They grew to become serious forces, in part, because of failures by police to respond to the problem. Jeffrey MacDonald, a Princeton-educated Green Beret doctor with no history of violence and a sterling record, butchered his pregnant wife and two young daughters using a knife, ice pick and club. @2022 - AlterNet Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. His most significant injury was a puncture wound and deflated lung. The Esquire story, for all its salaciousness, touched upon real issues that plagued many communities outside of California. MacDonald was ultimately convicted in 1979 for killing his pregnant wife Colette MacDonald and their two young daughters, Kimberley and Kristen. Or maybe theres something else at work: Picture #2 is even more awful to see than Picture #1. Freddie Kassab and CID investigators returned to the crime scene in 1971 to contrast MacDonalds claims with the evidence and found his narrative implausible. The lead prosecutor for the case, Jim Blackburn began to analyze every piece of evidence from the trial, including MacDonald's pajama shirt, which was draped over Colette's body, and the bedsheet she was wrapped in. Detective Inspector Wayne Newman, from the North-West Metro region, says there has been an increase in higher ranking organised crime figures in the area insulating themselves from possible harm by using youth networks to do the grunt work. Also last year, Osman, 32, one of the middle brothers, was released from prison. The walls will tell you what happened if you keep it pristine. He was given an honorable discharge. Many felt that his acquittal would be a cinch, but much more was to go wrong. After Mica performed mouth-to-mouth, MacDonald came to. Kassabs suspicions deepened after he received a copy of a transcript of the Article 32 hearing and began to pore through the evidence himself. He remained haunted by the horrific way his stepdaughter and grandchildren had lost their lives. The family moved to Chicago after MacDonald was accepted into Northwestern University Medical School. The new war involves men with names many Victorians could barely pronounce shooting each other in downtrodden suburbs they have almost certainly never visited. 1,169 Birth, Marriage & Death. Together, the manuscripts provide a detailed look into nearly a century of one familys history in Syria and the United States, as well as a rich insight into the social fabric and workplace challenges faced by early immigrants. 959 Census & Voter Lists. MacDonald claimed the hairs were from the wig of one of the murders, but the forensic examiner incorrectly claimed they were from one of the childrens dolls. Walk through the house, walk through the rooms and talk about what we know,investigator Mike Pickering said in the docuseries. The shootings can be over particularly petty reasons, not just the drug trade: women, a perceived slight, or, increasingly, a prison feud. There is no finality in injustice. When Jeffrey MacDonald came under suspicion for savagely killing his pregnant wife and the couples two young daughters, one man rushed to publicly support him: his father-in-law Freddie Kassab. Its hard to imagine now, but in the late 1960s and early '70s there were spooky, weird people on acidback then it was believable. Lynn Parramore: In all your years as a lawyer, what makes this case stand out? The nine-year lag between the murders and the trial is extremely unusual; experts consider such a lag to pose a great danger of wrongful conviction. The now 76-year-old is serving three consecutive life sentences and is currently housed at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland . Oueida amassed a fortune before he was imprisoned in 2011, and had done so through dealing drugs, and doing it more rapaciously than anyone in recent history: hence the $6 million in a Swiss bank account, light plane, Ferrari and $2.8 million mansion he had when he was arrested. A judge later awarded MacDonald $50,000 of the proceeds but gave the remainder of his $325,000 share to attorneys, MacDonalds mother and the Kassabs. Two members of the Tiba family have been charged in relation to the shooting. But he had multiple bruises and puncture wounds, and two stab wounds, including one that collapsed his lung -- a serious injury that left him falling in and out of consciouness. Wadea died in February, 1972; Aelyas in October, 1987. Together, Mildred who Stevenson said came to mortally hate her former son-in-law and Freddy Kassab pushed for MacDonalds arrest. Kassab wanted to find justice and began writing letters to the Army and congressmen slamming the investigators for their errors and urging authorities to continue the investigation. He had biblical levels of persistence, Bob Keeler, a reporter for Newsday, recalled in A Wilderness of Error.. I thought of devils that lurked in human flesh, like in The Exorcist, another popular based-on-a true-story-book-turned-movie of the period that floated around our house. But he is hopeful that the Fourth Court of Appeals, located in Richmond, Virginia, will take a careful look at the case and as a whole be more favorable to MacDonald. Why did people in the community believe he did it? But Silverglate points out that those lawyers have been up against an increasingly perverse system in which ancient legal rights like habeas corpus have been tossed aside in the name of preserving convictions at any cost. Bettmann Archive/Getty ImagesRep. One thing about this case is never in doubt no matter whos