spiraled. A flowerpot was nearby, with the plant and its root ball lying on the floor next to it. The other is a docu-series that doesnt seem to arrive at the same place. We strive to bring awareness back into focus with our coverage, which features Crime stories that are underpinned by reliable information from up-to-date sources, as told by compassionate storytellers. His pajama top was on Colettes body. He thought it was Colette or possibly Kimberley. MacDonald said he awoke on the hallway floor then searched the house and found the bodies. McGinness portrayed MacDonald as guilty. MacDonald, 76, is serving three consecutive life sentences in federal prison for the murders. When DNA testing emerged as a new forensic tool, MacDonald sought testing of the evidence to prove someone else killed his family. The investigators contended that there was no way that the MacDonalds living room coffee table would have ended up on its side during a struggle. But the Supreme Court reversed that ruling in March 1982, and MacDonald went back behind bars. Theres a reason I called it A Wilderness of Error., A Wilderness of Error Points the Lens Back at Errol Morris, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/25/arts/television/wilderness-of-error-errol-morris-jeffrey-macdonald.html. Fatal Justice, a book that says MacDonald was wrongly convicted, says MacDonald had at least three bruises on his head, a bruise on his shoulder and upper left arm, and a bruise on his left forearm that could be considered a defensive wound. There is a padlock on the front door and steel bands bar the windows . The prosecutors pointed out similarities between the Manson case as described in the magazine and the MacDonald murders. Chief Judge Terrence Boyle is scheduled to hear arguments from both sides but MacDonald, 77, will not be in court. 544 Castle Drive: The Fort Bragg apartment at 544 Castle Drive where the murders took place was preserved for many years, due to the ongoing investigation. His most serious wound was an ice-pick stab to his chest that partly deflated his lung. Th emore you enlarge the picture the more the picture will pixelate. Years after his book was published, he acknowledges in the series that he still believes MacDonald is innocent but knows he cant absolutely prove it. Care to detail what some of those things are? I asked. Eventually . By June 1979, wrote McGinniss in Fatal Vision, MacDonald was the director of emergency medicine at a hospital. (And selecting even a relatively large portion of the ball of Colette's foot in the original crime scene JPEG photo results in an image only 45 or so pixels wide, even less suitable for computer analyzation of this kind, in fact ridiculously unsuitable. Im not the director. An analyst from the FBI gave extensive testimony about the blood patterns, holes and rips in the bedding and in MacDonalds pajamas. Reader discretion is advised. However, enlarging a scan via the use of a computers resizing function, or scanning a printout of a low-resolution JPEG image in a high resolution as FrmrCSI claims to have done, results in the computer faking it and using software and/or scanner interpolation and algorithms to put information in the picture that was not there originally.Click here to see a collection of images showing the results of magnification, interpolation and anti-aliasing on one of the pictures FrmrCSI claims to have enhanced and used for his alleged high-end analysis, as well as samples showing magnification of the original low-resolution JPEG crime scene photo.FrmrCSI also posted links to the three pictures he used in his alleged analysis, which included one full-sized copy of a photo from the collection of online crime photos, and two images cropped from the same collection, one of which he said he had enhanced and enlarged in preparation for his analysis software: But wait. Still, you'll find 544 Castle Drive something of a haunting place. (2) Enhancing one of the images (which apparently consisted only of changing the contrast and color balance); Where: Airs first on the FX network every Friday at 9p.m., then streaming on Hulu the following day. Even more surprisingly, he failed to provide any final report of the figures his alleged analysis software would have presumably output at the end of the analysis. Some of Colettes wounds were defensive and authorities contended her last moments were spent trying to save Kristen. But it also gives Morris the Morris treatment a re-investigation by Smerling, who himself is known for producing bombshell documentaries like Capturing the Friedmans and The Jinx.. Jeffrey MacDonald. So for everyone whos ever wondered what it might be like to be inside 544 Castle Drive, here we go: Differences between Bost's Fatal Justice diagram and Terraserver locations of witness residences. Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. Even years later, Pitts said, people you run into across the state or parts of the country, they would be well familiar with the Jeffrey MacDonald case. The crime-scene and autopsy photos of Colette and the children are gruesome and bloody. In a 2012 book, the influential documentarian reinvestigated the case of Jeffrey MacDonald, convicted of the 1970 murder of his wife and children. The front door was locked, and the MPs were hesitant to break in. It certainly gave our community some notoriety, said former Fayetteville Mayor Marshall B. Pitts Jr. In 1984, Culbreth joined the Army and went to military police school in Alabama. Kim Kardashian, Pete Davidson arrive at 2023 Met Gala, separately, Montana Rep. Zooey Zephyr sues state GOP leadership after censure vote, Biden seeks talks with McCarthy amid warning of possible June default, Karl Lagerfeld's cat Choupette is star of Met Gala despite declining invite, Serena Williams makes major announcement at Met Gala, Is PVC pipe safe? DNA testing from three hairs found at the crime scene could not be matched to anyone, lending credence to MacDonalds home-invasion claim. Over the objections of MacDonalds lawyers, the prosecutors had articles from Esquire magazine about the Manson murder case in California read to the jury. It was a nasty, rainy, cold day, said news reporter Jeff Thompson of Up & Coming Weekly. However, the examiner said no conclusion could be made as to the accuracy of Stoeckleys statements because of Stoeckleys state of mind and her excessive drug use in February 1970, wrote author Morris in A Wilderness of Error.. MacDonald told investigators that four drug-crazed hippies had attacked his family three men and a woman in a blonde wig and a floppy hat who carried a candle and chanted, Acid is groovy, kill the pigs. Charges against MacDonald were dismissed in an Army hearing. Fort Bragg managed to get control of the building in 1984 and disposed of all its contents, including furnishings, appliances and fixtures. Mommie, dont ever say anything to Jeff because he cannot stand criticism,' Kassab recalled Colette saying once when she suggested her son-in-law should help more. Military police officers responding to a call from MacDonald found his wife, Colette, beaten and stabbed to death in the master bedroom; the couple's two daughters, Kimberly, 5, and Kristen, 3, were in their beds, also stabbed to death. People still stopped on the street to take pictures of the home, the sergeant said, and some knocked on the door and asked to look . These colorized versions of vintage black-and-white crime scene photos reveal a unique perspective on the murders, mobsters, and mayhem of decades past. Our library is built with an all-inclusive goal: providing trustworthy resources for our community of advocates and experts. Ten, 12 years later, it was still boarded up, he said. They will also be used to try to recreate what might have taken place according to the prosecution. I would like to smell the flowers again, and I think I should.. I will be more than happy to post it straight from my computer, FrmrCSI refused to provide any link to the final overlay image he claimed to have created. Moreover, most of the crime scene images originally posted online were only 626 pixels wide, with an average size of 35K or so, meaning that even more data that had been in the original high-resolution scan was removed when that resizing was done. Youre telling these stories from different perspectives, and then these stories start to intercept with each other, said Smerling. He cannot reasonably expect that prolonging his risk by declining vaccination will be rewarded with a sentence reduction.. Gary Cole (left with Matthew Faison) played a murderous MacDonald in a 1984 TV mini-series about the case, Fatal Vision, based on the best-selling book by Joe McGinniss. When military police arrived, they found Jeffrey MacDonald lying next to his wife on a blood-covered floor in the master bedroom. Did Jeffrey MacDonald Kill His Family or Was He the Victim of Manson Copycats? On Feb. 17, 1970, military police officers at Fort Bragg, N.C. were summoned to a grisly scene at the MacDonald residence at 544 Castle Drive. Interior views of 544 Castle Drive, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. In 2006, a strand of hair from under 2-year-old Kristens fingernail could not be matched to anyone. Rhoades, a long-haul trucker, converted the sleeper cab of his 18-wheel semi truck into a small, makeshift sex chamber where he would torture his victims and rape them for weeks on end. Asked if MacDonald would be a good candidate for the organization, Cooney tells A&E True Crime, Im just not sure he would. The woman appeared to be holding a candle. That was just one of the many pieces of evidence. Colette MacDonalds family originally believed that Jeffrey was innocent. Ted Bundy crime scene photos [GRAPHIC] Although it's debatable when notorious serial killer Ted Bundy began his murderous spree, it's widely-known that he raped and killed numerous women throughout the 1970s. Lets compare the same cropped area in the original crime scene photo (left, below) to FrmrCSIs enhanced and enlarged image of Colettes foot. When the images are side by side, we can see that FrmrCSI did not know how to size his image correctly, resulting in his image having lost