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Are you saying the blood typing was wrong? That's what a serologist would be an expert in. As far as I know, no one disputed the blood typing.
Next is the blood splatter evidence, no need for a blood splatter expert because there wasn't any in dispute. But, there was contact/transfer evidence which Strombaugh testified about. And yes, he was qualified as an expert. Segal questioned him extensively about it and Strombuagh's conclusions were well explained. Yes, he was hair and fiber expert which is why they used him to testify when the blood was transferred to the pajama top, before or after tearing. It wasn't "so-called' evidence, the blood was there for all to see.
There were very real doubts about whether the blood typing was wrong and the MacDonald defense were never allowed by Judge Dupree to retest the blood. Dr. Thornton has said publicly that he had heard of errors made by the Army CID in previous cases of blood typing. Segal had a very heated unseemly wrangle in the courtroom asking the very inexperienced at the time lab technician Craig Chamberlain if he had ever made any mistakes. My point is that the blood does not prove anything anyway and it was presented to the court by Stombaugh of the FBI who was a hair and fiber man, and there was forensic fraud in the case by the FBI lab. The matter is discussed at this website:
A lab was able to get DNA testing from the roots of hair, so Mumma is optimistic that other evidence can be tested if the judge agreed. The center has asked that 40 items be tested, but hundreds of bloodstains were collected, along with the weapons, the eyeglasses the children wore and pieces of the gloves used to write the word “pig.”
In 1979, only blood typing existed, not DNA testing. Jeffrey, Colette and their daughters all had different blood types, so prosecutors could recreate which people were in which rooms together. But, Mumma asks, what if the blood types belonged to people outside the MacDonald home?
“There’s evidence that I think would be worth testing to determine if there’s DNA evidence not tied to family members — or that does,” she said. “The DNA testing may completely confirm the government’s theory.”
There were very real doubts about whether the blood typing was wrong and the MacDonald defense were never allowed by Judge Dupree to retest the blood. Dr. Thornton has said publicly that he had heard of errors made by the Army CID in previous cases of blood typing. Segal had a very heated unseemly wrangle in the courtroom asking the very inexperienced at the time lab technician Craig Chamberlain if he had ever made any mistakes. My point is that the blood does not prove anything anyway and it was presented to the court by Stombaugh of the FBI who was a hair and fiber man, and there was forensic fraud in the case by the FBI lab. The matter is discussed at this website:
The blood typing could have been disputed and they chose not to. Saying there were 'real' concerns and the lab had made mistakes means nothing at this point.
How is Strombaugh an issue for the defense? The prosecution chose him to present the evidence because the blood was on the fibers. By your reasoning, the defense should have been able to poke 48 holes (pun intended) in his testimony. If he was not an expert then the defense's expert could have exposed him. There was just nothing he testified to that the defense could counter in court. If I'm a defense attorney and the prosecution chose a fiber expert to testify on blood I'd be pretty happy. It opens the door to trip him up and build some doubt.
Maybe there was a time when MacDonald could have claimed inadequate counsel but that ship sailed.
Maybe there was a time when MacDonald could have claimed inadequate counsel but that ship sailed.
Judge Dupree just replied to MacDonald's complaints about his legal representation that he thought Segal was an astute lawyer. It's true that Judge Dupree once described Segal as the only lawyer he knew who would take three days to litigate an uncontested divorce case. Segal's closing speech at the Macdonald trial, which was supposed to sway the jury, has been described as one of the worst in legal history.
The fact is that no defense lawyer could have acquitted the innocent MacDonald at the 1979 trial, or at the MacDonald appeals. The foreman of the jury had been overheard by about three or four different witnesses previous to the trial. There are affidavits on pain of perjury to back that up that the foreman of the jury was going to convict the hell out of MacDonald. That's contempt of court. The judges were in bed with the prosecution. That's corrupt bias. MacDonald was not being supported by the court of public opinion or the establishment media. They don't concentrate on the evidence. CBS think Burke did it in the JonBenet Ramsey case! Jeff MacDonald did not get a fair trial, or any fair appeals.
A new documentary reopens the Jeffrey MacDonald murders.
Fifty years after his wife and two young daughters were brutally murdered, and 41 after he was convicted of the crime, the case of former Army surgeon Jeffrey R. MacDonald continues to fascinate. Were the Fort Bragg, N.C., murders, as MacDonald has long contended, committed by a group of drug-crazed hippies chanting, “Acid is groovy, kill the pigs?” Or were they, as the prosecution successfully argued, actually the work of MacDonald, who murdered his family in a psychotic rage?
The case inspired Joe McGinniss’ nonfiction bestseller “Fatal Vision,” published in 1983, as well as a hugely successful 1984 TV miniseries based on the book — not to mention Janet Malcolm’s famed 1990 reconsideration “The Journalist and the Murderer.” Now it’s the subject of the FX series “A Wilderness of Error,” based on the book of the same name by Oscar-winning documentary director Errol Morris (“The Fog of War”), who has questioned MacDonald’s guilt and the prosecution’s handling of the case.
After finishing the 5 part series (on Hulu/FX currently) I felt my longstanding gut instincts about the case were vindicated in Errol Morris' final sumation and the postscript, which clearly identifies McDonald as the DNA source of the hair samples retrieved from Colleen's fist.
This was a bit of a surprise for me, and anyone else that went into this thinking that Morris was going to spring another "miscarriage of justice" tale here, similiar to The Thin Blue Line which got an innocent guy off of Texas' death row. Granted, Morris IS NOT the director of this documentary and has been interviewed possibly expressing seller's remorse after the rights to his much earlier book were purchased.
For anyone interested in the post murder conviction backstory, Janet Malcolm's book, the "journalistic ethics" aspect of the case and the McGiness/McDonald relationship, I can highly recommend the companion podcast "Morally Indefensible" hosted by the series' director Marc Smerling.
The LA Times has a pretty good sumary of the pertinent issues raised by the documentary: https://www.latimes.com/entertainmen...macdonald-hulu
Last edited by gtoman67z; 10-04-2020 at 11:10 AM..
A new documentary reopens the Jeffrey MacDonald murders.
Fifty years after his wife and two young daughters were brutally murdered, and 41 after he was convicted of the crime, the case of former Army surgeon Jeffrey R. MacDonald continues to fascinate. Were the Fort Bragg, N.C., murders, as MacDonald has long contended, committed by a group of drug-crazed hippies chanting, “Acid is groovy, kill the pigs?” Or were they, as the prosecution successfully argued, actually the work of MacDonald, who murdered his family in a psychotic rage?
The case inspired Joe McGinniss’ nonfiction bestseller “Fatal Vision,” published in 1983, as well as a hugely successful 1984 TV miniseries based on the book — not to mention Janet Malcolm’s famed 1990 reconsideration “The Journalist and the Murderer.” Now it’s the subject of the FX series “A Wilderness of Error,” based on the book of the same name by Oscar-winning documentary director Errol Morris (“The Fog of War”), who has questioned MacDonald’s guilt and the prosecution’s handling of the case.
Thanks for the info. I remember watching Fatal Vision as a 10 year old in 1984. I think it was the beginning of my interest in True Crime. RIP to Judith Barsi who played one of the MacDonald children in this and was murdered by her father at 10 years old in 1988.
Definitely gonna catch this on Hulu!
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I think it was the beginning of my interest in True Crime. RIP to Judith Barsi who played one of the MacDonald children in this and was murdered by her father at 10 years old in 1988.
