Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Fatal Vision or Fatal Justice - The Case of Jeffrey MacDonald

Episode Date: June 22, 2025

At 3:42 a.m. on February 17, 1970, Green Beret Doctor Jeffrey MacDonald makes an emergency phone call from his base housing at 544 Castle Drive at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The dispatcher hears the faint message, a call for help, "Stabbing! Hurry!"  Inside the residence, MacDonald's wife, Colette, 26, and five months pregnant, lies dead on the floor of the master bedroom, their daughters, Kimberley, 5, and Kristen, 2, are found dead in their respective beds.  Jeffrey MacDonald suffered minor injuries, compared to his wife and daughters. MacDonald claims 4 hippies, 3 men and a woman, came into his home, killed his family and knocked him unconscious. MacDonald says the woman with long blond hair was wearing a white floppy hat and holding a candle while chanting "Acid is groovy, kill the pigs." The case has been turned into books, movies, articles, and lawsuits. MacDonald was convicted for the murder of his wife and daughters and sentenced to life in prison. Jeffrey MacDonald claims he was wrongly convicted and has never wavered from his claims that hippies murdered his wife and daughters. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack discuss the case and the injuries suffered by Colette, Kimberley, Kristen, and Jeffrey Macdonald, and compare the forensic facts to the story told by the one person who survived.          Transcribe Highlights 00:00:01.45 Introduction  00:00:17.91 Killer on the loose in LA 00:03:06.24 Jeffrey MacDonald story 00:05:26.19 Victim recounting traumatic event 00:09:10.74 MacDonald tells his version of events  00:14:09.09 Four Hippies get on military base housing   00:19:10.31 Tearing down location of homicide 00:24:07.38 Officers explaining crime scene  00:29:36.21 Motive doesn't matter at a crime scene 00:33:55.42 MacDonald was the ONLY threat, he survives 00:38:43.83 Wounds on Colette 00:43:09.00 Comparing injuries suffered by girls and MacDonald 00:48:13.19 Injuries suffered by Kimberly, 5-years-old 00:52:21.98 Conclusion   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. August 8 through August 9, 1969. The city of Los Angeles was in fear because they knew that there was a killer on the loose. They had evidence of it. Someone had gone into a home in a very upscale area in LA and had butchered five people. It was terrifying. But you know, that case resonated not just in LA, but all over the US. There were stories that were written. There were fears that were expressed in the news.

Who was this? Who would do this. But all the way over on the other side of the United States, in North Carolina, Fort Bragg to be very specific, there was another mass homicide that had been committed. And it had eerie connections, at least seemingly, on the surface to those nights back in August of 69. Six months later terror would revisit the country and people had questions and still to this day those questions still linger. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Body Bags. Dave you and I were kids when the case, cases that we're going to discuss today went down. I really have no memory of the so-called Jeffrey McDonald case from a real time perspective.

Jeffrey McDonald has to this day claimed that a group of hippies came into his house at two o'clock in the morning and attacked him and killed his wife and children and left him for dead. This is Jeffrey McDonald's, a green beret doctor, green beret doctor at the height of the Vietnam war, stationed in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. And he's married to his high school sweetheart, because they've got two little girls and they've got another one on the way. And here is this green beret doctor who, you know, calls nine, well, the I

don't know that in 911't have 911, but called whatever version it was back then to call for emergency help. Probably zero. I think that that's actually what you used to do. You call for the operator and isn't that interesting? Imagine being the operator. Wow. So yeah, I'm trying to get in contact with my sister in Connecticut.

Can you connect me? And then the next call you get is some, some guy saying, send help, send help. And fascinating is that the way those calls came in, they were frightening to the people taking the calls, you know? And anyway, so Jeffrey McDonald claims that, and I mentioned this to you in the prep because something has always fascinated me about this case with regard to Jeffrey McDonald. Again, remember this is a man who claims he tried to defend his family and they were

murdered and that he is perfectly innocent. He didn't do anything wrong other than not defend his wife and kids. Um, but he always starts the story with a couple of different things, depending on who he's telling it to. Uh, I believe when he was on, uh, Dick Cavett show, uh, talking about the murders, he mentioned watching a late night TV show, you know? Um, but he talks about washing dishes at 2 AM. And I've always thought the reason he shares something like that, who cares that you were washing dishes at 2 a.m.? Who cares?

