June 19, 2025 • 52 mins
At 3:42 a.m. on February 17, 1970, Green Beret Doctor Jeffrey MacDonald makes an emergency phone call from his base housing at 544 Castle Drive at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The dispatcher hears the faint message, a call for help, "Stabbing! Hurry!" Inside the residence, MacDonald's wife, Colette, 26, and five months pregnant, lies dead on the floor of the master bedroom, their daughters, Kimberley, 5, and Kristen, 2, are found dead in their respective beds. Jeffrey MacDonald suffered minor injuries, compared to his wife and daughters. MacDonald claims 4 hippies, 3 men and a woman, came into his home, killed his family and knocked him unconscious. MacDonald says the woman with long blond hair was wearing a white floppy hat and holding a candle while chanting "Acid is groovy, kill the pigs." The case has been turned into books, movies, articles, and lawsuits. MacDonald was convicted for the murder of his wife and daughters and sentenced to life in prison. Jeffrey MacDonald claims he was wrongly convicted and has never wavered from his claims that hippies murdered his wife and daughters. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack discuss the case and the injuries suffered by Colette, Kimberley, Kristen, and Jeffrey Macdonald, and compare the forensic facts to the story told by the one person who survived.
Transcribe Highlights
00:00:01.45 Introduction
00:00:17.91 Killer on the loose in LA
00:03:06.24 Jeffrey MacDonald story
00:05:26.19 Victim recounting traumatic event
00:09:10.74 MacDonald tells his version of events
00:14:09.09 Four Hippies get on military base housing
00:19:10.31 Tearing down location of homicide
00:24:07.38 Officers explaining crime scene
00:29:36.21 Motive doesn't matter at a crime scene
00:33:55.42 MacDonald was the ONLY threat, he survives
00:38:43.83 Wounds on Colette
00:43:09.00 Comparing injuries suffered by girls and MacDonald
00:48:13.19 Injuries suffered by Kimberly, 5-years-old
00:52:21.98 Conclusion
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Quody dais, but Joseph's gotten more. August eight through August ninth,
nineteen sixty nine, the city of Los Angeles wasn't fear
because they knew that there was a killer on the loose.
(00:22):
They had evidence of it. Someone had gone into home
in a very upscale area in LA and had butchered
five people. It was terrifying. But you know, that case
resonated not just in LA but all over the US.
(00:46):
There were stories that were written, there were fears that
were expressed in the news. Who was this? Who would
do this? But all the way over on the other
side of the United States, in North Carolina, Fort Bragg,
(01:07):
to be very specific, there was another mass homicide that
had been committed and it had eerie connections, at least
seemingly on the surface, to those nights back in August
of sixty nine. Six months later, terror would revisit the
(01:29):
country and people had questions, and still to this day,
this question still linger. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this
is body bags. Dave. You and I were kids when
the case cases that we're going to discuss today went down.
(01:53):
I really have no memory of the so called Jeffrey
MacDonald case. From a real time.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Perspective, Jeffrey McDonald has to this day claimed that a
group of hippies came into his house at two o'clock
in the morning and attacked him and killed his wife
and children and left him for debt. I mean, and
this is Jeffer McDonald's a Green Bray doctor, green Beret
doctor at the height of the Vietnam War, stationed in
(02:25):
Fort Bragg, North Carolina. And he's married to his high
school sweetheart. They've got two little girls, and they've got
another one on the way. And here is this green
Bray doctor who you know, calls nine well, I don't
know they'd have nine one one, but called whatever version
it was back then to call for emergency.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Help, probably zero. I think that that's actually what you
used to do. You call for the operator. And isn't
that interesting? Imagine being the operator? And so yeah, I'm
trying to get in contact with my sister in Connecticut.
Can you connect me? And then the next call you
get some guy saying send helps.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
And fascinating is that the way those calls came in.
They were frightening to the people taking the calls, you know,
And anyway, so Jeffrey McDonald claims that, And I mentioned
this to you in the prep because something has always
fascinated me about this case with regard to Jeffrey McDonald. Again, remember,
(03:26):
this is a man who claims he tried to defend
his family and they and they were murdered, and that
he is perfectly innocent. He didn't do anything wrong other
than not defend his wife and kids. But he always
starts the story with a couple of different things depending
on who he's telling it to. I believe when he
(03:46):
was on Dick Cavot show talking about the murders, he
mentioned watching a late night TV show, you know, but
he talks about washing dishes at two am. Always thought
the reason he shares something like that, who cares that
you were washing dishes at two am? Who cares? But
(04:07):
it was to show like he's this he is the all.
He's such a good guy. This green Bereat doctor was
washing dishes at two in the morning because he didn't
want his pregnant wife to wake up to it in
the morning. This is a good guy.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Joe. Well, well, Dave, you know the thing about it
is is that when you when you're questioning a suspect
you have someone that'll give you that kind of granular
detail like that, there's there's this presentation that they're trying
to do in order to convince you of the validity
(04:40):
of the statements that they're making by virtue of the
intensity or the level of detail that they can give you,
because in many people's minds, that states to them, well,
if I can give them these fine details about what
was going on at that particular time, that means that
I'm espousing the truth. And of course, you know, when
(05:02):
you're an investigator and you look at someone and they're
going through this traumatic event and they can give you
those kinds of details at that moment in time, you
kind of raise your eyebrow. Because I've sat across from
people that have been in the midst of an attack
(05:23):
and they have I've had people over the course of
my career I try to talk to and I don't
want to say that they were catatonic, where you know
they've got the fixed stare where they're looking like beyond you.
But it feels like I've experienced that a number of
(05:45):
times where they can't give you they're even nonverbal, And
so what's fascinating is when you get that original statement
from somebody that has witnessed something that was attacked, perhaps
the themselves in the case of Jeffery McDonald, how much
how much detail did they give at that time where
they all over the board? Did the story change? And
(06:08):
I mean like in a change where your brain is
kind of dropping down a little bit relative to the
trauma you've experienced, you have a bit more clarity, because
it's amazing. Sometimes you'll have these people, you know, that
will begin to kind of rapid fire and regurgitate things,
and you know you can hear fear in their voice,
and sometimes they don't get the facts straight, but it
(06:30):
doesn't mean that they're trying to deceive you. When you
have somebody that sits there and they can give you
these put fine points on things over and over again
like this, you got major questions. And I think that's
the case with Jeffery McDonald.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Dave that explains it. That thank you, that helps because
what he said happened. Joe, he claims, how do I
go over this because I asked Joe to do this
one jes see, I'll know, I don't think I've asked
for us to do anything else in specifics, but this
one in particular. And here's the reason. There was a
(07:04):
book called Fatal Vision written by Joe McGinnis. He was
hired by Jeffer McDonald's team to be embedded with them
after Jeffer MacDonald had been arrested accused of murder of
his family, and they allowed Joe McGinnis to be with
them in their defense at trial because they felt like
(07:27):
Jeffer McDonald felt like, this guy will tell the truth,
you know, he'll expose to the world what I've been through.
And Jeffrey McDonald didn't get his wish because Joe McGinnis
wasn't bedded with him. He did see Jeffer McDonald for
who he was. And the book he wrote, called Fatal Vision,
actually pushes the fact that Jeffer MacDonald murdered his wife
and children. After that, there were books about Jeffrey's innocence.
(07:52):
Fatal Justice comes to mind, a brilliant book. I don't
believe everything in it, just like I don't believe everything
in Fatal Vision, but I asked Jo to do because
I want to know what the forensics tell you as
an investigator, as a death investigator, do the forensics actually
solve the crime or is it really just here's what happened.
(08:12):
It could be his story, it might not be. That's
what I want, and then I want the opinion based
on the forensics. What do you believe, Joe. So I'm
going to lay this out very quickly. Jeffery McDonald made
a very specific claim, and we're going to use that
as Joe explains what happened to each individual in that
(08:34):
home that night. Jeffer McDonald claims that he had washed
the evening dinner dishes before deciding to go to bed.
His younger daughter, Kristen, had wet his side of the bed,
so he had taken her to her own bed, not
wanting to wake up his wife to change it by
(08:54):
changing the sheets. He had taken a blanket from Kristen's
room and fallen asleep up on the living room couch. Again,
this is Jeffrey McDonald's story. He's asleep on the couch
when he is awakened hearing Colette and Kimberly's screams and
Colette shouting Jeff, Jeff, help, why are they doing this
(09:17):
to me? Think about that for just a minute. As
he rose from the couch to go to their aid,
he was attacked by three male intruders, one black and
two white. The shorter of the two white men had
worn light, possibly surgical gloves. A fourth intruder he described
(09:38):
as a white female with a long blonde hair, possible wig,
and wearing high heeled knee high boots and a white
floppy hat partially covering her face. The individual stood nearby
holding a lighted candle and chanting quote, acid is groovy,
Kill the pigs. Acid is groovy, killed the pigs, McDonald claimed.
