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