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Episode 29 - Colette MacDonald and her children

• Clare Laxton • Episode 29

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On 17 February 1970 police received an emergency phone call coming from Jeffrey Macdonald in Army Base Fort Bragg. He said he had been injured and his wife and two children were injured by a group of intruders. What police found was Jeffrey’s wife Colette and his two daughters Kimberley and Kristen dead with multiple stab wounds and blunt force injuries. Jeffrey was eventually convicted of the murder of his wife and two children – but maintains his innocence to this day.  

This is the story of Colette MacDonald and her children Kimberley and Kristen. 

Information and support  

References  

The Fort Bragg murders: is Jeffrey MacDonald innocent? | Errol Morris | The Guardian 

Colette Kathryn Stevenson MacDonald (1943-1970) - Find a Grave Memorial 

True Crime All The Time: E332: Jeffrey MacDonald (wondery.com) 

Final Vision: The Last Word on Jeffrey MacDonald eBook : McGinniss , Joe : Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store 

A Wilderness of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald by Morris, Errol: (2014) | medimops (abebooks.co.uk) 

Dick Cavett show clip https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/c7gipo/a_clip_of_a_convicted_murderer_on_an_old_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xc

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Speaker 1:

Hi there and welcome to Killer in the Family podcast. I'm your host, clare Luxton, so before we start this episode, I wanted to let you know that you can now follow killer in the family podcast on tiktok and youtube. I'm gonna start doing some video podcasts on youtube, so if that's your preferred way of listening or watching the podcast, then you're in luck. I will put some links on my socials over the coming weeks as I start to prepare more content for those channels. I've also just finished reading a book called Sister-in-Law by feminist lawyer Harriet Wistrich and I massively recommend it. She's been involved in some really high profile cases, such as supporting two of the victims of John Warboys, the black cabbie who sexually assaulted potentially over 100 women, and the way that their complaint was mishandled by the police at the time. She also supported Sally Challen and her family when she was appealing her murder conviction for killing her abusive and controlling husband and used the coercive control criminal offence as part of her argument. Anyway, it's a brilliant book. I read it in like two days and just highly recommend it. So let's get into the episode today. The story we're going to talk about was recommended to me on my Instagram comment thread for Crime Junkie podcast. So thank you so much for the recommendation.

Speaker 1:

On the 17th of February 1970, police officers received an emergency phone call coming from Geoffrey MacDonald in the army base Fort Bragg. He said he'd been injured and his wife and two children were injured by a group of intruders as well. What police found was Geoffrey's wife, colette, and his two daughters, kimberley and Kristen, dead with multiple stab wounds and blunt force injuries. Geoffrey himself also had a few stab wounds. Called one of the most litigated murder cases in history, geoffrey was eventually convicted of the murder of his wife and two children, but maintains his innocence to this day of the murder of his wife and two children, but maintains his innocence to this day. This is the story of Colette and her children, kimberly and Kristen. So, as I said, this is one of the most litigated murder cases in american history. So there's inevitably lots of media and information out there about what happened to colette, kimberly and kristin.

Speaker 1:

For this episode I've relied on news stories, documentaries and podcasts, specifically an episode of True Crime All the Time podcast, a crime stories documentary which is incidentally hosted by Richard Belzer from Law Order Special Victims Unit, a book called Fatal Vision by Joe McGuinness and another book called Wilderness of Error by Errol Morris, vision by Joe McGuinness and another book called Wilderness of Error by Errol Morris. As usual, all my sources are listed in the episode notes and sort of. As usual, most of these sources focus on Geoffrey, his life and what happened to him, rather than talking about what happened to Colette Kimberley and Kristen their lives and their experiences. So hopefully this episode will change that a little bit. This episode is a particularly tough listen and, as usual, sources of support and information, if you need it, are in the episode notes as well.

Speaker 1:

And I think it is really important to say, like some of the stories we've talked about before, there is great contention about what actually happened to Colette and her children. Some people believe that Macdonald is guilty, including Freddie and Mildred Cassab and Bob Stevenson, colette's stepfather, mother and brother, but others believe that he is innocent, or at least there are still some questions that haven't been answered and I'm really not here to convince you either way, but to talk about Colette and her children, centre her and her family's lives and remember them. So Colette Catherine Stevenson was born on the 10th of May 1943 in Patchagog, suffolk County, new York. She was born to parents Edward and Mildred Stevenson and had a brother called Robert or Bob, and when Colette was just 11 or 12 years old, her father, edward, actually took his own life. Now I couldn't find loads of information about what had been going on in Edward's life at that time, but his wife, mildred, did say that he suffered from insomnia as well as other health conditions such as a heart condition, but he was just 52 years old when he took his own life. I just can't imagine the impact this had on Colette and her brother Bob, and I'm sure that them and their mother really struggled in the months and years afterwards. Now, a couple of years after this, mildred met Alfred or Freddy Casale, and they married in 1957. Freddy would become a really important person in this story and in Colette's life.

