View all records. In the end, MacDonald himself took the stand. Even before bureaucratic stalling and federal machinery overtook the search for truth, things were working against Jeffrey MacDonald. MacDonald had only one stab wound, which the hospital surgeon later described as a clean, small, sharp incision that made his left lung partially collapse. Wadea and Aelyas Kassab are both buried in Pennsylvania. He was found guilty and given three life sentences on Aug. 26, 1979. Theres a note attached. These were the families police identified in 2011 as causing most of the trouble in the band, which stretches roughly from Coburg North to Campbellfield, then in an arc around to Altona in It is hard not to be shocked by the footage of Oueida's shooting. For his part, MacDonald called Kassab and made a grandiose claim that he and some Green Beret buddies had gone out on the streets to look for the hippies responsible and found and killed one of them. Make a one-time contribution to Alternet All Access, 741 Immigration & Travel. WS: They were a very normal-looking mama and daddy. They hoped to get a confession, but she stated firmly that she had never been inside MacDonalds home contrary to previous claims she purportedly made to defense attorneys during witness hearings. Abdul Tiba has eight sons, aged from their 50s to their 20s. That is why, police say, it is important to consider what the shooting represents, rather than the act itself. Marc Smerling thinks he has some idea. The lead prosecutor for the case, Jim Blackburn began to analyze every piece of evidence from the trial, including MacDonald's pajama shirt, which was draped over Colette's body, and the bedsheet she was wrapped in. LP: She said that to her lawyer at the time of the 1979 trial? Use census records and voter lists to see where families with the Kassab surname lived. But Im an optimist generally about our system of justice, and I hope that MacDonald gets a break. I remember saying, It doesnt matter. He moved to California to become the director of emergency medicine at St. Mary's Medical Center in Long Beach. Prosecutors appealed the decision to the Supreme Court and in 1978 the countrys highest court decided to reinstate the indictment. Now, it appears the Tibas are at war with everybody. 959 Census & Voter Lists. At some time before 3.30am someone brutally attacked the MacDonald family in their home at 544 Castle Drive on what was then the open military base of Fort Bragg. Take a guy like MacDonald. His memoir first describes the family history, especially the career of his uncle Salim Kassab. He wanted his son-in-law to stay on the east coast and pursue the killers. Link your TV provider to stream full episodes and live TV. WebWe found 33,440 records for Kassab last name. Soldiers corpses arrived at Fort Bragg stuffed with heroin. Most recently, retired US Marshall Jimmy Britt came forward with information that another suspect in the case, Helena Stoeckley, admitted to the prosecutor that she was in the house on the night of MacDonalds murder and that he threatened to indict her for first-degree murder if she admitted that in court. None of this has set MacDonald free. WebWe found 33,440 records for Kassab last name. Sometimes that doesnt happen. She was a pretty girl, not beautiful, but pretty, and she was down to earth and she hated to see anybody hurt.. LP: In Joe McGinnis book, Fatal Vision, Freddy Kassab, MacDonalds father-in-law, was presented as the protagonist. Waters rubbished that explanation. Freddy Kassab had inserted himself into the 1970 military hearing and made himself the center of a media circus, holding news conferences and firing off letters to members of Congress. Who else is going to fight this thing if not me? Kassab said, who had moved to Florida from his Long Island home the year before. He is outspoken about MacDonalds innocence, and when I called him, I could hear the years of outrage in his voice over the way the case has proceeded. Psychiatric professionals on both sides pronounced him incapable of having committed the crimes. WS: For me to say that he is innocent would require magic. But in the years that followed the gruesome murders, Kassab drastically changed his opinion of his surgeon son-in-law and became one of MacDonalds fiercest adversariesleading the charge to have MacDonald tried for three counts of murder in the case. He worked first in a stove factory, a physically taxing and low-paying job, and later became a molder in a factory making brake shoes for the railroad. Earlier, evidence came to light that a FBI forensic examiner mislead the jury about synthetic hair evidence. Tonight when I retire to my bed, I will not feel as safe from unpredictable evils as I did when I was a teenager reading scary stories. I began to see that Joe McGinniss creation of Picture #1 might be just that: a creation. The walls will tell you what happened if you keep it pristine. Not only did the living room show few signs of a struggle, but the murder weapons were found outside the back door. The Tibas, Haddaras, Chaouks, Kassabs, and Kheirs are north-west Melbourne's