its aspect ratio (correct width for the height of the image). A longtime resident said that when she was a teenager, she and her friends used to sit in front of the house to see how long it took before they became scared. Stoeckley later moved to Nashville and confessed being involved in some murders to an acquaintance who reported it to the FBI. Colettes stepfather, Freddy Kassab, was at first a staunch supporter of MacDonald, but then became convinced of MacDonalds guilt and crusaded for the case to be reopened. A pregnant Colette MacDonald, 26, and her children Kimberley, 5, and Kristen, 2, were brutally attacked early February 17, 1970, at their home in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The trial ran from July 19 to Aug. 29, 1979. Veteran North Carolina defense attorney James P. Cooney III works with the Innocence Project, which uses DNA testing to free the wrongly convicted. Families began living in it again. He appealed and was released in 1980 after the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled MacDonald was denied the right to a speedy trial. Jeffrey MacDonald was among the people interviewed before it. For now, MacDonalds next chance for freedom is parole. When the MPs arrived at 544 Castle Drive minutes later, they encountered a scene of staggering brutality. In a setback for the defense, Stoeckley denied knowledge of the murders during the trial, saying it was only like in a dream or something, court records show. MacDonald claims that a group of hippies who were high on drugs invaded the house and attacked him, his wife and children. If he did it, he committed a terrible crime, and who could possibly explain it? He repeatedly appealed the conviction and currently proclaims his innocence. Bundy admitted to killing 36 women, but experts think the numbers reach into the hundreds. Diagrams of 544 Castle Drive, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. There was just so many things, so many things that contaminated that crime scene, he said. Colettes brother, Bob Stevenson, agreed reluctantly to appear in the series, but the experience was visibly painful, his face often streaked with tears. Certain facts are agreed upon. The 26-year . Evidence of Guilt; Consciousness of Guilt; It's one of the lesser pieces of evidence at a crime scene that has much but I believe its presence tells a very important story. When military police arrived, they found Jeffrey MacDonald lying next to his wife on a blood-covered floor in the master bedroom. JonBenet Ramsey's Christmas Murder Scene. MacDonald appealed but lost at the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2018, and the Supreme Court declined this past October to take up his case. Jeffrey MacDonald, 26, 6th Special Forces, was reported in satisfactory condition late this morning at Womack Army Hospital where he is being treated for multiple stab wounds. Special Forces soldiers receive intense training in combat and survival skills and in how to work with insurgencies in foreign countries. The call for help came shortly after 3:30 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. That is especially true when the victims were innocent children his own children and he has never accepted responsibility or shown remorse for his actions.. The series is based on A Wilderness of Error.. A jury convicted Jeffrey MacDonald, a former Green Beret, doctor and the victims' husband and father, in August 1979. The crime-scene and autopsy photos of Colette and the children are gruesome and bloody. Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland. MacDonald applied for parole in 2005, which was denied. The military often describes an Article 32 investigation as the military justice systems version of a grand jury proceeding in civilian courts. Given the recent Manson murders and then this, the pawnshops were all selling out of rifles and handguns, he said. Stoeckley was known to have worn a blond wig, boots and a large floppy hat. Kelvin Culbreth, the radio executive, said he was a pizza driver in the summers when he was home from college. , The Fayetteville Observer. The U.S. Justice Department released it back to the military in 1983 and by 1987 it had been renovated into a duplex. Using the diagram that appears in Fatal Vision, I have created a 3D computer version of the Jeffrey MacDonald apartment at 544 Castle Drive, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. From the beginning, the MacDonald case has been a jumble of subplots, twists and meta-narratives. The 26-year-old Army doctor had a puncture wound to his chest, but he was alive. It was Feb. 17, 1970, some 50 years ago. All Rights Reserved. The house remained a crime scene for nine-and-a-half years and remained boarded up for 14 years in all, The Fayetteville Observer reported in 2000. Kimberley was tucked into bed, her head battered and neck slashed. I think this case, among other things, is a wilderness of unreliable narrators, Morris told me. But they also made critical mistakes in the house and during laboratory work. A longtime Fayetteville resident, who didnt want