But it was to show like he's this, he's the, he's such a good guy. This green parade doctor was washing dishes at 2 in the morning because he didn't want his pregnant wife to wake up to it in the morning. This is a good guy, Joe. Well, Dave, you know, the thing about it is, is that when you, when you're questioning a suspect, you have someone that will give you that kind of granular detail like that. There's, there's this presentation that they're trying to do in order to convince you of the validity of the statements that they're making

by virtue of the intensity or the level of detail that they can give you because in many people's minds That's that states to them Well, if I can give them these fine details about what was going on at that particular time that means that I'm espousing the truth and of course, you know when you're an investigator and you look at someone and they're going through this traumatic event and they can give you those kinds of details at that moment in time, you kind of raise your eyebrow because they've, I've sat across from people that have been in the midst of an attack and they have, I've had people over the course of my career I try to talk to and I don't want to say that they were catatonic where you know they've got the fixed stare where they're looking like beyond you,

but it feels like I've experienced that a number of times where they can't give you, they're even nonverbal. And so what's fascinating is when you get that original statement from somebody that has witnessed something that was attacked perhaps themselves in the case of Jeffrey McDonald, how much detail did they give at that time? Were they all over the board? Did the story change? And I mean like in a change

where your brain is kind of dropping down a little bit relative to the trauma you've experienced, you have a bit more clarity because it's amazing. Sometimes you'll have these people, you know, that will begin to kind of rapid fire and regurgitate things and you know you can hear fear in their voice. And sometimes they don't get the facts straight, but it doesn't mean that they're trying to deceive you. When you have somebody that sits there and they can give you these fine points on things over and over again like this, you got major questions and I think that's the case with

Jefford McDonald, Dave. That explains it. Thank you. That helps. Because what he said happened, Joe. He claims, and I'm going to go over this because I asked Joe to do this one just so you all know. I don't think I've asked for us to do anything else in specifics, but this one in particular, and here's the reason. There was a book called Fatal Vision, written by Joe McGinnis.

He was hired by Jeffrey McDonald's team to be embedded with them after Jeffrey McDonald had been arrested accused of murder of his family. And they allowed Joe McGinnis to be with them in their defense at trial because they felt like Jeffrey McDonald felt like this guy will tell the truth. You know, he'll, he'll expose to the world what I've been through. And Jeffrey McDonald didn't get his wish because Joe McGinnis was embedded with him. He did see Jeffrey McDonald for who he was and the book he wrote called Fatal Vision

actually pushes the fact that Jeffrey McDonald murdered his wife and children. After that, there were books about Jeffrey's innocence, Fatal Justice Comes to Mind, a brilliant book. I don't believe everything in it, just like I don't believe everything in Fatal Vision. But I asked Joe to do it because I want to know what the forensics tell you as an investigator, as a death investigator, do the forensics actually solve the

crime or is it really just, here's what happened. It could be his story. It might not be. That's what I want. And then I want the, the opinion based on the forensics. What do you believe Joe? So I'm going to lay this out very quickly. Jeffrey McDonald made a very specific claim and we're going to use that as Joe

explains what happened to each individual in that home that night. Jeffrey McDonald claims that he had washed the evening dinner dishes before deciding to go to bed. His younger daughter, Kristen, had wet his side of the bed. So he had taken her to her own bed, not wanting to wake up his wife by changing the sheets. He had taken a blanket from Kristen's room and fallen asleep on the living room couch. Again, this is Jeffrey McDonald's story. He's asleep on the couch when he is awakened, hearing Colette and Kimberly's screams and Colette's shouting, Jeff, Jeff, help.

