February 17th, 1970 - Episode 1 | Morally Indefensible Podcast

[SFX: Tape deck loading. Play, fade into tape]

Janet Malcolm: It's cold here. Is it cold in your cell too like this?

Jeffrey MacDonald: Yeah. And they won't give us jackets.

Janet Malcolm: They don't?

The voice you’re hearing is a journalist named Janet Malcolm. She’s in a federal prison in California interviewing a man named Jeffrey MacDonald.

Janet Malcolm: That seems unnecessary doesn’t it?

Jeffrey MacDonald: In 1987? I mean this is ridiculous.

Jeff used to be a doctor, a captain in the Green Berets. Now, he’s inmate 131177.

[POST]

Janet’s here to talk about a fellow journalist named Joe McGinniss, an old friend of Jeff’s.

Janet: And you said when you first met him...

Jeff : I liked Joe. We talked about the same things, the New York Knicks, the Yankees and the Mets, football.

Years before, Jeff had asked Joe McGinniss to write a book about him, and in the process, they became close.

Jeff: And at the time, it seemed to me it was unmistakable that we were best friends.

[Prison door slam]

[MUSIC]

[Fade prison, bring up birds chirping, crossfade into tape]

Janet Malcolm also visited Joe McGinniss... on his front porch in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

Janet: It’s awful pretty here. That’s part of your--

Joe: This little house back here is, yeah. Carriage house.

She wanted to talk about the relationship between journalists and their subjects. And specifically… about how Joe had befriended Jeff.

Joe: It was my purpose to spend as much waking time with him as I possibly could. The more time you spend with a subject, the more used to you they get. You become like a friend.

That friendship… didn’t last.

Joe: If someone said to me what is one word that describes Joe McGinniss, I’d say a liar. He is a consummate liar.

[Recorder stops]

[TV Turns on]

Wallace: Reporter Joe McGinniss spent 3 years investigating Jeff MacDonald who granted him total access so that McGinniss might write the definitive book about him. It is called Fatal Vision.

Wallace: He has all of these friends who’d say this is a gentle, caring, giving man.

Joe: That’s all true. I’m not in any way attempting to deny that he’s any of those things.

[MUSIC OUT]

Joe: All I’m saying is that there’s no question that this gentle, caring, giving man also beat and stabbed to death his pregnant wife and his two young daughters.

In Fatal Vision... Joe said that Jeff was a psychopath.

Wallace: Thumbnail sketch of Jeffrey MacDonald.

Joe: Absolutely ruthless… and beyond morality.

And Jeff said Joe’s book was filled with lies...

Jeff: I never physically assaulted anyone in my life, and certainly not my wife and my two children.

...an epic feud began... between a journalist who wrote a true crime bestseller and a subject, who felt betrayed...

Larry King: When you learned of this betrayal...?

Jeff: I was devastated. He was going to my mother and saying, don’t worry when the book comes out this will all be righted. What he did was awful.

This feud drew the attention of Janet Malcolm. Her interviews with Joe and Jeff became a book called The Journalist and the Murderer. And her conclusions were scathing.

Janet (VO recre): Janet (VO recre)Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.

She portrayed Joe McGinniss as a backstabber.

Janet (VO recre): Janet (VO recre)He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse.

That portrayal would follow Joe to his grave.

Reporter: Joe McGinniss died this week leaving behind a dual legacy as both journalistic hero and villain.

[MUSIC OUT]

My name is Marc Smerling. Two years ago, I started making a TV doc series about the MacDonald murders and I wanted to interview Janet Malcolm. We talked on the phone, but she wouldn't go on camera. But I'd read about these tapes she’d made... So I asked her if I could hear them...

[recorder on]

Joe: Where did my relationship with MacDonald go beyond that of author and subject?

She told me she burned these tapes.

Janet: I mean look, do you have any doubts about this yourself? Are you completely convinced in your own mind? That you wouldn’t change it in any way?

Joe: I can’t think of any way that I would change this.

Listening to these tapes now I’m left with so many questions…. Were Janet’s conclusions about Joe McGinniss fair? Did Joe expose a vicious murderer, or did he betray an innocent man? And one question stands above them all...

[recorder off]

Is what Joe McGinniss did... Morally Indefensible?

[SFX Raindrops, thunder]

Richard Tevere : There are things you never forget. I’ve put it in the back of my mind, but it’s something that I would never wish on anybody.

[SFX Raindrops, thunder]

[MUSIC IN]

Richard Tevere: My name is Richard Tevere. I was a military policeman stationed at Fort Bragg the night of February 17th, 1970. I was the first MP to enter the MacDonald home.

