You think you know what youre seeing, but then you arent so sure. If he could have a psychotic episode and destroy his family stab them with an ice pick and a knife 100 times, beat them with a stick, then Billy Graham could. Although Kassab didnt join the family until Colette was a teenager, he had always been close with his stepdaughter. He could get an answer by the end of this year. The idea that people that were so certain who dont know any more than I do -- I dont believe Ill ever understand how they could be so sure. And so there are going to be cases where there is a reasonable doubt as to what actually happened. 959 Census & Voter Lists. Colette had been stabbed 16 times and punctured 21 times with an ice pick, while 5-year-old Kimberley was killed by six blows to the head and eightto 10 stab wounds, according to a. Jeffrey MacDonald had also been at the home at the time, but he suffered only minor injuries compared to what his family endured. 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. When Jeffrey MacDonald came under suspicion for savagely killing his pregnant wife and the couples two young daughters, one man rushed to publicly support him: his father-in-law Freddie Kassab. Two possibilities: MacDonald is a monster, or he is a victim of terrible injustice. Colettes grieving parents grew suspicious after a November 1970 phone call in which MacDonald claimed he found and killed one of the intruders. Brian Murtaugh says, Sure, Ill give it to him. WS: We all depend on excellent, honest detective work. Freddie Kassab and CID investigators returned to the crime scene in 1971 to contrast MacDonalds claims with the evidence and found his narrative implausible. 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. After reading the full transcript of his Article 32 hearing, the Kassabs were convinced that MacDonalds story didnt add up. 6,889 Family Trees. Please try again later. Additionally, much of what Morris introduces as new evidence was already including in the trial that convicted MacDonald. I would have said to the jury: they were not there, and neither was I. LP: Did anything new come out in the Wilmington hearing in September? 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. 6,889 Family Trees. He continued to work as a doctor and moved to California. MacDonald invited author Joe McGinniss to write a book about the case before it had reached a verdict. The couples youngest daughter, 2-year-old Kristen, had a total of 33 stab wounds. Who else is going to fight this thing if not me? Freddy Kassab said of his years-long quest to put his son-in-law Jeffrey MacDonald behind bars for killing his stepdaughter and two young granddaughters. Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, Collection description written by Linda Jacobs. Next, his trial in Raleigh, North Carolina presided over by Judge Franklin Dupree began on July 16, 1979. 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. No one ever knew what it was Helena told him because of attorney-client privilege. In a video published online in December, he spoke about how he had overcome drug addiction, and detailed the cycle of using, getting hooked, needing money, and then committing crime. There was violence. Although Kassab didnt join the family until Colette was a teenager, he had always been close with his stepdaughter. In the fall of 1963, they decided to get married and in April of the following year, their daughter Kimberly was born. I have read transcripts, articles, books, opinions, blogs, and bizarre rantings about psychopaths on Joe McGinniss Web site to help me more clearly see the picture of the MacDonald case. 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. Then, meet Christopher Scarver the man who killed cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer. Oxygen Insider is your all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more. Lynn Parramore: In all your years as a lawyer, what makes this case stand out? The now 76-year-old is serving three consecutive life sentences and is currently housed at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland . We reconstructed the murders using what McDonald said. "There's a lot of luck good and bad in a non-fatal shooting, You can be shot once and die, or you can be shot five times and live. Then, in 2012 Jeffrey MacDonalds most famous defender, filmmaker Errol Morris, was so intrigued by the case that he wrote the 500-page book A Wilderness of Error. We would frequently meet at the crime scene and brainstorm the whole scenario. When police showed their hand regarding the organised crime threat, back in 2011, the Tibas were at war with the Kassabs and Kheirs. 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. But many of the major players now are either related to these families, or closely linked within the criminal milieu. Friends since grade school, he and Colette Stevens began dating as teenagers, and grew serious during college. Take a guy like MacDonald. Kassab filed a citizens criminal complaint in April 1974, petitioning a federal court to convene a grand jury and determine if MacDonald could be charged. A crime scene was left open to bystander traffic. Even scarier stories, Ive found, can be true. Is it possible that Jeffrey MacDonald will get justice under these circumstances? 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. Through his aggressive pursuit of the case, MacDonald was indicted. Enough somethings to fill the long, solitary chapters of a mans life unfolding behind prison walls. Two-year-old Kristen had 33 knife- and 15 icepick wounds in her torso, while five-year-old Kimberly was bludgeoned to death. 