A Wilderness of Error (2020): Season 1, Episode 2 - Chapter 2: - full transcript

Cbs news with walter cronkite.

Captain jeffrey macdonald
is a man under a cloud.

He lost his family under
horrible circumstances,

and he's fighting for his honor.

His ordeal began last
winter at his residence

in fort bragg, north carolina.

Bob schieffer has the story.

It appeared to be a grim rewrite

of the sharon tate
murders in california.

Macdonald told a bizarre story:

Three young men and a woman had



attacked the family
for no apparent reason.

On may 1,
the army charged him with murder.

Finally, in late October,

the charges against the
captain were dropped.

Jeffrey macdonald

goes through this
article 32 hearing,

which was an extensive hearing.

It's...

A-a massive transcript.

Many, many,
many witnesses called.

Colonel rock says that

the charges are not true.

The army has
not made public the report

of the investigating officer,
colonel warren v. Rock.



Meanwhile,
the fbi in north carolina

has notified
macdonald's relatives

that they are not investigating.

- -But still
unanswered is who did it.

Bob schieffer,
cbs news, new york.

Jeffrey,
I believe, at that point,

is interested in...

However you
want to describe it...

Putting this behind him.

Well,
what's really interesting about this case

is... That at that point,

you-you would
think it's over with.

It's just beginning.

The wife and two young
daughters of an army doctor

were found dead in their home
in fort bragg, north carolina.

You may
remember the crime back in 1970.

One of america's most
sensational murder cases.

One of the most
bizarre murder cases.

The most complicated murder case

- in history.
- Macdonald says the murderers

were three men and
a woman shouting,

"acid is great.
Kill all the pigs."

it's a baffling story the
more you begin to look into it.

Jeffrey macdonald's life
became the subject of a book.

A popular miniseries.

A television movie
called fatal vision.

The best-seller
portrayed macdonald

as a cold-blooded killer.

Today, macdonald was sentenced

to three life terms in prison.

Something really,
really bad happened here.

It was a miscarriage of justice.

I cannot overcome fatal vision.

What happens when a narrative

takes the place of reality?

It's almost as if nothing
really happened in history

unless it has been
recorded in a movie

or in a television series.

A new book by
acclaimed author and filmmaker

errol morris says that the case

may be more complicated
than previously thought.

I did not hurt
my wife or my children.

That evening I was wearing

a blonde wig and a floppy hat.

- An innocent man is in jail today.
- The man is guilty

- as can be. - I am innocent.

He's lucky I haven't
gone out and killed him.

I am not that monster.

I was covering the town

of brookhaven. Freddy
and mildred lived

within the confines of
the town of brookhaven,

so I got sent to
cover the story.

I went into this
house. It was not

the kind of house that I would,
like, live in.

Everything looked like it
was from a museum store.

Mildred always said that

she liked beautiful things,
and she did.

I sat with the two of
them and heard them out.

Okay, hi.

Mildred was

sort of birdlike.

Very nervous.

She was a sort of frail-looking
person on the outside,

but she was
pretty steely inside.

Freddy,
I could get along with a lot better.

He was very solid.

He was in the army. You know,
he grew up in canada.

He was a paratrooper
and all this kind of stuff.

His name, as I understand it,

in arabic means "butcher."

we thought a bunch of
hippies had done all this.

We couldn't understand
why the government

wa-wasn't catching them.

Freddy
showed me a pair of shoes.

He said, "bobby,
look at the bottom."

I've worn out the shoe
leather on these pair of shoes

creeping through
the halls of congress,

trying to garner support

for what needed to be done.

I accused the army

of every blunder that they made

in the original investigation.

And I personally
delivered a copy by hand

to every congressman and
every senator in the country.

Uh-huh.

I am asking the
help of congress,

and specifically
congressman lowenstein,

in the redress of some
of these grievances.

There's been an inexcusable
ineptitude in the conduct

of the investigation
by the army.

