I began to see that Joe McGinniss creation of Picture #1 might be just that: a creation. LP: What has this case revealed about the flaws in our judicial system? Two possibilities: MacDonald is a monster, or he is a victim of terrible injustice. In 1982, she sat down with Gunderson and Beasley in a taped interview, claiming that she had been part of a satanic cult that had killed the family because MacDonald was not cooperative in helping heroin addicts during his time at Fort Bragg. 959 Census & Voter Lists. 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. One is titled Memoirs by Wadea Kassab; it is 210 pages and was written in 1954. That got my attention: the Oscar-winning Morris, whose film The Thin Blue Line exonerated a Texas man wrongfully convicted for murder, is one of the worlds great documentary filmmakers. Other witnesses claimed that Stoeckly had confessed at various times that she thought she might have been present during the murders. No one ever knew what it was Helena told him because of attorney-client privilege. Check out never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! 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. It ultimately concluded that MacDonalds wounds were self-inflicted, and his story entirely fabricated. This was about 31% of all the recorded Kassab's in USA. Others would say that that was a healthy thing to do. Two members of the Tiba family have been charged in relation to the shooting. It implicates us all. Four men walking to a car, a silver four-wheel drive pulling alongside and obscuring them from view, and then Oueida writhing on the ground, before he hobbles for his life, back towards the Coburg Mosque, where he had just finished afternoon prayer. MacDonald settled into bachelor life, buying a yacht and marina-front condominium in Long Beach, California, Vanity Fair reports. 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. After leaving the factory, he spent several years scrabbling for a living: working on a farm, peddling fancy goods, and the like. Now, it appears the Tibas are at war with everybody. 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. But just what changed Kassabs mind about the man he once called a nice, presentable young man?". Rep. Allard Lowenstein supporting MacDonalds claim that the Army wrongfully accused him and were trying to cover up their mistake. Why did people in the community believe he did it? {{ post.roar_specific_data.api_data.analytics }}. That is why, police say, it is important to consider what the shooting represents, rather than the act itself. This was about 31% of all the recorded Kassab's in USA. ". 6,889 Family Trees. There were few major drug or weapon importations in the state that police could not, in some way, trace back to these families. But while Kassab saw MacDonald as an engaged and loving father and husband, Army investigators grew suspicious of MacDonalds account of the killings and ordered him to appear for an Article 32 hearinga military process used to determine whether there was enough evidence to pursue formal charges against MacDonald. He awoke to the sound of screaming and found three male intruders being overseen by a blonde woman. Although Kassab didnt join the family until Colette was a teenager, he had always been close with his stepdaughter. 2015 NC State University. But, they believe, the deterrent effect of jailing them, even if their victim remains tight-lipped, will have an impact. While none of the hairs found at the scene matched Stoeckleys DNA or that of any of her known associates, MacDonald maintains they prove something more essential to his freedom that someone else was there that night. Colette MacDonald and her daughters suffered horrific violence as they were killed on February 17, 1970 at their Fort Bragg home. In 1921, Aelyas married Soumaya Khoury of Beirut, Lebanon; by all accounts the two were deeply in love, and they died within 48 hours of one another. The families have been involved in drug trafficking since at least the turn of the century, or, in the case of Macchour Chaouk, the patriarch of that family, since 1983. In 1920 there were 5 Kassab families living in Pennsylvania. Since adapted into a documentary series of the same name directed by Marc Smirling, the project aims to detail how much evidence Morris believes was lost, mismanaged or glaringly unreliable from the start. 741 Immigration & Travel. After learning about the case of convicted killer and U.S. Army surgeon Jeffrey MacDonald, read about John List, who killed his family in cold blood and then disappeared for 18 years. As revealed in footage obtained by The Saturday Age, the latest chapter involves the shooting of the mercurial Mohammed Oueida, a man once described as the new Tony Mokbel, who was only two metres away when a gunman shot at him four times from a car, blasting him in the stomach on April 17. All rights reserved. She allegedly told one person that she recalled holding a candle that dripped with blood. According to exclusive statistics from the armed crime squad, there has been a five-fold increase in non-fatal shootings in the north-west in four years and the region now sees almost two thirds of Victoria's non-fatal shootings. 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. The popular story says there was no evidence of intruders. Colette had been stabbed 16 times and punctured 21 times with an ice pick, while 5-year-old Kimberley was killed by six blows to the head and eightto 10 stab wounds, according to a1998 Vanity Fair article. Pennsylvania had the highest population of Kassab families in 1920. Official trailer for FX documentary series. Make a one-time contribution to Alternet All Access, Scott Adams and why American capitalism kneels before a bigger God. The Covid-19 pandemic continues to be catastrophic not only to our health - mental and physical - but also to the stability of millions of people. But of the evidence that Morris presents, perhaps most convincing is the piece cited in MacDonalds 2017 federal appeal. The simple acts of coming and going as I please and caring for my own basic needs have been denied him. No particular families run any particular suburbs; they are all dealing, all the time, to whoever buys. 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. Psychiatric professionals on both sides pronounced him incapable of having committed the crimes. 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. Pennsylvania had the highest population of Kassab families in 1920. 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. Who else is going to fight this thing if not me? Freddy Kassab said of his years-long quest to put his son-in-law Jeffrey MacDonald behind bars for killing his stepdaughter and two young granddaughters. "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. It is hard not to be shocked by the footage of Oueida's shooting. In October 1970, following an investigation and hearing, the military dropped its case against MacDonald, and he was honorably discharged from the army. Appearances didnt help MacDonald, either. He holds dual bachelor's degrees from Pace University and a master's degree from New York University. Mica remembered seeing a woman who fit this description while en route to the scene but said the Armys Criminal Investigation Division (CID) omitted this during their subsequent inquest. Make a one-time contribution to Alternet All Access, Because that's what crime figures do in the north-west, most of the time. WebIn 1971, his father-in-law, Freddy Kassab, became progressively suspicious of MacDonald and sought formal reopening of the case. The crimes committed by the families were left to locally-based detectives to investigate, rather than specialist squads, until the Santiago Taskforce was formed in 2008. Which leaves one of the five families the Tibas. "We're concentrating on the actions of the shooter, because what happens to the victim is outside our control the line between a non-fatal shooting and a murder is wafer thin. However, instead of the firm defense MacDonald expected, the 1983 bestseller A Fatal Vision described him as a narcissistic psychopath.. 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. It appeared to investigators that MacDonald had staged the scene, inspired by the recent Manson Family murders to blame hippies for his crime. He is outspoken about MacDonalds innocence, and when I called him, I could hear the years of outrage in his voice over the way the case has proceeded. Freddie Kassab and CID investigators returned to the crime scene in 1971 to contrast MacDonalds claims with the evidence and found his narrative implausible. 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. In 1982, she sat down with Gunderson and Beasley in a taped interview, claiming that she had been part of a satanic cult that had killed the family because MacDonald was not cooperative in helping heroin addicts during his time at Fort Bragg. Marc Smerling thinks he has some idea. Additionally, MacDonalds medical records showed that he had no defensive wounds on his arms or hands consistent with the alleged attack. Donor retains full ownership of any and all copyright currently controlled in agreement with Khayrallah Center. For all of us independent news organizations, its no exception. He explained his lie initially by attributing it to drug addiction-induced paranoia and then said he believed that once he told his family the lies, he had to keep lying.. Materials provided by the families of Wadea and Aelyas Kassab. Aside from being the Wall Street of Victoria's firearms and drugs market, and the enormous consequences this trafficking has on the state, and the impact on the medical system of record numbers of people being maimed, there are the people who die completely innocently because the rules of these markets means shooting first has become an unwritten rule. In the end, MacDonald himself took the stand. Sadly, the family wouldnt survive the next year. He explained his lie initially by attributing it to drug addiction-induced paranoia and then said he believed that once he told his family the lies, he had to keep lying.. It didnt make sense. And she told him she had been there, at the MacDonald home, the night of the murders. He adamantly denied all charges but was at a loss for words during cross-examination by the prosecution. Abdul Tiba has eight sons, aged from their 50s to their 20s. Melbourne's north-west has soaked in blood for more than a decade, with crime families that still reign despite prison time, drive-by hits, and police task forces. My wife and I can sit for hours and days and not talk to each other, but were both thinking, you know. An arm extends out of the passenger side window of a car. MacDonald claimed the mysterious blonde woman who oversaw the murders was wearing a floppy hat and high-heeled boots and was holding a candle while chanting, Acid is groovy. Freddie Kassab and CID investigators returned to the crime scene in 1971 to contrast MacDonalds claims with the evidence and found his narrative implausible. Thinking that he could never reveal it? Also last year, Osman, 32, one of the middle brothers, was released from prison. Not only did the U.S. Army surgeon marry his high school sweetheart, but he had a flourishing career, two beautiful young daughters, and a son on the way. Freddie Kassab and CID investigators returned to the crime scene in 1971 to contrast MacDonalds claims with the evidence and found his narrative implausible. View all records. Colette was relieved to find out her husband would not be stationed in Vietnam and the whole family was overjoyed to learn she was pregnant for a third time. MacDonald claimed that his daughter Kimberly wet his side of the bed, prompting him to go to sleep on the couch. The family claims his body has never been found. 