(10:04):
The three males then attacked him with a club and
an ice pick, with the female intruder shouting hit him again.
During the struggle, his pajama top was pulled over his
head to his wrists, and he had to use this
bound garment to ward off thrust from the ice pick.
Although eventually he was overcome by the assailants, nannock to
unconscious in the living room and of the hallway leading
(10:27):
to the bedrooms. When he regained consciousness, the intruders were gone.
He stumbles from room to room, attempting mouth to mouth
resuscitation on each of his daughters, to no avail. Before
finding his wife. He then pulled a small pairing knife
from Colette's chest and he tossed it on the floor
and attempted to find her pulse. He draped the pajama
(10:50):
jacket over her body and phone for help. That is
Jeffrey McDonald's story, Joe.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
I know you sit here and you listen to all
of these details relative that he's offering up in his
statement and kind of how this went down. The last
thing that the operator claims that she heard was him screaming, essentially,
we need to get them to W, which W apparently
(11:24):
means the hospital on base at Fort Bragg. And then
there's kind of a thunk at the end, sounding, according
to the operator, like the phone hit the wall. But
when the MPs at Fort Brack arrived on scene, they
saw something that. In their time at Fort Bragg patrol
(11:48):
in the streets, going from family structure to family structure
in the married housing area, dealing with drunk gis or
maybe even having to break up a few domestic disputes,
there's no way they could have been prepared for what
(12:08):
lay before their eyes. You know, you mentioned the term
just second ago, Dave, the word groovy, the idea I'm
(12:31):
thinking about that that song from the fifth from the
sixties and everything is groovy, you know, and even Liberachi.
And this has almost become like a meme on the internet.
He actually redoes this lot. He does it on air
on his show with a bunch of these dancers that
(12:54):
are dressed. I guess, like, I don't know what their
perception of sixties hippie culture was. Of course, they're all
clean and have nice haircuts, and you know, their nails
are not dirty. And they're all dancing around him as
he's at his piano playing this feeling groovy. And when
(13:15):
you mentioned this term, because we had talked about this before,
that image came to mind. And now you've.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Got an assailant, an alleged assailant that has come into
this home that's actually taken time Dave to light a
candle and has begun chanting in that environment.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Let me tell you something about the South in the
late sixties. Fort Bragg is located adjacent to the town
of Faithful, North Carolina. All right, I can tell you
affirmatively that it was not considered to be a haven
for hippie culture in the nineteenth sixties. You know, it's
(14:03):
not that kind of place. It's a rough and tumbled
military place as as as much as hippie culture in
particular tried to distance himself from the Vietnam War. I
can't imagine for quote unquote hippies gravitating to arguably one
of the most military locations in the nation. That alone,
(14:27):
to me is striking. And then that they could get
access to the house.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
No, housing was not easy to get into.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
No, it's not. And you know you have to go
through the gate in order to get access to his place.
So you've you've got this. You know, you've got these
these four people that show up on base and they
specifically attack this guy who's twenty six years old that
(14:58):
has just finished medical school, done an internship, not a residency,
has done an internship at this point in time. And
he's not. And I got to tell you this. The
media for years and years said that he's a Green Beret.
He's not a damn Green Beret. He's not a Green Beret.
(15:18):
He volunteered to be a physician assigned to special operations.
I think it was I think it was fifth group,
third group or fifth group, I can't remember anyway. On
post at at Fort Bragg, and Fort Bragg is the
center for training for RSF guys, and it still remains
(15:38):
that way today. He was not a Green Beret. I
think that that goes into this idea of this you
know what you were talking about with him washing dishes.
He's like this noble warrior, you know, and you see
him all festooned early on in his in his military
get up that he's wearing along with his green beret.
(16:01):
And by the way, most Green Berets that I know
don't like to be referred to as green berets. That's
just not something that they like. They refer to themselves
as silent warriors, unlike to see who write a book
all the time. The SF guys. The SF guys, you know,
they're quiet people most of the time. This guy, I
(16:24):
can only imagine it must have been cringeworthy for them.
You know, these guys have been in high intensity battles
low those many years in Vietnam, and you got this
guy who's showing up in this environment claiming to be
one of them. And he's a physician, and Dave, none
of the stuff that he's saying makes sense relative to
the injuries that we see portrayed, particularly at autopsy on
(16:48):
all three of these symptoms. Well, let's take it that way.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
One thing I want to point out as we head
into this, Joe, the crime scene okay, again mentioning this
is base housing, because you have to include that into
the mix. As you pointed out, not an easy thing
to get on. It was during the height of the
Vietnam War February seventeenth, nineteen seventy. But after the murders
(17:13):
of collect Kim and Christen, this dwelling was not cleaned up,
it wasn't destroyed. It was actually locked up and kept
so that if and when a trial happened, the jury
(17:33):
could actually go and see the crime scene. And when
again February seventeenth, nineteen seventy his trial did not take
place until nineteen seventy nine, and the jury was able
to walk the crime scene. They were actually able to
go in and look at what Jeffrey McDonald said happened
(17:54):
and where it happened. This is something that has really
been a problem for me in crimes where or a
crime scene is destroyed. For instance, out in Idaho, the
Coburger crime scene. From the moment they destroyed that, there
was no reason to destroy that house other than covering
up something is all I can figure. Not accusing anybody.
(18:15):
I'm just saying I don't I mean emotional damage to
a community because there is a murder house. I understand
what they're saying there. I just think that justice is
more important than emotional feelings for the day.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Anyway, please, can I say something real quick? You know,
the the idea that you go in and tear down
a structure. And I don't want to go too far
field with this because I know that we're focused on
different McDonald and by the way, a big round of
applause for those individuals that had the forethought in this
(18:50):
case to lock it down. In't amazing how we can
learn lessons from the past and people still haven't learned
them to this point. The same way with Parkland. They
locked Parkland down. You think about Idaho and they tear
the thing down because it makes somebody sad. I'm reflecting
(19:12):
back right now over all of the death cases that
I work, particularly homicides, Dave. You know, I've been to
the same address multiple times on unrelated homicides, like I've
had succession of homicides that have occurred in the same dwelling.
Those houses were never torn down, you know, and I
(19:33):
was actually talking to a group recently in London and
a former Scotland yard detective who worked for them for
thirty years, and I just asked him, I said, listen,
because they use the term and a lot of people
use the term raising raising a location, which means to
(19:55):
tear it down. Have you, guys ever do you in
your recollection do you ever remember raising a location as
a result of of homicide? And he's like, no, that's absurd,
And so you look at that reflection. You know, after
all these years, Jeffrey McDonald, they were able to lock
(20:19):
this place down and they didn't care if it, you know,
made somebody feel as that they need to go to
a cry corner or get their blanket or what it
is there would be and go over and shake over
the idea that, oh my gosh, horrible homicides took place there.
(20:39):
That's not what they were about. They wanted to discover
the truth. And sometimes if you're absent that evidence, Dave,
there's no way to go.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
So, now that we know what Jeffrey McDonald's story was
the biggest, the pajamatop comes to mind, you know, because
again now claiming to be a green break doctor, anybody,
you know what, I have such an I have such
respect for men and women that join the military service
(21:09):
in the United States of America. I just I have
if you, if you're a military person, I just you
have my respect. And I don't picture any man allowing
this to take place in his home and to only
have a bump on the head and a small incision
(21:30):
on his chest while his family is totally destroyed. I
don't see that as a possibility, especially from somebody who
is in the military and is trained. Whether he's dream
Brayer or not, he is still a supposed to be
a man, and he's supposed to protect his family. And
his story is I don't I don't understand how he
(21:56):
could have so few injuries while there's such overkill on
the girls. That's for starters. So let's get into the
forensics show what based on his story. Now, when you
go to a crimes when you're investigator, your death investigator,
and you hit a scene like this, do you listen
to his story of what happened? Or do you block
that out and just let's look at the bodies and
(22:16):
what's going on in this house? How does that begin
for you?
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Well, you're not gonna you're, first off, you're not going
to sit down and have an in depth discussion with
this subject before you enter into the scene. As a
matter of fact, I just soon only rely upon the
initial report that I'm getting from law enforcement when I
roll up, so that look we've got and this this way.
(22:44):
It would commonly go, look, we've got three dead in
this location. This is where they're located. We've got a
husband over here that has been injured. We're looking for
purpose right now, because he states that these subjects came
into his home and committed these crimes. This is what
(23:06):
he says happened at in the immediate You're not gonna
have all those fine details at this point in time.
And at that point time, I'm gonna say, okay, fine,
that's enough. I've heard enough, because I don't you know,
I don't want to from a forensic standpoint, I don't
necessarily want to be encumbered by that knowledge. Now, if
(23:28):
there's something dangerous in there, or if there's something like it,
you know where you'll get cues from folks like particularly
uniform officers that will roll up. They'll say things like, look,
when you get to the front door, I'm just throwing
this out there as an example. We had kick the
door down, so you'll see wood all over the floor,
you know where the door facing was knocked out, or
(23:50):
there's a huge puddle of blood. Be careful where you step.