Speaker 1:

Colette attended Patchagog Medford High School and once she'd graduated in the early 1960s, she attended Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs which, although still in New York State, was about 230 miles from where she grew up. On the Crime Stories documentary, colette's sister-in-law, vivian, described Colette as always putting herself putting others before herself. She said that she believed in marriage and having a family and was really looking forward to having that in her life. Now Colette actually met Geoffrey MacDonald in their high school and in some sources they're described as high school sweethearts. While they did go on a few dates their high school and in some sources they're described as high school sweethearts. While they did go on a few dates in high school, it wasn't until they were both at university that they began a relationship.

Speaker 1:

Jeffrey Robert MacDonald was born on the 12th of October 1943 in Jamaica, queens in New York. His parents were Mac and Dorothy MacDonald, and apparently his father was quite an authoritarian figure, though not violent. Macdonald was a popular guy in high school and was voted most popular, most likely to succeed, and was crowned prom king in his senior prom. And he went from high school to study medicine at the very prestigious Princeton University. And it was then that him and Colette sort of rekindled their friendship and started dating. In August 1963, colette announced that she was pregnant with his child. She dropped out of college and married, and they married on the 14th of September that year in New York and they honeymooned on Cape Cod. Now, apparently Macdonald was also dating other people when Colette became pregnant, so it must have come as a bit of surprise to him and her. Kimberly Catherine Macdonald was born on the 18th of April 1964 in New Jersey. She was just five years old when she was killed. Now, in 1965, colette Kimberly and Mac MacDonald moved to Chicago, where MacDonald attended Northwestern University Medical School, and they welcomed a second daughter on the 8th of May 1967, kristen Jean MacDonald, who was born in Cook County, chicago. She was just two years old when she was killed. She was killed Now, once he had graduated from medical school, macdonald joined the US Army in 1969 and also volunteered for the Army Special Forces so-called the Green Berets because they wore Green Berets unsurprisingly and he became a Special Forces doctor.

Speaker 1:

Now, in August 1969, the Macdonald family would move to Fort Bragg, a military base. Fort Bragg is the headquarters of the army's special operations. It covers 250 square miles and at the moment has a military population of around 50,000. It's now called Fort Liberty as well. Now, at the turn of 1970, I'm sure many would have looked at Colette Macdonald, kimberley and Kristen and thought they were living a wonderful family life the American dream, if you like. He was a doctor serving the army. She was keeping their house in Fort Bragg and bringing up their two children, and Colette was also pregnant with their third child, their first boy. This is going to be a very tough listen to you.

Speaker 1:

In the early hours of the 17th of February 1970, around 3.30am, dispatchers at Fort Bragg received an emergency phone call from Geoffrey MacDonald who said that there'd been a stabbing. Now, military police at that point thought that they were actually responding to a domestic disturbance so were not prepared for what they were about to walk into. As they entered the property on a very rainy winter night, they had to enter around the back. They saw Colette MacDonald, clearly dead and sprawled on the floor. Ken Micah, one of the military police that attended, told the Crime Stories documentary that not only were Colette, kimberley and Kristen dead, but they were brutalised, and he said that he still had nightmares about it. Colette had not only been beaten around the head, but had also been stabbed 21 times with a knife and a further 16 times with an ice pick. Her trachea was severed in two places and both her forearms were broken, presumably from trying to defend herself.

Speaker 1:

Military police then found Kimberley, who was on her bed. She had also been bludgeoned around her head and had between eight and ten stab wounds from a knife. She was also dead. Finally, they discovered two-year-old Kristen in her bed with her baby bottle close to her. She was also dead and had been stabbed 33 times with a knife and 15 times with an ice pick. That just feels really hard to comprehend, to be honest. So they also found MacDonald laying on Colette. He was injured himself with stab wounds, but he was still alive. He claims that he was sleeping on the couch because Kimberley had wet the master bed and he'd woken up to Colette screaming and heard Kimberly screaming too. He said there were four people in the house, three men and one woman and they were saying things like acid is groovy and kill the pigs, and he was trying to fend them off, but he lost consciousness.