version of the Five Families, the major players in the New York mafia. The Tibas are the only clan in the five families that can boast three generations of serious offenders from murderers to drug traffickers. MacDonald was tried in a civilian court in 1979. Four military police (MP) officers arrived at 4 a.m. to find an unspeakable crime scene. I dont have that magic. Kassab testified on MacDonalds behalf, declaring, If I had another daughter, Id still want the same son-in-law.. Not only had the word pig been scrawled on the bedroom headboard in his wifes blood but she and her unborn baby were dead. MacDonald was convicted twice, both in the courtroom and in the all-important court of public opinion, which was sealed by McGinniss book and miniseries. I thought the world of Judge Dupree. That same year, seven drug-linked executions were reported in 10 months. WebIn July 1974, a Federal judge acted on a citizen's criminal complaint by Kassab and others, by putting the case before a grand jury. Sign up forOxygen Insiderfor all the best true crime content. Invest with us. The prosecution, led by James Blackburn and Brian Murtagh, argued that MacDonald staged the crime scene to blame hippies. After traveling a months-long journey that has led me from certainty to doubt to horror at a grave injustice, Im going to turn in this article and then go run some errands and make myself a bite to eat. Other witnesses claimed that Stoeckly had confessed at various times that she thought she might have been present during the murders. Theyre the ones that wrote the Congress and said the Army screwed up this crime scene. The new war involves men with names many Victorians could barely pronounce shooting each other in downtrodden suburbs they have almost certainly never visited. WebWadea Kassab was born in Damascus in 1872 to an Orthodox family that had long and deep connections to British and American Protestant missionaries in Damascus and Beirut. Freddie Kassab and CID investigators returned to the crime scene in 1971 to contrast MacDonalds claims with the evidence and found his narrative implausible. Im giving you an extra copy for Bernie Segal [the defense counsel]. I personally delivered a copy by hand to every congressman and every senator in the country.. In 1970 America was gripped by the horror of the Manson murders a fact used against MacDonald because he subscribed to Esquire magazine, which had run a story about the dark side of hippie culture. Because that's what crime figures do in the north-west, most of the time. McGinniss stark rendering of Picture #1 stuck in my mind until recently when a friend from North Carolina told me that Errol Morris had published a book suggesting MacDonald was innocent. The military hearing found that the charges against MacDonald were not true. Weve always understood the importance of calling out corruption, regardless of political affiliation. Smerling is the director of the documentary series A Wilderness of Error, which examines the MacDonald case. He looked angry on the stand. A lengthy trial heard Moustafa and Kassab had gone to the Brunswick panel beating shop to confront Moustafa over $50,000 in cash and $10,000 in aftershave they believe he had stolen. WebIt is reported Ms Kassab entered Syria last year and that her husband, known as Sam, died on the border of Turkey in 2013. These were the families police identified in 2011 as causing most of the trouble in the band, which stretches roughly from Coburg North to Campbellfield, then in an arc around to Altona in No one ever knew what it was Helena told him because of attorney-client privilege. MacDonald, bloody but alive, was next to his wife, who had been pregnant with their third child when she was stabbed 16 times with a kitchen knife and 21 times with an icepick. He explained his lie initially by attributing it to drug addiction-induced paranoia and then said he believed that once he told his family the lies, he had to keep lying.. MacDonalds relationship with his father-in-law, who had been a staunch supporter, became strained. (See Silverglate's article on the case in Forbes.). Although Kassab didnt join the family until Colette was a teenager, he had always been close with his stepdaughter. The shootings can be over particularly petty reasons, not just the drug trade: women, a perceived slight, or, increasingly, a prison feud. But many of the major players now are either related to these families, or closely linked within the criminal milieu. But he had multiple bruises and puncture wounds, and two stab wounds, including one that collapsed his lung -- a serious injury that left him falling in and out of consciouness. Carl Williams was a boy from Broady, whose fat fingers spread across the state, but we know little about the boys from Broady who are ordering murders and peddling drugs now. Bernie Segal, a long-haired Jewish lawyer from Philadelphia, took the lead in the case and managed to alienate the entire courtroom. MacDonald now waits to see if the federal judge will vacate his 33-year-old conviction. 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