talking: If Wade Smith had been able to lead and give his closing remarks, MacDonald would be a free man today. Other witnesses claimed that Stoeckly had confessed at various times that she thought she might have been present during the murders. No particular families run any particular suburbs; they are all dealing, all the time, to whoever buys. Aelyas followed Wadea to the United States in 1899. You think you know what youre seeing, but then you arent so sure. We even came back at night so we would have the same lighting conditions as the night of the murders. You trust him. A grandson, also called Abdul, was considered such a threat he was subject to a National Anti-Gang Squad investigation last year the Australian Federal Police led team that represents an even greater escalation in the police response than the formation of Santiago. This manuscript by Aelyas Kassab is a history of the Kassab family and a biography of Aelyas' own life. WS: In every murder of a spouse, the remaining spouse is the number-one suspect and is almost always charged. It has Helena Stoeckley, the dominant person who continues to play a remarkable role. Police agree it would be futile to appeal to gun-slingers on the grounds that they could ruin a rival's life. And the physical evidence, the circumstantial evidence, just kept mounting against him and contradicting his story for events from that evening.. The Tibas, Haddaras, Chaouks, Kassabs, and Kheirs are north-west Melbourne's version of the Five Families, the major players in the New York mafia. The past year has been the most arduous of our lives. Of all places! At some time before 3.30am someone brutally attacked the MacDonald family in their home at 544 Castle Drive on what was then the open military base of Fort Bragg. It has Charles Manson written all over it. WebIt is reported Ms Kassab entered Syria last year and that her husband, known as Sam, died on the border of Turkey in 2013. View all records. WS: We all depend on excellent, honest detective work. That is why, police say, it is important to consider what the shooting represents, rather than the act itself. There were few major drug or weapon importations in the state that police could not, in some way, trace back to these families. Two possibilities: MacDonald is a monster, or he is a victim of terrible injustice. Anybody could. MacDonald claimed he'd broke his arm in the fatal scuffle, but Kearns would later say in an interview that authorities had MacDonald under surveillance at the time and did not observe any broken arm. 2015 NC State University. We would frequently meet at the crime scene and brainstorm the whole scenario. After 3 a.m. on Feb. 17, 1970, dispatchers at Fort Bragg received an emergency call from the MacDonalds 544 Castle Drive address. Out of all the evidentiary and procedural twists and turns, I asked Silverglate to name the one that bothered him the most about the MacDonald case. Theyre the ones that wrote the Congress and said the Army screwed up this crime scene. Kassab a one-time Canadian Army intelligence operator who had once lost his own wife and daughter in a bombing of London during World War II initially believed MacDonalds account of the night and became a staunch and vocal supporter of his son-in-law, the Washington Post reported in 1984. He said the so-called Fagin Laws, which were introduced last year and allow police to charge adults who coerce children to offend, would be useful in dismantling these networks. Friends since grade school, he and Colette Stevens began dating as teenagers, and grew serious during college. None of this has set MacDonald free. It was almost as scary as Helter Skelter the story of the Charles Manson murders in Californa that are said to have inspired Jeffrey MacDonald in the coverup for his homicidal rampage. For his part, MacDonald called Kassab and made a grandiose claim that he and some Green Beret buddies had gone out on the streets to look for the hippies responsible and found and killed one of them. But it wasnt until Kassab revisited the crime scene himself in 1972 that he finally believed that his son-in-law had been the killer. All rights reserved. MacDonald in late 1970 after the Army acquitted him of all charges. My friend and I sat around in her backyard, tossing up what facts about the case we could recall. What do you recall of the in-laws in the trial? Kassab filed a citizens criminal complaint in April 1974, petitioning a federal court to convene a grand jury and determine if MacDonald could be charged. Because that's what crime figures do in the north-west, most of the time. Jeffrey MacDonald, Joe McGinnis, prosecutor James Blackburn (who went to prison himself for defrauding his clients), Wade Smith and others newer to the case gathered once again to testify. His wife Colette and his children have also been forever denied these things -- but not, I have come to believe, by the man who is currently serving three consecutive life sentences. Of those in prison, one was jailed for having guns that so troubled a judge she described them as "the sort of weapons that were used down in Tasmania", a reference to the Port Arthur massacre. Kassab a one-time Canadian Army intelligence operator who had once lost his own wife and daughter in a bombing of London during World War II initially believed MacDonalds account of the night and became a staunch and vocal supporter of his son-in-law, the Washington Post reported in 1984. 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