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. 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. These victims include Rachad Adra, who was killed and his four-year-old son injured, when a gunman with a high-powered weapon shot the wrong house in Thomastown in October 2015, and Khaled Abouhasna, who was killed in a shooting ambush six months earlier when he was mistaken for a ruthless standover man. Of all places! 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 a. Jeffrey MacDonald had also been at the home at the time, but he suffered only minor injuries compared to what his family endured. In the fall of 1963, they decided to get married and in April of the following year, their daughter Kimberly was born. It sickened me and it enraged me.. MacDonald was ultimately convicted in 1979 for killing his pregnant wife Colette MacDonald and their two young daughters, Kimberley and Kristen. 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. Desperate to save his family, he said he fought back until they stabbed him and beat him unconscious. We even came back at night so we would have the same lighting conditions as the night of the murders. When the initial military hearing was conducted in 1970, no one in his life could be found who had a bad thing to say about him. MacDonald was tried in a civilian court in 1979. Segal took up nearly all the time in the critical period for closing remarks and left only a few minutes for co-counsel Wade Smith, an eloquent native North Carolinian who understood the jury. McGinniss' publisher settled with MacDonald out of court, after the judge called the author a conman. (This story, in its own right, became a famous book about journalistic ethics by Janet Malcolm.). 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 I think that one of the problems MacDonald had was that they expected him to undertake to find these killers, to go on a mission to find them. The military hearing found that the charges against MacDonald were not true. 2015 NC State University. Mr Oueida has been overseas for most of the time since the attack, predominantly in Lebanon and Dubai a haunt for a string of Australian organised crime figures. It appeared to investigators that MacDonald had staged the scene, inspired by the recent Manson Family murders to blame hippies for his crime. He claimed that he had been asleep on the couch when at least, 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, We reconstructed the murders using what McDonald said. Two years into MacDonalds undergraduate studies at Princeton, Stevens became pregnant. So MacDonald was the logical choice. According to her, they wanted to teach MacDonald a lesson and rough up his family the night of the killings. Brian Murtaugh says, Sure, Ill give it to him. This collection is a part of a larger collection that has been divided into more specific collections. The one thing that sticks in my craw above anything else is this: There were lab results. But Im an optimist generally about our system of justice, and I hope that MacDonald gets a break. Since MacDonald was convicted of the murders in 1979, considerable evidence of his innocence has come to light. But for every Khayre, a case most people have heard of with a clear link to the north-west, there are dozens more that barely make a ripple. He was more interested in working with people on hallucinogenic and things like that. I would have said to the jury: they were not there, and neither was I. 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. 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. How I Changed My Mind About the Jeffrey MacDonald Murder Case. 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. Investigators identified at least 240 leads in the casebut the evidence continued to point back to the MacDonald. Tragically, the comparisons to the Sharon Tate killing were striking. 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. Ive had many cases in court. 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. We decided we needed Freddie and Mildred Kassab on our sides, lead investigator Peter Kearns said in a December 1986 lecture on the case, according to the docuseries. Vietnam-era Fayetteville was not sleepy Raleigh in the 1980s. "More senior criminal figures are exploiting the vulnerabilities of younger or less sophisticated offenders," he said. 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. Jeffrey MacDonald, a bright young man with everything in life to look forward to, lost his wife and children to senseless, horrific violence. Judge Fox is also a good man. Such is the power of a good story. It doesnt make sense that this man, with no history of violence, went crazy like that. However, his American dream suddenly became a nightmare in 1970 when his family was found brutally stabbed to death in their home. These were the families police identified in 2011 as causing most of the trouble in the band, which stretches roughly from Coburg North to Campbellfield, then in an arc around to Altona in MacDonald was convicted of the three murders in 1979, nine years after Colette and her children were slain. Although Kassab didnt join the family until Colette was a teenager, he had always been close with his stepdaughter. WS: For me to say that he is innocent would require magic. MacDonald has had mostly good lawyers, though not always the appropriate ones. I thought the world of Judge Dupree. Also last year, Osman, 32, one of the middle brothers, was released from prison. But, they believe, the deterrent effect of jailing them, even if their victim remains tight-lipped, will have an impact. 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. He theorized that diet pills caused MacDonald to fly into a fit of rage. Thinking that he could never reveal it? Marc Smerling thinks he has some idea. Jeffrey MacDonald behind bars in Terminal Island federal penitentiary. In 1978, MacDonalds case went to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, who rejected it. Every time we pursued a lead it just turned us around and directed us back toward Jeffrey MacDonald. But his mother and father-in-law did not want him to do that. WebIn 1971, his father-in-law, Freddy Kassab, became progressively suspicious of MacDonald and sought formal reopening of the case. In Fayetteville, an army town, strong tensions existed between army types like Jeffrey MacDonald on one side of the war, and hippies and protesters on the other. Bettmann/Getty ImagesThe bedroom of Kristen and Kimberly MacDonald, mere hours after they were murdered. 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 The Washington Post in 1984, just as the popular mini-series Fatal Vision, which depicted the crimes, was airing across the country. Back in the 1979 trial, a lawyer named Jerry Leonard represented Helena Stoeckley. WebWadea Kassab was born in Damascus in 1872 to an Orthodox family that had long and deep connections to British and American Protestant missionaries in Damascus and Beirut. Additionally, much of what Morris introduces as new evidence was already including in the trial that convicted MacDonald. Melbourne's north-west has become a hotbed for armed crime. He was given an honorable discharge. 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. It implicates us all. His most significant injury was a puncture wound and deflated lung. 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.. Mildred and Freddy Kassab both died, months apart, in 1994. 