Speaker 1:

Now, before we talk about what happened any further, I just want to talk about the injuries here. To me, the injuries inflicted on kimberly and kristen is a classic case of something called overkill. An overkill. Overkill is when the use of force goes further than is necessary to achieve murder. Basically, it is strongly linked to the killing of women by intimate partners, and the Femicide Census report from 2020 found that for 55% of women who'd been killed by a man, overkill had been employed.

Speaker 1:

In an article in the Independent about this, jess Phillips, friend and guest of the podcast talks about a neighbour of hers who'd been killed by her partner and had 81 injuries on her body. So overkill clearly happened in this case. Between Kimberley and Kristen they had nearly 100 injuries. This is total overkill and, as I said, it's associated with the killing of women by intimate partners, not necessarily by intruders or burglars. And you know we have to talk about the fact that Geoffrey was not dead. Yes, he had injuries, but they were not life-threatening or life-ending as Colette, kimberley and Kristen's were. If you were intruders or burglars breaking into a house, wouldn't your focus be potentially on the biggest threat, ie wouldn't you go for the adult man over the two-year-old girl? I do really think it's very suspicious that Geoffrey escaped from that house, but his wife and two children, who personally I don't think would be posed much of and it's also really important to note that, as well as a family who'd been murdered, police also found the word pig written in blood on the bed headboard in the master bedroom. Now, as a Guardian article highlights, this was a very different backdrop to what we see today. The article talks about how the Vietnam War had created a bit of a subculture, that sort of fuelled disillusionment, and that pig had actually been written on the headboard was quite reminiscent of the murders of Sharon Tate and her friends who were committed by Charles Manson's followers in Los Angeles, where they had written pig in Tate's blood on the front door of where the murders occurred.

Speaker 1:

But back to that night and the crime scene. The investigative team started their investigation pretty quickly and collection of evidence at the crime scene that night and Macdonald went to hospital to recover from his injuries. Now, according to a Vanity Fair article, as investigators assessed the crime scene, they noticed how much blood there was in the bedroom but not the living room and very little disturbance in the living room. There were lots of fibres and hairs that they collected from Colette Kimberley and Kristen and took blood samples as well, and interestingly and something that apparently Macdonald didn't realise at the time every family member was a different blood type. So in these times when DNA testing wasn't yet possible, it was actually possible to track each of the family members and what happened to them. Investigators also collected McDonald's pyjama top, a piece of evidence that would be very significant in the coming years.

Speaker 1:

William Ivory and Peter Cairns were the initial investigative team for the murders. They said that they had started having serious doubts that everything happened that night in the way that McDonald's said they did. Pretty soon after they were investigating the scene and, as well as all of the things that I talked about, they collected, according to the Vanity Fair article, they also collected these evidence from the crime scene Fibres from McDonald's pyjama top found beneath Colette, under Kimberley sheets and in Kristen's room. Evidence of a bloody footprint exiting Kristen's room. Blood on McDonald's glasses that turned out to be Kristen's, even though McDonald said he wasn't wearing his glasses when he went into her bedroom. Tips of surgical gloves near the headboard where pig was written, which were identical to gloves found in a kitchen cabinet. Outside, near the back door, they found an ice pick, a kitchen knife and a bloody piece of wood the size of a baseball bat.

Speaker 1:

All testing would find that had been used in the murders. There was also an Esquire magazine in the living room that had a story on the Manson murders and ideas about hippies committing the murders. So that's not to say that there weren't errors in the evidence collection. Apparently many people were allowed in the crime scene which could have contaminated it and who knows why, but fingerprints and the bloody footprints were destroyed somehow. Despite these errors. The investigators were looking squarely at McDonald for the murders.

Speaker 1:

Now there also came another complicating factor in a woman called Helena Stokely. She was a blonde woman who could be described as a hippie and was a local woman who used substances. She was questioned many times over the coming years about whether she was involved in the murders. She was even given polygraph tests. Sometimes she would say she was, sometimes she wasn't sure, and sometimes she would say she was. Sometimes she wasn't sure and sometimes she would say she wasn't. While it's not clear what the truth was about Helena, her presence added credibility to Macdonald's version of the story.