Why are they doing this to me? Think about that for just a minute. As he rose from the couch to go to their aid, he was attacked by three male intruders, one black and two white. The shorter of the two white men with a long, blonde hair, possible wig and wearing high-heeled, knee-high boots and a white, floppy hat partially covering her face. The individual stood nearby holding a lighted candle and chanting, quote, Acid is groovy, kill the pigs. Acid is groovy, kill the pigs. McDonald claimed the three males then attacked him with a club and an ice pick, with the female intruder shouting, hit him again. During the struggle, his pajama top was pulled over his head to his wrist, and he had to use this bound garment to ward off thrust from the ice pick. Although eventually he was overcome by the assailants and knocked

unconscious in the living room, end of the hallway, leading to the bedrooms. When he regained consciousness, the intruders were gone. He stumbles from room to room, attempting mouth to mouth resuscitation on each of his daughters to no avail before finding his wife. Uh, he then, uh, pulled a small paring knife from Colette's chest and he tossed it on the floor and attempted to find her pulse, he draped the pajama jacket over her body and phone for help. That is Jeffrey McDonald's story.

Joe. Um, you know, you, you sit here and you listen to all of these details relative that he's offering up in his statement and kind of how this went down. The last thing that the operator claims that she heard was him screaming, essentially, we need to get them to W, which W apparently means the hospital on base at Fort Bragg.

And then there's kind of a funk at the end, sounding according to the operator, like the phone hit the wall. But when the MPs at Fort Bragg arrived on scene, they saw something that in their time at Fort Bragg, patrolling the streets, going from family structure to family structure in the married housing area, dealing with drunk GIs, or maybe even having to break up a few domestic disputes, there's no way they could have been prepared for what lay before their eyes. You know, you mentioned the term just a second ago, Dave, the word groovy, the idea I'm thinking about that song from the sixties and everything is groovy, you know, and even, even Liberace. And this has almost become like a, a meme on the internet. He actually redoes this lot.

He does it on air on his show with a bunch of these dancers that are dressed, I guess, like, I don't know what, what their perception of, of 60s hippie culture was. Of course, they're all clean and have nice haircuts and you know, their nails are not dirty and they're all dancing around him as he's at his piano playing this feeling groovy. And when you mentioned this term, because we had talked about this before, that image came to mind. And now you've got an assailant, an alleged assailant that has come into this home that's actually taken Tom Dave to light a candle and has begun chanting in that environment.

Let me tell you something about the South in the late 60s. Fort Bragg is located adjacent to the town of Fayetteville, North Carolina. I can tell you affirmatively that it was not considered to be a haven for hippie culture in the 1960s. It's not that kind of place. It's a rough and tumble military place. As much as hippie culture in particular tried to distance himself from the Vietnam War, I can't imagine four, quote unquote, hippies gravitating to arguably one of the most military locations in the nation.

That alone to me is striking. And then that they could get access to own house. On-base housing. Yeah. No, on-base housing was not easy to get into. No, it's not. And you have to go through the gate in order to get access to this place.

So you've got these four people that show up on base. And they specifically attack this guy who's 26 years old that has just finished medical school, done an internship, not a residency, has done an internship at this point in time. And he's not, and I got to tell you this, the media for years and years has said that he's a green beret. He's not a damn green beret. He's not a Green Beret. He volunteered to be a physician assigned to special operations.

I think it was, I think it was fifth group, third group or fifth group. I can't remember. Anyway, on post at Fort Bragg, and Fort Bragg is the center for training for RSF guys, and still remains that way today. He was not a green beret. I think that that goes into this idea of this, you know, what you were talking about with him washing dishes. He's like this noble warrior, you know, and you see him all festooned early on in his military getup that he's wearing along with his green beret. And by the way, most green berets that I know don't like to be referred to as green berets.

That's just not something that they like. They refer to themselves as silent warriors, unlike the SEALs who write a book all the time. The SF guys, they're, you know, they're quiet people most of the time. This guy, I can only imagine, it must have been cringe-worthy for them. These guys have been in high intensity battles, low those many years in Vietnam, and you got this guy who's showing up in this environment claiming to be one of them, and he's a physician and Dave none of the stuff that he's saying makes sense relative to the injuries that we see portrayed particularly at autopsy on all three of these symptoms. Well let's let's take it

that way okay one thing I want to point out as we head into this job the crime scene okay again mentioning this is base housing because you have to you have to include that into the mix as you pointed out. Not an easy thing to get on. It's the height of the Vietnam War, February 17th, 1970. But after the murders of Collette, Kim, and Kristen, this dwelling was not cleaned up. It wasn't destroyed. It wasn't.