I think that we will have a
reopening of the investigation

into the murders of my
wife and two children.

Thank you.

If somebody kills your
daughter and two grandchildren,

are you supposed to sit back

and do nothing about it?

Good morning, everybody.

What we intend to do is
take you back in time a little bit

and discuss the
macdonald murder case.

Macdonald's father-in-law,
freddy kassab,

kept petitioning the
army and congress

to have the case reinvestigated,

pointing out that the
government screwed up the case

to begin with, and that the real

perpetrators of the crime
could never be found.

And of course, at this time,
the kassabs thought

the real perpetrators of
the crime were the three gis

and the caucasian female.

That's when we came
down out of washington

to investigate
the investigators,

and why nobody went
after these hippies.

Late 1970, I was

informed that I'd be
going to fort bragg

to join the
reinvestigation team.

It's either we make the case
or we don't make the case.

And if we don't make the case,
then all the criticism

previously received
about our incompetence

to solve the murder...
We-we would bear that.

We decided we had to get
freddy and mildred kassab on our side.

They're the ones
that wrote to congress

and said the army screwed
up this crime scene. We needed

the kassabs to shut up.

Just calm down,
let us do the investigation.

We'll find out who did it.

Why was freddy
recording all his calls?

He was suspicious.

Until freddy became
completely sure

who was on whose side,

he didn't trust them.

We identified at least

240 investigative leads.

And I had more
darned floppy hats

and boots in that evidence room.

Let's take the first one,
helena stoeckley.

In 1971,

I met helena stoeckley while...

Arresting her.

We were on patrol
one night in nashville.

We just happened
to see this woman.

She wore this black
cape with a red lining...

...A wig and a floppy hat.

She'd just sort of float around.

I caught her

for possession of drugs.

On the way down to booking,

she said that she was
involved in a murder

in fayetteville, north carolina.

And she goes into

telling us about the
jeffrey macdonald murders.

Helena described

the house to a t.

She knew how the doctor
was laying on the couch,

where the kids were,
what bedroom.

And she gave us
names of officers

that she had talked
to in fayetteville.

So we fly a
guy in from washington

to give her a polygraph.

They had polygraph operators there,
but we wanted

to use one from
our headquarters.

I was the director of the army's

crime record center, which...

Included polygraph.

And I was directed by the
commander of the agency

to conduct a polygraph

of helena stoeckley.

Do you remember cutting

or striking any member
of the macdonald family?

No.

During our conversation,

she would tell me one minute

that-that she was there...

Yes.

...When the family was killed.

Do you know for sure who
cut or struck any member

of the macdonald family?

No.

And then the next minute,
she'd tell me,

"no, I-I wasn't there."

and she was going in and out and,
uh,

and then she said, "well,
I'm not really sure."

do you remember
being physically present

when any member of the
macdonald family was cut or struck?

No.

When she said, "no,
I wasn't there..."

...She scores a deception.

She's not telling the truth.

She didn't know whether she was

there or not.

What we have here is
a gal who's screwed up.

You could never

call her a liar.

But you can't call her as a truth-teller,
either.

That's the best I can tell you.

Everybody forgets helena stoeckley,
as you get into here,

she was a doper.

Helena has confessed,

unconfessed, confessed,

unconfessed and confessed.

Helena stoeckley was
not in the crime scene.

We would frequently
meet at the crime scene

and brainstorm
the whole scenario.

Walk through the house,
walk through the rooms

and talk about what we know.

Every time we pursued a lead,

it just turned us
around and directed us

back to jeffrey macdonald.

And the physical evidence, uh,
the circumstantial evidence,

just kept mounting against him

and contradicted his story
of events for that evening.

Now, remember jeffrey was saying

an itinerant band of
hippies selected his house

and intended to kill him.

No. No, no!

Daddy! Daddy!

Remember,
in this crime scene nothing was stolen,

there was no forced entry,
nobody smoked,

nobody lit a match,
nobody used any drugs.