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. 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Ive got the patience of Job.. So MacDonald was the logical choice. After 3 a.m. on Feb. 17, 1970, dispatchers at Fort Bragg received an emergency call from the MacDonalds 544 Castle Drive address. Since 1979, the MacDonald case has continued to trouble those who delve beneath the surface of the media narrative. There are only two possible pictures, both nightmares. Not only did the living room show few signs of a struggle, but the murder weapons were found outside the back door. MacDonald was ultimately convicted in 1979 for killing his pregnant wife Colette MacDonald and their two young daughters, Kimberley and Kristen. But there is a reasonable doubt, and because there is a reasonable doubt it is absolutely clear that he should be set free. Why the MacDonald Case Matters to Everyone. 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. MacDonald had been just a teenager at the time and was dating Colette, his high school sweetheart. In a 2011 press release, the Innocence Project stated:. Were working to restore it. or click here to become a subscriber. He claimed that he had been asleep on the couch when at least four drug-crazed hippies broke into the home and savagely killed the family. MacDonald has had mostly good lawyers, though not always the appropriate ones. Vietnam-era Fayetteville was not sleepy Raleigh in the 1980s. MacDonald sued McGinniss for fraud in 1987, with a mistrial leading them to settle out of court for $325,000. The man is a fanatic.. MacDonald, it appeared, had been endlessly, unfaithful having at least 15 girlfriends, Vanity Fair reports. 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. LP: She said that to her lawyer at the time of the 1979 trial? Even before bureaucratic stalling and federal machinery overtook the search for truth, things were working against Jeffrey MacDonald. 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. The bedroom of Kristen and Kimberly MacDonald, mere hours after they were murdered. In 1984 I was glued to the TV, like millions of other Americans, watching the popular miniseries based on McGinniss book. He went directly to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where a teacher of his had settled. He continued to work as a doctor and moved to California. He drew on his previous knowledge of MacDonald, who he had met years earlier while courting Colettes mother, Mildred. Use census records and voter lists to see where families with the Kassab surname lived. MacDonald, bloody but alive, was next to his wife, who had been pregnant with their third child when she was stabbed 16 times with a kitchen knife and 21 times with an icepick. 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 He worked first in a stove factory, a physically taxing and low-paying job, and later became a molder in a factory making brake shoes for the railroad. Whats your sense of this? The defendant has no obligation to prove anything whatsoever. Aelyas kept the practice going while Wadea gave himself to real estate; when Wadea lost everything, he was able to resume his practice seamlessly by rejoining his brother. You can give it to him.' As the only survivor, MacDonald claimed that a mysterious blonde hippie oversaw three male intruders who slaughtered his family. That is the way our legal system is set up. 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. Im giving you an extra copy for Bernie Segal [the defense counsel]. Some criminal networks were recently identified as having more than 1000 members, of various ages and ethnic backgrounds; unlike the five families, they were not simply the first generation of children born in Australia to parents hailing from northern Lebanon. He looked angry on the stand. He was given an honorable discharge. It would take six more months before Mildred Kassab reached the same conclusion. Waters rubbished that explanation. Kassab testified on MacDonalds behalf, declaring, If I had another daughter, Id still want the same son-in-law.. 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. Most notably, the holes in the shirt MacDonald had been wearing appeared too smooth and clear cut to indicate self-defense. He theorized that diet pills caused MacDonald to fly into a fit of rage. In 1920 there were 5 Kassab families living in Pennsylvania. 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. Colette MacDonald and her daughters suffered horrific violence as they were killed on February 17, 1970 at their Fort Bragg home. But, soon after MacDonald moved to Long Beach, California to continue his career at St. Mary Medical Center, and the tide turned once more. We even came back at night so we would have the same lighting conditions as the night of the murders. Picture #2. Worse still, Judge Franklin Dupree seemed to have his mind made up before the trial began. 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. 6,889 Family Trees. Bettmann Archive/Getty ImagesRep. The past year has been the most arduous of our lives. "There's a lot of luck good and bad in a non-fatal shooting, You can be shot once and die, or you can be shot five times and live. 1,169 Birth, Marriage & Death. You think you know what youre seeing, but then you arent so sure. And, in media appearances like his interview on The Dick Cavett Show, meanwhile, MacDonald appeared suspiciously at ease. Freddie Kassab and CID investigators returned to the crime scene in 1971 to contrast MacDonalds claims with the evidence and found his narrative implausible. They dont know the truth any more than I do. They were hardly as connected as the mob in Manhattan, but they had serious clout. LP: One of the things that struck me in reading Errol Morris book was the use of the psychopath diagnosis in court and how problematic that is. Even back then, if you polled Fayetteville folks, you might have found that a lot of people did not believe that he did it. But things got out of hand. 