Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Fatal Vision or Fatal Justice - The Case of Jeffrey MacDonald
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The city of Los Angeles was in fear because they knew that there was a killer on the loose. They had evidence of it. Someone had gone into a home in a very upscale area in L.A. and had butchered five people. It was terrifying. But, you know, that case resonated not just in L.A., but all over the U.S. There were stories that were written.

There were fears that were expressed in the news. Who was this? Who would do this? But all the way over on the other side of the United States, in North Carolina, Fort Bragg to be very specific, there was another mass homicide that had been committed. And it had eerie connections, at least seemingly on the surface, to those nights of

back in August of '69. Six months later, terror would revisit the country and people had questions. And still to this day, those questions still linger. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Body Bags. Dave, you and I were kids when the case, cases that we're going to discuss today went down. I really have no memory of the

so-called Jeffrey McDonald case from a real-time perspective. Jeffrey McDonald has, to this day, claimed that a group of hippies came into his house at 2 o'clock in the morning and attacked him and killed his wife and children and left him for dead. Jeffrey McDonald is a Green Beret doctor. Green Beret doctor at the height of the Vietnam War, stationed in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

And he's married to his high school sweetheart. They've got two little girls and they've got another one on the way. And here is this Green Beret doctor who, you know, calls nine. Well, I don't know. They didn't have 911, but called whatever version it was back then to call for emergency help. Probably zero. Yeah, I think that that's actually what you used to do. You call for the operator.

And isn't that interesting? Imagine being the operator. And so, yeah, I'm trying to get in contact with my sister in Connecticut. Can you connect me? And then the next call you get is some, some guy saying, send help. And fascinating is that the way those calls came in, they were frightening to the people taking the calls, you know? And anyway, so Jeffrey McDonald claims that, uh,

And I mentioned this to you in the prep because something has always fascinated me about this case with regard to Jeffrey McDonald. Again, remember, this is a man who claims he tried to defend his family and they were murdered and that he is perfectly innocent. He didn't do anything wrong other than not defend his wife and kids. But he always starts the story with a couple of different things, depending on who he's telling it to. I believe when he was on

Dick Cavett show talking about the murders. He mentioned watching a late night TV show, you know, but he talks about washing dishes at 2 a.m. And I've always thought the reason he shares something like that, who cares that you were washing dishes at 2 a.m.? Who cares?

But it was to show like he's this he is the all he's such a good guy. This Green Beret doctor was washing dishes at two in the morning because he didn't want his pregnant wife to wake up to it in the morning. This is a good guy, Joe. Well, well, Dave, you know, the thing about it is, is that when you when you're questioning a suspect, you have someone that will give you that kind of granular detail like that. Mm hmm.

And there's this presentation that they're trying to do in order to convince you of the validity of the statements that they're making by virtue of the intensity or the level of detail that they can give you. Because in many people's minds, that states to them, well, if I can give them these fine details about what was going on at that particular time, that means that I'm espousing the truth. And

Of course, you know, when you're an investigator and you look at someone and they're going through this traumatic event and they can give you those kinds of details at that moment in time, you kind of raise your eyebrow. Because, Dave, I've sat across from people that have been in the midst of an attack and they have – I've had people –

Over the course of my career, I try to talk to, and I don't want to say that they were catatonic, where they've got the fixed stare where they're looking like beyond you. But it feels like I've experienced that a number of times where they can't give you, they're even nonverbal. And so what's fascinating is when you get that original statement from somebody that has witnessed something,

that was attacked perhaps themselves in the case of Jeffrey McDonald, how much detail did they give at that time? Were they all over the board? Did the story change? And I mean like in a change where your brain is kind of dropping down a little bit relative to the trauma you've experienced, you have a bit more clarity because it's amazing. Sometimes you'll have these people that will begin to kind of rapid fire and regurgitate things and you know you can hear fear in their voice.