None of this occurred.

Eventually,

you do start to tunnel
an investigation.

For those of you
in criminal justice,

don't ignore your evidence.

Keep an open mind,
but don't ignore it.

And when you get evidence
showing that it's macdonald,

you start going after macdonald.

The dick cavett show!

My next guest
is dr. Jeffrey macdonald.

Uh, I call you dr. Macdonald,
now, don't I?

That's right. It's
ex-captain. I'm a doctor.

Yeah, yeah, uh...

I hope this isn't
too painful for you.

Uh,
I feel like the-the journalist

who asks the gory question,
but, uh...

Jeff went
on the dick cavett show.

Do you remember when
he came on that show?

Yes.

Somebody called me to say

that he was gonna
be on television.

I don't remember.
I don't remember.

But I know I watched it.

You remember
the dick cavett appearance?

I watched it,
yeah, I watched it.

It still, at times,
seems like a dream. It...

Uh, "nightmare" is a very mild term,
really.

I was coming in off of duty,

and guy goes, "hey,
macdonald's on dick cavett now."

I go, "really?"

could-could you talk about

what happened on that... On the night of,
uh,

- on that night last February?
- Well,

um,
I can skim through it briefly.

- Uh, to get deep into it,
uh, - yeah.

Does produce a lot of,
uh, emotion on my part.

But, uh, very briefly,
my wife came home

and we had a, uh...

Before-bedtime drink, really.

And, uh, watched the beginning
of a late-night talk show.

Then, um...

I saw that. I don't know

if it was the night he was on

or thereafter when freddy said,
"you got to see this, bobby."

I mean,
the army has it set up so that had I not

- had a high-powered, uh, civilian attorney...
- Mm-hmm.

Even despite the fact
that there's no evidence...

Um, I might very well have been in,
uh, leavenworth,

in prison.

"my rights were violated."

not "my family was butchered."

help... Help get information.

Let the american public know.

Where are these investigators
now who did the original...

Well,
most of them have been transferred.

It's-it's the army way
of handling things.

If someone really fails up,
you either give them a medal

or you transfer them.

His whole demeanor was, like...

...Like it was a
stand-up comedy act.

What's this done to you?

Uh,
do people look at you and say,

uh,
"how do we know he didn't do it?"

I don't think I'm being
paranoid when I say

that there is certainly
a flavor of suspicion

in a lot of people's minds and,
uh,

some people pat you on the back

as if to say, uh, "well,
we know you did it,

but it's okay anyway."

Things weren't being said right.

Inflections of the voice.

And-and other people say,
"well, it's gonna be

"very hard to have
patients come and visit you

in the future, isn't it?"

uh, I was accepted...

I-I was stunned...

Absolutely stunned...

That he-he didn't...

He wasn't even sad.

Your whole family
was brutally murdered

and you can go on a tv show?

It was like

he was talking about them that they,
you know,

were somebody else's family.

Not to mention the fact that

the, uh,
perpetrators of the crime

- are still free, then.
- Absolutely. There are at least

four people running around who have,
uh,

murdered three people.

It sickened me

and it enraged me.

And obviously,
freddy had a real reaction to that as well.

Visceral.

Fantastic story. I-I just,
I... Don't know what to say.

Yeah. Wrenched his guts.

It's been a hard year.

That's why,

I guess, he had to demand
to see a copy of the article 32,

so he himself could
start to go over facts

and try to find the truth.

I kept putting up a fight,

that I wanted a copy of the transcripts,
and they wouldn't

give them to me,
and macdonald wouldn't give them to me.

He told me that the
army wouldn't let him.

When he got out of the army,

then I put up such a stink
that the army finally said yes,

they would give me a
copy of the transcript.

He'd read the papers

at his little square
table and he sat there

and he chain-smoked
three packs a day,

day after day after day,

going over and over everything.

"he stopped
mouth-to-mouth breathing

because air was
coming out of her chest."

kim had no chest wounds.

