Most recently, retired US Marshall Jimmy Britt came forward with information that another suspect in the case, Helena Stoeckley, admitted to the prosecutor that she was in the house on the night of MacDonalds murder and that he threatened to indict her for first-degree murder if she admitted that in court. Create your free profile and get access to exclusive content. Kassab testified on MacDonalds behalf, declaring, If I had another daughter, Id still want the same son-in-law.. In October 1970, following an investigation and hearing, the military dropped its case against MacDonald, and he was honorably discharged from the army. So MacDonald was the logical choice. Lynn Parramore: In all your years as a lawyer, what makes this case stand out? MacDonald settled into bachelor life, buying a yacht and marina-front condominium in Long Beach, California, Vanity Fair reports. Two members of the Tiba family have been charged in relation to the shooting. In a 2011 press release, the Innocence Project stated:. Eventually, he turned on the man he had once so ardently defended. This collection contains an undated photograph of Wadea and Aelyas Kassab and scans of two typed manuscripts. The FBI lab guy turned over two copies to Brian Murtaugh, the prosecutor. None of this has set MacDonald free. The ONeills befriended him and altered the course of his life. I think that one of the problems MacDonald had was that they expected him to undertake to find these killers, to go on a mission to find them. The prosecution, led by James Blackburn and Brian Murtagh, argued that MacDonald staged the crime scene to blame hippies. WebThe Kassab family name was found in the USA in 1920. The now 76-year-old is serving three consecutive life sentences and is currently housed at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland . Such is the power of a good story. A lengthy trial heard Moustafa and Kassab had gone to the Brunswick panel beating shop to confront Moustafa over $50,000 in cash and $10,000 in aftershave they believe he had stolen. But it didnt take long to realize that something was wrong. 26-year-old Colette MacDonald had been stabbed nearly forty times with an icepick and a knife while pig was scrawled on the headboard of her bed in her own blood. Jeffrey MacDonald behind bars in Terminal Island federal penitentiary. I would have told the jury that it doesnt make sense. But Im an optimist generally about our system of justice, and I hope that MacDonald gets a break. "Memoirs" by Wadea Kassab recounts Wadea's life from his childhood in Damascus and Bloudan, to his immigration to America in 1889, and through his pursuit of education and a career in dentistry. Kassabs suspicions deepened after he received a copy of a transcript of the Article 32 hearing and began to pore through the evidence himself. Despite the young familys financial burdens, the important things seemed secure. Smerling is the director of the documentary series A Wilderness of Error, which examines the MacDonald case. 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. Some of the facts I thought I knew began to look more like ideas conjured by eager prosecutors and a journalist who had dealt so disingenuously with Jeffrey MacDonald in writing Fatal Vision that he was sued after publication. But an unfortunate thing happened in the following years. Most people who go through traumatic things like this, nowhere near as lengthy, almost always end up in divorce, but with us its drawn us closer.. It ultimately concluded that MacDonalds wounds were self-inflicted, and his story entirely fabricated. These shootings rarely involve significant figures, such as Oueida, or Nabil Maghnie, who was shot in the head last September but survived, or George Marrogi, who was charged with a shooting murder that same month. Inside The Assassination Of Detlev Rohwedder, The Politician Who Tried To Unify East And West German Businesses, Someone Just Paid Over $81,000 For A Blood-Stained Lock Of Abraham Lincoln's Hair, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch, Steve Liss/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images. Until recently, most people saw Picture #1. That kind of story never ends. Some of the shootings are retribution for the severe prison bashing of Bassam Tiba, underworld sources say. He worries that we are moving into a period in which the finality of verdicts is so zealously protected (a legacy, in part, of 9/11) that new evidence offers little hope of challenging them. WebIn 1971, his father-in-law, Freddy Kassab, became progressively suspicious of MacDonald and sought formal reopening of the case. MacDonald said there had been a stabbing and begged for an ambulance. The Tibas are the only clan in the five families that can boast three generations of serious offenders from murderers to drug traffickers. I dont know what the odds are. Recently, the Fourth District Court of Appeals ordered Fox to consider new evidence, and to examine all the evidence as a whole. He was a true gentleman, even though there were things in the trial and there were decisions he made that I disagree with. WebIt is reported Ms Kassab entered Syria last year and that her husband, known as Sam, died on the border of Turkey in 2013. I have read transcripts, articles, books, opinions, blogs, and bizarre rantings about psychopaths on Joe McGinniss Web site to help me more clearly see the picture of the MacDonald case. Of all places! 741 Immigration & Travel. The strength of the families now almost a decade after the launch of Santiago are largely determined by how many of them have been killed or locked up. 