That's information that has great utility for me because when
I go in, I want to be able to observe
each one of these bodies inside to in the pristine state,
pristine as it applies to the context of the crime scene.
I don't want any kind of outside element coming in.
(24:13):
And again, going back to Tate, Lobbyanca, and specifically the
Tait case, you know the cues that you know doctor
Noguchi gave that he wrote about, you know in his
book because he was at the scene of Tate. He
(24:34):
said that his eyes always go up. That's the first
place he looks. He doesn't look at the bodies. His
eyes always go up. He looks at the ceiling, He
looks at the surroundings, and then he kind of makes
he targets until he makes his way down to the body,
because he wants to understand the entire environment and the
context of the bodies in that environment before he makes
(24:55):
any kind of assessment. Beyond that, and that's that's very important.
And when I read that book and read that statement
that's that he'd made all those years ago, it kind
of rung true. And I find it interesting. You know
that we're you know that we're talking about this now
with Jeffrey MacDonald. So when you enter into an environment
like this nowadays, what you would do is you would
(25:19):
probably break off into teams, and each team would handle
an individual body. UH to process the body, you'd have
somebody that would handle Collett's body, the wife who has
just these horrendous injuries that she is sustained, Dave, the
(25:39):
injuries alone that collect sustained. And by the way, you've
got multiple weapons involved in this. She doesn't just have
stab one. She's got puncture wounds as well. And these
puncture wounds arise from something you don't hear much about nowadays,
and that's an ice pick, and so it's been driven
(26:01):
into her multiple times. I've given this thought, as you know,
as a as an investigator, why would she have multiple
stab wounds and multiple puncture wounds. You've got multiple weapons involved,
and I think that it's to give the appearance, Dave,
(26:23):
that you've got multiple perpetrators. So you've got somebody that
is thinking about this this far in advance that Okay,
not only am I going to use one knife, I'll
use two knives. And let me see what else can
I use? Oh yeah, an ice pick? We're not too
(26:44):
far removed. During that period of time when people relied
on ice picks, you'd have, you know, and it would
not have been like a too distant of the memory
to know that. You know, probably his grandparents, maybe his
parents even had had ice delivered to their home and
you'd have to chip it off. So everybody had an
ice pick in the house. My grandmother had several in
(27:05):
the house. And old guys back in the day used
to carry ice picks with them to defend themselves with
because they're easily concealed. They don't have the same profile
as a knife. Does you know you can carry an
ice pick? You know the I don't know if it
was bad battally Rory Brown, but he had a razor
(27:28):
in his shoe, I know that. But you would old
guys would carry carry ice picks in their shoes. And
so it's a very it's a very savvy kind of
street street kind of weapon that you would use almost
like a shive that's created in a prison, which is
fascinating to me. But the fact that just Collette alone
(27:49):
is attacked on multiple planes of her body, and she
is so viciously attacked Dave that you see several areas
of concentrated injuries on her that are kind of varietal.
They'll go, You'll have clusters here, clusters there, And it's
(28:11):
almost an attempt, I think, to give the impression that
this was a frenzied killing when it very well might
not have been. All right, So.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
I'm kind of not at wits end, but I didn't
really think about the multiple the weapons, you know, switching
them up to have the appearance of more than one person.
Jeffy McDonald went to Princeton. He's not an idiot intellectually,
and I'm picturing him and the story that the prosecution
(28:51):
laid out of how it all happened. Again, now back
to motive, which when you're in death investigator, motive and
story and all that, that's not part of it, is it.
I mean, you're really just there, here's the body, here's
the evidence. What happened?
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Yeah, yeah, I don't I don't care about anybody's motive,
particularly at a crom scene, it has it's not even
on the radar. You start to get into motive and
it clouds clouds things up because you know, one thing
I failed to mention with Collette. If you're talking to
me about somebody's you know why you know, which is
(29:28):
a question as you well know, I hate why would
you do this? Then that's going to distract me. And
just like I've I've been distracted right now relative to
this case because one of the things I forgot to
mention that not only does she have injuries that are
generated by a knife and from an ice pick, she's
(29:49):
also been beaten with a club day and so that,
you know, to think about what somebody's motivation was, it
sounds like something you'd hear in an acting class innovation,
you know, And I don't know, I don't know what
their motivation was, but I can tell you with Collette,
you can actually see that the individual is highly motivated
(30:14):
in the sense that it's a frenzied killing and she's
she's been so beaten and traumatized that she's got I
think that she's been stabbed twenty one times with an
ice pick, sixteen times in the neck in the chest
(30:38):
with a knife, and her trachea, which is kind of interesting,
is severed in two places. Well, you know, you might
think about cutting a throat, but let's just say that
you are a physician. Anatomically, you're going to think about, well,
what would be one of the ways to facilitate somebody's death, well,
(30:58):
to get into their airway. As a matter of fact,
if she even had one little sign of life in her, Dave,
and the EMTs arrived, they couldn't get her intubated, like
you could not put a you couldn't establish an airway
on her in the field. You would have to perhaps
(31:21):
you could go in and I've seen this happen where
you have a slice to the trachea. EMTs sometimes will
go into the trauma area and create an airway there
externally just to be able to inflate the lungs. Okay,
So that's kind of an interesting injury, that her trachea
is actually cut in two places here, Dave, anatomically, But Dave,
(31:58):
I gotta tell you, I saw a a comment and
you actually referenced it just a few months ago about
Collette McDonald had apparently taken his pajama top off and
had laid it across her chest. And by the way,
(32:21):
he also had removed apparently a paring knife from her chest,
which any doctor knows that if someone has an instrument,
a knife, a branch from a tree, a piece of rebar,
(32:43):
you don't take it out, period, You leave it in place.
He shouldn't know that. But yet she's got this paring
knife that's laying on the floor next to her that
was apparently pulled out of her chest by him. But
back to the pajama top. It's laying on top of her,
and when the PD rolls up, that's not the only
thing that's laying on top of her. He's laying on
(33:05):
top of her. His head is literally resting on her chest.
And to say that that his injuries that he sustained
in the attack of these evil hippies that are chanting
everything is groovy or where the hell killed the pigs? Yeah,
acid is groovy killed the pigs? You know, he's he
(33:27):
doesn't show signs of much signs of being a warrior
as far.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
As hey, all right, Joe, can you tell me what
injuries did Jeffrey McDonald sustain that made it so he
was not able to protect his family. He's the only
survivor in the whole group. He's the only one that
see he's the only real threat to anyone. And yet
he's the one that was left with minimal injuries.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
So what what what?
Speaker 2 (33:57):
What were his injuries?
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Well, he's got Okay, first off, he's got like what
they're referring to as a sharp force injury. It's about
maybe five eighths of an inch in depth in his chest,
and the instrument that was used apparently collapsed partially collapsed
(34:25):
his lung. Okay, and as horrible as that is, and
this was on if folks, will you know, place your
hand on your right your right aspect of your rib
cage and you can feel in between the ribs was
referred to as the intercostal space. And doctors know this
(34:48):
because when, for instance, when you're trying to put in
like an emergency room, if you have a chest that
is filled with blood. One of the things that happens
in the emergency room in cases of severe trauma like
car accident, that sort of thing, you make an incision
(35:09):
in the intercostal space and you put in a test
a chest or drain. So there's actually a tube that
they'll stick into the chest and it pulls all of
that blood that's free floating in the chest and what
would referred to as the plural spaces. Interestingly enough, that's
where this injury was, and it clipped his lung. It's
a survivable injury and probably it's in my mind at least,
(35:34):
it's one of those kinds of injuries where you're scratching
your head and you're thinking, you know what, this is
quite ghastly, but this is something that is not necessarily
life threatening, particularly in the immediate if you've got an
emergency room that's right down the road. So that's one
of the injuries that he had. And then he's got
(35:56):
a knock on the head as well, and it created
what's referred to what they eventually assessed with him as
a mild concussion. You take that and compare to one
of his children, which i'll speak to in a moment,
that literally had a depressed skull fracture, and it looks
(36:17):
like it was generally with the same club that was
used probably on Collette, probably on this child. And he's
the entries that are really significant with McDonald, though, Dave,
are the things that he had on his on his face,
in his chest, and they were cuts, bruses and fingernails scratches,
(36:44):
which of course that indicates that whoever it was that
fought him was fighting for their life. Well, you know
what they say about mama bears, you know the worst
that you know, male bears are terrifying, nothing like a
(37:06):
mama bear, though if her cubs are around, in particular,
it's gonna rip you to shred. She's gonna do everything
that she can. And look, Colette, she's got these two
precious girls that are there. She's being attacked. First off,
she's trying to save her own life. She's got a
life within her, Dave right, she's pregnant with her son.