It was actually locked up and kept so that if and when a trial happened, the jury could actually go and see the crime scene. And when again, February 17th, 1970, his trial did not take place until 1979. And the jury was able to walk the crime scene. They were actually able to go in and look at what Jeffrey McDonald said happened and where it happened. This is something that has really been a problem for me in crimes where a crime

scene is destroyed. For instance, out in Idaho, the Coburger crime scene. From the moment they destroyed that, there was no reason to destroy that house other than covering up something is all I can figure. Not accusing anybody. I'm just saying, I don't, I mean, emotional damage to a community because there is a murder house. I understand what they're saying there. I just think that justice is more important than emotional feelings for the day. Anyway, please. Can I say something real quick?

You know, the idea that you go in and tear down a, and I don't want to go too far field with this because I know that we're focused on Jeffrey McDonald. And by the way, a big round of applause for those individuals that had the forethought in this case to lock it down. It is amazing how we can learn lessons from the past and people still haven't learned them to this point. Same way with Parkland. They locked Parkland down.

You think about Idaho and they tear the thing down because it makes somebody sad. I'm reflecting back right now over all of the death cases that I work, particularly homicides, Dave. I've been to the same address multiple times on unrelated homicides. What? Like I've had a succession of homicides that have occurred in the same dwelling. Wow. Those houses were never torn down.

And I was actually talking to a group recently in London and a former Scotland Yard detective who worked for them for 30 years. And I just asked him, I said, listen, because they use the term and a lot of people use the term raising, raising a location, which means to tear it down. Have you guys ever, do you in your recollection, do you ever remember raising a location as a result of, of a homicide? And he's like, no, that's absurd. And so you look at that reflection, you know, after all these years, Jeffrey McDonald, they were able to lock this place down and they didn't care if it made somebody feel as though they needed to go to a cry corner or get their blanket

or whatever it is, they're wooby and go over and shake over the idea that, oh my gosh, horrible homicides took place there. That's not what they were about. They wanted to discover the truth. Sometimes if you're absent that evidence, Dave, there's no way to go back. Now that we know what Jeffrey McDonald's story was, the pajama top comes to mind because, again, now claiming to be a Green Beret doctor. Anybody, you know what, I have such respect

for men and women that join the military service in the United States of America. I just, I have, if you're a military person, I just, you have my respect. And I don't picture any man allowing this to take place in his home and to only have a bump on the head and a small incision on his chest while his family is totally destroyed.

I don't see that as a possibility, especially from somebody who is in the military and is trained, whether he's Green Bray or not, he is still a supposed to be a man and he's supposed to protect his family and his story is, I don't, I don't understand how he could have so few injuries while there's such overkill on the girls. That's for starters. So let's get into the forensics, Joe. Based on his story, now, when you go to a crime scene, when you're an investigator,

you're a death investigator and you hit a scene like this, do you listen to his story of what happened or do you block that out and just let's look at the bodies and what's going on in this house? How does that begin for you? Well, you're not going to, first off, you're not going to sit down and have an in-depth discussion with this subject before you enter into the scene. As a matter of fact, I just soon only rely upon the initial report that I'm getting from law enforcement when I roll up. So that, look, we've got, and this is the way it would commonly go, look, we've got three dead in this location.

This is where they're located. We've got a husband over here that has been injured. We're looking for perps right now because he states that these subjects came into his home and committed these crimes. This is what he says happened in the immediate. You're not going to have all those fine details at this point in time. At that point in time, I'm going to say, okay, fine, that's enough. I've heard enough because I don't want to, from a forensic standpoint, I don't necessarily want to be encumbered

by that knowledge. Now, if there's something dangerous in there or if there's something like, where you'll get cues from folks, particularly uniform officers that will roll up, they'll say things like, look, when you get to the front door, and I'm just throwing this out there as an example, we had to kick the door down. So you'll see wood all over the floor, you know, where the door facing was, was knocked out or there's a huge puddle of blood. Be careful where you step. That's information that has great utility for me because when I go in, I want to be able to observe each one of these bodies inside to in their pristine state, pristine as it

