Fatal Vision (52 page)

"Anyone who would listen.
New York Times, Newsweek,
magazines, radio, whoever he could talk to. And it was all in regards I was the greatest guy that had ever lived, the Army was absolutely hosing me, giving me a bad deal."

"You didn't disagree with that, did you?"

"No. That in fact is what happened."

"All right. Go ahead."

"What I was leading up to was there was a—really, a sense of uneasiness. Freddy became a media freak, if you want me to be honest. And he started talking to me frequently and writing to me frequently and it was always in reference to when we got our private investigation going.

"So then I said—well, I told him, 'Well, I've been in some bars, and you know, I've got some leads.' Critical mistake in my life, telling him that I got some leads. That started it. And then it was incessant. 'What do you have? Who have you found?'

"And I'd lost my family and I'd been through the hearing, I'd been wrongfully accused. Colonel Rock's statement at the end of a five-month grand jury is: the charges are not true. He didn't say there was a lack of evidence. He said the charges are not true. Right? So I'm trying to get out of the Army. I'm trying to figure out what's going to happen. And what do I do? Do I drift? Do I get into my residency? Do I spend the rest of my life prowling around looking for these people? And Freddy's hammering away, you know, about this investigation that we're going to—and then the authors started calling. 'When are we going to do a book on this?' i can hook you up with a great publisher in New York.' Lawyers from Long Island say, i have a good friend who is a writer.' And it became this unbelievable public thing. Day and night phone calls. Not day and night literally, but frequent communications.

"So I sat down and talked to my lawyers and said, 'What do I do?' And they said, 'Do formal things. Do what you can. You're a physician. Go to Washington.'

"So when I got out of the Army I went to Washington. Allard Lowenstein takes me around and introduced me to Sam Ervin. Can you imagine going to a cocktail party and talking about a homicide? Congressmen and lawyers advised me to go on TV talk shows. So I got on the TV talk show. I got sick to my stomach. After that I said I wasn't going to do it anymore. They didn't have a right.

"Meanwhile, Freddy's driving me crazy. 'What have you found out?' So I told him I'd found other people. So he asked me—to make a long story short, I implied that I killed the person. Absolute insanity. So his wife wants to know the details. Did they scream? Were they in agony?"

"What did you say?"

"I told him, i can't talk about it.' So I left for California. What the hell was I supposed to do? But I still played along with this stupid game with Freddy.

"Freddy was an ex-intelligence officer in the Canadian secret service, or so he says, and he lives this day and night. He was in bars all through World War II listening to secret conversations. He was in D-Day. He was on the battleship on it. He was everything at all times. So I played this game. And finally I gave it up and wrote a ten-page, fifteen-page letter, and I said, 'Freddy, I didn't do it. I didn't do this.' "

"When did you write this letter?"

"I don't know. When I got to California. It was crazy."

"How long did you play the game?"

"I don't know. Months, verbally, with him. It was always the one incident. It was always the same thing. Mildred wanted to hear the details. Did they scream? Were they in agony?"

"Mildred is Colette's mother?"

"So-called mother. She's been bizarre for a long time. So
I
made this tremendous mistake, this fantastic error. I tried to be a doctor. I tried to rebuild my life. And I moved away. That's my three crimes. I was keeping Freddy happy. He's crazy. He's— this is absolute insanity. The man is a fanatic. He's an alcoholic fanatic. He has sat in that house and reread every single thing on this case for four years. That's a bizarre reaction to a tragedy. They haven't seen a friend. Friends come over to their house and try to take them out to dinner and they slam the door in their face. The guy is a fanatic."

"What was your purpose," Woerheide asked, "in making the statement in a letter dated November 9, 1971—that's approximately a year later—that you had made four trips to North Carolina and Florida in the preceding three months and that you were going to continue and that you had broken a hand on the last trip?"

"That was all part of this. I didn't have a broken hand."

"And it cost you two thousand dollars?"

"I was telling Freddy this great detective story. That I was doing all this work on the case because that's what he said he was doing. This is really just continuing that stupid game until I got up enough nerve finally to write him a letter and tell him the truth."

"Well, why all this explicit detail and color, like the broken hand? Were you implying you broke your hand slapping somebody?"

"I suppose. You know, Mr. Woerheide, my actions during that period of time—I apologize for them. Jesus, that doesn't mean I murdered my wife and kids. It was stupid. I've regretted it every single day since I wrote the letter to Freddy. I regretted it the day I started it."

"You talked in the letter about writing a book. At that time were you involved in the writing of a book?"

"It's never been written. There were a lot of interviews with authors and publishers. All these supposedly helpful friends of mine wanted me to write a book. I didn't want to write a book. So you keep putting them off, you know? Several people wrote beginning chapters, like, and tried to get front money. When it became apparent that I was going to have to sit down with a person for a period of months and go over the whole thing and sort of live with an author, I said screw it. I'm not going to do it. I was trying to rebuild a life. And that's when I decided I've got to clear this up. So I wrote Freddy a letter and I said: 'Freddy, what I told you in the past is not true.' "

Woerheide resumed his reading of the letter that MacDonald had written to Freddy Kassab. "In the next paragraph you say, The one difference between you and I is that I don't think that justice will bring back my family. I want revenge. Preferably brutal revenge, and don't care about justice any more. There is no justice, in case you haven't noticed. You act as though you were on a noble cause. I think the cause is ugly, brutal, but necessary. I will do it. I have done some. One fourth or fifth of it.' Now let's talk about that statement."