(37:28):
She's gonna do everything she can. And I think that
over the years people have put forth the idea that
this all initiated perhaps as an argument between Collette and McDonald,
and that I think I'd read one statement at one
(37:48):
point in time where she had picked up an object
and had thrown it at him, and he became so
incensed over this that he began to, you know, attack her,
which is a fascinating, fascinating when you begin to talk
about physical evidence, it's being presented on his body, and Dave,
I was looking, man look, I looked at the photos
(38:09):
of McDonald that they took at that particular time. I've
seen people get more ghastly injuries in a strong windstorm
than what this guy is presenting with. I'm completely unimpressed
when you take that and you compare it to what
his children went through, and of course what Collet went through. Dave.
(38:34):
One of the things that really stuck out to me
is that when she's got these really nasty lacerations to
her forearms, I think that this could be a combination
of both being attacked with an edged weapon. In addition
to that, it could be also being clubbed. They're kind
(38:58):
of nasty and regular. When you see these things, they're
not It's not something that you would see. For instance,
she's got like this gaping, and anytime you hear gaping
most of the time, that's going to be indicative of
(39:18):
laceration where the skin has really opened up. The edges
are very jagged because it's a blow with a blunt
object that literally tears the skin, you know, with you know,
with sharp force injuries. And we're going to do a
whole We're going to do a whole episode of Body
(39:40):
Bags about sharp force injuries. With sharp force injuries, you
have these kind of clean margins where they're they're perfect
because you're talking about using a steel blade on a
surface and it cuts it through. But if you have
a laceration that arises from blunt force trauma and it
(40:01):
literally tears the skin. So it's on the aspect of
her I'm actually looking at it right now. It's on
the aspect of her lateral right wrist. So just imagine
if you will lifting your right arm, fist clenched so
that you're trying to block or parry, you know, use
(40:24):
a fencing term, You're trying to parry this attack. And
so the perpetrator when they're looking at you, the surface
that they're aiming for is blocked. Maybe they're going for
a head strike, it's blocked. And so the first place
that the injury is where a contact is made is
(40:46):
actually on this lateral aspect of the forearm, and it
opens up this kind of gaping, jagged, it's almost crescent shaped.
It's the way it looks. So yeah, she's she's he's
got injuries on her arms as well. But again back
to him, he's got nothing. I mean, he's he's literally
(41:08):
got nothing on his body that gives you the indication
that he, you know, he's trying to fend anything off.
And here here's another interesting fact quote unquote about this
Green Beret doctor. Green Berets, in particular special Forces guys
(41:28):
even back then. We hear a lot about it now,
but even back then, they were highly skilled at what's
called c QB and that's close quarters combat. Okay, so
it's not just like going in and clearing a room.
You have to try to understand the basics of some
of the martial arts that are out there because you're
(41:49):
going to be fighting people one on one. Well, he
allegedly had they receive training in hand to hand combat,
and it makes sense. You know, he would have been
embedded with these guys there at Fort Bragg day to
day training. They probably say, Doc, you've got to go
through this training along with us. It doesn't mean he's
(42:09):
gone through Greenberry School. As a matter of fact, the
only thing I really find reference to is that he'd
gone to airborne school. Well, they you know, clerk typists
go through airborne school. If they're going to be assigned
to the eighty second, you know, or the one hundred
and seventy third they're going to be assigned. You have
to go through airborne training, which is a school that
(42:32):
lasts about three weeks and it's basically gravity. That's it,
you know. I mean, yeah, it's rigorous. It's rigorous, but
it's not like going through Special Forces training, which last years.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
The background on McDonald was that he's this brilliant, near
genius doctor who loves his country so much. Is not
enough just to be in the army, but he is
the best of the best, the green Beret. He can
fight and so he can basically go kill the enemy
hand to hand combat, and then he can actually on
his way back, perform surgery on a fellow army and
bring him back. So Jeffrey McDonald is knocked out with
(43:09):
a booboo to the head and a small incision in
his chest. Meanwhile, his pregnant wife has defensive wounds.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
On her arms.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
She has been beaten, she has been torn up and
stabbed and just destroyed, just destroyed, and he has a
booboo on his head. But Joe after moving from cole
(43:42):
at MacDonald, there are two little girls that are also there,
Kimmy and Christy, and I don't know what either one
of those girls could have attested to. But these hippies
walking around, one holding a camp Indell saying as his
groovy killed the pigs, somehow decide that we have to
(44:05):
take out these little girls as well. And again I'm
going back to McDonald's injuries, Jeffery McDonald, And you know,
I would think the girls would have a little less
than that, you know, to be killed, because there's no
need they're little, tiny, no need to do to them
what you just did to Collad. So what happened with
(44:26):
the girls. How were they killed?
Speaker 1 (44:29):
Well? I think that it's important because you know, when
he which I believe he's feigning unconsciousness, feigning pretending. They
the ambulance people e MTS, they attempted CPR on him
(44:50):
when they arrived, and almost immediately he pops up. You know,
somebody starts doing chest compressions.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
In a minute, Joe, Yeah, I didn't know this.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Yeah, I've never heard he pops to life all of
a sudden, Okay, which sounds like the biggest, you know,
odorous pile of excrement that you can you know, put forth.
You're you're going to you're You're not going to lay
there and have somebody compressing on your chest. But the
(45:22):
reason this is significant is that immediately as soon as
he pops up, he makes this exclamation about acid heads,
where he says, you know, look at my wife, and
then he makes reference to the fact that now this
is this is in the midst of them, you know,
(45:45):
treating him. I'm going to kill those acid heads. An
acid head is a term that was associated with hippies,
you know, because of lysergic acid, those sorts of things
that people would take acids really really when it popped
on the pop culture, if you will, and there were
a lot of people that were experimenting with acid back then.
The military was experimenting with acid back then. But that's
(46:08):
a story for another day. And so this is the
first thing you're going to say. And then as he
is being taken out of the house, he says, let
me see my kids, Let me see my kids, and
he's being carried off on a stretcher. Well, yeah, ye had, Jeffrey.
Let's let's take a look at your kids. Let's do that.
(46:31):
Why don't we do that? Because Kimmy's five years old, Dave,
She's laying in her bed. She's laying in her bed,
she's on her left side, and this precious little child,
her skulls have been fractured. And I saw the images
(46:51):
of it, and it's it's ghastly, absolutely ghastly. She's the
They believe that she was at minimum struck twice, possibly more.
And so she's on the right side. This is the
right side of her skull. So just imagine that you're
(47:12):
laying in what we refer to as like a left
recumbent position. So left recumbent means your left side of
your body's contacting the surface, supporting the weight of your body.
I don't know about you. I'm a side sleeper, so
you know that's like, if you're a side sleeper, that's
a position. And apparently that's the position she was actually
(47:34):
attacked in or on. And so she was struck so
hard that not only is her skull fractured, Dave, but
in addition to that she struck her cheekbone is fractured.
And Dave, I got to tell you the McDonald's case
in and of itself. You know, I've never seen this
(47:57):
other than outside of a car accident. This child, this
five year old, was beaten so furiously that her cheekbone
is actually protruding through her skin. So this is going
to be a massive laceration. And when you see the
images that, you know, you know, just illustrate what kind
(48:21):
of force is involved with this child. It's again I
have to return to the to the word ghastly. You know,
who would have the motivation to do that, you know,
to a five year old? What could a five year
old ever have done? You had made mention of the fact,
well what could they have seen? You know what, what
(48:43):
could they have seen? What could they have recounted, you know,
in a court. But it extends beyond that. She's been
beaten all of her body with this bludgeon that's being used.
And then I guess the hippie that are out there chanting,
you know that acid is groovy, decide, well, you know,
(49:08):
let's go in. And also in addition to beating this child,
let's stab her. She's been stabbed eight to ten times.
In addition of that, and again and again, Dave, she's
been stabbed in the neck. And so if you're if
you are a physician, you know that the airway in
(49:32):
and of itself is a critical location that you need
to have intact in order to save life. I find
it fascinating that would Collecte and Kimmy, both their necks
are attacked with a sharp instrument, Because if you've had
any kind of trauma training and you're trying to resuscitate somebody,
(49:54):
you know for a fact that it's going to be
near impossible in this environment if they sustain those kinds
of injuries to bring them back from you know, bring
them back from death, death death, doorstep, you can't do it.
It's very, very difficult not to mention, you know, when
an individual has been beaten so severely about the head
(50:17):
to the point where the skull is fractured. It's almost indescribable.