applies to the context of the crime scene. I don't want any kind of outside element coming in. back to Tate, LaBianca and specifically the Tate case, the cues that Dr. Noguchi gave that he wrote about in his book, because he was at the scene of Tate. He said that his eyes always go up. That's the first place he looks. He doesn't look at the bodies. His eyes always go up. That's the first place he looks. He doesn't look at the bodies. His eyes always go up. He looks at the ceiling. He looks at the surroundings. And then he kind of makes a targets until he makes his way down to the body. Because he wants to understand the entire

environment and the context of the bodies in that environment before he makes any kind of assessment beyond that. And that's very important. And when I read that book and read that statement that he had made all those years ago, it kind of runs true. And I find it interesting that we're talking about this now with Jeffrey MacDonald. So when you enter into an environment like this, nowadays what you would do is you would probably break off into teams and each team would handle

an individual body to process the body. You'd have somebody that would handle Collette's body, the wife, who has just these horrendous injuries that she has sustained. The injuries alone that Collette sustained, and by the way, you've got multiple weapons involved in this. She doesn't just have stab wounds, she's got puncture wounds as well. These puncture wounds arise from something you don't hear much about nowadays, and that's an ice pick. It's been driven into her multiple times.

I've given this thought as an investigator, why would she have multiple stab wounds and multiple puncture wounds? You've got multiple weapons involved and I think that it's to give the appearance Dave that you've got multiple perpetrators. So you've got somebody that is thinking about this this far in advance that okay not only am I going to use one knife I'll use two knives. And let me see, what else can I use? Oh yeah, an ice pick. We're not too far removed during that period of time when people relied on ice picks.

You'd have, you know, and it would not have been like a too distant of a memory to know that, you know, probably his grandparents, maybe his parents even had had ice delivered to their home and you'd have to chip it off. So, had had ice delivered to their home and you'd have to chip it off. So everybody had an ice pick in the house. My grandmother had several in the house and old guys back in the day used to carry ice picks with them to defend themselves with because they're easily concealed. They don't have the same profile as a knife does. You can carry an ice pick. I don't know if it was bad, bad, Lee Roy Brown, but he had a razor in his shoe. I know that. Old guys would carry ice picks in their shoes. It's a very savvy, street kind of weapon that you would use, almost like

a shiv that's created in a prison, which is fascinating to me. But the fact that just Colette alone is attacked on multiple planes of her body, and she is so viciously attacked, Dave, that you see several areas of concentrated injuries on her that are kind of varietal. They'll go, you'll have clusters here, clusters there, and it's almost an attempt, I think, to give the impression that this was a frenzied killing when it very well might not have been. All right. So I'm kind of not at wit's end, but

I didn't really think about the multiple, the weapons, you know, switching them up to have the appearance of more than one person. Jeffrey McDonald went to Princeton. He's not an idiot intellectually. And I'm picturing him and the story that the prosecution laid out of how it all happened again, now back to motive, which when you're in the death investigator motive and story and all that, that's not part of it. Is it? I mean, you're really just there. Here's the body. Here's the evidence. What happened? Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I don't care about anybody's motive, particularly at a crime scene. It has,

it's not even on the radar. Uh, you start to get into motive and it clouds, clouds things up because, you know, one thing I failed to mention with Collette, if you're talking to me about somebody's you know why you know which is a question as you well know I hate, why would you do this, then that's going to distract me and just like I've been distracted right now relative to this case because one of the things I forgot to mention that not only does she have injuries that are generated by a knife and from an ice pick, she's also been beaten with a club day. And so that, you know, to think about what somebody's motivation was, it sounds like

something you'd hear in an admin class, what's's motivation was. It sounds like something you'd hear in an African class about your motivation. And I don't know what their motivation was, but I can tell you with Collette, you can actually see that the individual is highly motivated in the sense that it's a frenzied killing. And she's been so beaten and traumatized that she's got, I think that she's been stabbed 21 times with an ice pick, 16 times in the neck and the chest with a