"What I was trying to tell Freddy is that he was on a soapbox all the time. He made it sound like this was some sort of glorious thing to do. He didn't understand. I never heard Freddy and Mildred say, i want Colette back.' Never! They said they wanted to see someone hurt. What the hell does that do?"

Woerheide then read from a copy of the letter that MacDonald had written to Mildred Kassab in March of 1973 after his angry telephone conversation with her husband.

"Is this the letter you were referring to when you said you'd sent it to Freddy?"

"No."

Woerheide then read the paragraph in which MacDonald had admitted that some of things he had told Kassab were not 100 percent true.

"Does that refresh your recollection as to whether or not this is the letter you are referring to?"

"I thought I addressed it to Freddy and Mildred, and, I believe, Colette's Aunt Helen. I'm sure I addressed it to all three. Helen was living with them."

Woerheide then read the portion of the letter in which MacDonald had said he'd never had an affair but that he had seen, dated, or slept with a "very rare" girl other than Colette.

"That's true. That's what I said to her." "All right. Now why were you saying that at this time in this letter?"

"There had been a phone call from Freddy. He had called me up. He was drunk. It was the middle of the night and he was ranting and raving that he had—maybe I'm exaggerating, okay, but I recollected him as saying that he had just come from Fort Bragg and he had fifteen affidavits that the MPs were supplying me with girls while I was locked up in my BOQ room. So I said, 'Freddy, that's the most ludicrous comment I've ever heard in my life. It's obscene, perverse, and it's incredible.' He said—I don't know. He said he had sworn affidavits from fifteen girls in Fayetteville that the MPs or the CID or someone was supplying me with females while I was locked in my BOQ. I said, 'Freddy, you're crazy.' "

"Did you have any females in your BOQ?"

"After I was released from custody, sure."

"While you were in custody?"

"While I was in custody? Females in my BOQ room?" "Yes."

"You mean other than friends and relatives?"

"I mean, was there a girl who would come in and have sexual relationships with you during the period that you were in custody in your BOQ?"

"No. Afterwards."

"During this time period there was no such girl?"

"There was a girl that used to—I used to sit outside with the MP guard and do some reading outside and she was a clerk or something, and it started out she walked by and she said, 'Hi! Aren't you Captain MacDonald?' And I'm standing there with an MP guard behind me, so I said, 'Yes, I'm Captain MacDonald.' And it started out—then like a month later she'd come by and give me a tuna fish sandwich while I'm sitting out there. And after—I dated her after I—you know, I took her out on a double date with one of my escort officers, as a matter of fact."

"While you were in the BOQ under escort and guard?"

"No. One of my escort officers who became sort of a friend after I was released from custody. She got another girl and we went on a double date. We went to a movie and had dinner or something."

"What was his name?"

"I don't know."

"What was the girl's name?"

"I don't know."

"You don't remember her name?" "No."

"Does the name Bonnie Wood mean anything to you?"

"Bonnie Wood, right."

"How frequently did you see her?"

"I probably dated her several times after—before I left, before December."

"Arid you say Freddy purported to have affidavits from fifteen girls?"

"That's the sense of the conversation. Fifteen." "You say that is completely erroneous?" "Erroneous?"

"There were not fifteen girls? Will you say there were no girls?"

"You mean in regard to having sexual relations in my BOQ room while I'm under guard with an MP outside the door?" "Yes."

"Yes, I would say that is erroneous." (It was, in fact, not erroneous at all, as the CID's reinvestigation had revealed.)

As the week progressed, Woerheide asked MacDonald to try to recall the names of anyone to whom, in the first days following the murders, he might have given any account, however fragmentary, of the events of the early hours of February 17. Eventually, MacDonald mentioned his attorneys, saying one of his military lawyers "gave me a yellow legal pad and told me to write down whatever I remembered whenever I remembered it. 'If you wake up in the middle of the night and remember something, write it down.' And this went on. This went on for a month."

"Do you remember how long this statement was, or this compilation of data, this narrative?" "No."

"Have you seen that statement lately?"

"I've seen it. I haven't read it."

"Can you tell me who has possession and control of it?"

"My attorneys."

"Do you know of any reasons why that should not be shown or made available to the grand jury? Is there anything in there that you think might be harmful or detrimental to yourself?"

"I doubt it. It would reflect severely upon the CID.'''

"1 am going to request that you make available to us these notes that you compiled."

"With all the irrelevancies and meaningless comments?"

"Yes."

"As I understand it, that's an attorney-client product."

"It is privileged," Woerheide agreed, "and you are at liberty to refuse to make it available."

"The statement itself has nothing in it except what I recollect."

"I'm telling you that it is a privileged communication to your counsel. You can, if you wish, waive the privilege and make this information available to the grand jury."