Dave Kristen, who's only two. Dave is found lying in
her bed. She again is on her left side, and
it's almost too too horrible to even put out there,
(50:41):
but it's been out there for years and for our friends,
you know, I just I want everybody to understand that
with this baby, you know, she's she stabbed Dave, I
think thirty three times in her chest and in her neck,
(51:02):
her hands, her back, And I wondered, as I was,
you know, trying to and that's with a knife. That's
with a knife, okay, because there's an additional fifteen injuries
that she has that are with this ice pick. Okay,
(51:23):
She's got two knife wounds that actually penetrate her heart, Dave,
and the ice pick wounds are kind of shallow, you know,
compared to the knife wounds. But this this little angel,
she if she had an awareness because she lifted those
(51:46):
tiny little hands to defend herself, because she's got injuries
on her hands. You know, she's trying to fend this thing.
Speaker 2 (51:54):
Off based on what you see there, Joe, do you
believe Eve Jeffrey McDonald's story of what happened at all?
Speaker 3 (52:05):
No?
Speaker 1 (52:06):
No, not yeah, absolutely not. It It kind of goes
back to, you know, the old biblical story about Cain
and Abel. You know where uh, you know, God is
actually asking Cain, you know, where's your brother And at
one point in time, the scripture reads that you know
(52:29):
your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body backs
Quody dais, but Joseph's gotten more. August eight through August ninth,
nineteen sixty nine, the city of Los Angeles wasn't fear
because they knew that there was a killer on the loose.
(00:22):
They had evidence of it. Someone had gone into home
in a very upscale area in LA and had butchered
five people. It was terrifying. But you know, that case
resonated not just in LA but all over the US.
(00:46):
There were stories that were written, there were fears that
were expressed in the news. Who was this? Who would
do this? But all the way over on the other
side of the United States, in North Carolina, Fort Bragg,
(01:07):
to be very specific, there was another mass homicide that
had been committed and it had eerie connections, at least
seemingly on the surface, to those nights back in August
of sixty nine. Six months later, terror would revisit the
(01:29):
country and people had questions, and still to this day,
this question still linger. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this
is body bags. Dave. You and I were kids when
the case cases that we're going to discuss today went down.
(01:53):
I really have no memory of the so called Jeffrey
MacDonald case. From a real time.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Perspective, Jeffrey McDonald has to this day claimed that a
group of hippies came into his house at two o'clock
in the morning and attacked him and killed his wife
and children and left him for debt. I mean, and
this is Jeffer McDonald's a Green Bray doctor, green Beret
doctor at the height of the Vietnam War, stationed in
(02:25):
Fort Bragg, North Carolina. And he's married to his high
school sweetheart. They've got two little girls, and they've got
another one on the way. And here is this green
Bray doctor who you know, calls nine well, I don't
know they'd have nine one one, but called whatever version
it was back then to call for emergency.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Help, probably zero. I think that that's actually what you
used to do. You call for the operator. And isn't
that interesting? Imagine being the operator? And so yeah, I'm
trying to get in contact with my sister in Connecticut.
Can you connect me? And then the next call you
get some guy saying send helps.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
And fascinating is that the way those calls came in.
They were frightening to the people taking the calls, you know,
And anyway, so Jeffrey McDonald claims that, And I mentioned
this to you in the prep because something has always
fascinated me about this case with regard to Jeffrey McDonald. Again, remember,
(03:26):
this is a man who claims he tried to defend
his family and they and they were murdered, and that
he is perfectly innocent. He didn't do anything wrong other
than not defend his wife and kids. But he always
starts the story with a couple of different things depending
on who he's telling it to. I believe when he
(03:46):
was on Dick Cavot show talking about the murders, he
mentioned watching a late night TV show, you know, but
he talks about washing dishes at two am. Always thought
the reason he shares something like that, who cares that
you were washing dishes at two am? Who cares? But
(04:07):
it was to show like he's this he is the all.
He's such a good guy. This green Bereat doctor was
washing dishes at two in the morning because he didn't
want his pregnant wife to wake up to it in
the morning. This is a good guy.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Joe. Well, well, Dave, you know the thing about it
is is that when you when you're questioning a suspect
you have someone that'll give you that kind of granular
detail like that, there's there's this presentation that they're trying
to do in order to convince you of the validity
(04:40):
of the statements that they're making by virtue of the
intensity or the level of detail that they can give you,
because in many people's minds, that states to them, well,
if I can give them these fine details about what
was going on at that particular time, that means that
I'm espousing the truth. And of course, you know, when
(05:02):
you're an investigator and you look at someone and they're
going through this traumatic event and they can give you
those kinds of details at that moment in time, you
kind of raise your eyebrow. Because I've sat across from
people that have been in the midst of an attack
(05:23):
and they have I've had people over the course of
my career I try to talk to and I don't
want to say that they were catatonic, where you know
they've got the fixed stare where they're looking like beyond you.
But it feels like I've experienced that a number of
(05:45):
times where they can't give you they're even nonverbal, And
so what's fascinating is when you get that original statement
from somebody that has witnessed something that was attacked, perhaps
the themselves in the case of Jeffery McDonald, how much
how much detail did they give at that time where
they all over the board? Did the story change? And
(06:08):
I mean like in a change where your brain is
kind of dropping down a little bit relative to the
trauma you've experienced, you have a bit more clarity, because
it's amazing. Sometimes you'll have these people, you know, that
will begin to kind of rapid fire and regurgitate things,
and you know you can hear fear in their voice,
and sometimes they don't get the facts straight, but it
(06:30):
doesn't mean that they're trying to deceive you. When you
have somebody that sits there and they can give you
these put fine points on things over and over again
like this, you got major questions. And I think that's
the case with Jeffery McDonald.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Dave that explains it. That thank you, that helps because
what he said happened. Joe, he claims, how do I
go over this because I asked Joe to do this
one jes see, I'll know, I don't think I've asked
for us to do anything else in specifics, but this
one in particular. And here's the reason. There was a
(07:04):
book called Fatal Vision written by Joe McGinnis. He was
hired by Jeffer McDonald's team to be embedded with them
after Jeffer MacDonald had been arrested accused of murder of
his family, and they allowed Joe McGinnis to be with
them in their defense at trial because they felt like
(07:27):
Jeffer McDonald felt like, this guy will tell the truth,
you know, he'll expose to the world what I've been through.
And Jeffrey McDonald didn't get his wish because Joe McGinnis
wasn't bedded with him. He did see Jeffer McDonald for
who he was. And the book he wrote, called Fatal Vision,
actually pushes the fact that Jeffer MacDonald murdered his wife
and children. After that, there were books about Jeffrey's innocence.
(07:52):
Fatal Justice comes to mind, a brilliant book. I don't
believe everything in it, just like I don't believe everything
in Fatal Vision, but I asked Jo to do because
I want to know what the forensics tell you as
an investigator, as a death investigator, do the forensics actually
solve the crime or is it really just here's what happened.
(08:12):
It could be his story, it might not be. That's
what I want, and then I want the opinion based
on the forensics. What do you believe, Joe. So I'm
going to lay this out very quickly. Jeffery McDonald made
a very specific claim, and we're going to use that
as Joe explains what happened to each individual in that
(08:34):
home that night. Jeffer McDonald claims that he had washed
the evening dinner dishes before deciding to go to bed.
His younger daughter, Kristen, had wet his side of the bed,
so he had taken her to her own bed, not
wanting to wake up his wife to change it by
(08:54):
changing the sheets. He had taken a blanket from Kristen's
room and fallen asleep up on the living room couch. Again,
this is Jeffrey McDonald's story. He's asleep on the couch
when he is awakened hearing Colette and Kimberly's screams and
Colette shouting Jeff, Jeff, help, why are they doing this
(09:17):
to me? Think about that for just a minute. As
he rose from the couch to go to their aid,
he was attacked by three male intruders, one black and
two white. The shorter of the two white men had
worn light, possibly surgical gloves. A fourth intruder he described
(09:38):
as a white female with a long blonde hair, possible wig,
and wearing high heeled knee high boots and a white
floppy hat partially covering her face. The individual stood nearby
holding a lighted candle and chanting quote, acid is groovy,
Kill the pigs. Acid is groovy, killed the pigs, McDonald claimed.
(10:04):
The three males then attacked him with a club and
an ice pick, with the female intruder shouting hit him again.
During the struggle, his pajama top was pulled over his
head to his wrists, and he had to use this
bound garment to ward off thrust from the ice pick.
Although eventually he was overcome by the assailants, nannock to
unconscious in the living room and of the hallway leading
(10:27):
to the bedrooms. When he regained consciousness, the intruders were gone.