And sometimes they don't get the facts straight, but it doesn't mean that they're trying to deceive you. When you have somebody that sits there and they can give you these fine points on things over and over again like this, you got major questions. And I think that's the case with Jeffrey McDonald, Dave. That explains it. Thank you. That helps. Because what he said happened, Joe. He claims, and I want to go over this because the reason

I asked Joe to do this one, just so y'all know. I don't think I've asked for us to do anything else in specifics, but this one in particular, and here's the reason. There was a book called Fatal Vision written by Joe McGinnis. He was hired by Jeffrey McDonald's team to be embedded with them after Jeffrey McDonald had been arrested, accused of murder of his family and

They allowed Joe McGinnis to be with them in their defense at trial because they felt like Jeffrey McDonald felt like this guy will tell the truth. You know, he'll he'll expose to the world what I've been through. And Jeffrey McDonald didn't get his wish because Joe McGinnis wasn't better with him. He did see Jeffrey McDonald for who he was. And the book he wrote called Fatal Vision actually pushes the fact that Jeffrey McDonald murdered his wife and children.

After that, there were books about Jeffrey's innocence. Fatal Justice comes to mind, a brilliant book. I don't believe everything in it, just like I don't believe everything in Fatal Vision. But I asked you how to do it because I want to know what the forensics tell you. As an investigator, as a death investigator, do the forensics actually solve the crime or not?

Is it really just, here's what happened. It could be his story. It might not be. That's what I want. And then I want the, the opinion based on the forensics. What do you believe, Joe? So I'm going to lay this out very quickly. Jeffrey McDonald made a very specific claim and we're going to use that as Joe explains what happened to each individual in that home that night. Jeffrey McDonald claims that,

He had washed the evening dinner dishes before deciding to go to bed. His younger daughter, Kristen, had wet his side of the bed, so he had taken her to her own bed, not wanting to wake up his wife by changing the sheets. He had taken a blanket from Kristen's room and fallen asleep on the living room couch. Again, this is Jeffrey McDonald's story. He's asleep on the couch when he is awakened by

hearing Colette and Kimberly's screams and Colette shouting, Jeff, Jeff, help. Why are they doing this to me? Think about that for just a minute. As he rose from the couch to go to their aid, he was attacked by three male intruders, one black and two white. The shorter of the two white men had worn light, possibly surgical gloves.

A fourth intruder he described as a white female with a long blonde hair, possible wig, and wearing high-heeled, knee-high boots and a white floppy hat partially covering her face. The individual stood nearby holding a lighted candle and chanting, quote, acid is groovy, kill the pigs. Acid is groovy, kill the pigs.

McDonald claimed the three males then attacked him with a club and an ice pick with the female intruder shouting, hit him again.

During the struggle, his pajama top was pulled over his head to his wrist, and he had to use this bound garment to ward off thrust from the ice pick, although eventually he was overcome by the assailants and knocked unconscious in the living room end of the hallway leading to the bedrooms. When he regained consciousness, the intruders were gone. He stumbles from room to room, attempting mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on each of his daughters to no avail before finding his wife. He then...

pulled a small paring knife from Colette's chest, and he tossed it on the floor and attempted to find her pulse. He draped the pajama jacket over her body and phoned for help. That is Jeffrey McDonald's story, Joe. You know, you sit here and you listen to all of these details that he's offering up in his statement and kind of how this went down. The last thing that the operator claims that she heard

was him screaming, essentially, we need to get them to W, which W apparently means the hospital on base at Fort Bragg. And then there's kind of a thunk at the end, sounding, according to the operator, like the phone hit the wall. But when the MPs at Fort Bragg arrived on scene,

They saw something that in their time at Fort Bragg, patrolling the streets, going from family structure to family structure in the married housing area, dealing with drunk GIs, or maybe even having to break up a few domestic disputes. There's no way they could have been prepared for what lay before their eyes.

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Get started risk-free at greenlight.com slash iHeart. You know, you mentioned the term just a second ago, Dave, the word groovy. The idea, I'm thinking about that term

that song from the fifth, uh, from the sixties and everything is groovy, you know, and even, even Liberace. And this has almost become like a, a meme on the internet. He actually redoes this lot. He does it on air on his show with a bunch of these dancers that are dressed, I guess, like, I don't know what, what their perception of, of sixties hippie culture was, uh,

Of course, they're all clean and have nice haircuts and, you know, their nails are not dirty. And they're all dancing around him as he's at his piano playing this feeling groovy. And when you mentioned this term, because we had talked about this before, that image came to mind. And now you've got an assailant, an alleged assailant that has come into this home that's actually taken time, Dave, to light a candle.

and has begun chanting in that environment. Let me tell you something about the South in the late 60s. Fort Bragg is located adjacent to the town of Fayetteville, North Carolina. I can tell you affirmatively that it was not considered to be a haven for hippie culture in the 1960s.

You know, it's not that kind of place. It's a rough and tumble military place as as as much as hippie culture in particular tried to distance himself from the Vietnam War. I can't imagine for, quote unquote, hippies gravitating to arguably one of the most military locations in the nation. That alone to me.

is striking. And then that they could get access to own house. No, on base housing was not easy to get into. No, it's not. And you have to go through the gate in order to get access to this place. So you've got these four people that show up on base and they specifically attack this guy who's 26 years old

that has just finished medical school, done an internship, not a residency, has done an internship at this point in time. And he's not, and I got to tell you this, the media for years and years has said that he's a Green Beret. He's not a damn Green Beret. He's not a Green Beret. He volunteered to be a

physician assigned to special operations. I think it was, I think it was fifth group, third group or fifth group. I can't remember. Anyway, on post at, at Fort Bragg and Fort Bragg is the center for training for our SF guys. And it still remains that way today. He was not a green beret. I think that that goes into this idea of this, you know, what you were talking about with him washing dishes. He's like this noble warrior, you know,

And you see him all festooned early on in his military getup that he's wearing along with his green beret. And by the way, most green berets that I know don't like to be referred to as green berets. That's just not something that they...

They refer to themselves as silent warriors, unlike the people who write a book all the time. The SF guys, they're quiet people most of the time. This guy, I can only imagine it must have been cringeworthy for them.

You know, these guys have been in high intensity battles, lo those many years in Vietnam. And you got this guy who's showing up in this environment claiming to be one of them. And he's a physician. And Dave, none of the stuff that he's saying makes sense relative to the injuries that we see portrayed, particularly at autopsy on all three of these symptoms. Well, let's let's take it that way. One thing I want to point out as we head into this, Joe, is.

The crime scene, okay, again mentioning this is base housing because you have to include that into the mix, as you pointed out. Not an easy thing to get on. It was during – it's the height of the Vietnam War, February 17, 1970. But after the murders of Collette, Kim, and Kristen, this dwelling was not cleaned up. It wasn't destroyed. It wasn't – it was actually locked up and kept. Okay.

So that if and when a trial happened, the jury could actually go and see the crime scene. And when, again, February 17th, 1970, his trial did not take place until 1979. And the jury was able to walk the crime scene. They were actually able to go in and look at what Jeffrey McDonald said happened and where it happened.

This is something that has really been a problem for me in crimes where a crime scene is destroyed. For instance, out in Idaho, the Coburger crime scene. From the moment they destroyed that, there was no reason to destroy that house other than covering up something is all I can figure. Not accusing anybody. I'm just saying I don't I mean, emotional damage.

to a community because there is a murder house. I understand what they're saying there. I just think that justice is more important than emotional feelings for the day. Anyway, please. Can I say something real quick? Uh, you know, the, the idea that you go in and tear down a structure and I don't want to go too far field with this because I know that we're focused on Jeffrey McDonald. And by the way, uh,

a big round of applause for those individuals that had the forethought in this case to lock it down. It ain't amazing how we can learn lessons from the past and people still haven't learned them to this point. Um, same way with Parkland. They, they locked Parkland down. You think about Idaho and they tear the thing down because it makes somebody sad. I, I,

I'm reflecting back right now over all of the death cases that I work, particularly homicides, Dave. I've been to the same address multiple times on unrelated homicides. What? Like I've had a succession of homicides that have occurred in the same dwelling. Those houses were never torn down.