Speaker 1:

At this point, macdonald was put under house arrest so on April the 6th 1970, and faced something called an Article 32 hearing, which is the military equivalent of a grand jury investigation. And at this time both Colette's mother, mildred and her stepfather Freddie believed in McDonald's innocence and stood by him through the Article 32 hearing. The hearing started on the 6th of July and was apparently the longest Article 32 hearing in history. At that point Now, after hearing evidence and from witnesses, presiding officer Warren Rock dropped all charges against Macdonald and said that they were not true and recommended an investigation into the four people Geoffrey said were there that night and recommended an investigation into the four people Jeffrey said were there that night. This was nowhere near the end of the search for justice for Colette, kimberley and Kristen, but following that, macdonald was then honourably discharged from the army. He sold all of his family possessions at a yard sale and went to continue his life in New York.

Speaker 1:

He also immediately started looking for a journalist to tell his story and started quite the round of media appearances. It was his appearance on the famous Dick Cavett show which calls the most for Rory. I've included a link to a short clip from the show in December 1970. So this is just 10 months after his whole family had been murdered and Geoffrey Macdonald is laughing and joking and also complained about the way that he was treated. Dick Havertz says years later that he felt Macdonald's affect was wrong. He wasn't the devastated husband or father but seemed to be enjoying his infamy. It also turned out that, despite having the appearance of a perfect and happy marriage, macdonald had had many, many affairs during his marriage, and affairs which Colette knew about. She actually complained about them to her sister-in-law, vivian, and had said to her mother to expect her and the kids to come and stay with her soon, as she wanted to leave Macdonald, and this is a really interesting development. As we know, separation in a relationship is a very dangerous time for women and children, so I wonder if that could have been a motive for Macdonald Now.

Speaker 1:

It was after the Dick Cavett show appearances and other media appearances that Colette's mother and stepdad started wondering if their son-in-law wasn't as innocent as he professed. How could Macdonald move out, sell all the family's things and basically start a brand new life? He had a girlfriend, a new job and was sort of living his best life. I mean, I completely agree and think that for someone whose whole family had been killed, shouldn't they be dedicating their life to searching for the killers and bringing them to justice? Apparently not. I just can't with this guy. Indeed, bob Stevenson, collette's brother, was absolutely aghast at his appearance on the Dick Cavett show and just hated how Macdonald talked about how his rights had been violated but said nothing about his wife and daughters. He told the Crime Story documentary that it was a disgusting performance.

Speaker 1:

So with Freddie and the rest of Collette's family no longer believing in Macdonald's innocence, freddie actually set out to bring Macdonald to justice. He started campaigning for this wrote to everyone. And in 1974, after Freddie and Mildred had filed a citizen's criminal complaint about Macdonald, a grand jury was convened In 1975, the grand jury indicted MacDonald for the murders and he was arrested. He pled not guilty and was bailed for ten thousand dollars. Now it would be another four years before Macdonald actually faced a criminal trial for the murders of Kimberley and Kristen. And that's because after he was arrested he lodged an appeal based on double jeopardy, where you can't face trial for the same crime twice. Because he had his Article 32 hearing in the military, he thought that he couldn't face trial again for the same crime. He couldn't face trial again for the same crime, but the fourth certificate judges rejected this appeal on the basis that no guilty or innocent verdict was ever found in that Article 32 trial. So finally, on July 16th 1979, the trial of United States v Geoffrey MacDonald started.

Speaker 1:

Now I don't really want to go through the ins and outs of the trial, mostly because it just puts more focus on him, but I will talk about what the prosecution's argument was during the trial, though this is what the prosecution believed actually happened on that night. They stated that they believe Colette and MacDonald got into some sort of argument and Colette hit MacDonald with something like a hairbrush and he hit her back with a bit of wood. They said they thought Kimberly came into the bedroom to see what was going on and was hit by that piece of wood by accident and was fatally injured. They stated that they believe MacDonald carried Kimberly back into her room and stabbed her multiple times to kill her, and at this point Colette is said to have woken up from being hit in the head with a piece of wood and gone into Kristen's room, presumably to protect her. Mcdonald went in and hit Colette many, many times with this piece of wood and they then state that Kristen was the last to die and that Macdonald premeditated this murder. He planned it. Kristen, who was just two years old, was stabbed with a knife and ice pick in the front and back. Now, the pyjama top that we talked about earlier was an important part of the prosecution case here, because Macdonald claimed he was wearing it and it was removed during the attack from the intruders, and then he laid it over Colette after he found her injured. However, the pyjama top had over 37 stab wounds and holes in it, which matched her stab wounds, not his. So had he actually laid the pyjama top over her after the murders or was she actually wearing it when she was stabbed?