He stumbles from room to room, attempting mouth to mouth
resuscitation on each of his daughters, to no avail. Before
finding his wife. He then pulled a small pairing knife
from Colette's chest and he tossed it on the floor
and attempted to find her pulse. He draped the pajama
(10:50):
jacket over her body and phone for help. That is
Jeffrey McDonald's story, Joe.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
I know you sit here and you listen to all
of these details relative that he's offering up in his
statement and kind of how this went down. The last
thing that the operator claims that she heard was him screaming, essentially,
we need to get them to W, which W apparently
(11:24):
means the hospital on base at Fort Bragg. And then
there's kind of a thunk at the end, sounding, according
to the operator, like the phone hit the wall. But
when the MPs at Fort Brack arrived on scene, they
saw something that. In their time at Fort Bragg patrol
(11:48):
in the streets, going from family structure to family structure
in the married housing area, dealing with drunk gis or
maybe even having to break up a few domestic disputes,
there's no way they could have been prepared for what
(12:08):
lay before their eyes. You know, you mentioned the term
just second ago, Dave, the word groovy, the idea I'm
(12:31):
thinking about that that song from the fifth from the
sixties and everything is groovy, you know, and even Liberachi.
And this has almost become like a meme on the internet.
He actually redoes this lot. He does it on air
on his show with a bunch of these dancers that
(12:54):
are dressed. I guess, like, I don't know what their
perception of sixties hippie culture was. Of course, they're all
clean and have nice haircuts, and you know, their nails
are not dirty. And they're all dancing around him as
he's at his piano playing this feeling groovy. And when
(13:15):
you mentioned this term, because we had talked about this before,
that image came to mind. And now you've.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Got an assailant, an alleged assailant that has come into
this home that's actually taken time Dave to light a
candle and has begun chanting in that environment.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Let me tell you something about the South in the
late sixties. Fort Bragg is located adjacent to the town
of Faithful, North Carolina. All right, I can tell you
affirmatively that it was not considered to be a haven
for hippie culture in the nineteenth sixties. You know, it's
(14:03):
not that kind of place. It's a rough and tumbled
military place as as as much as hippie culture in
particular tried to distance himself from the Vietnam War. I
can't imagine for quote unquote hippies gravitating to arguably one
of the most military locations in the nation. That alone,
(14:27):
to me is striking. And then that they could get
access to the house.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
No, housing was not easy to get into.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
No, it's not. And you know you have to go
through the gate in order to get access to his place.
So you've you've got this. You know, you've got these
these four people that show up on base and they
specifically attack this guy who's twenty six years old that
(14:58):
has just finished medical school, done an internship, not a residency,
has done an internship at this point in time. And
he's not. And I got to tell you this. The
media for years and years said that he's a Green Beret.
He's not a damn Green Beret. He's not a Green Beret.
(15:18):
He volunteered to be a physician assigned to special operations.
I think it was I think it was fifth group,
third group or fifth group, I can't remember anyway. On
post at at Fort Bragg, and Fort Bragg is the
center for training for RSF guys, and it still remains
(15:38):
that way today. He was not a Green Beret. I
think that that goes into this idea of this you
know what you were talking about with him washing dishes.
He's like this noble warrior, you know, and you see
him all festooned early on in his in his military
get up that he's wearing along with his green beret.
(16:01):
And by the way, most Green Berets that I know
don't like to be referred to as green berets. That's
just not something that they like. They refer to themselves
as silent warriors, unlike to see who write a book
all the time. The SF guys. The SF guys, you know,
they're quiet people most of the time. This guy, I
(16:24):
can only imagine it must have been cringeworthy for them.
You know, these guys have been in high intensity battles
low those many years in Vietnam, and you got this
guy who's showing up in this environment claiming to be
one of them. And he's a physician, and Dave, none
of the stuff that he's saying makes sense relative to
the injuries that we see portrayed, particularly at autopsy on
(16:48):
all three of these symptoms. Well, let's take it that way.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
One thing I want to point out as we head
into this, Joe, the crime scene okay, again mentioning this
is base housing, because you have to include that into
the mix. As you pointed out, not an easy thing
to get on. It was during the height of the
Vietnam War February seventeenth, nineteen seventy. But after the murders
(17:13):
of collect Kim and Christen, this dwelling was not cleaned up,
it wasn't destroyed. It was actually locked up and kept
so that if and when a trial happened, the jury
(17:33):
could actually go and see the crime scene. And when
again February seventeenth, nineteen seventy his trial did not take
place until nineteen seventy nine, and the jury was able
to walk the crime scene. They were actually able to
go in and look at what Jeffrey McDonald said happened
(17:54):
and where it happened. This is something that has really
been a problem for me in crimes where or a
crime scene is destroyed. For instance, out in Idaho, the
Coburger crime scene. From the moment they destroyed that, there
was no reason to destroy that house other than covering
up something is all I can figure. Not accusing anybody.
(18:15):
I'm just saying I don't I mean emotional damage to
a community because there is a murder house. I understand
what they're saying there. I just think that justice is
more important than emotional feelings for the day.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Anyway, please, can I say something real quick? You know,
the the idea that you go in and tear down
a structure. And I don't want to go too far
field with this because I know that we're focused on
different McDonald and by the way, a big round of
applause for those individuals that had the forethought in this
(18:50):
case to lock it down. In't amazing how we can
learn lessons from the past and people still haven't learned
them to this point. The same way with Parkland. They
locked Parkland down. You think about Idaho and they tear
the thing down because it makes somebody sad. I'm reflecting
(19:12):
back right now over all of the death cases that
I work, particularly homicides, Dave. You know, I've been to
the same address multiple times on unrelated homicides, like I've
had succession of homicides that have occurred in the same dwelling.
Those houses were never torn down, you know, and I
(19:33):
was actually talking to a group recently in London and
a former Scotland yard detective who worked for them for
thirty years, and I just asked him, I said, listen,
because they use the term and a lot of people
use the term raising raising a location, which means to
(19:55):
tear it down. Have you, guys ever do you in
your recollection do you ever remember raising a location as
a result of of homicide? And he's like, no, that's absurd,
And so you look at that reflection. You know, after
all these years, Jeffrey McDonald, they were able to lock
(20:19):
this place down and they didn't care if it, you know,
made somebody feel as that they need to go to
a cry corner or get their blanket or what it
is there would be and go over and shake over
the idea that, oh my gosh, horrible homicides took place there.
(20:39):
That's not what they were about. They wanted to discover
the truth. And sometimes if you're absent that evidence, Dave,
there's no way to go.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
So, now that we know what Jeffrey McDonald's story was
the biggest, the pajamatop comes to mind, you know, because
again now claiming to be a green break doctor, anybody,
you know what, I have such an I have such
respect for men and women that join the military service
(21:09):
in the United States of America. I just I have
if you, if you're a military person, I just you
have my respect. And I don't picture any man allowing
this to take place in his home and to only
have a bump on the head and a small incision
(21:30):
on his chest while his family is totally destroyed. I
don't see that as a possibility, especially from somebody who
is in the military and is trained. Whether he's dream
Brayer or not, he is still a supposed to be
a man, and he's supposed to protect his family. And
his story is I don't I don't understand how he
(21:56):
could have so few injuries while there's such overkill on
the girls. That's for starters. So let's get into the
forensics show what based on his story. Now, when you
go to a crimes when you're investigator, your death investigator,
and you hit a scene like this, do you listen
to his story of what happened? Or do you block
that out and just let's look at the bodies and
(22:16):
what's going on in this house? How does that begin
for you?
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Well, you're not gonna you're, first off, you're not going
to sit down and have an in depth discussion with
this subject before you enter into the scene. As a
matter of fact, I just soon only rely upon the
initial report that I'm getting from law enforcement when I
roll up, so that look we've got and this this way.
(22:44):
It would commonly go, look, we've got three dead in
this location. This is where they're located. We've got a
husband over here that has been injured. We're looking for
purpose right now, because he states that these subjects came
into his home and committed these crimes. This is what
(23:06):
he says happened at in the immediate You're not gonna
have all those fine details at this point in time.
And at that point time, I'm gonna say, okay, fine,
that's enough. I've heard enough, because I don't you know,
I don't want to from a forensic standpoint, I don't
necessarily want to be encumbered by that knowledge. Now, if
(23:28):
there's something dangerous in there, or if there's something like it,
you know where you'll get cues from folks like particularly
uniform officers that will roll up. They'll say things like, look,
when you get to the front door, I'm just throwing
this out there as an example. We had kick the
door down, so you'll see wood all over the floor,
you know where the door facing was knocked out, or
(23:50):
there's a huge puddle of blood. Be careful where you step.
That's information that has great utility for me because when
I go in, I want to be able to observe
each one of these bodies inside to in the pristine state,
pristine as it applies to the context of the crime scene.
I don't want any kind of outside element coming in.
(24:13):
And again, going back to Tate, Lobbyanca, and specifically the
Tait case, you know the cues that you know doctor
Noguchi gave that he wrote about, you know in his
book because he was at the scene of Tate. He
(24:34):
said that his eyes always go up. That's the first
place he looks. He doesn't look at the bodies. His
eyes always go up. He looks at the ceiling, He
looks at the surroundings, and then he kind of makes
he targets until he makes his way down to the body,
because he wants to understand the entire environment and the
context of the bodies in that environment before he makes
(24:55):
any kind of assessment. Beyond that, and that's that's very important.