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. Friends since grade school, he and Colette Stevens began dating as teenagers, and grew serious during college. MacDonalds relationship with his father-in-law, who had been a staunch supporter, became strained. He was troubled by MacDonalds apparently cavalier attitude about the brutal murders on an appearance of "The Dick Cavett Show. Even after the conviction, the Kassabs remained haunted by the heinous crime. Every time we pursued a lead it just turned us around and directed us back toward Jeffrey MacDonald. If he could have a psychotic episode and destroy his family stab them with an ice pick and a knife 100 times, beat them with a stick, then Billy Graham could. MacDonald now waits to see if the federal judge will vacate his 33-year-old conviction. Colettes sister-in-law Vivian Pep Stevenson told the outlet that Colette knew of the affairs and was growing tired of the infidelities before she died, at one point lamenting, I dont want to do this anymore.. LP: In Joe McGinnis book, Fatal Vision, Freddy Kassab, MacDonalds father-in-law, was presented as the protagonist. I held out to the last ditch. 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. He claimed they chanted, Kill the pigs!Acid is groovy! and scrawled the word PIG on the wall in his wifes blood. No attempt was made to locate the woman that night. It appeared to investigators that MacDonald had staged the scene, inspired by the recent Manson Family murders to blame hippies for his crime. After Mica performed mouth-to-mouth, MacDonald came to. Eventually, after pressure from Colettes family, MacDonald was indicted and found guilty of the three murders on August 29, 1979. 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. And absolutely nothing fit, Kassab told the Orlando Sentinel in 1989. MacDonald invited author Joe McGinniss to write a book about the case before it had reached a verdict. Were working to restore it. These were the families police identified in 2011 as causing most of the trouble in the band, which stretches roughly from Coburg North to Campbellfield, then in an arc around to Altona in MacDonald at Los Angeles Terminal Island prison where Charles Manson had spent much of his youth. Wade Smith: Its a very spooky case. Then, in 2012 Jeffrey MacDonalds most famous defender, filmmaker Errol Morris, was so intrigued by the case that he wrote the 500-page book A Wilderness of Error. 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. Freddie Kassab and CID investigators returned to the crime scene in 1971 to contrast MacDonalds claims with the evidence and found his narrative implausible. Theres a note attached. Despite a lack of motive and no history of violence, MacDonald was convicted of the second-degree murders of Colette and Kimberly, and the first-degree murder of Kristen. In July 1974, a Federal judge acted on a citizen's criminal complaint by Kassab and others, by putting the case before a grand jury. He had biblical levels of persistence, Bob Keeler, a reporter for Newsday, recalled in A Wilderness of Error.. 2015 NC State University. They dont know the truth any more than I do. The surgical gloves used to scrawl pig on the headboard were identical to the supply MacDonald kept in his kitchen. WebWadea Kassab was born in Damascus in 1872 to an Orthodox family that had long and deep connections to British and American Protestant missionaries in Damascus and Beirut. Dupree would not admit overwhelming psychiatric testimony in MacDonalds favor, nor the testminony of witnesses to whom Helena Stoeckley had confessed her involvement. 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. Abdul Tiba has eight sons, aged from their 50s to their 20s. WebWadea Kassab was born in Damascus in 1872 to an Orthodox family that had long and deep connections to British and American Protestant missionaries in Damascus and Beirut. McGinniss stark rendering of Picture #1 stuck in my mind until recently when a friend from North Carolina told me that Errol Morris had published a book suggesting MacDonald was innocent. Others would say that that was a healthy thing to do. 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. He wanted his son-in-law to stay on the east coast and pursue the killers. LP: Judge Fox is a close friend of Judge Dupree, who presided over the 1979 trial. Then, meet Christopher Scarver the man who killed cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer. "I wish it was as simple as saying all our non-fatal shootings went back to five families, because if it did, we would target those five families and we'd kick it in the guts, but it's actually not that simple.". But even though Jeffrey MacDonald has spent decades behind bars, his case doesnt seem to be closed just yet. There was violence. When the show was over, I retired to the security of my bed, safe from unpredictable evils. Sign up forOxygen Insiderfor all the best true crime content. WS: Its an enormous problem. Freddy Kassab had inserted himself into the 1970 military hearing and made himself the center of a media circus, holding news conferences and firing off letters to members of Congress. And she told him she had been there, at the MacDonald home, the night of the murders. Segal took up nearly all the time in the critical period for closing remarks and left only a few minutes for co-counsel Wade Smith, an eloquent native North Carolinian who understood the jury. Years after he was blasted with a shotgun by a crime figure who continues to wield influence in the north-west, one victim is still dealing with his injuries. 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. Furthermore, an FBI lab technician reenacted how MacDonald claimed he defended against the intruders attacks and proved his testimony contradicted the evidence. "The message is, if you get shot, even if you don't tell us who did it, we are still going to investigate it, and we're still highly likely to get a result," Detective Inspector Clark said. The one hardly anyone sees, but that rages, nonetheless. Testimony contradicted the evidence as a lawyer, what makes this case out! To be closed just yet psychiatric testimony in MacDonalds favor, nor testminony! 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