knife and her trachea, which is kind of interesting, is severed in two places. Well, you know, you might think about cutting a throat, but let's just say that you are a physician anatomically. You're going to think about, well, what would be one of the ways to facilitate somebody's death? Well, to get into their airway. As a matter of fact, if she even had one little sign of life in her, Dave, and the EMTs arrived, they couldn't get her intubated. Like you could not put a, you couldn't establish an airway on her in the field. You would have to, an airway on her in the field, you would have to perhaps you could go in and I've seen this happen where you have a slice to the trachea. EMTs sometimes will go

into the trauma area and create an airway there externally just to be able to inflate the lungs, okay. So that's kind of an interesting injury that her trachea is actually cut in two places here, Dave, anatomically. But Dave, I got to tell you, I saw a comment, and you actually referenced it just a few months ago, about Colette. McDonald had apparently taken his pajama top off and had laid it across her chest and by the way he also had removed apparently a paring knife from her chest which any doctor knows that if someone has a instrument, a knife, a branch from a tree, a piece of rebar, you don't take it out. Period. You leave it in place. He should know that. But yet she's got this paring knife that's laying

on the floor next to her that was apparently pulled out of her chest by him. But back to the pajama top, it's laying on top of her. And when the PD rolls up, that's not the only thing that's laying on top of her. He's laying on top of her. His head is literally resting on her chest. And to say that his injuries that he sustained in the attack of these evil hippies that are chanting everything is groovy or more than the hell. As it is, he killed the pigs. Yeah. As it is, groovy, killed the pigs. You know, he's, he doesn't show signs of, uh,

much signs of being a warrior as far as I'm concerned. Can you tell me what injuries did Jeffrey McDonald sustain that made it so he was not able to protect his family? He's the only survivor in the whole group. He's the only one that's, he's the only real threat to anyone. And yet he's the one that was left with minimal injuries. So what, what, what, what were his injuries?

Well, he's got, okay, first off, he's got like, uh, what they're, they're referring to as a sharp force injury. It's about, maybe five eighths of an inch in depth in his chest. Uh, and the instrument that was used apparently collapsed, partially collapsed his lung. And as horrible as that is, and this was on, if folks will place your hand on your right aspect of your rib cage. You can feel in between the ribs what's referred to as the intercostal space.

Doctors know this because when, for instance, when you're trying to put in like an emergency room, if you have a chest that is filled with blood, one of the things that happens in the emergency room in cases of severe trauma like car accidents and that sort of thing, you make an incision in the intercostal space and you put in a chest or drain. So there's actually a tube that they'll stick into the chest and it pulls all of that blood that's free-floating in the chest and what are referred to as the plural spaces. Interestingly enough, that's where this injury was and it clipped his lung.

It's a survivable injury and probably it's in my mind at least, it's one of those kinds of injuries where you're scratching your head and you're thinking, you know what? This is quite ghastly, but this is something that is not necessarily life threatening, particularly in the immediate, if you've got an emergency around this right down the road. So that's one of the injuries that he had. And then he's got a knock on the head as well. And it created what's referred to what they eventually assessed with him as a mild concussion. You take that and compare to one of his children, which I'll speak to in a moment, that literally had a depressed skull fracture.

And it looks like it was generated with the same club that was used probably on Colette, probably on this child. And he's the entries that are really significant with McDonald though, Dave, are the things that he had on his, on his face and his chest. And they were cuts, bruises and fingernail scratches, which of course that indicates that whoever it was that fought him was fighting for their life. Well, you know what they say about mama bears, you know, the worst, you know, male bears are terrifying. Nothing like a mama bear though.

If her cubs are around in particular, it's going to rip you to shreds. She's going to do everything that she can. And look, Collette, she's got these two precious girls that are there. She's being attacked. First off, she's trying these two precious girls that are there. She's being attacked. First off, she's trying to save her own life. She's got a life within her, Dave, right? She's pregnant with her son. She's going to do everything she can. And I think that over the years, people have put forth the idea that this all initiated perhaps as an argument between Collette and McDonald and that I think I'd read one statement at one point in time where she picked up an

object and had thrown it at him and he became so incensed over this that he began to attack her which is fascinating when you begin to talk about physical evidence that's being presented on his body. And Dave, I was looking, man, look, I looked at the photos of McDonald that they took at that particular time. I've seen people get more ghastly injuries and a strong windstorm than what this guy is presenting with. I'm completely unimpressed when you take that and you compare it to what his children went through and of course what Collette went through, Dave. One of the things that really stuck out to me is that when you, she's got these really nasty lacerations to her forearms.