[SFX RAIN]

Richard Tevere: It was an ugly night, cold, there was a torrential downpour and it was raining very heavily. Had been raining all evening. And we were in a jeep that did not have a great heater. Around the back of one of the shopping center areas, there was a tremendous heater and it would throw off exhaust that was very warm. So, we would sit behind the heater with our doors open and just relax.

Richard Tevere: That’s when we got the call.

[POLICE CHATTER]

Richard Tevere: We were asked to go to Castle Drive. They believed there was a domestic disturbance at that location.

Ken Mica: My name is Ken Mica. I was an MP at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. One of the first MPs at 544 Castle Drive.

Ken Mica: It was about 340 in the morning. We get to the call and everybody was banging on the front door. There was no answer. Tevere was already there.

Richard Tevere: I went around the back of the house. The screen door was closed but the inside door was ajar, you know. And I took one step into what was I guess the bedroom. There was blood on the wall. There was blood on the ceiling – drops of blood. I shined the light, I saw Colette MacDonald lying on the ground covered with blood and a male lying next to her who I didn’t know at the time was Jeffrey MacDonald. I saw them, I was startled and I ran back out of the house.

Ken Mica: I started going around the side of the house and I met Tevere. And he’s yelling to get an ambulance ASAP.

Richard Tevere: We went back around the house. I pulled out my weapon and I put a round in the chamber not knowing if there was somebody still in the house.

Ken Mica: At first, I thought it was a homicide-suicide. But then Jeff MacDonald started to move.

Richard Tevere: I went down the hall. And I looked into the first smaller bedroom where one of his daughters was and I could see that she was lifeless, she wasn’t moving and there was a lot of blood.

Richard Tevere: And then I went into the second bedroom and I saw again a young, very young girl, lifeless, and there was blood dripping down the side of the bed, and there was a puddle of blood on the floor.

Richard Tevere: I came back to where Jeff MacDonald was. He had been stabbed and Ken Mica was kneeling over him.

Ken Mica: I was trying to keep him calm until we could get medical.

Richard Tevere: Jeff started saying, “Hippies came into the house and they were stating, 'Acid is groovy. Kill the pigs’. On the headboard sideways, someone had dipped their finger in blood and written pig.

Ken Mica: I said, “Who did this?” He starts describing, he says a black man…(overlapping)

Jeff (VO): A Black man and a woman with a floppy hat.

Ken Mica: I had just seen a woman standing on the corner two blocks away.”

[MUSIC OUT]

[MUSIC IN]

[SFX radio on, tuning, lands on]

Jeff Thompson (radio) : Civilian authorities have joined military police in a community-wide search for young people described as hippies. Including a woman who was described as having long, blonde hair….

Jeff Thompson: My name is Jeff Thompson, I was news director of WFNC Radio.

[SFX Rain]

Jeff Thompson: On the morning of February 17th, I immediately found my way to Castle Drive. A woman and two children were found dead. It was a big story.

Walter Cronkite: On the army post of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, some bizarre murders took place last night, reminiscent of the Sharon Tate case.

Jeff Thompson: It came six months after the Tate-LaBianca murders in California. The Manson murders.

Manson Newsclip: In a scene reminiscent of a weird religious rite, five persons were found dead at the home of Ms. Tate and her husband.

Jeff Thompson: Similar situation. A pregnant woman, killed by a gang of hippies. Horrendous murders, you know stabbings and blood everywhere.

Manson Newsclip : The word pig had been scrawled in blood on the door of the Belle Aire mansion.

Jeff Thompson : Made international news. As did MacDonald.

Walter Cronkite: MacDonald told military police the murderers were three men and a woman who invaded his family quarters shouting acid is great, kill the pigs.

Jeff Thompson : We kept it alive on the radio for 26 consecutive days.

Thompson (Radio): Authorities say no suspects have been identified in the murders of Jeffrey MacDonald’s family, but they continue to search for a band of hippies.

Jeff Thompson: MacDonald had obviously been taken to the hospital, and he was a very prominent doctor, green beret. Couldn’t imagine that he could have done it. But we were all sort of amazed that he was the only one who would have survived. Why was he still alive, and the family murdered the way it was. It didn’t make sense.

Jeff Thompson: It all seemed to fall on Captain MacDonald...

[MUSIC OUT]

BREAK ONE

[MUSIC IN]

A few months after the murders of his pregnant wife and two young daughters on Fort Bragg, the Army charged Captain MacDonald with the crime.

Ken Mica: I was coming into the barracks and Tevere yells out the window that they’re locking MacDonald up. I go really?

Ken Mica was one of the first MPs to enter the house the night of the murders, so the army’s lead prosecutor wanted to talk to him.