And when I read that book and read that statement
that's that he'd made all those years ago, it kind
of rung true. And I find it interesting. You know
that we're you know that we're talking about this now
with Jeffrey MacDonald. So when you enter into an environment
like this nowadays, what you would do is you would
(25:19):
probably break off into teams, and each team would handle
an individual body. UH to process the body, you'd have
somebody that would handle Collett's body, the wife who has
just these horrendous injuries that she is sustained, Dave, the
(25:39):
injuries alone that collect sustained. And by the way, you've
got multiple weapons involved in this. She doesn't just have
stab one. She's got puncture wounds as well. And these
puncture wounds arise from something you don't hear much about nowadays,
and that's an ice pick, and so it's been driven
(26:01):
into her multiple times. I've given this thought, as you know,
as a as an investigator, why would she have multiple
stab wounds and multiple puncture wounds. You've got multiple weapons involved,
and I think that it's to give the appearance, Dave,
(26:23):
that you've got multiple perpetrators. So you've got somebody that
is thinking about this this far in advance that Okay,
not only am I going to use one knife, I'll
use two knives. And let me see what else can
I use? Oh yeah, an ice pick? We're not too
(26:44):
far removed. During that period of time when people relied
on ice picks, you'd have, you know, and it would
not have been like a too distant of the memory
to know that. You know, probably his grandparents, maybe his
parents even had had ice delivered to their home and
you'd have to chip it off. So everybody had an
ice pick in the house. My grandmother had several in
(27:05):
the house. And old guys back in the day used
to carry ice picks with them to defend themselves with
because they're easily concealed. They don't have the same profile
as a knife. Does you know you can carry an
ice pick? You know the I don't know if it
was bad battally Rory Brown, but he had a razor
(27:28):
in his shoe, I know that. But you would old
guys would carry carry ice picks in their shoes. And
so it's a very it's a very savvy kind of
street street kind of weapon that you would use almost
like a shive that's created in a prison, which is
fascinating to me. But the fact that just Collette alone
(27:49):
is attacked on multiple planes of her body, and she
is so viciously attacked Dave that you see several areas
of concentrated injuries on her that are kind of varietal.
They'll go, You'll have clusters here, clusters there, And it's
(28:11):
almost an attempt, I think, to give the impression that
this was a frenzied killing when it very well might
not have been. All right, So.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
I'm kind of not at wits end, but I didn't
really think about the multiple the weapons, you know, switching
them up to have the appearance of more than one person.
Jeffy McDonald went to Princeton. He's not an idiot intellectually,
and I'm picturing him and the story that the prosecution
(28:51):
laid out of how it all happened. Again, now back
to motive, which when you're in death investigator, motive and
story and all that, that's not part of it, is it.
I mean, you're really just there, here's the body, here's
the evidence. What happened?
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Yeah, yeah, I don't I don't care about anybody's motive,
particularly at a crom scene, it has it's not even
on the radar. You start to get into motive and
it clouds clouds things up because you know, one thing
I failed to mention with Collette. If you're talking to
me about somebody's you know why you know, which is
(29:28):
a question as you well know, I hate why would
you do this? Then that's going to distract me. And
just like I've I've been distracted right now relative to
this case because one of the things I forgot to
mention that not only does she have injuries that are
generated by a knife and from an ice pick, she's
(29:49):
also been beaten with a club day and so that,
you know, to think about what somebody's motivation was, it
sounds like something you'd hear in an acting class innovation,
you know, And I don't know, I don't know what
their motivation was, but I can tell you with Collette,
you can actually see that the individual is highly motivated
(30:14):
in the sense that it's a frenzied killing and she's
she's been so beaten and traumatized that she's got I
think that she's been stabbed twenty one times with an
ice pick, sixteen times in the neck in the chest
(30:38):
with a knife, and her trachea, which is kind of interesting,
is severed in two places. Well, you know, you might
think about cutting a throat, but let's just say that
you are a physician. Anatomically, you're going to think about, well,
what would be one of the ways to facilitate somebody's death, well,
(30:58):
to get into their airway. As a matter of fact,
if she even had one little sign of life in her, Dave,
and the EMTs arrived, they couldn't get her intubated, like
you could not put a you couldn't establish an airway
on her in the field. You would have to perhaps
(31:21):
you could go in and I've seen this happen where
you have a slice to the trachea. EMTs sometimes will
go into the trauma area and create an airway there
externally just to be able to inflate the lungs. Okay,
So that's kind of an interesting injury, that her trachea
is actually cut in two places here, Dave, anatomically, But Dave,
(31:58):
I gotta tell you, I saw a a comment and
you actually referenced it just a few months ago about
Collette McDonald had apparently taken his pajama top off and
had laid it across her chest. And by the way,
(32:21):
he also had removed apparently a paring knife from her chest,
which any doctor knows that if someone has an instrument,
a knife, a branch from a tree, a piece of rebar,
(32:43):
you don't take it out, period, You leave it in place.
He shouldn't know that. But yet she's got this paring
knife that's laying on the floor next to her that
was apparently pulled out of her chest by him. But
back to the pajama top. It's laying on top of her,
and when the PD rolls up, that's not the only
thing that's laying on top of her. He's laying on
(33:05):
top of her. His head is literally resting on her chest.
And to say that that his injuries that he sustained
in the attack of these evil hippies that are chanting
everything is groovy or where the hell killed the pigs? Yeah,
acid is groovy killed the pigs? You know, he's he
(33:27):
doesn't show signs of much signs of being a warrior
as far.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
As hey, all right, Joe, can you tell me what
injuries did Jeffrey McDonald sustain that made it so he
was not able to protect his family. He's the only
survivor in the whole group. He's the only one that
see he's the only real threat to anyone. And yet
he's the one that was left with minimal injuries.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
So what what what?
Speaker 2 (33:57):
What were his injuries?
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Well, he's got Okay, first off, he's got like what
they're referring to as a sharp force injury. It's about
maybe five eighths of an inch in depth in his chest,
and the instrument that was used apparently collapsed partially collapsed
(34:25):
his lung. Okay, and as horrible as that is, and
this was on if folks, will you know, place your
hand on your right your right aspect of your rib
cage and you can feel in between the ribs was
referred to as the intercostal space. And doctors know this
(34:48):
because when, for instance, when you're trying to put in
like an emergency room, if you have a chest that
is filled with blood. One of the things that happens
in the emergency room in cases of severe trauma like
car accident, that sort of thing, you make an incision
(35:09):
in the intercostal space and you put in a test
a chest or drain. So there's actually a tube that
they'll stick into the chest and it pulls all of
that blood that's free floating in the chest and what
would referred to as the plural spaces. Interestingly enough, that's
where this injury was, and it clipped his lung. It's
a survivable injury and probably it's in my mind at least,
(35:34):
it's one of those kinds of injuries where you're scratching
your head and you're thinking, you know what, this is
quite ghastly, but this is something that is not necessarily
life threatening, particularly in the immediate if you've got an
emergency room that's right down the road. So that's one
of the injuries that he had. And then he's got
(35:56):
a knock on the head as well, and it created
what's referred to what they eventually assessed with him as
a mild concussion. You take that and compare to one
of his children, which i'll speak to in a moment,
that literally had a depressed skull fracture, and it looks
(36:17):
like it was generally with the same club that was
used probably on Collette, probably on this child. And he's
the entries that are really significant with McDonald, though, Dave,
are the things that he had on his on his face,
in his chest, and they were cuts, bruses and fingernails scratches,
(36:44):
which of course that indicates that whoever it was that
fought him was fighting for their life. Well, you know
what they say about mama bears, you know the worst
that you know, male bears are terrifying, nothing like a
(37:06):
mama bear, though if her cubs are around, in particular,
it's gonna rip you to shred. She's gonna do everything
that she can. And look, Colette, she's got these two
precious girls that are there. She's being attacked. First off,
she's trying to save her own life. She's got a
life within her, Dave right, she's pregnant with her son.
(37:28):
She's gonna do everything she can. And I think that
over the years people have put forth the idea that
this all initiated perhaps as an argument between Collette and McDonald,
and that I think I'd read one statement at one
(37:48):
point in time where she had picked up an object
and had thrown it at him, and he became so
incensed over this that he began to, you know, attack her,
which is a fascinating, fascinating when you begin to talk
about physical evidence, it's being presented on his body, and Dave,
I was looking, man look, I looked at the photos
(38:09):
of McDonald that they took at that particular time. I've
seen people get more ghastly injuries in a strong windstorm
than what this guy is presenting with. I'm completely unimpressed
when you take that and you compare it to what
his children went through, and of course what Collet went through. Dave.