And why were both children
found laying on their sides

if jeff gave them
mouth-to-mouth?

His thought was
that he was yet collecting data,

that he didn't have
his mind made up.

It's the time of suspicion.

Now, freddy at that time...

He was doubting...
Starting to doubt macdonald.

But still, he was on his side.

It was the top sheet.

"from master bedroom,
he went to kim's room.

He did not put lights on."

why would a father...
Especially a doctor...

Going into a room where his
child was so brutally injured,

not put the lights
on to try to treat her?

It was totally systematic.

A line-by-line examination of

"says this over here,

"article 32...

That didn't work."

well, we're going back
through the reinvestigation,

and we found that

all the weapons
came from the house.

We say that

the piece of wood was
in the master bedroom

and had a utilitarian use.

The footstool was broken,

on her side. We maintain

that he used that
piece of wood there

to shore up that
side of the bed.

Subsequent laboratory
examination has proven that

at one time the murder
weapon was a part

of that piece of wood
used as a bed slab,

as is shown in
these photographs.

I mean, gosh, if it

looks like a duck,
it's got webbed feet,

it quacks, it goes in the water

and it's got feathers,
it's a duck.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, all of these things

contribute to a
person's overall feelings

and understanding
about what may be,

and once you feel
what something may be,

that's the thread you grab
and you start pulling on it

till you unravel
the damn sweater.

Captain macdonald,
did you have any occasions

to go to texas?

- Yes.
- When?

It was on a
weekend in December 1969.

I was the medical coverage

for a jump of special
forces medics in training.

And where did you
stay while you were down there?

At a motel.

On that evening in texas,

did you have a
female companionship?

Yes, sir.

And did you have

sexual contact with this woman?

Well,
I-if you can define the term,

I can answer that.

Did you have any type
of sexual contact with this woman?

Yes.

Has this type of
sexual activity ever been repeated

during your marriage

with someone
other than your wife?

Yes, sir.

Freddy kassab has
now given us information,

okay, in 1971.

And he called me one day,
and he says, "peter,

check and see if
macdonald's got a broken arm."

I said, "freddy,
what's this all about?"

Freddy and I

were in his living room,

and he played a
recording for me.

It was kind of a-a...
"I've been going out

"with green beret killer squads

"looking for the murderers.

"we found one

and I took care of it."

Now,
macdonald said during this altercation,

he suffered a busted arm.

Well, unbeknownst to macdonald,

we have a surveillance on him.

Macdonald was out in california
at this time, out of the army.

- Yes.
- We have people inside the hospital

and we have cid agents outside,

and we're surveilling
him 24 hours a day.

- But we took him and put him to bed.
- You found out

that he was lying.

He was doing the best operations

with two arms that
anybody else was doing.

But what this is
is not evidence.

But it shows you the type
of guy you're dealing with.

If he's gonna lie
about this stuff...

There's only on reason,
by the way, to lie about it...

That's 'cause he
committed the murders.

There's no other
reason for him to lie.

All right.

Macdonald knows that if
he can freddy off the back,

get freddy to shut up,
maybe the army will just

let this die a natural death,
which he thought it was doing.

But freddy kassab
was not that dumb.

With agents,
I was allowed in the house

to reconstruct the murders

from his story of what
happened in that house that night.

Once we got
mr. Kassab to come down

and go through the crime scene

and opened up our records

to him... no holds barred...

Then he saw we weren't lying.

Drug addicts,
running crazy in that house,

killing, don't leave

one single clue in the house.

There is not one drop of
his blood in that living room.

How does a man get
stabbed and not bleed?

I was at the kassabs' house.

We sat at the table

and freddy had copies

of the reports from the army.

He kept saying to me,
"there's so many

inconsistencies
here. There's just...

There's so much wrong."

and he said,
"I know in my heart that he did this.

He did this."

Did the two of you
come to this conclusion together?