Ken Mica : You sat sort of in the middle of the room and they just asked you questions. Background information and what you were doing that night.

And that’s when Mica told the prosecutor something he didn’t want to hear

Ken Mica: I bring the girl up and they’re like “What girl?” I said the girl I saw when I was responding. “The girl who was standing on the corner”.

On his way to the crime scene, Mica had seen a woman standing off the side of the road… wearing a floppy hat. She matched the description Jeffrey MacDonald had given of one of his attackers.

Ken Mica: He goes, “I don’t know anything about a girl. Just keep it quiet because I can’t explain it and I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

During an investigative hearing to examine the evidence against Jeffrey MacDonald... Mica testified for the prosecution… He didn’t mention the girl. But afterwards, it bothered him

Ken Mica: At least a half a dozen people know that I saw this woman. Somebody’s gonna say something, it’s gonna be brought out. Whether she did it she didn’t do it it’s just not right they should know about it.

That’s when Mica decided to testify for the defense.

Ken Mica: As we approach the intersection I see a woman standing on the corner.

Lawyer (VO): And what did that woman look like?

Ken Mica: Raincoat, boots, and a rain hat.

Ken Mica: So, that didn’t make the prosecution too happy, because it made them look like they were trying to suppress evidence.

[MUSIC]

Cronkite: The army today cleared Captain Jeffrey MacDonald, a green beret physician, of charges that he murdered his wife and two young daughters nine months ago in their Fort Bragg, North Carolina apartment.

[MUSIC OUT]

Jeff was set free.

Dick Cavett: Oh dear, Jeffrey MacDonald. I’ve thought about it a hundred times since it happened.

This is Dick Cavett. In the '70s, he was the king of late night TV. If you wanted to grab national attention, The Dick Cavett Show was your best shot. By the end of 1970, investigators had given up on looking for the hippy killers… and Jeff went on The Cavett Show to push the government to reopen the case.

[Music Fanfare]

Announcer: The Dick Cavett Show!

[Music to muffled, backstage]

Dick Cavett: I remember standing face to face with him as I came down from upstairs, to the dressing room, to go on in the next forty seconds so we said hello.

Dick Cavett: A lady on my staff who had spent the day with him was facing me. And over his shoulder, I saw, [mouthing] “I think he did it.”

Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, Dick Cavett!

Dick Cavett: By the time I’d done the monologue, I had kind of forgotten to worry about this segment. And then brought him out...

Dick Cavett: It’s a baffling story the more you begin to look into it and read about it. Incredible bungling on the army’s part seems quite likely in this case. It’s just a nightmare that this man lived through it, Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald.

[MUSIC IN]

Dick Cavett: When he came out, he didn’t seem like a grisly murderer. He’s moviestar good looking. I kept thinking, this poor guy.

Dick Cavett: I call you Dr. MacDonald now don’t I?

Jeff: That’s right. It’s ex-captain and doctor.

Dick Cavett: I hope this is not too painful for you. Could you talk about what happened on that night last February?

Jeff: Well, I can skim through it briefly. To get deep into it, it does produce a lot of emotion on my part.

Jeff: My wife came home and we had a before bedtime drink, really, and watched the beginning of a late-night talk show. My wife went to bed. She was about four and a half months pregnant, and I went to sleep on the couch.

Jeff: I was awakened by my wife screaming. And as I sat up, there were some people in the room with me. And they immediately attacked me and I became unconscious.

Jeff: When I awoke the house was quiet and the backdoor was open, and uh…

Dick Cavett: This guy saw his wife and his two little children hacked and stabbed to pieces. My impression at the time was he’s doing an awfully manful job about being able to not weep and have to be taken off the stage at the memory of all of this.

Jeff: It still, at times, seems like a dream. Nightmare is a very mild term really for that night.

[MUSIC OUT]

[SFX]

Dick Cavett: During a commercial break, I would look at him and think, “This poor guy, God, he really has been through holy hell.” And then we would come back and he was briskly talking again.

Jeff: There were people in the army who wanted a court-martial regardless of any evidence.

Dick Cavett: Could that just be because they have to find somebody?

Jeff: Yes, that was a large part of it, I think. They realized that they had to do something.

Dick Cavett: Where are these investigators now who did the original –?

Jeff: Well, most of them have been transferred. It's the army way of handling things. If someone really fouls up, you either give them a medal or you transfer them. [Laughter]

Dick Cavett: He seemed a bit inappropriate, in his manner. I watched him smile, almost giggle a couple of times.

Dick Cavett: This must have cost you a fortune–

Jeff: Right. Well, aside from my family and whatnot somewhere in excess of $30,000.

