A Wilderness of Error

Rview, take one.

Soft sticks. Mark.

So, what brings you here today?

all right, I want to start with your story

inside the story, like you do in the book.

Um...

Christmas 1991... Could we start there?

Can you remember that day?

I do remember the day.

morris: Early that morning,

I suggested to my wife we should just go up

and look at the jeffrey macdonald crime scene together.

Um...

What better way to spend christmas?

I get interested in stuff

because I get bothered by stuff.

And what's really interesting about the macdonald murder case

is how many, many,

many people have gone back over this.

It's a case that resists definitive explanations.

wandering in that wilderness of conflicting evidence

and interpretations,

of mistakes, of errors...

Certainly in this case,

the mystery is about what happened

in that house.

I went into it with the hope that I could crack it...

...That I could come to some kind of conclusion.

But you don't know

whether truth is going to be difficult to find

unless you try to find it.

The wife and two young daughters of an army doctor

were found dead in their home in fort bragg, north carolina.

Mike wallace: You may remember the crime, back in 1970...

One of america's most sensational murder cases...

...One of the most bizarre murder cases...

The most complicated murder case in history.

Macdonald says the murderers were three men and a woman,

shouting, "acid is great! Kill all the pigs!"

it's a baffling story, the more you begin to look into it...

Newswoman: Jeffrey macdonald's life became

the subject of a book, a popular miniseries...

...A television movie called fatal vision.

Newsman: The bestseller portrayed macdonald

as a cold-blooded killer.

Newsman 2: Today macdonald was sentenced

to three life terms in prison.

man 2: Something really, really bad happened here.

-It was a miscarriage of justice. -Macdonald: Well...

I cannot overcome fatal vision.

Morris: What happens when a narrative

takes the place of reality?

It's almost as if nothing really happened in history

unless it has been recorded in a movie.

Or in a television series.

Newswoman 2: A new book by acclaimed author and filmmaker

errol morris says that the case may be more complicated

- than previously thought. - Macdonald: I did not...

Hurt my wife and my children.

Woman: That evening I was wearing a blonde wig

- and floppy hat. - Man 3: An innocent man

- is in jail today. - Woman 2: The man is guilty

- as can be. - I am innocent.

He's lucky I haven't gone out and killed him.

Macdonald (echoes): I am not that monster.

morris: How old were you when this happened?

Mica: That was 1970... I would have been 23.

I was an mp at fort bragg,

1968 to 1971.

And I was one of the first mps

in the house at 544 castle drive

the night of the macdonald murders.

Mica: February 17, 1970,

was, uh, quiet.

It was drizzly, rainy, cold.

(distorted police radio transmission)

- (siren wailing) - About 3:40 in the morning,

we got a radio call for a disturbance.

When we get to the call,

couple cars are already there.

I run into richard tevere.

We're standing on the steps in front of the entrance

to castle drive, and I believed

that there was a disturbance and possibly a stabbing.

- (siren approaching in distance) - We couldn't...

Gain entry to the house,

so I took my flashlight and I went around the back.

The rear door was ajar.

I pulled out my weapon,

and I put a round in the chamber...

Not knowing if there was somebody still in the house.

I took one step in to the...

What was, I guess, the bedroom.

There was blood on the wall, blood on the ceiling,

blood all over the place.

That's when I saw her, a woman lying on the ground,

covered with blood,

and, uh, a male lying next to her,

who I didn't know at the time was jeffrey macdonald.

At first I thought

it was a homicide-suicide.

Uh, but then he started to move.

I got down next to him

and started giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

He wakes up, and he's saying, "check my kids, check my kids.

I heard my kids."

tevere: From the master bedroom,

we just took a few steps,

looked into the first, smaller bedroom,

and I could see the girl.

She was lifeless.

And then I went into the second bedroom,

and I saw, again,

a very young girl, lifeless.

There was blood dripping down the side of the bed,

and there was a puddle of blood on the floor.

I, uh...

Never in a million years expected to...

Walk in on something like that.

So it was a lot to, really,

process at the time.

Ivory: Within five minutes,

we were at the house.

There was an army ambulance

and a number of mp cars

already there.

In the house, it looked like the living room

had been caught up in some sort of struggle.

There was a man on a gurney being wheeled out.

He was unconscious.

There was a female on the floor of the master bedroom.

There was a blue pajama top laying across her chest.

That was strange.

And then, I noticed, in the headboard

in the master bed,

there was a bloody imprint of the word "pig."

hodges: It's the worst thing,

in my 53 years in law enforcement,

that I've ever walked into.

Uh, it was a gruesome scene to see a, uh,

a mother and two daughters mutilated like they were.

And, uh, it's, uh...

It's a s... it's a scene that you ain't gonna forget.

Colette macdonald was stabbed

multiple times in the neck and chest.

Both arms were broken.

And she was pregnant.

The older girl had been stabbed.

And had a blunt instrument wound to her head.

And the younger girl had been stabbed numerous times.

Ivory: My partner did a 360

around the house.

He went out and he came back in and he said,

"I think I found the murder weapons."

there was a club, a knife

and an ice pick.

hodges: At that point, I went to the hospital

to try to interview macdonald.

When I got there, I was briefed by a doctor.

Gemma: There were some scrapes

on his abdomen and on his chest,

some small puncture wounds which didn't seem

to be very serious at all.

It's not life-threatening.

He was...

In no real acute distress.

Hodges: When I went in, we identified who we were,

and said, "what can you tell us about what happened?"

he said that he and colette had been listening to a record.

He dozed off on the couch, and she had went to bed.

He heard colette hollering,

"jeff, jeff, why are they doing this to me?"

he woke up.

Hippies had broke into the house and attacked him and his family.

He'd seen two white males,

black guy in an army jacket,

and a woman with long blonde hair and a white floppy hat,

wearing boots.

And she was saying,

"acid is groovy, acid is groovy,"

and was holding a candle.

He had tried to fight 'em off.

Somehow, my pajama top,

I don't know if it was ripped forward

or pulled over my head.

-Colette (echoing): Jeff! -Macdonald: All of a sudden, it was in my way.

-I couldn't get my hand free. -Colette: Why are they doing this to me?!

Macdonald: I was grappling with him, and I saw,

you know, a-a blade.

I-I really didn't even defend myself.

It was really too-too fast.

Kimberly (echoing): Daddy! Daddy!

And all this time,

I was hearing screams.

Kimberly (echoing): Daddy! Daddy!

next thing I remember was lying in the hallway

at the end of the hallway floor.

And I-I went down, um, to the bedroom.

My wife was lying on-on the floor,

next to the bed.