(38:34):
One of the things that really stuck out to me
is that when she's got these really nasty lacerations to
her forearms, I think that this could be a combination
of both being attacked with an edged weapon. In addition
to that, it could be also being clubbed. They're kind
(38:58):
of nasty and regular. When you see these things, they're
not It's not something that you would see. For instance,
she's got like this gaping, and anytime you hear gaping
most of the time, that's going to be indicative of
(39:18):
laceration where the skin has really opened up. The edges
are very jagged because it's a blow with a blunt
object that literally tears the skin, you know, with you know,
with sharp force injuries. And we're going to do a
whole We're going to do a whole episode of Body
(39:40):
Bags about sharp force injuries. With sharp force injuries, you
have these kind of clean margins where they're they're perfect
because you're talking about using a steel blade on a
surface and it cuts it through. But if you have
a laceration that arises from blunt force trauma and it
(40:01):
literally tears the skin. So it's on the aspect of
her I'm actually looking at it right now. It's on
the aspect of her lateral right wrist. So just imagine
if you will lifting your right arm, fist clenched so
that you're trying to block or parry, you know, use
(40:24):
a fencing term, You're trying to parry this attack. And
so the perpetrator when they're looking at you, the surface
that they're aiming for is blocked. Maybe they're going for
a head strike, it's blocked. And so the first place
that the injury is where a contact is made is
(40:46):
actually on this lateral aspect of the forearm, and it
opens up this kind of gaping, jagged, it's almost crescent shaped.
It's the way it looks. So yeah, she's she's he's
got injuries on her arms as well. But again back
to him, he's got nothing. I mean, he's he's literally
(41:08):
got nothing on his body that gives you the indication
that he, you know, he's trying to fend anything off.
And here here's another interesting fact quote unquote about this
Green Beret doctor. Green Berets, in particular special Forces guys
(41:28):
even back then. We hear a lot about it now,
but even back then, they were highly skilled at what's
called c QB and that's close quarters combat. Okay, so
it's not just like going in and clearing a room.
You have to try to understand the basics of some
of the martial arts that are out there because you're
(41:49):
going to be fighting people one on one. Well, he
allegedly had they receive training in hand to hand combat,
and it makes sense. You know, he would have been
embedded with these guys there at Fort Bragg day to
day training. They probably say, Doc, you've got to go
through this training along with us. It doesn't mean he's
(42:09):
gone through Greenberry School. As a matter of fact, the
only thing I really find reference to is that he'd
gone to airborne school. Well, they you know, clerk typists
go through airborne school. If they're going to be assigned
to the eighty second, you know, or the one hundred
and seventy third they're going to be assigned. You have
to go through airborne training, which is a school that
(42:32):
lasts about three weeks and it's basically gravity. That's it,
you know. I mean, yeah, it's rigorous. It's rigorous, but
it's not like going through Special Forces training, which last years.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
The background on McDonald was that he's this brilliant, near
genius doctor who loves his country so much. Is not
enough just to be in the army, but he is
the best of the best, the green Beret. He can
fight and so he can basically go kill the enemy
hand to hand combat, and then he can actually on
his way back, perform surgery on a fellow army and
bring him back. So Jeffrey McDonald is knocked out with
(43:09):
a booboo to the head and a small incision in
his chest. Meanwhile, his pregnant wife has defensive wounds.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
On her arms.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
She has been beaten, she has been torn up and
stabbed and just destroyed, just destroyed, and he has a
booboo on his head. But Joe after moving from cole
(43:42):
at MacDonald, there are two little girls that are also there,
Kimmy and Christy, and I don't know what either one
of those girls could have attested to. But these hippies
walking around, one holding a camp Indell saying as his
groovy killed the pigs, somehow decide that we have to
(44:05):
take out these little girls as well. And again I'm
going back to McDonald's injuries, Jeffery McDonald, And you know,
I would think the girls would have a little less
than that, you know, to be killed, because there's no
need they're little, tiny, no need to do to them
what you just did to Collad. So what happened with
(44:26):
the girls. How were they killed?
Speaker 1 (44:29):
Well? I think that it's important because you know, when
he which I believe he's feigning unconsciousness, feigning pretending. They
the ambulance people e MTS, they attempted CPR on him
(44:50):
when they arrived, and almost immediately he pops up. You know,
somebody starts doing chest compressions.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
In a minute, Joe, Yeah, I didn't know this.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Yeah, I've never heard he pops to life all of
a sudden, Okay, which sounds like the biggest, you know,
odorous pile of excrement that you can you know, put forth.
You're you're going to you're You're not going to lay
there and have somebody compressing on your chest. But the
(45:22):
reason this is significant is that immediately as soon as
he pops up, he makes this exclamation about acid heads,
where he says, you know, look at my wife, and
then he makes reference to the fact that now this
is this is in the midst of them, you know,
(45:45):
treating him. I'm going to kill those acid heads. An
acid head is a term that was associated with hippies,
you know, because of lysergic acid, those sorts of things
that people would take acids really really when it popped
on the pop culture, if you will, and there were
a lot of people that were experimenting with acid back then.
The military was experimenting with acid back then. But that's
(46:08):
a story for another day. And so this is the
first thing you're going to say. And then as he
is being taken out of the house, he says, let
me see my kids, Let me see my kids, and
he's being carried off on a stretcher. Well, yeah, ye had, Jeffrey.
Let's let's take a look at your kids. Let's do that.
(46:31):
Why don't we do that? Because Kimmy's five years old, Dave,
She's laying in her bed. She's laying in her bed,
she's on her left side, and this precious little child,
her skulls have been fractured. And I saw the images
(46:51):
of it, and it's it's ghastly, absolutely ghastly. She's the
They believe that she was at minimum struck twice, possibly more.
And so she's on the right side. This is the
right side of her skull. So just imagine that you're
(47:12):
laying in what we refer to as like a left
recumbent position. So left recumbent means your left side of
your body's contacting the surface, supporting the weight of your body.
I don't know about you. I'm a side sleeper, so
you know that's like, if you're a side sleeper, that's
a position. And apparently that's the position she was actually
(47:34):
attacked in or on. And so she was struck so
hard that not only is her skull fractured, Dave, but
in addition to that she struck her cheekbone is fractured.
And Dave, I got to tell you the McDonald's case
in and of itself. You know, I've never seen this
(47:57):
other than outside of a car accident. This child, this
five year old, was beaten so furiously that her cheekbone
is actually protruding through her skin. So this is going
to be a massive laceration. And when you see the
images that, you know, you know, just illustrate what kind
(48:21):
of force is involved with this child. It's again I
have to return to the to the word ghastly. You know,
who would have the motivation to do that, you know,
to a five year old? What could a five year
old ever have done? You had made mention of the fact,
well what could they have seen? You know what, what
(48:43):
could they have seen? What could they have recounted, you know,
in a court. But it extends beyond that. She's been
beaten all of her body with this bludgeon that's being used.
And then I guess the hippie that are out there chanting,
you know that acid is groovy, decide, well, you know,
(49:08):
let's go in. And also in addition to beating this child,
let's stab her. She's been stabbed eight to ten times.
In addition of that, and again and again, Dave, she's
been stabbed in the neck. And so if you're if
you are a physician, you know that the airway in
(49:32):
and of itself is a critical location that you need
to have intact in order to save life. I find
it fascinating that would Collecte and Kimmy, both their necks
are attacked with a sharp instrument, Because if you've had
any kind of trauma training and you're trying to resuscitate somebody,
(49:54):
you know for a fact that it's going to be
near impossible in this environment if they sustain those kinds
of injuries to bring them back from you know, bring
them back from death, death death, doorstep, you can't do it.
It's very, very difficult not to mention, you know, when
an individual has been beaten so severely about the head
(50:17):
to the point where the skull is fractured. It's almost indescribable.
Dave Kristen, who's only two. Dave is found lying in
her bed. She again is on her left side, and
it's almost too too horrible to even put out there,
(50:41):
but it's been out there for years and for our friends,
you know, I just I want everybody to understand that
with this baby, you know, she's she stabbed Dave, I
think thirty three times in her chest and in her neck,
(51:02):
her hands, her back, And I wondered, as I was,
you know, trying to and that's with a knife. That's
with a knife, okay, because there's an additional fifteen injuries
that she has that are with this ice pick. Okay,
(51:23):
She's got two knife wounds that actually penetrate her heart, Dave,
and the ice pick wounds are kind of shallow, you know,
compared to the knife wounds. But this this little angel,
she if she had an awareness because she lifted those
(51:46):
tiny little hands to defend herself, because she's got injuries
on her hands. You know, she's trying to fend this thing.
Speaker 2 (51:54):
Off based on what you see there, Joe, do you
believe Eve Jeffrey McDonald's story of what happened at all?
Speaker 3 (52:05):
No?
Speaker 1 (52:06):
No, not yeah, absolutely not. It It kind of goes
back to, you know, the old biblical story about Cain
and Abel. You know where uh, you know, God is
actually asking Cain, you know, where's your brother And at
one point in time, the scripture reads that you know
(52:29):
your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body backs
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.