Throat wounds

All three of the people who died on that rainy night in 1970 received at least one stab wound to the neck.  Kimberly had eight to ten in a very small area on her neck. Colette had several, Kristen had one. These were delivered for two reasons I would argue, to keep them from being able to scream, and to kill in a most efficient manner.

Would a band of drug crazed hippies be that precise and methodical?  Let's just say for the sake of argument that only two hippies are attacking any one person at a time. One wielding a club, one with a knife. Perhaps the one with the icepick just like stabbing dead bodies, and only wanted to lightly poke at Kristen. It would not be hard to shut up a victim and still stab them in a frenzied way. The guy or gal holding the club could make any noise stop immediately while the person with the knife could just wail away.

The kids, in particular where injured in such a way as to kill them as mercifully as possible by someone who knew exactly where to stab them to cause fast deaths.

The Wounds of Kristen MacDonald

Of the three people murdered at 544 Castle Drive on February 17, 1970, Kristen is the only one to be stabbed in the back. Why? I believe the evidence shows that Jeffrey MacDonald wasn't raging any longer. He couldn't face his little baby to kill her.

I've often wondered what Kristen's fate might have been if Colette hadn't went to her room to protect her. I so wish that if Colette did have a moment to move about, that she would have tried to make it out the back door. If she could have gotten help, there would be no doubt that Jeffrey MacDonald was the attacker, and maybe she and Kristen might have been able to live out their lives.

I am in no way criticizing Colette. She did what any good mother would have felt compelled to do, and who knows how already damaged she was before went to protect her baby. She's the only adult in that house that ended up looking like she fought for her and her children's lives.

The problem for Jeffrey though is that he's just beat his wife to death in front of Kristen. Kristen can tell what she's seen. It's her or him. We all know which he chooses. But he's not that pumped any more. He is obviously pissed at Colette. He's not angry with Kristen. She just has to die. I believe he starts to attack her from the front, but she's holding up her hands and looking at him. He can't take this, so he flips her over and stabs her in the back.

The ice pick wounds were just shallow punctures on Kristen. He's tired and committing his first premeditated murder. The staging has to be done but he's losing the stomach for it.

I want to believe that at least the thought of what he did to Kristen haunts him. He seems like the kind of guy who did and still does somehow blame his wife for making him do what he did to her and Kimberly. If she hadn't provoked him, his life wouldn't have been ruined for having killed her. Kristen though, he did that in cold blood.

Did Jeffrey MacDonald see Helena Stoeckley in his house?

The person that was behind, that was the shortest glimpse and really--that is the facial mock-up that I ended up making, would be risky at best.  I must say in honesty, really it was a big hat and I saw some blonde hair, and I thought I saw a glimpse of a face and it seemed to be--you know--I have always had the impression it was a girl, and that she was obviously shorter than the other people, say 5', 4" or 5', 5"

.The female--I told the artist this, and I believe I have also told--I guess the investigators in the case, that the facial details that they have given her are--that is really--he could have put on most any eyes or nose in there, and I couldn't have said anything different.
- Jeffrey MacDonald's Grand jury testimony in 1974

This turns into a certainty that it was Stoeckley...

MacDonald is convinced Stoeckley and her friends entered his home and murdered his family.
"And how do you know that she and her friends were the ones?" Lagattuta asked.
Because they said so. Because I saw them there. Because there is evidence tying them to the crime scene," says MacDonald.
-48 Hours "Time for Truth"

Sarah Palin's feelings got hurt so she wants to set a baby killer free.

I see that Sarah Palin has decided to take a position on the MacDonald case. I wonder if it's because she's been researching the case for years, has read almost everything about it (possible, due to her prodigious reading habit), and has has a strong opinion for quite some time. Or, could it be that Joe McGinniss made himself a pain in her ass, and she will get on board with anything that would tend to make him look evil, foolish, douchey, or whatever.

Here's the deal. Joe McGinniss may be the spawn of Satan for all I know. That doesn't mean that Jeffrey MacDonald didn't beat and stab his wife and children to death.

I would urge anyone feeling moved by all of this noise surrounding Errol Morris' new book and it's indictments of Joe McGinniss  to go back and look at all the evidence as it came in before Joe McGinnis had come anywhere near this thing.

Jeff, why are they doing this to me?

These are supposedly the last words Jeffrey MacDonald heard his wife, Colette, say in this world. I believe that what she really said is, "Jeff, why are you doing this to me?" Not because the prosecution told me to think that, but just common sense. He knows that there is every possibility that someone heard her say whatever it was that she said. If he's lying, he has to make the lie fit to some degree with the truth.

 Let's take his word for it. What he says she said, she said. The only way it makes any kind of sense is if he's in the room watching them do this to her, or she knows that these are people he is familiar with. Think about it. If you are being beaten with a club and stabbed by total strangers and it's only you and maybe your child in the room, what are you going to be screaming? What are you thinking? "Please, don't hurt my babies!" "Why are you doing this?" "Please, stop!" "What do you want from us?" No. She screams out, "Jeff, why are they doing this to me?" It doesn't ring true. Why  wouldn't she ask them. They would presumably know more about their motivations than Jeff who is asleep on the couch and doesn't have a clue as to who these people are.

What makes all the sense in the world is that Jeffrey and Colette are fighting in the bedroom. It is getting way out of control. Colette is screaming, "Jeff, why are you doing this to me?" Kimberly hears the struggle, and pleads with her father, "Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy!" as in please stop acting crazy. Please stop hitting mommy.

Errol Morris, this is sad.

• I am a fan of Errol Morris.
• I believe that there are innocent people rotting in prisons all over the country. 
• I have no doubt that we, as a people, have sent innocent people to their deaths.
• I think that you can be a total douche and still not be a murderer.

All that being said, I can't for the life of me figure out why Errol Morris picked the MacDonald bandwagon to pounce upon. In his new book A Wilderness of Error, Morris rides that old Helena Stoeckley hobby horse hard for five hundred some odd pages.

My opinion? In a nutshell, Helena Stoeckley was a false confessor. Of the three common types of false confessions I believe she fell into two of the categories. Voluntary false confessor- she got attention for saying she was there. Internalized false confessor- I believe at some point after having viewing the crime scene photos over and over again, she may have become convinced that she was there. Her statements evolved to fit any new theory of whomever was handling her at the moment.

I'll get into it more deeply in upcoming posts, but Stoeckley gave a new version of events every time she "confessed".  They were there for drugs, they were there to scare Dr. MacDonald, she was part of a satanic cult, etc.

I would love to have to eat my words. I would love to think that Colette didn't have to fight to the death protecting her baby from the one man that should have done anything to protect them both. I would love to find out that baby Kristen didn't have to try to ward off an attack from her daddy with her tiny little hands while laying on his lap. That's what haunts me most of all. If what I believe is true, Jeffrey MacDonald walked into his little girl's room beat her mother to at least unconsciousness, then took that baby in his lap and stabbed her. Turned her over and stabbed her some more. Then tucked her in.

I want someone to explain to me why drug crazed hippies tucked both children back into bed. It makes no sense. It's what parents do when they kill. It still makes little sense, but that's what they do.

Oh well, enough of this stream of consciousness for now.