North Carolina Man Continues to Fight his 1979 Murder Conviction
01.19.17 By innocence staff
People Magazine interviewed Jeffrey MacDonald, a North Carolina man who is fighting his 1979 murder conviction, for the cover of their January 30th issue.
MacDonald is currently serving three consecutive life sentences for the 1970 murder of his pregnant wife and two young daughters. He maintains his innocence, saying that four people broke into his home, knocked him unconscious and killed his family. He fought for years to have DNA evidence from the crime scene tested but was repeatedly denied.
In 1999, the Innocence Project joined MacDonald’s attorneys in the effort to secure DNA testing, and eventually a U.S. district judge allowed some of the evidence to be tested.
It took nearly a decade for the testing to be completed but when it was, results revealed that genetic material from three hairs found on the victims excluded MacDonald.
A retired U.S. Marshall also came forward, saying that another suspect in the case, Helena Stoeckley, admitted to the prosecutor that she was in the house on the night of the murders and that the prosecutor threated to indict her for first-degree murder if she admitted that in court. Stoeckley’s boyfriend, Greg Mitchell, and her mother also came forward with statements that support MacDonald’s version of the events.
In 2011, MacDonald’s case went before a federal appeals court, which ruled that courts must consider all relevant evidence of innocence when deciding whether to grant a defendant’s writ of actual innocence.
In 2012, the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence filed a motion for testing of all of the evidence, which was denied in 2014.
“I wanted the testing done because every time tests are done the evidence points to my innocence,” MacDonald told People. “And there’s a reason. I’m innocent.”
MacDonald’s case will go before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals on January 26.
Read the People Magazine interview here.
For more on MacDonald’s case, watch People Magazine Investigates: The Accused, on Jan. 24 at 11 p.m. Eastern Time on Investigation Discovery (ID).
Related: Federal Appeals Court Says All Evidence Relevant to Innocence
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July 30, 2018 at 12:44 am
July 24, 2017 at 11:13 pm
I believe implicitly in Mr. MacDonald’s innocence. From listening to Ted Gunderson speak, and the BBC documentary, it is clear his trial was prejudiced and the investigation sloppily handled from the get-go.
Satanists sacrifice and kill children, and unborn babies. This is their highest prize for their damned, condemned god. Yes, they wanted to get even and they did…they took his whole life and legacy, and, true to form, the american military and judicial system were complicit.
Please save this man’s life, whatever life he has left. What a disgusting display of incompetence and prejudicial injustice!
Once again, shame on the United States, in bed with the devil!
“Every time the test are done, the evidence points to my innocence…” Not quite. When the hair found in his wife’s hand – he always said this belonged to one of the murderers – was DNA tested, it turned out to be his.
Why were there so many versions of Britt’s statement prior to the one submitted with the appeal? Even in the final one, he got the city where she was picked up from wrong.