Dick Cavett: There he is now, sort of checking out the chicks in the front row. I thought I must be wrong.

Dick Cavett: Do people look at you and say, 'How do we know he didn't do it?'

Jeff: Well, yes. I don't think I'm being paranoid when I say that there is certainly a flavor of suspicion in a lot of people's minds.

Dick Cavett: I started to think, “Gosh, it's possible that he is guilty and it's possible that he’s not. And I wonder which one it is.”

Dick Cavett: I'd like to know what you want to come out of this, what's gonna happen next because it's far from closed.

Jeff: Congress has to at least inquire into things.

Dick Cavett: Not to mention the fact that the perpetrators of the crime are still free.

Jeff: Absolutely. There are at least four people running around who have murdered three people.

Dick Cavett: What a strange, strange enigma Jeffrey is.

Dick Cavett: It will be fascinating to see what happens. Good luck to you after this brief message we’ll be right back.

[Applause and fade audio until it sounds like it’s coming out of a TV]

[SFX Channel change static]

After that, the name 'Jeffrey MacDonald’ was everywhere. And Jeff didn’t shy away from the spotlight.

[Channels changing all MacDonald clips]

[MUSIC IN]

Around the same time, a little further down the dial, another young man was getting his first taste of fame. At just 26, Joe McGinniss became the youngest living writer to make the New York Times bestsellers list.

FROST: Now will you welcome the author of a new book that’s causing a great deal of a stir at the moment called, The Selling of the President, 1968. Would you welcome Mr. Joe McGinniss.

[Applause]

Here’s Joe on the David Frost show.

FROST: The book has caused a great deal of comment, Joe. The thing that must still stagger you is how you came to have all the access you did.

Joe: Well it was kind of a stroke of good luck.

Joe had befriended the people running Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign. And by doing that, he got an inside look at how Nixon won the presidency... He kept his head down and his ears and eyes open.

NIXON: I have received a very gracious message for winning the election...

The Selling Of the President 1968 was published shortly after Nixon was elected. It showed how Madison Avenue ad man hired by Nixon’s campaign, turned Nixon into a product. According to Joe, they sold Nixon to the American public like a pack of cigarettes.

Joe: We never got a chance to vote for or against the man, but only for the image.

Joe’s first book embarrassed the new president.

Joe: Mr. Nixon said he might have to go to the FBI to find out how I got my access.

[MUSIC OUT]

And conservative talk show host William F. Buckley had a problem with how Joe got his story.

BUCKLEY: It is the fruit of a great deception, that is to say one cannot suppose that competent people would have confided to Mr. McGinniss if they had known that he intended to write such a book as he has written.

Joe never told Nixon’s advisors that his book would cast them in a negative light. So, when it came out, they felt betrayed. Readers loved it, though. The Selling Of the President became a smash hit.

[party]

Doors began opening for Joe. Money was coming in. And TV appearances like this were making Joe a celebrity. There was excitement, and travel... and parties.

[SFX cork pop/party ambi]

NANCY: Joe and I met in January of 1970.

This is Nancy Doherty, Joe’s widow.

NANCY: I met him in the Warwick Hotel. I was working for Simon & Schuster, which published “The Selling of the President,” Joe’s book. And our eyes met across the crowded room and it was just one of those things.

NANCY: He was incredibly tall and young and handsome. And it was just one of those magical moments. We both felt an instant attraction to each other.

[MUSIC AND AMBI OUT]

[SFX NY soundscape]

[MUSIC IN]

On their first date, Joe took Nancy to a writer’s hangout in Greenwich Village.

NANCY: He was kind of a star at that point. People would actually recognize him, which was amazing for a writer. So, that was kind of fun. One of the things we had in common was a great sense of humor. We laughed all the time. We just had a delightful time together. He was just sort of the perfect storm for me.

NANCY: We fell in love.

Many years later, Joe McGinniss would tell Janet Malcolm about the night he met Nancy. February 16th, 1970.

Joe: The first night that Nancy and I ever spent together, was the night of the murders.

[SFX TV ON]

Cronkite (TV set SD): Some bizarre murders took place last night.

Joe: I remember seeing the headlines. You know an army officer’s wife and family.

Cronkite: The wife and two young daughters of Captain Jeffrey MacDonald were stabbed to death.

Joe: LSD. You know, hippies.

Cronkite: Acid is great. Kill the pigs.

[SFX TV OFF]

Joe: And paid no more attention to it. Had no idea what had ever happened. I forgot completely about Jeffrey MacDonald.

Nine years would pass before Joe would hear Jeffrey MacDonald’s name again.