I think that this could be a combination of both being attacked with an edged weapon in addition to that. It could be also being clubbed. They're kind of nasty and irregular when you see these things. It's not something that you would see, for instance, she's got like this gaping. And anytime you hear gaping most of the time, that's going to be indicative of a laceration where the skin has really opened up, the edges are very jagged because it's a blow with a blunt object that literally tears the skin. With sharp force injuries and we're going to do a whole episode of body bags about sharp

force injuries. With sharp force injuries, you have these kind of clean margins where they're perfect because you're talking about using a steel blade on a surface and it cuts it through. But if you have a laceration, that arises from blunt force trauma and it literally tears the skin. So it's on the aspect of her, I'm actually looking at it right now, it's on the aspect of her lateral right wrist.

So just imagine if you will, lifting your right arm fist clenched so that you're trying to block or parry, you know, use a fencing term, you're trying to parry this attack and so the perpetrator when they're looking at you the surface that they're aiming for is blocked, maybe you're going for a head strike. It's blocked. And so the first place that the injury is where contact is made is actually on this lateral aspect of the forearm. And it opens up this kind of gaping jagged, it's almost crescent shaped is the way it looks.

crescent-shaped is the way it looks. So yeah, she's got injuries on her arms as well. But again, back to him, he's got nothing. I mean, he's literally got nothing on his body that gives you the indication that he's trying to fend anything off. Here's another interesting fact quote unquote about this Green Beret doctor. Green Berets in particular, special forces guys, even back then, we hear a lot about it now, but even back then they were highly skilled at what's called CQB and that's close quarters combat. It's not just like going in and clearing a room. You have to try to understand the basics of some of the martial arts that are out there because you're going to be fighting people one-on-one.

Well, he allegedly had, they've received training in hand-to-hand combat. And it makes sense. He would have been embedded with these guys there at Fort Bragg, day-to-day training. They'd probably say, Doc, you've got to go through this training along with us. It doesn't mean he's gone through Greenbury schools. Matter of fact, the only thing I can really find reference to is that he'd gone to airborne school.

Well, they, you know, clerk typist go through airborne school if they're going to be assigned to the 82nd, you know, or the 173rd, they're going to be assigned. You have to go through airborne training, which is a school that lasts about three weeks. And it's basically gravity. That's it. You know, I mean, yeah, it's rigorous. It's rigorous, but it's not like going through special forces training, which last years, the background on McDonald was that he's this brilliant near genius doctor who loves his country so much. It's not enough just to be in the army,

but he is the best of the best, the green beret. He can fight. And so he can basically go kill the enemy hand to hand combat. And then he can actually on his way back perform surgery on a fellow and bring it back. So Jeffrey McDonald is knocked out with a booboo to the head and a small incision in his chest. Meanwhile, his pregnant wife has defensive wounds on her arms. She has been beaten. She has been torn up and stabbed and just destroyed, just destroyed. And he has a boo boo on his head.

But Joe, after moving from Colette McDonald, there are two little girls that are also there, Kimmy and Christie. And I don't know what either one of those girls could have attested to. But these hippies walking around one holding a candle saying asses groovy killed the pigs somehow decide that we have to take out these little girls as well and again, I'm going back to McDonald's injuries Jeffrey McDonald and You know, I would think the girls would have a little less than that, you know to be killed because there's no need there little Tiny no need to do to them what you just did to the Colette. So what happened

with the girls? How were they killed? Well, I think that it's important because you know, when he, which I believe he, feigning, pretending. The ambulance people, EMTs, they attempted CPR on him when they arrived and almost immediately he pops up. Somebody starts doing chest compressions on him. Wait a minute, Joe. I didn't know this. I've never heard this.

