Speaker 1: This is a story about friendship. It was just fun
Speaker 1: that was occurring, and it was unmistakable, and we were
Speaker 1: best friends. A friendship that bloomed during the hot summer
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy nine when a famous doctor named Jeffrey
Speaker 1: McDonald and we need lab here for barbed level and
Speaker 1: ABC met a famous journalist. Ladies and gentlemen, will you
Speaker 1: welcome please, Joe McGinnis. McGinnis named Joe McGinnis. I like Joe.
Speaker 1: We talked about the same things in the New York Knicks,
Speaker 1: the Yankees, and the Mets football. Two friends who would
Speaker 1: go jogging together. And this was the beginning of the
Speaker 1: Running Room. And you know, you sort of get this
Speaker 1: covera after a while that summer they did just about
Speaker 1: everything together. We drank together. I mean we get the
Speaker 1: classic but a routine of all times. And with all
Speaker 1: this time together, Jeff and Joe hatched the plan. You see,
Speaker 1: Jeff have been accused of a horrible crime. Reporter Joe
Speaker 1: McGinnis spent three years investigating Jeff McDonald, who granted him
Speaker 1: total access, and Joe was going to prove the menicine
Speaker 1: so that McGinnis might write the definitive book about it.
Speaker 1: It is called fatal vision. But unfortunately McGinnis summarized for
Speaker 1: us his stunning conclusion. It didn't turn out that way.
Speaker 1: All I'm saying is that Jeffrey McDonald beat and stabbed
Speaker 1: to death his pregnant wife and his two young daughters.
Speaker 1: It was one of those sensational crimes that attracted nationwide attention.
Speaker 1: I was the first to enter the McDonald Some bizarre
Speaker 1: murders took place last night. There were things you'll never forget.
Speaker 1: The wife and two young daughters of Jeffrey McDonald were
Speaker 1: stabbed at death. The first I thought it was homicide suicide.
Speaker 1: Then he started a move. The truth is going to
Speaker 1: come out. I did not kill my wife. I did
Speaker 1: not kill my children, and that's going to come out
Speaker 1: in the court A lot did. I had jury convicted
Speaker 1: doctor Jeffrey McDonald for murdering his wife and two children.
Speaker 1: McDonald was sentenced to three life terms in prison. We still,
Speaker 1: at that point had this hope that we hadn't been
Speaker 1: incorrect on Joe, that he was going to write a
Speaker 1: good book. This book became the only hope of some
Speaker 1: kind of indication exactly Joe McGinnis has woven McDonald's story
Speaker 1: into a book called Fatal Vision. Joe's book Fatal Vision
Speaker 1: didn't just say that Jeffrey McDonald had killed his wife
Speaker 1: and children. You uncovered some facts that even the prosecution didn't.
Speaker 1: The book had drugs, Mike, there's no question as a
Speaker 1: possibility that I took to pill at speed and sex.
Speaker 1: Jeffrey McDonald had seventeen mistresses. He was a slut. What
Speaker 1: has he had to do with whether I committed a
Speaker 1: triple hibside Fatal Vision became a huge hit. I can
Speaker 1: never overcome Fatal Vision and Jeff's worst nightmare. I cannot
Speaker 1: prove that I am not that monster. But for Joe McGinnis,
Speaker 1: you did this with a cooperation of Dr Jeffrey McDonald.
Speaker 1: Questions about his journalistic ethics. Should you have told him
Speaker 1: that you have found him in your own heart of
Speaker 1: hearts guilty? Who made the book his worst nightmare too?
Speaker 1: There's no reasons you can find him. The job of
Speaker 1: a writer is to write the book. Was the real
Speaker 1: villain of Fatal Vision? It's protagonist, Jeffrey McDonald's a psychopath.
Speaker 1: He has no remorse, no conscience or its author. He
Speaker 1: was going to my mother, who was dying, saying, don't worry.
Speaker 1: When the book comes out, this will all be righted.
Speaker 1: For Joe. Getting close to Jeff was a necessary evil.
Speaker 1: My only ambition was to learn the truth and then
Speaker 1: to tell it. But had Joe even found the truth?
Speaker 1: A federal appeals court today reversed the murder convictions of
Speaker 1: Jeffrey McDonald in the slayings of his pregnant wife and
Speaker 1: two young daughters. Is what Joe McCann has did morally indefensible,
Speaker 1: That's what I want to find out. I'm Mark Smirling
Speaker 1: from the Jinks in Crime Town, and this is my
Speaker 1: new podcast, Morally Indefensible. This season will take a close
Speaker 1: look at the friendship between a true crime writer and
Speaker 1: a convicted killer and the book that ruined both their lives.
Speaker 1: Either this is the most horrible, merciless, brutal killer on
Speaker 1: the face of the earth or one of the most
Speaker 1: victimized men in American legal history. Morally Indefensible is presented
Speaker 1: by Effects Networks new docuseries A Wilderness of Error, and
Speaker 1: will be coming soon to Apple Podcasts or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts.