Between the Supreme Court's denial of review and the trial date, MacDonald arranged with McGinniss to interview him, attend the trial, and write a book about the case.īut McGinniss later became convinced that MacDonald was guilty of murdering his family. In June 1979, MacDonald had hired McGinniss to write a book about MacDonald's innocence. Afterwards, MacDonald raised further appeals, one of which set him free on bail for about 15 months before yet another reversal by the Supreme Court in March 1982. MacDonald was indicted for all three murders in January 1975, and after two rounds of appeals to Appeal and Supreme Courts, went to trial on July 16, 1979.Īfter a six-week criminal trial, MacDonald was convicted of second-degree murder of his wife and older daughter and of first-degree murder of his younger daughter on Augand was immediately sentenced to three consecutive life terms (equivalent to life imprisonment). In July 1974, a Federal judge acted on a citizen's criminal complaint by Kassab and others, by putting the case before a grand jury. In 1971, his father-in-law, Freddy Kassab, became progressively suspicious of MacDonald and sought formal reopening of the case. MacDonald told Army investigators that they had been attacked by multiple assailants the details were reminiscent of the sensational Tate-LaBianca murders of the preceding year.Īfter several months of investigation, Army lawyers charged MacDonald with the three murders, leading to a three-months-plus adversarial hearing that recommended he not be prosecuted. In the early morning hours of February 17, 1970, at their home on Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Green Beret Captain Jeffrey MacDonald, M.D., was injured, and his pregnant wife and two young daughters were murdered. The book and its conclusions were challenged by several subsequent publications.
The book led to MacDonald suing McGinniss, a case that was settled out of court. The book sold well, and gave rise to a miniseries of the same name on NBC the next year.
McGinniss was hired by MacDonald, prior to the start of the criminal trial, but he later became convinced that MacDonald was guilty, and the book supported MacDonald's conviction. In 1979, MacDonald was convicted of all three murders and sentenced to life in prison. and the Februmurders of his wife and their two children at their home on Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The controversy over Fatal Vision, journalist and author Joe McGinniss's best-selling 1983 true crime book, is a decades-long dispute spanning several court cases and discussed in several other published works.įatal Vision focuses on Captain Jeffrey R.
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