And I was actually talking to a group recently in London and a former Scotland Yard detective who worked for them for 30 years. And I just asked him, I said, listen, because they use the term and a lot of people use the term raising, raising a location, which means to tear it down. Have you guys ever do you in your recollection, do you ever?

remember raising a location as a result of, of, uh, homicide. And he's like, no, that's absurd. And so you look at that reflection, you know, uh, after all these years, Jeffrey McDonald, they were able to lock this place down and they didn't care if it, you know,

Made somebody feel as though they need to go to a cry corner or get their blanket or whatever it is, their whoopee and go over and shake over the idea that, oh, my gosh, horrible homicides took place there. That's not what they were about. They they wanted to discover the truth. And sometimes if you're absent that evidence, Dave, there's no way to go. So now that we know.

what Jeffrey McDonald's story was. The biggest, the pajama top comes to mind, you know, because again, now claiming to be a Green Beret doctor, anybody, you know what? I have such an, I have such respect for men and women that joined the military service in the United States of America. It, I just, I have, if you, if you're a military person, I just, you have my, my respect and I don't picture any man, uh,

allowing this to take place in his home and to only have a bump on the head and a small incision on his chest while his family is totally destroyed i don't see that as a possibility especially from somebody who is in the military and is trained whether he's green beret or not he is still a supposed to be a man and he's supposed to protect his family and his story is i don't

I don't understand how he could have so few injuries while there's such overkill on the girls. That's for starters. So let's get into the forensics, Joe. What based on his story now, when you go to a crime scene, when you're investigator, death investigator and you hit a scene like this, do you listen to his story of what happened or do you block that out? And just let's look at the bodies and what's going on in this house. How does that begin for you?

Well, you're not going to, first off, you're not going to sit down and have an in-depth discussion with this subject before you enter into the scene. As a matter of fact, I just soon only rely upon the initial report that I'm getting from law enforcement when I roll up. So that, look, we've got, and this is the way it would commonly go. Look, we've got three dead in this location. This is where they're located.

We've got a husband over here that has been injured. We're looking for perps right now because he states that these subjects came into his home and committed these crimes. This is what he says happened in the immediate. You're not going to have all those fine details at this point in time. And at that point in time, I'm going to say, okay, fine. That's enough. I've heard enough. Because I don't want to...

from a forensic standpoint, I don't necessarily want to be encumbered by that knowledge. Now, if there's something dangerous in there, or if there's something like it, you know, where you'll get cues from folks, like particularly, uh, uniform officers that will roll up, they'll say things like, look, when you get to the front door, um,

I'm just throwing this out there as an example. We had to kick the door down. So you'll see wood all over the floor, you know, where the door facing was knocked out, or there's a huge puddle of blood. Be careful where you step. That's information that has great utility for me. Because when I go in, I want to be able to observe each one of these bodies in situ in their pristine state, pristine as it applies to the context of the crime scene. I don't want any kind of outside

Element coming in and again, going back to take LaBianca and specifically to take take case, you know, the the the cues that, you know, Dr. Noguchi gave that he wrote about, you know, in his book.

Because he was at the scene of Tate. He said that his eyes always go up. That's the first place he looks. He doesn't look at the bodies. His eyes always go up. He looks at the ceiling. He looks at the surroundings. And then he kind of makes his targets until he makes his way down to the body. Because he wants to understand the entire environment and the context of the bodies in that environment before he makes any kind of assessment beyond that.

And that's very important. And when I read that book and read that statement that he had made all those years ago, it kind of rung true. And I find it interesting, you know, that we're talking about this now with Jeffrey McDonald. So when you enter into an environment like this, nowadays, what you would do is you would probably break off into teams and each team would handle an individual body, right?

to process the body. You'd have somebody that would handle Colette's body, the wife, who has just these horrendous injuries that she has sustained, Dave. The injuries alone that Colette sustained, and by the way, you've got multiple weapons involved in this. She doesn't just have stab wounds. She's got puncture wounds as well. And these puncture wounds

arise from something you don't hear much about nowadays, and that's an ice pick. And so it's been driven into her multiple times. I've given this thought as an investigator. Why would she have multiple stab wounds and multiple puncture wounds? You've got multiple weapons involved. And I think that it's to give the appearance, Dave, that you've got multiple perpetrators.

So you've got somebody that is thinking about this this far in advance that, okay, not only am I going to use one knife, I'll use two knives. And let me see, what else can I use? Oh, yeah, an ice pick. We're not too far removed during that period of time when people relied on ice picks. You'd have...

It would not have been too distant of a memory to know that probably his grandparents, maybe his parents even, had had ice delivered to their home and you'd have to chip it off. So everybody had an ice pick in the house. My grandmother had several in the house. And old guys back in the day used to carry ice picks with them to defend themselves with because they're easily concealed. They don't have the same

uh, profile as a knife does, you know, you can carry an ice pick. Um, you know, uh, the, I don't know if it was bad, badly Rory Brown, but, uh, he had a razor in his shoe. I know that, but you would, old guys would carry, carry ice picks in their shoes. And so it's a very, it's a very savvy kind of street, street kind of weapon that you would use almost like a shiv that's created in a prison. Um,

which is fascinating to me. But the fact that just Colette alone is attacked on multiple planes of her body, and she is so viciously attacked, Dave, that you see several areas of concentrated injuries on her that are kind of varietal. They'll go, you'll have clusters here, clusters there.

And it's almost an attempt, I think, to give the impression that this was a frenzied killing when it very well might not have been. All right. So I'm kind of not at wit's end, but I didn't really think about the multiple the weapons, you know, switching them up to have the appearance of more than one person. Jeffrey McDonald went to Princeton. He's not an idiot intellectually. And I'm picturing him.

And the story that the prosecution laid out of how it all happened again. Now back to motive, which when you're in death investigator motive and story and all that, that's not part of it, is it? I mean, you're really just there. Here's the body. Here's the evidence. What happened? Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I don't care about anybody's motive, particularly at a crime scene. It has, it's not even on the radar. You start to get into motive.

And it clouds things up because one thing I failed to mention with Colette, if you're talking to me about somebody's why, which is a question, as you well know, I hate.

why would you do this? Then that's going to distract me. And just like I've been distracted right now relative to this case, because one of the things I forgot to mention, that not only does she have injuries that are generated by a knife and from an ice pick, she's also been beaten with a club, Dave.

And so that, you know, to think about what somebody's motivation was, it sounds like something you'd hear in an acting class. What's your motivation? You know, and I don't know. I don't know what their motivation was, but I can tell you with Colette, you can actually see that the individual is highly motivated in the sense that it's a frenzied killing. And she's she's been so motivated.

beaten and traumatized that she's got, I think that she's been stabbed 21 times with an ice pick, 16 times in the neck and the chest with a knife. And her trachea, which is kind of interesting, is severed in two places. Well, you might think about cutting a throat

But let's just say that you are a physician anatomically. You're going to think about, well, what would be one of the ways to facilitate somebody's death? Well, to get into their airway. As a matter of fact, if she even had one little sign of life in her, Dave, and the EMTs arrived, they couldn't get her intubated. Like you could not put a

you couldn't establish an airway on her in the field. You would have to, perhaps you could go in, and I've seen this happen where you have a slice to the trachea. EMTs sometimes will go into the trauma area and create an airway there externally just to

be able to inflate the lungs. Okay. So that's kind of an interesting injury that her trachea is actually cut in two places here, Dave, anatomically.

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This isn't just another show. Take Space, live with Jonah Murray, is a virtual concert that brings music and mental health together in one powerful night. Tune in as Jonah takes the stage with heart, honesty, and a sound you won't forget. It's all happening June 27th at 5 p.m. Pacific. Streaming free at iHeartRadio.com slash Take Space. Be there.

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APU. Digital by nature, human by design. Learn more at APU.APUS.EDU. Well, Dave, I got to tell you, I saw a comment, and you actually referenced it just a few months ago, about Colette. McDonald had apparently taken his pajama top off and had laid it across her chest. And by the way, he...

He also had removed apparently a paring knife from her chest, which any doctor knows that if someone has an instrument, a knife, a branch from a tree, a piece of rebar, you don't take it out. Period. You leave it in place. He should know that. But yet...

She's got this paring knife that's laying on the floor next to her that was apparently pulled out of her chest by him. But back to the pajama top, it's laying on top of her. And when the PD rolls up, that's not the only thing that's laying on top of her. He's laying on top of her. His head is literally resting on her chest. And to say that

That his injuries that he sustained in the attack of these evil hippies that are chanting everything is groovy or whatever the hell it was. Acid is groovy, kill the pigs. Yeah, acid is groovy, kill the pigs. You know, he doesn't show signs of, much signs of being a warrior as far as I'm concerned. Hey, all right, Joe, can you tell me what injuries did Jeffrey McDonald sustain that made it so he was not able to

protect his family. He's the only survivor in the whole group. He's the only one that's, he's the only real threat to anyone. And yet he's the one that was left with minimal injuries. So what, what, what, what were his injuries? Well, he's got, okay. First off, he's got like, uh, what they're, they're referring to as a sharp force injury. It's about, um,

maybe five eighths of an inch in depth in his chest. And the instrument that was used apparently collapsed, partially collapsed his lung. Okay. And as horrible as that is, and this was on, if folks will, you know, place your hand on your, your right hand,

your right aspect of your rib cage. And you can feel in between the ribs what's referred to as the intercostal space. And doctors know this because when, for instance, when you're trying to put in like an emergency room, if you have a chest that is filled with blood, one of the things that happens in the emergency room in cases of severe trauma like car accident, that sort of thing, you make an incision.

in the intercostal space and you put in a chest or drain. So there's actually a tube that they'll stick into the chest and it pulls all of that blood that's free floating in the chest and what are referred to as the pleural spaces. Interestingly enough, that's where this injury was and it clipped his lung. It's a survivable injury. And probably it's, in my mind at least, it's one of those kinds of injuries where you're scratching your head and you're thinking, you know what?

Um, this is quite ghastly, but this is something that is not necessarily life-threatening, particularly in the immediate, if you've got an emergency room that's right down the road. So that's one of the injuries that he had. And then he's got a knock on the head as well. And it created what's referred to, what they eventually assessed with him as a mild concussion.

You take that and compare to one of his children, which I'll speak to in a moment, that literally had a depressed skull fracture. And it looks like it was generated with the same club that was used probably on Colette, probably on this child. And the injuries that are really significant with McDonald, though, Dave, are the things that he had on his face and his chest,

Um, and they were cuts, bruises, and fingernail scratches, which of course that indicates that whoever it was that fought him was fighting for their life. Well, you know what they say about mama bears, you know, the worst that, you know, male bears are terrifying. Nothing like a mama bear though. If her cubs are around in particular, uh,

She's going to rip you to shreds. She's going to do everything that she can. And look, Colette, she's got these two precious girls that are there. She's being attacked. First off, she's trying to save her own life. She's got a life within her, Dave, right? She's pregnant with her son. She's going to do everything she can. And I think that over the years, people have put forth the idea that this all initiated perhaps

As an argument between Colette and McDonald and that, I think I'd read one statement at one point in time where she picked up an object and had thrown it at him. And he became so incensed over this that he began to, you know, attack her.

which is fascinating when you begin to talk about physical evidence that's being presented on his body. And Dave, I was looking, man, look, I looked at the photos of McDonald that they took at that particular time. I've seen people get more ghastly injuries in a strong windstorm than what this guy is presenting with. I'm completely unimpressed when you take that and you compare it to what

His children went through, and of course what Colette went through, Dave. One of the things that really stuck out to me is that when you, she's got these really nasty lacerations to her forearms. I think that this could be a combination of both being attacked with an edged weapon. In addition to that, it could be also being clubbed.

