Police recall discovering a horrific scene after a distressed father alerted emergency services, with the blood of two children and a pregnant woman all over the bedrooms of the family home.
Jeffrey MacDonald, the father and husband, regaled US military cops with a story about how his home had been broken into and subject to a sick Charles Manson-esque hippy attack.
The word “Pig” had been scrawled on the bedroom wall of the room and the three victims were found to have been bludgeoned and stabbed 30 times between them.
MacDonald’s account of having been knocked out in a scuffle with four deranged assailants was felt by investigators to be suspicious.
He would evade justice for nine years thanks to a botched investigation.
But after a detailed forensic reconstruction, the former US army special forces doctor was convicted of brutally killing his family in a night of bloody horror.
In 2020, Netflix released A Wilderness of Error, a documentary and re-enactment of the atrocities that led to the so-called “Doctor Death” being handed three life sentences.
The film showed how it was the tenacity of MacDonald’s in-laws who helped show up the veteran’s story for the sham that it was.
MacDonald has continued to protest his innocence.
The murders occurred on February 17, 1970, with the military police responding to a 911 call in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Officers discovered the bodies of Colette MacDonald, who had been bearing her third child, and her two daughters, five-year-old Kimberley and Kristen, aged two.
MacDonald, an army captain and physician, was found unconscious next to his wife’s body, having been stabbed between his ribs.
Now aged 79, the former green beret claimed the house had been invaded by four “hippies” – three men and a mysterious woman in a floppy hat, holding a candle – deranged on drugs and intent on causing deadly chaos.
A military probe cleared MacDonald but his in-laws steadily grew to suspect him of being behind the atrocity.
Nine years after the murders, their crusade helped bring enough pressure to bear that a new trial was secured.
Key clues helped investigators looking back into the case to unpick the lies and show that MacDonald had staged the scene.
Investigators discovered the murder weapons in the back garden of the house, with any fingerprints wiped-off.
MacDonald claimed not to recognise them but it was suspected that their location close to the gory site pointed to a killer who had never left the scene.
Despite his training in unarmed combat as part of his forces preparation, the room where MacDonald had supposedly fought for his life with his attackers showed few signs of struggle.
He also refused to take a lie detector examination to put his innocence claim to the test.
Other clues to the true events were that, even though it had been a wet evening, the sole footprint found at the scene was a bare bloody print in Kristen’s room.
Police began to suspect that there had only ever been four people in the house that night.
The four members of the MacDonald family each had different blood types, allowing forensic examiners to piece together what they thought unfurled.
Forensic analysis suggested, rather than MacDonald’s elaborate story, that an argument or fight between MacDonald and Colette began in their bedroom.
Investigators speculated that the argument turned physical, with her striking him with a hairbrush before he retaliated.
They think he might have hit her with his fists before picking up a piece of wood, inadvertently also striking his daughter Kimberley, who had possibly entered the room after hearing commotion.
Believing Colette dead, MacDonald is thought to have carried the mortally wounded Kimberley back to her bedroom.
After stabbing her, MacDonald then proceeded to Kristen's room, carrying the club he had used to bludgeon Kimberley, intent on getting rid of the last remaining potential witness — his youngest daughter.
Her mother Colette, apparently regaining consciousness, is thought to have launched a desperate attempt to save her before her husband killed both her and her youngest.
Colette's blood was found in Kristen's room during close inspection.
MacDonald wrapped Colette's body in a sheet and carried her body to the master bedroom.
CID investigators think MacDonald, showing quick-thinking, remembered an article he had read about the Manson Family murders.
A March 1970 issue of Esquire containing articles about the cult's killings the year before — including being involved in the death of Hollywood star Sharon Tate — was found in the living room.
They think he set about arranging the scene, including using his wife’s blood to write the word "Pig" on the headboard and stabbing her repeatedly, to mimic the seven atrocities Manson was convicted of inspiring.
MacDonald is thought to have stabbed himself between the ribs before ringing for an ambulance, lying down beside Colette's body as he waited for emergency services to arrive.
He is currently serving his life sentence at a federal prison in Cumberland, Maryland, which is near Washington DC.
He has looked to appeal the verdict as recently as 2018 and last year he was denied a plea for release on compassionate grounds of his deteriorating health.
