Fatal Vision (65 page)

"The only other thing that got him upset was the way that people ate. Sloppy eaters—he always thought that was repulsive. That was the only time I can remember seeing him being a very heavy-type parent person. He was very judgmental when somebody ate sloppily."

"Did you know Penny Wells?"

"I never had much contact with Penny because I thought, compared to Colette, she was a ding-dong."

"Was there any, let's say, rivalry between Colette and Penny Wells as far as Jeff was concerned?"

"I
don't think so, because I think Colette's opinion of Penny was comparable to mine: that she wasn't a serious contender for anything except maybe Playgirl of the Year."

"After February 17th, did the thought ever enter your mind that Jeff might have killed Colette?"

"No. Whe
n I found out that someone else
had a suspicion,
I
was shocked. I was really shocked. But then I began to process it and think, well, is it possible? For my own sanity I had to know.
I
had to check out that possibility. And I thought about it, and the only conclusion I could come to was that you'd have to be crazy to stab someone thirty-seven times. And he wasn't crazy.
I
don't think there was anything in his nature that could justify destroying people like that."

"Do you think he's capable of an act of violence?"

"Well, the CID asked me that and I said, 'He's going to Vietnam, and if you're going to Vietnam, you have to accept the consequence that you could kill somebody. So in that sense, yes, because he was a Green Beret, but when you say violence, like, you know, he wasn't the type of person who had angry outbursts."

"When he went into the service, why did he opt for Special Forces?"

"Well, because of the adventure and to be the greatest. You know, to be the best. It was like when my brother Jay went. My father said, 'If you're going to do it, be the best. Be a Marine.' So Jay became a Marine and then realized that he wasn't exactly Marine on the inside.

"But, you know, it was stressed to be the best. It was stressed to achieve. And there was a stress within yourself. You know, you'd feel better—that you were half dead if you didn't achieve."

"Do you remember seeing him on the Dick Cavett show?"

"Yes. He called up and said make sure to watch and to call some people in the area and tell them to watch because he was going to be on. And I watched, and personally I don't agree with mass presentations of something. I don't like people who talk about tragedy in front of millions of viewers. I don't agree with that.

"But I also knew at that time that he was not a person that everyone would love to invite to a cocktail party—because people didn't know. I mean his case was dropped because of insufficient evidence, which was saying that this guy might have killed his family. And he's walking around the streets of New York as the guy who might have killed his family, and while I felt that it was inappropriate in regards to the feelings, you know, the horrible tragedy, the fact was that there was so much anger, too.

There was so much helplessness. What could we do? How were we going to get some action? How were we going to get people to actually follow leads?

"So when I talked to him afterwards about it, he said it was important that he do it, so people who didn't know could hear it from his side. They could hear from his point of view that he was okay, he was a person, he wasn't a monster. He felt this was a way to get rid of this leprosy he was walking around with— people not knowing whether to shake his hand or to walk away."

"Do you remember him saying anything about conducting an investigation on his own?"

"I wanted to get private investigators, and he said we'd get milked dry. He said the FBI were the best investigators in the world. Why should we hire some rinky-dink private eye when the FBI had all the information."

"Did he tell you about how he and some of his friends were conducting their own investigation of the bars and hippie hangouts in Fayetteville?"

"I just remember—now I wasn't, like, recording things in a very systematic way. There was something about a girl that had a candle and went into a bar in downtown Fayetteville with three guys and said, 'Acid is groovy, kill the pigs.' But I—I've never—I just felt it would be kind of crass on my part, you know, to ask him about things like that."

"And he never told you he had found one of the intruders?"

"We haven't discussed anything since that period."

Jeffrey MacDonald's sister was then asked if there was any additional information she had that she thought might be helpful to the grand jury.

"The only thing I have," she said, "is an opinion. And my opinion is that he's not capable of that type of violence. He's a healer. He chose to heal, and he is very aware of pain and the fact that people do live in pain. His intention in living is to help, to heal. And I don't think he lets his ego get in the way too often.

"I think when his ego, say, would get in the way it would be like in sports or something. To me anything competitive is a form of violence. So if you want me to say there's violence— maybe competition. But as far as being a striker or a person who had to go out and punch the world, you know, have this hatred—I really can't see it. —

"I just think there are a lot of victims involved here. There were three lovely people who were victims, and I feel that my brother, my mother, and Mildred and Freddy Kassab are victims.

And then there are peripheral victims like Jay and myself, people who really can't get about living until this thing is worked out.

"I think the thing—you know, everyone wants it solved. And maybe we can't accept the fact that we can't solve it. I think my brother has been like a puppet on a chain, at the whim of, you know, a new investigation.

"I think Freddy Kassab is a very nice, feeling human being. I just think he has dedicated his life to a bad dream. People who dwell on an incident that happened four years ago, and devote their lives to it, that is bizarre to me.

"And I get angry because I wonder are other avenues being explored. You know, I don't know what the overall thing is. I think my brother's sane. I think he's normal. And I think these acts were performed by people who were not normal.