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. It begins with Aelyas' grandfather Elyas Kassab, born in 1814, and traces the family through the nineteenth century; particular attention is paid. I thought of devils that lurked in human flesh, like in The Exorcist, another popular based-on-a true-story-book-turned-movie of the period that floated around our house. First responder Kenneth Mica discovered the bodies, with MacDonald laying wounded but alive next to his battered and lifeless wife. 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. WS: They were a very normal-looking mama and daddy. 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. 741 Immigration & Travel. 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. 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. When you accept Picture #1, youre deciding that Jeffrey MacDonald is the Person Who Must Pay. Materials provided by the families of Wadea and Aelyas Kassab. Freddie Kassab and CID investigators returned to the crime scene in 1971 to contrast MacDonalds claims with the evidence and found his narrative implausible. He could get an answer by the end of this year. He was troubled by MacDonalds apparently cavalier attitude about the brutal murders on an appearance of "The Dick Cavett Show. He told authorities that hetried to fight off the attackers but was wounded and eventually collapsed in the hallwaylater regaining consciousness and discovering his family had been killed, according to the new FX docuseries A Wilderness of Error.. Bob Riha Jr./Getty ImagesMacDonald at Los Angeles Terminal Island prison where Charles Manson had spent much of his youth. MacDonald in late 1970 after the Army acquitted him of all charges. 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. 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. His memoir reads as a classic Syrian rags-to-riches story, except for the fact that he lost everything when he speculated in real estate just before the Great Depression. 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. 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. Ive got the patience of Job.. Out of all the evidentiary and procedural twists and turns, I asked Silverglate to name the one that bothered him the most about the MacDonald case. The ONeills befriended him and altered the course of his life. WebIt is reported Ms Kassab entered Syria last year and that her husband, known as Sam, died on the border of Turkey in 2013. His most significant injury was a puncture wound and deflated lung. Enough somethings to fill the long, solitary chapters of a mans life unfolding behind prison walls. In 1920 there were 5 Kassab families living in Pennsylvania. But it wasnt until Kassab revisited the crime scene himself in 1972 that he finally believed that his son-in-law had been the killer. Take a guy like MacDonald. Sometimes that doesnt happen. Use census records and voter lists to see where families with the Kassab surname lived. But he had multiple bruises and puncture wounds, and two stab wounds, including one that collapsed his lung -- a serious injury that left him falling in and out of consciouness. Sadly, the family wouldnt survive the next year. Aelyas followed Wadea to the United States in 1899. 26-year-old Colette MacDonald had been stabbed nearly forty times with an icepick and a knife while pig was scrawled on the headboard of her bed in her own blood. "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. The veneer of the MacDonalds perfect marriage had also began to crack. The now 76-year-old is serving three consecutive life sentences and is currently housed at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland . MacDonald later admitted the claim had been a lie. Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, Collection description written by Linda Jacobs. The irony not lost on police, community members and other underworld figures is that while Osman may be a victim of that cycle, his family have survived from perpetuating it. LP: She said that to her lawyer at the time of the 1979 trial? Most people who go through traumatic things like this, nowhere near as lengthy, almost always end up in divorce, but with us its drawn us closer.. But there was, including wax drippings (MacDonald insisted that one of the intruders carried a candle), fibers, and hairs that did not belong to the household or family members. The walls will tell you what happened if you keep it pristine. He holds dual bachelor's degrees from Pace University and a master's degree from New York University. Walk through the house, walk through the rooms and talk about what we know,investigator Mike Pickering said in the docuseries. 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. The Kassab brothers both raised their families in Chester, where they also practiced dentistry. 959 Census & Voter Lists. Waters rubbished that explanation. MacDonald at Los Angeles Terminal Island prison where Charles Manson had spent much of his youth. Then, meet Christopher Scarver the man who killed cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer. Family members of radio personality Casey Kasem have settled a lawsuit against his widow that alleged her neglect and physical abuse led to his death in 2014. And the physical evidence, the circumstantial evidence, just kept mounting against him and contradicting his story for events from that evening.. I began to see that Joe McGinniss creation of Picture #1 might be just that: a creation. Not only had the word pig been scrawled on the bedroom headboard in his wifes blood but she and her unborn baby were dead. Two members of the Tiba family have been charged in relation to the shooting. Should Trump be allowed to hold office again? 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. Many felt that his acquittal would be a cinch, but much more was to go wrong. The Jeffrey MacDonald murder case is one of the most disturbing in living memory. Now deceased, she remains a pivotal figure in the case. WebWe found 33,440 records for Kassab last name. Every reader contribution, no matter the amount, makes a difference in allowing our newsroom to bring you the stories that matter, at a time when being informed is more important than ever. Kassab said in that moment, as he stood in the preserved crime scene, he realized the man he had once considered a loving partner to his stepdaughter had slaughtered his family and then staged the attack. The chanting blonde, meanwhile, had not been found. WebIn 1971, his father-in-law, Freddy Kassab, became progressively suspicious of MacDonald and sought formal reopening of the case. That was my closing argument. I wouldnt allow myself to believe it, because it made it so much worse that it was he instead of strangers, she later said in an interview, according to the docuseries. 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. But then I felt uneasy. When a terrible crime is committed, society comes together to find someone to blame and to pay for the collective sense of violation. 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. ", Bob Stevenson, Colettes brother, described his stepfathers reaction to the television appearance as visceral and said it had wrenched his guts., Things werent being said right, inflections of the voice, he said. As if they had seen it with their own eyes. In 1905, Wadea married Sara Hajjar, who had been educated at an English boarding school and was teaching at a mission school for Jewish children in Damascus prior to her marriage. Kassabs suspicions deepened after he received a copy of a transcript of the Article 32 hearing and began to pore through the evidence himself. They were hardly as connected as the mob in Manhattan, but they had serious clout. 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. 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. 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