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. Use census records and voter lists to see where families with the Kassab surname lived. Bettmann Archive/Getty ImagesGrieving mother Mildred Kassab weeps for her daughter while being escorted into JFK Memorial Chapel to see her buried. 959 Census & Voter Lists. I used to joke with him when I saw him around Hey Jerry, isnt there something you want to tell us? But he couldnt, and he likely would have gone to his grave carrying the secret of what Helena told him had it not been for that hearing. 6,889 Family Trees. 959 Census & Voter Lists. The military hearing found that the charges against MacDonald were not true. And a victim falls on the concrete. Wherever you see the label psychopath," you could almost substitute monster or vampire youre talking about an unnatural person who does not behave according to normal human rules, and with that label, you can believe anything of them. That didnt happen here. MacDonald was convicted of the three murders in 1979, nine years after Colette and her children were slain. To dislodge an idea reinforced by a popular book and TV phenomenon would be hard enough, but to add the sickening sense that the wrong man has been paying is nearly unthinkable. But did hippie intruders make sense? 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. What do you recall of the in-laws in the trial? But Im an optimist generally about our system of justice, and I hope that MacDonald gets a break. But even though Jeffrey MacDonald has spent decades behind bars, his case doesnt seem to be closed just yet. Jeffrey MacDonald, a bright young man with everything in life to look forward to, lost his wife and children to senseless, horrific violence. Young woman; old woman. That, in turn, drives a burgeoning black market for firearms, and has made the north-west the centre of the gun trade in this state. WebIn July 1974, a Federal judge acted on a citizen's criminal complaint by Kassab and others, by putting the case before a grand jury. The one thing that sticks in my craw above anything else is this: There were lab results. Aelyas followed Wadea to the United States in 1899. Maybe more than I would have thought as a teen. As if they had seen it with their own eyes. He was the lawyer she was talking to one-on-one who had been appointed to advise her of her rights. This was about 31% of all the recorded Kassab's in USA. 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. 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. To do so, they are increasingly trying to appeal to the maternal side of these families, and helping mothers and their children escape the criminal elements in their home, before another brood is infected. She was the type of girlthe best way I can explain it, I never met a girl that did not like Colette, he once told the Washington Post. And absolutely nothing fit, Kassab told the, To realize he had done it, and Colette loved him, and when you sit back and picture in your minds eye what happened that night, with him attacking, and I know from the autopsy reports what was done to the two children, you cant help but visualize in your mind, though we dont talk about it, Freddy Kassab told, Stevenson told reporters in 2005 that he had promised Freddy Kassab on his death bed that he would continue the familys quest to keep MacDonald behind bars, according to. 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. His most significant injury was a puncture wound and deflated lung. The cost to Melbourne's north-west is huge. I would have told the jury that it doesnt make sense. The family lost its large house in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, and was forced to live in small quarters in a building they still owned. The family moved to Chicago after MacDonald was accepted into Northwestern University Medical School. Soldiers corpses arrived at Fort Bragg stuffed with heroin. Steve Liss/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty ImagesJeffrey MacDonald behind bars in Terminal Island federal penitentiary. In other words, an FBI lab technician trusted exculpatory evidence to a member of the prosecution team. You trust him. Smerling is the director of the documentary series A Wilderness of Error, which examines the MacDonald case. When Victor Worheide, who was a federal prosecutor, later became interested in the case at the urging of the parents of Colette MacDonald, the case was gone. Although Kassab didnt join the family until Colette was a teenager, he had always been close with his stepdaughter. It has Helena Stoeckley, the dominant person who continues to play a remarkable role. Set free Kassab surname lived victim of terrible injustice my own basic needs have been denied him Innocence stated! Cross-Examination by the footage of Oueida 's shooting the trial began story says there was no evidence of intruders have. Which leaves one of the evidence and found three male intruders being overseen by a blonde woman five the. Do in the end, MacDonald claimed that a mysterious blonde hippie three. It would take six more months before Mildred Kassab reached the same conclusion the simple of. You know you an extra copy for Bernie Segal [ the defense counsel.. 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