"I think he and Colette had a very healthy relationship. I think that he was a very sensitive and gentle man, and I think that one of the reasons this case has gone on so long is because he is so gentle and so reasonable. I think if he had had more unreasonable reactions at the time, it would have pleased people who like carnivals.

"At the time this happened, the chaplain came down the hall and we were laughing. We were telling jokes—absurd, horrendous jokes. And the chaplain said, 'Well, you people don't need any help. You're obviously taken care of. You're obviously okay.' And then he'd go in and talk to the Kassabs who were sobbing, you know, and in dark glasses and stuff.

"Well, I mean, there are lots of ways of handling something that nobody can handle. And, unfortunately we all have the attitude that we're not going to cave in. We're not going to say, you know, 'help.' Because we knew there was nobody who could help. The only thing we wanted was to see my brother live.

"I wish
—I wish he had been more selfish. Because I think a lot of his pain would have been avoided if he'd just let himself be a burden, say, to my mother, to the Kassabs, and asked for help. Unfortunately, there are people who need those types of displays to believe in something.

"So I really wish my brother was a bullshit artist. If he was a bullshit artist, he would put on this big carnival affair of suffering and being a person who is completely wiped out.

"You see, everybody else imagines that they would be wiped out, and I am sure he probably is inside. He just doesn't go into an orgy in front of a lot of people about it. He feels that he has to go on and he has to live. And nobody can seem to accept the fact that a human being can go on and can struggle and keep on living.

"If people had a few carnival tears or a few carnival breakdowns, they might believe him. I really wish he was a bullshit artist/'

The Army clinical psychologist who in August of 1970 had made his own analysis of the tests given to Jeffrey MacDonald in Philadelphia in April was called to testify.

He spoke first of the opinions he'd formed from his review of MacDonald's responses to the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, a test consisting of 566 true-false questions ranging from "I like mechanics magazines" to "My father was a good man" and "At times I see things that other people do not see." The test is designed to provide a general profile of an individual's overall personality adjustment.

"I think the first impression I had that was remarkable," the psychologist said, "was that there was no indication from this particular test that there was any significant pathology existing.

"By that I mean I was asked to evaluate whether there was any indication that the gentleman who filled out the exams was either psychotic or psychopathic. In going over this particular test, I found no indication to support either one of these diagnoses.

"Secondly, the data from this test was remarkable in what was not there, rather than what was. I found an absence of anxiety, an absence of depression, an absence of agitation, and I expected there to be some there. I expected there to be a high level of anxiety indicated and what I found was low.

"Now, as part of this test there are what we refer to as validity keys, We rely on them to give us an overall impression of the attitude with which a person took the examination that allows us, roughly, to say, yes, this is a valid test and we can use this data; or, we should be cautious in using it because it may be invalid.

"I went ahead on the assumption that the material in this test was essentially valid. That was at that time. My experience in the intervening years would lead me to question mat now. I now look at this test data on the MMPI, and I have a question in my mind as to its validity.

"My reservation is that the person who completed the questionnaire seems to have answered the questions in such a way as to present himself in the best light possible. That does not necessarily mean that he lied, but it at least indicates a certain awareness of the implications of some of the questions he was asked, and at least some attempt to present himself in the best light possible. That's why, today, I would want further examination.

"Typically, a person who has some awareness of himself— good points, bad points, or accepted and non
-
accepted characteristics in our society—and who wanted to present himself in the best light possible would try to increase certain scores by answering questions in a positive way that would make him appear to be a very even-tempered, easy
-
going person without any particular things bothering him.

"Now the data, as we get it to analyze it, is presented in graph form. And on the graph there are three lines. The middle line is considered to be average, or normal. Anything below the lower line would be considered pathological and anything above the upper line would be considered pathological.

"So, a person without significant disturbances or conflicts, his scores would range between the upper and lower lines. But a person, also, who is trying to present himself in a good light— and not everybody is able to—would also range his scores within these areas. And this is the pattern we have in this case.

"But the reason I have some question about it is that the degree of guardedness or caution that is shown in the validity keys that I mentioned before is significant enough to make me question it—to say, well, all right, is this valid? Should we take it just as we have it, or should we pursue it further?

"Without pursuing it further, there is no significant pathological condition indicated. However, on one scale here—it happens to be the scale which tends to be most sensitive to picking up feelings of anger and anxiety—it's almost not plottable on the graph, according to this individual's responses.

"That means there is almost a total absence of any score. That means he did not describe himself in any way as having any anger or agitation, and I find that remarkable. It may, in fact, be true, but I find it rather unusual. In fact, in my experience, this was the first time I had ever seen it.

"In the report I wrote back in 1970,1 said, 'The only explanation for this that I can offer is that the subject is able to muster massive denial or repression so that the impact of recent events in his life has been blunted.'

"At that time I had just been out of school a short time. I had academic training that was good and, I think, quite substantial. But since then I've had a few years' time where I've had to start dealing with people, and that's different from what you learn in school. Your view changes. You start to see things that maybe you didn't see. And in this case—it jiggles my mind a little bit.