No. It took me about six months

to convince mildred.

I held out till the last ditch.

I wouldn't allow
myself to believe it.

Because it made it that...

So much worse that it was he

instead of strangers.

The simple fact of a person

being in your family,
that you knew him,

makes him blameless.

He couldn't possibly do it.

Was colette happy?

She appeared to be.

Colette never gave
me any idea to think that

she didn't love him deeply,

and he wasn't the most
wonderful person in the world.

But this whole thing was a sham,

this happy life that I
thought colette had.

Colette wrote to me
about being pregnant again,

and worried about it.

Without spelling
everything all out.

She indicated they had problems

in the letters.

You know,
he was off having a good time.

My mother always blamed herself.

That if only,

"if only I had
listened differently...

I could have made a difference."

Mildred told me

colette wanted to
come home with the kids

to stay a while, and...

Mildred told her it
wasn't a good time.

So, she didn't go home.

And that was in February,

right before she died.

So...

That must have
been hard for your mom.

More than hard.

She came to mortally hate him.

I never get over that anger.

Just wanting to...

Be able to hurt him back

as badly as he hurt them.

Freddy was not gonna quit.

He had biblical
levels of persistence.

Once he believed

that macdonald was guilty,

he was unswerving.

It was like a...

A white line going down the road

into infinity,
and he followed it.

I remember freddy saying to me,

June... I'm gonna get him.

Jeff macdonald, wanting to put

the whole tragic
episode behind him,

moved to southern california.

He joined the staff
of st. Mary hospital

in long beach and before long,

he was director
of the department

of emergency medicine here.

How you doing?
I'm dr. Macdonald.

Jeffrey macdonald broke off

from his in-laws, the kassabs.

He moved to southern
california and started a new life.

He owns a luxury
waterfront condominium,

a 40-foot yacht,

and is the first honorary
lifetime member

of the local police association.

Do you think
someone is after you?

Do you think it is a personal
vendetta against you?

I think that, uh,
the easy answer

is to jump and say yes.

Mr. Kassab,
are you conducting a personal vendetta

against dr. Macdonald?

Well, yes. I-I...

But I-I don't
think that's wrong.

Freddy kassab had this

vein of fury.

At first, it was anger because

jeffrey was being
prosecuted at all.

I don't believe
anybody in this country

will believe that. That a
sane man would do this.

And then later,
convinced of jeffrey's guilt,

he went after him.

He killed
colette and the children,

and he should pay for it.

I hate him with a passion.

He's lucky I haven't
gone out and killed him!

He became this champion

of jeffrey's guilt.

We wrote our report in 1972,

and I gave it to the
justice department.

We told them to seek
prosecution of jeffrey macdonald.

And the justice department kept saying,
"no...

We can't get a conviction."

Freddy says, "peter,

"the justice department
isn't gonna do anything.

"I've got a new york attorney

"to swear out a
civilian complaint

arrest warrant for macdonald."

my wife and I went
down to north carolina

on April 30,

and filed and swore
to a criminal complaint

charging macdonald

with three counts of
first-degree murder.

Most people don't know

that if somebody's
done you wrong,

and the police department
or the district attorney

won't help you,
you can go before a federal judge,

as a citizen, and say,
"this guy killed people,

and I want you to do
something about it."

if you got evidence, now.

What will it take
to satisfy you in this case?

A trial. Definitely.

Nothing short of a trial.

Dr. Jeffrey
macdonald says he is innocent

of the charge that he
killed his pregnant wife

and two children.

Dr. Macdonald told reporters
what his defense will be.

Simply a restatement of the facts,
um,

even as the
government knows them,

and has already restated them.

There's no evidence against me.

I would put it differently.

What would convince me,
ultimately,

that jeffrey macdonald

is guilty or innocent?

If you asked me...
You haven't asked me,

but if you asked me,

am I certain that he's innocent?

I'm not.

Do I believe he's innocent?

I do.