They're kind of nasty and irregular when you see these things. It's not something that you would see. For instance, she's got like this gaping

And anytime you hear gaping most of the time, that's going to be indicative of a laceration where the skin has really opened up. The edges are very jagged because it's a blow with a blunt object that literally tears the skin. You know, with sharp force injuries, and we're going to do a whole episode of Body Bags about sharp force injuries.

With sharp force injuries, you have these kind of clean margins where they're perfect because you're talking about using a steel blade on a surface and it cuts it through. But if you have a laceration, that arises from blunt force trauma and it literally tears the skin. So it's on the aspect of her, and I'm actually looking at it right now,

It's on the aspect of her lateral right wrist. So just imagine, if you will, lifting your right arm, fist clenched, so that you're trying to block or parry, you know, use a fencing term. You're trying to parry this attack. And so the perpetrator, when they're looking at you,

The surface that they're aiming for is blocked. Maybe they're going for a head strike. It's blocked. And so the first place that the injury is where contact is made is actually on this lateral aspect of the forearm. And it opens up this kind of gaping, jagged, it's almost crescent shaped is the way it looks,

So, yeah, she's got injuries on her arms as well. But again, back to him, he's got nothing. I mean, he's literally got nothing on his body that gives you the indication that he's trying to fend anything off. And here's another interesting fact, quote unquote, about this Green Beret doctor. Green Berets, in particular, special forces guys,

Even back then, we hear a lot about it now, but even back then, they were highly skilled at what's called CQB, and that's close quarters combat. Okay, so it's not just like going in and clearing a room. You have to try to understand the basics of some of the martial arts that are out there because you're going to be fighting people one-on-one. Well,

He allegedly had received training in hand-to-hand combat. And it makes sense. He would have been embedded with these guys there at Fort Bragg, day-to-day training. They'd probably say, Doc, you've got to go through this training along with us. It doesn't mean he's gone through Green Beret schools. As a matter of fact, the only thing I really find reference to is that

He'd gone to airborne school. Well, they, you know, clerk typist go through airborne school. They're going to be assigned to the 82nd, you know, or the 173rd. They're going to be assigned. You have to go through airborne training, which is a school that lasts about three weeks. And it's basically gravity training.

That's it. You know, I mean, yeah, it's rigorous. It's rigorous, but it's not like going through special forces training, which last years. The background on McDonald was that he's this brilliant near genius doctor who loves his country so much. It's not enough just to be in the army, but he is the best of the best, the green beret. He can fight. And so he can basically go kill the enemy hand to hand combat. And then he can actually on his way back, perform surgery on a fellow soldier.

And bring him back. So Jeffrey McDonald is knocked out with a boo-boo to the head and a small incision in his chest. Meanwhile, his pregnant wife has defensive wounds on her arms. She has been beaten. She has been torn up and stabbed and just destroyed, just destroyed. And he has a boo-boo on his head.

But Joe, after moving from Colette McDonald, there are two little girls that are also there, Kimmy and Christy. And I don't know what either one of those girls could have attested to. But these hippies walking around, one holding a candle, saying, as is groovy, kill the pigs, somehow decide that we have to take out these little girls as well.

And again, I'm going back to McDonald's injuries, Jeffrey McDonald. And, you know, I would think the girls would have a little less than that, you know, to be killed because there's no need. They're little, tiny, no need to do to them what you just did to the Colette. So what happened with the girls? How were they killed? Well, I think that it's important because, you know, when he.

Which I believe he's feigning unconsciousness, feigning, pretending. They, the ambulance people, EMTs, they attempted CPR on him when they arrived and almost immediately he pops up. You know, somebody starts doing chest compressions. Wait a minute. Joe. Yeah. I didn't know this. Yeah. I've never heard this. He pops to life all of a sudden. Okay. Yeah.

which sounds like the biggest, you know, odorous pile of excrement that you can, you know, put forth. You're going to, you're not going to lay there and have somebody compressing on your chest. But the reason this is significant is that immediately, as soon as he pops up,

He makes this exclamation about acid heads where he says, you know, look at my wife. And then he makes reference to the fact that now this is this is in the midst of them treating him. I'm going to kill those acid heads.