He pops to life all of a sudden, okay? Which sounds like the biggest, you know, odorous pile of excrement that you can, you know, put forth. You're going to, you're not going to lay there and have somebody compressing on your chest. But the reason this is significant is that immediately as soon as he pops up, he makes this exclamation about acid heads where he says, you know, look at my wife and then he makes reference to the fact that, now this is in the midst of them treating him, I'm going to kill those acid heads. And acid head is a term that was associated with hippies because of the surrogate acid, those sorts of things that people would take acids really when it popped into pop culture, if

you will. There were a lot of people that were experimenting with acid back then. The military was experimenting with acid back then, but that's a story for another day. This is the first thing you're going to say. Then as he is being taken out of the house, he says, let me see my kids. Let me see my kids. And he's being carried off on a stretcher. Well, yeah, yeah, Jeffrey, let's, let's take a look at your kids. Let's do that. Why don't, why don't we do that? Because Kimmy is five years old, Dave. She's laying in her bed. She's laying in her bed.

She's on her left side. And this precious little child, her skull has been fractured. And I saw the images of it and it's, it's ghastly, absolutely ghastly. They believe that she was at minimum stroke twice, possibly more. And so she's on the right side. This is the right side of her skull. So just imagine that you're laying in what we refer to as like a left recumbent position. So left recumbent means your left side of your body's contacting the surface, supporting the weight of your body. Uh,

I don't know about you, I'm a side sleeper. So, you know, that's like, if you're a side sleeper, that's the position. And apparently that's the position she was actually attacked in or on. And so she was struck so hard that not only is her skull fractured, Dave, but in addition to that, she struck her cheekbone is fractured. And Dave, I got to tell you the McDonald case in and of itself, you know, I've never seen this other than outside of a car accident. This child, this five-year-old was beaten so furiously that her cheekbone is actually protruding through her skin. So this is going to be a massive laceration. And when you see the images,

uh, that, you know, you know, just illustrate what kind of force is involved with this child. Again, I have to return to the word ghastly. Who would have the motivation to do that to a five-year-old? What could a five-year-old have ever done? You had made mention of the fact, well, what could they have seen? What could they have seen? What could they have recounted in court? But it extends beyond that.

She's been beating all of her body with this bludgeon that's being used. Then, I guess, the hippies that are out there chanting, you know, that acid is groovy, decide, well, you know, let's go in and also, in addition to beating this child, let's stab her. She's been stabbed eight to 10 times in addition to that. And again, and again, Dave's just been stabbed in the neck. And so if you are a physician, you know that the airway in and of itself is a critical location that you need to have intact in order to save life. I find it fascinating that with Collette and Kimmy both,

their necks are attacked with a sharp instrument. Because if you've had any kind of trauma training and you're trying to resuscitate somebody, you know for a fact that it's gonna be near impossible in this environment if they sustain those kinds of injuries to bring them back from, you know, bring them back from death, death's doorstep. You can't do it. It's very, very difficult. Not to mention, you know, when an individual has been beaten so severely about the head to the point

where the skull is fractured, it's almost indescribable, Dave. Kristen, who's only two, Dave, is found lying in her bed. She, again, is on her left side. And it's almost too horrible to even put out there. but it's been out there for years. And for our friends, you know, I just, I want everybody to understand that with this baby, uh, you know, she's, she stabbed Dave, I think, 33 times, uh, in her chest and in her neck, her hands, her back. And I wondered as I was

you know trying to and that's with a knife. That's with a knife. Okay. Because there's an additional 15 injuries that she has that are with this ice pick. Okay. She's got two knife wounds that actually penetrate her heart, Dave. Um, and the ice pick wounds are kind of shallow, you know, compared to the knife ones. Um, but this, this little angel, she, she had an awareness because she lifted those tiny little hands to defend herself because she's got injuries on her hands. You know, she's trying to fend this thing off.

Based on what you see there, Joe, do you believe Jeffrey McDonald's story of what happened at all? No, no, not. Yeah, absolutely not. It kind of goes back to, you know, the old biblical story about Cain and Abel, you know, where, you know, God is actually asking Cain, you know, where's your brother? And at one point, Tom, the scripture reads that, you know, your brother's blood cries

out to me from the ground. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body Bags.