her name in the news, recalled the sounds of her neighbors nailing their windows shut. Morris scans the room with a quizzical expression. The magazines cover story was about the Manson murders. Through the years, MacDonald and his defense team have blamed military authorities for not securing the crime scene and mishandling evidence. Aug 10, 2017. Crime scene; Murder Timeline; Victims; Wounds; Weapons; Evidence. A military police officer glimpsed a woman wearing a wide-brimmed hat while driving to the MacDonalds' home at 544 Castle Drive, but that information wasn't acted on promptly, Morris noted. It was Feb. 17, 1970, some 50 years ago. Note how in the crime scene photo (below left), Colettes toes are visible, but when FrmrCSIs image is overlaid on top, the toes disappear, running off the edge of the photo, because the aspect ratio is incorrect and the foot has been made quite a bit longer than it actually is: Cropped section of original crime scene photo, Same photo with FrmrCSIs image as an overlay. After an argument, MacDonald used a three-foot-long wooden club to batter Colette, who was five months pregnant. But the crime-scene photos show her upper body covered with a towel a signal that evidence was moved, writes author Errol Morris in 2012s A Wilderness of Error. Morris says MacDonald is innocent. No ridge lines are visible in the JPEG crime scene photo even athigh magnification (ball portion of Colettes footshown below): Apparently not realizing that the point of showing the image above was not to "see the foot," since in the crime scene photo we can see the foot already without any problem, and that the point was to zoom in to see the detail (or lack thereof) in the image he used in his alleged analysis, FrmrCSI responded to this by claiming that "If you would not have enlarged your picture you would be able to see the foot, if that is what it is. The Green Beret captain recalled a woman chanting acid is groovy kill the pigs, and fighting three male assailants before losing consciousness. MacDonald, however, has long contended that exculpatory evidence might exist in the house. MacDonald left the military in December 1970, and in 1971 he moved to California to restart his life and his medical career. The word Pig, was inscribed with blood on the headboard of the MacDonalds bed. The question terrified the people of Fayetteville and Fort Bragg on that miserable February morning. Trusting the photo more than the diagram, I have put in a recliner instead of an armless dining room chair. On Feb. 17, 1970, military police officers at Fort Bragg, N.C. were summoned to a grisly scene at the MacDonald residence at 544 Castle Drive. As much as the MacDonald case captivated the country, with its publicity in national magazines, major newspapers and on television, it also became part of the culture of Fayetteville. Standing over him were three men and a blonde with long hair and a white, floppy hat holding a candle. One key piece of evidence during the trial was MacDonalds pajama top, found riddled with 48 punctures12 times the number of wounds in his body but matching the number of wounds on Colettes chest. Ortega, 55, is charged . On Feb. 17, 1970, Colette Stevenson MacDonald, 26, and her two daughters, Kimberley, 6, and Kristin, 2, were beaten and stabbed to death in their home at 544 Castle Drive on the Fort Bragg Army . "The burning and burying of the entire contents of the apartment destroyed everything that might have been touched or left behind by murderers," he wrote on his Web site. The savage act calls out for closure but people are still debating the merits of his case today, criminal defense attorney Phil R. Dixon tells A&E True Crime. At 544 Castle Drive, Colette MacDonald, 6-year-old Kimberly and 2-year-old Kristen Jean were stabbed and bludgeoned to death on Feb. 17, 1970. She had this sort of very lovely appearance, quiet beauty and a sort of vulnerable look, MacDonald is quoted as saying in the book, Fatal Vision. 2023 Capitol Broadcasting Company, Inc. NCHSAA board will consider policy allowing high school athletes to profit off NIL, Six Harris Teeters impacted by threats Monday, Protesters rejecting, supporting Johnston Co. commissioner gather at Monday meeting, Park service finds trash, debris with Navy markings washing ashore at Outer Banks, Triangle, NC-linked businesses remain relatively quiet on LGBTQ bills in General Assembly, NC Senate Committee debates bill on trans athletes in sports. Again it was raining, the whole area is muddy as hell, Thompson said. When officers arrived at 544 Castle Drive, where MacDonald had lived since the previous August with his wife of six years, . Kathryn MacDonald said her husband's appeal based on that new evidence has been waiting for 2 1/2 years in a district court. The man who dialed the operator relayed a desperate situation. He stabbed Colette, Kimberly, and little Kristen over and over again with a paring knife and Colette and Kristen yet again with an ice pick all in an effort to support his cover story of a ritualistic killing by a group of home-invading hippies, wrote Harris.