And acid head is a term that was associated with hippies, you know, because of lasurgic acid, those sorts of things that people would take acids really when it popped on into pop culture, if you will. And there were a lot of people that were experimenting with acid back then. The military was experimenting with acid back then. But that's a story for another day.

And so this is the first thing you're going to say. And then as he is being taken out of the house, he says, let me see my kids. Let me see my kids. And he's being carried off on a stretcher. Well, yeah, yeah, Jeffrey, let's let's take a look at your kids. Let's do that. Why don't why don't we do that? Because Kimmy is five years old. She's laying in her bed.

She's laying in her bed. She's on her left side. And this precious little child, her skull's been fractured. And I saw the images of it, and it's ghastly, absolutely ghastly. They believe that she was at minimum struck twice, possibly more. And so she's on the right side. This is the right side of her skull. So just imagine that you're laying there.

And what we refer to is like a left recumbent position. So left recumbent means your left side of your body's contacting the surface, supporting the weight of your body. I don't know about you. I'm a side sleeper. So, you know, that's like if you're a side sleeper, that's the position. And apparently that's the position she was actually attacked in or on. And so she was struck so hard that not only is her skull fractured, Dave,

But in addition to that, she struck her cheekbone is fractured. And Dave, I got to tell you, the McDonald case in and of itself, you know, I've never seen this other than outside of a car accident. This child, this five-year-old was beaten so furiously that her cheekbone is actually protruding through her skin.

So this is going to be a massive laceration. And when you see the images that, you know, you know, just illustrate what kind of force is involved with this child. It's again, I have to return to the to the word ghastly, you know, who would have the motivation to.

to do that, you know, to a five-year-old, what could a five-year-old have ever done? You had made mention of the fact, well, what could they have seen? You know, what, what could they have seen? What could they have recounted, you know, in, in court, but it extends beyond that. She's been beaten all of her body with this bludgeon that's being used. Um, then I guess, uh,

The hippies that are out there chanting, you know, that acid is groovy decide, well, you know what, let's go in. And also in addition to beating this child, let's stab her. She's been stabbed eight to 10 times in addition to that. And again, and again, Dave, she's been stabbed in the neck. And so if you're, if you are a physician, uh,

You know that the airway in and of itself is a critical location that you need to have intact in order to save life. I find it fascinating that with Colette and Kimmy both, their necks are attacked with a sharp instrument. Because if you've had any kind of trauma training and you're trying to resuscitate somebody...

You know for a fact that it's going to be near impossible in this environment if they sustain those kinds of injuries to bring them back from, you know, bring them back from death, death's doorstep. You can't do it. It's very, very difficult. Not to mention, you know, when an individual has been beaten so severely about the head to the point where the skull is fractured, it's almost indescribable, Dave.

Kristen, who's only two, Dave, is found lying in her bed. She, again, is on her left side. And it's almost too horrible to even put out there. But it's been out there for years. And for our friends, I want everybody to understand that with this baby, she stabbed Dave, I think,

33 times in her chest and in her neck, her hands, her back. And I wondered as I was, you know, trying to, and that's with a knife. That's with a knife. Okay. Because there's an additional 15 injuries that she has that are with this ice pick. Okay. She's got two knife wounds that actually penetrate her heart, Dave. Okay.

Um, and the ice pick wounds are kind of shallow, you know, compared to the knife ones. But this, this little angel, she, she had an awareness because she lifted those tiny little hands to defend herself because she's got injuries on her hands. You know, she's trying to fend this thing off. Based on what you see there, Joe, do you believe Jeffrey McDonald's story of what happened at all?

No, no, not. Yeah, absolutely not. It it kind of goes back to, you know, the old biblical story about Cain and Abel, you know, where, you know, God is actually asking Cain, you know, where's your brother? And at one point, Tom, the scripture reads that, you know, your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground up.

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