Jeffrey MacDonald was born in Jamaica, Queens, New York, on October 12, 1943. He was raised in a poor household on Long Island with a disciplinarian father. During high school, MacDonald’s grades were good enough to earn him a three-year scholarship at Princeton University. Sometime, around August 1963, MacDonald’s girlfriend, Colette, became pregnant, and they later married on September 14 of that year in New York. The child, a girl named Kimberley Kathryn, was born on April 18, 1964.
After completing his undergraduate work, Jeffrey briefly worked in construction as a supervisor to keep food on the table and a roof over his young family’s head, before moving to Chicago in the summer of 1965. MacDonald, focused on his studies at the time, was also hamstrung with a series of part-time jobs, while his wife, Colette, maintained the house and raised the couple’s daughter.
On May 8, 1967, the family welcomed their second daughter, Kristen Jean, into the family. Soon after, MacDonald graduated from medical school in 1968, and the family relocated again to Bergenfield, New Jersey, so that he could complete a one-year internship at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York.
On June 28, 1969, MacDonald was commissioned in the United States Army and sent to Texas to undergo a six-week physician’s introductory training course. He volunteered to be assigned to the Army’s Special Forces to become a doctor, knowing that as a Green Beret doctor, he was unlikely to serve overseas during the Vietnam War.
In August 1969, MacDonald reported to Fort Bragg in North Carolina to serve as a surgeon for the 3rd Special Forces Group. His family joined him, and soon they resided at 544 Castle Drive, in a section reserved for married officers, which was provided security by military police.
Around Christmas of 1969, Colette, three months pregnant with child number three, a boy, MacDonald purchased his two daughters a Shetland pony. They were anticipating a move to a farm in Connecticut soon afterwards.
Life seemed to be going well for the young MacDonald, but a horrific tragedy would forever cost his family their lives….
By 1970, MacDonald was rising quickly in rank and earned the rank of captain.
On the afternoon of February 16, 1970, MacDonald took his daughters to feed the pony they had received at Christmas, but soon the happiness would turn into a nightmare.
At 3:42 a.m. on February 17, 1970, dispatchers received an emergency call from Jeffrey MacDonald, who faintly said: “Help! Five forty-four Castle Drive! Stabbing! …Five forty-four Castle Drive! Stabbing! Hurry!”
Within ten minutes, military police showed up at the door.
Colette MacDonald was found on the floor of the master bedroom. She had been repeatedly clubbed and stabbed 21 times in the chest area with an ice pick,
Beside Colette, Jeffrey MacDonald was found, alive but wounded, with his head on Colette’s chest and one arm around her neck. He whispered to the military police, “Check my kids! I heard my kids crying!”
Five-year-old Kimberly was found in her bed and had been bludgeoned and stabbed.
Across the hallway, two-year-old Kristen was found in bed and had been stabbed over 30 times—a baby bottle lay close to her mouth.
On the headboard of Jeffrey and Colette’s headboard, the word “Pig” was written.
Jeffrey was sent to Womack Hospital, shouting, “Let me see my kids!” As he was carried from the home.
Jeffrey MacDonald claimed that four people broke into the home in the early morning hours. Reportedly, he was awakened by screams from his family as he slept on the couch, after being up late washing dishes. He recalled the fourth intruder, a possible female with long blonde hair, holding a candle, chanting, “Acid is groovy, kill the pigs!”
MacDonald claimed to have fought off the attackers and lost consciousness, but regained it later, as he stumbled to the bedroom, where his wife was.
An investigation was soon launched, and the investigators weren’t buying MacDonald’s side of the events, but was the entire investigation doomed from the beginning by incompetence by the Army CID?
On April 6, 1970, MacDonald was relieved of his duties and placed under restriction. On May 1, the Army formally charged Jeffrey MacDonald with three counts of murder. That same day, Jeffrey penned a letter to Colette’s mother and stepfather professing his innocence, emphasizing the Army would “never admit” their error.
At first, Colette’s family defended MacDonald, but this story has several more twists and turns.
During an initial Army Article 32 hearing, “The first witness to testify in MacDonald’s defense, responding military policeman Kenneth Mica, testified that on the way to answering MacDonald’s emergency call on the night of the murders, he had observed a blonde woman with a wide-brimmed hat standing on a street corner approximately half a mile from the MacDonald home. He noted that this sighting was unusual, given the late hour and the weather. Mica also testified that, contrary to instruction, an ambulance driver had placed the tilted flower pot upright while at the crime scene.”
In August, a local deliveryman named William Posey stated that the blonde woman whom MacDonald stated had attacked the family might have been a local 17-year-old drug addict and law enforcement informant, Helena Werle Stoeckley.
Stoeckley was questioned, and she gave vague and self-contradictory responses. And she even reportedly said that she was “so far out” that she couldn’t know for sure if she had indeed been at MacDonald’s house that night.
All charges against MacDonald were later dropped, and in December, MacDonald received an honorable discharge. He would soon begin to pick up the pieces and even change scenery from North Carolina, when he moved back to New York for a short period before settling in Long Beach, California, in 1971.
But the 2,000-page transcript didn’t match the story, especially when dealing with the wounds that MacDonald said he had suffered. It also indicated that within weeks of the murders, MacDonald had begun dating a much younger woman, who worked at Fort Bragg, and he also rekindled a relationship with a former lover.
In August 1974, a grand jury convened to hear the case. During the process, MacDonald became arrogant when asked questions about how blood from him and his wife was found in one of the daughters’ rooms. And, he side-stepped the questions of being unfaithful to his wife.
On January 21, 1975, a grand jury indicted Jeffrey MacDonald on three counts of murder. He was brought to trial on July 16, 1979, in Raleigh, North Carolina. A recent psychiatric evaluation detailed that MacDonald, an individual with his personality and mindset, was unlikely to have committed the murders.
Helena Stoeckle, with the intent of extracting a confession, was subpoenaed. But, all she could say was that in a private meeting that lasted nearly two hours, she was unable to help and refused to testify. She also denied any knowledge of the crime.
On August 29, 1979, the jury returned a verdict in the case. Jeffrey MacDonald was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of Kristen and two counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of Colette and Kimberley.
On March 10, 2006, DNA testing revealed that samples at the residence didn’t match Stoeckley or another person who was alleged to have been there that night.
It was also revealed that in 1980, Stoeckley admitted guilt in the crime of what she described as a “drug cult” that had entered the home, because of a grudge against MacDonald, as he had refused to treat heroin and opium addicts.
Jeffrey MacDonald has continued ot profess his innocence in the case. He is currently 81 years old and serving a life sentence in Maryland.
Written By: John G. Clark Jr.