Speaker 1:

On the 29th of August 1979, macdonald was found guilty of the murders of Colette Kimberley and Kristen and was latterly sentenced to life imprisonment for each murder. So Macdonald has been convicted of the brutal murders of his family nearly 10 years after they were killed. Sadly, this still isn't the end in the search for justice for Claire and her girls. According to a Vanity Fair article, macdonald has taken his case to the Supreme Court seven times, which is a record. When I said it was the most litigated case in America, I wasn't joking. He has lodged many, many appeals, some claiming issues with the impartiality of the judge, some about the ethics of the prosecutors and some on other issues as well. All these appeals have failed, however, and he is still in prison, and we heard in episode 18 about the Longo family and the impacts of constant appeals on the families of the victims, and I just can't imagine what Collette's family have been going through for decades.

Speaker 1:

On a total side note, and something that really surprised me, despite being convicted of the triple murder of his family in 1979, it wasn't until 1983 that McDonald's licences to practice medicine were revoked. I really feel like being a convicted murderer is a good case for an immediate revocation of any licence to be a doctor. But there you go, anyway. The last thing that I want to talk about in this episode is the attention the case received from writers and journalists. There have been so many books written about Macdonald. They've been turned into a TV series, documentary and possibly something going on onto Disney Plus as well.

Speaker 1:

Now, firstly, joe McGuinness wanted to write a book on Macdonald and was actually made part of his legal team in 1979, so he would have full access to Macdonald and was actually made part of his legal team in 1979, so he would have full access to Macdonald for the trial and the book. I think at first McGuinness thought Macdonald was innocent, but he soon changed his mind and his book Fatal Vision, which was published in 1983, portrayed Macdonald as a sociopath who killed his whole family. Now Macdonald actually sued McGuinness for fraud after the book was published and the case was settled out of court, with Macdonald getting a $325,000 settlement and this was a whole other issue, because criminals can't profit from their crime. So Collette's family then took him to court seeking damages too Mildred ended up with $80,000, with the rest of the money going to McDonald's legal team, his mother and himself, which doesn't seem quite fair to me. Anyway, I think it's fair to say that the book Fatal Vision didn't quite go to plan for McDonald. Now, what is it with family annihilators seeking infamy through journalists and writers? This is so reminiscent of christian longo and the writer mike finkel, like they're so entitled that they think theirs is the only story to tell and that they won't be discovered. But, as we found out, both mcdonald and longo were found out by the writers and called out by them.

Speaker 1:

Now, after Fatal Vision, came a book called Fatal Justice by Gerry Alan Potter and Fred Bost. This book cast some doubt on Macdonald's conviction by looking at some of the mistakes made in the initial evidence collection and highlight some inconsistencies in the evidence as well. And then came a book called A Wilderness of Error by Errol Morris. This was published in 2012, was also made into his TV series. Again, this book highlighted what Morris believed were mistakes made in the evidence collection and investigation.

Speaker 1:

I think something that really has frustrated me about this case is so many of these documentaries, books and media articles about it and now actually about writers who disagree with each other and what they think of each other. The Guardian article I mentioned earlier on in the episode was actually focused on Errol's book and what he thinks of Joe McGuinness. It doesn't really talk about the victims at all, or even, you know, talk about the experiences of Colette Kimberly and Kristen In a case that has been the longest litigated murder case in US history. The focus has always been on Geoffrey MacDonald, his story, his personality, what he did, and then the focus shifted to what different journalists think about the case and then the shade they throw on each other. No recent focus has been on Colette or the girls or the unimaginable horror they faced that night. Bob Stevenson, colette's brother, told Crime Story Documentary that Freddie and Mildred also died that night. They were heartbroken and all they wanted was truth and justice for Colette Kimberley and Kristen, and I really hope that this episode has helped shift the focus back onto the people who matter, hear their voices and their experiences. Colette Kimberley and Kristen were buried in late February 1970 in Washington Memorial Park in Suffolk County, new York. Mildred Cassab died in 1994 and Freddie died six months later. This episode is dedicated to Colette Kimberley and Kristen, to the people they were and the joy they brought to their families and friends. We remember them and we centre them in this episode.

Speaker 1:

This has been Killer in the Family podcast, written and produced by me, claire Laxton, with music from the brilliant Tom Box and Pixabay. I'll be back next week with another episode, so please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Don't forget to send me any comments or questions on a voice note or DM to my Instagram profile at Killer in the Family pod. Do let me know any stories you'd like me to cover as well. Until then, I've been Claire Laxton. This is Killer In the Family Podcast. Until next time, take care, thank you, thank you.

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