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. This can drive a surge in shootings, and then be forgotten again just as quickly, said Detective Inspector Stephen Clark of the armed crime squad. Worse still, Judge Franklin Dupree seemed to have his mind made up before the trial began. In 1989after Freddy Kassab had been diagnosed with emphysemahe decided to videotape his arguments against MacDonalds release and arranged for the tape to be played, if necessary, in front of a parole board after he died, according to the Orlando Sentinel. Waters rubbished that explanation. MacDonald sued McGinniss for fraud in 1987, with a mistrial leading them to settle out of court for $325,000. But just what changed Kassabs mind about the man he once called a nice, presentable young man?". He has been imprisoned for three decades for a crime he did not commit. (See Silverglate's article on the case in Forbes.). These victims include Rachad Adra, who was killed and his four-year-old son injured, when a gunman with a high-powered weapon shot the wrong house in Thomastown in October 2015, and Khaled Abouhasna, who was killed in a shooting ambush six months earlier when he was mistaken for a ruthless standover man. I personally delivered a copy by hand to every congressman and every senator in the country.. Whats your sense of this? 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. The list of misfortunes goes on: exculpatory evidence withheld; possible prosecutorial misconduct; and fallible humans who twisted the MacDonald story to fit their own agendas. On the evening of the murders, Jeffrey MacDonald had taken his kids to ride the pony he had bought them, fed them dinner while their mother took a night class, and put them to bed. ". Ive had many cases in court. The shootings can be over particularly petty reasons, not just the drug trade: women, a perceived slight, or, increasingly, a prison feud. 741 Immigration & Travel. 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 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. The family lost its large house in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, and was forced to live in small quarters in a building they still owned. Bettmann Archive/Getty ImagesGrieving mother Mildred Kassab weeps for her daughter while being escorted into JFK Memorial Chapel to see her buried. Not only did the living room show few signs of a struggle, but the murder weapons were found outside the back door. She was a pretty girl, not beautiful, but pretty, and she was down to earth and she hated to see anybody hurt.. First responder Kenneth Mica discovered the bodies, with MacDonald laying wounded but alive next to his battered and lifeless wife. But an unfortunate thing happened in the following years. Vietnam-era Fayetteville was not sleepy Raleigh in the 1980s. Finally, in Wilmington, Jerry Leonard was ordered to tell what she had said to him 30 years ago. Eventually, after pressure from Colettes family, MacDonald was indicted and found guilty of the three murders on August 29, 1979. And the physical evidence, the circumstantial evidence, just kept mounting against him and contradicting his story for events from that evening.. And yet there are thousands of people in North Carolina who do not believe he did it. {{ post.roar_specific_data.api_data.analytics }}. She allegedly told one person that she recalled holding a candle that dripped with blood. It all was intruders. 741 Immigration & Travel. He drew on his previous knowledge of MacDonald, who he had met years earlier while courting Colettes mother, Mildred. He didnt do that. Mica remembered seeing a woman who fit this description while en route to the scene but said the Armys Criminal Investigation Division (CID) omitted this during their subsequent inquest. But things got out of hand. It was almost as scary as Helter Skelter the story of the Charles Manson murders in Californa that are said to have inspired Jeffrey MacDonald in the coverup for his homicidal rampage. Wadea left Syria in 1889 with two companions and arrived in the United States that same year. Since adapted into a documentary series of the same name directed by Marc Smirling, the project aims to detail how much evidence Morris believes was lost, mismanaged or glaringly unreliable from the start. Unfortunately for MacDonald, she would never admit any memory of her involvement in the killings in court. And, in media appearances like his interview on The Dick Cavett Show, meanwhile, MacDonald appeared suspiciously at ease. Mildred and Freddy Kassab both died, months apart, in 1994. Judge James Fox, a close friend of Dupree's and quite elderly himself, has taken over and has dismissed appeals. Smerling is the director of the documentary series A Wilderness of Error, which examines the MacDonald case. 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. Although the family started out as his benefactors, he ultimately became their caregivers as their positions reversed. It begins with Aelyas' grandfather Elyas Kassab, born in 1814, and traces the family through the nineteenth century; particular attention is paid. He had biblical levels of persistence, Bob Keeler, a reporter for Newsday, recalled in A Wilderness of Error.. 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. Marc Smerling thinks he has some idea. Furthermore, an FBI lab technician reenacted how MacDonald claimed he defended against the intruders attacks and proved his testimony contradicted the evidence. This was about 31% of all the recorded Kassab's in USA. That is why, police say, it is important to consider what the shooting represents, rather than the act itself. Nothing unique in any way. Kassab filed a citizens criminal complaint in April 1974, petitioning a federal court to convene a grand jury and determine if MacDonald could be charged. He is both a careful researcher and a profound investigator of the human condition. Pennsylvania had the highest population of Kassab families in 1920. For all of us independent news organizations, its no exception. Use census records and voter lists to see where families with the Kassab surname lived. But, they believe, the deterrent effect of jailing them, even if their victim remains tight-lipped, will have an impact. Hes the guy that lives next door. Were working to restore it. Since MacDonald was convicted of the murders in 1979, considerable evidence of his innocence has come to light. Aside from being the Wall Street of Victoria's firearms and drugs market, and the enormous consequences this trafficking has on the state, and the impact on the medical system of record numbers of people being maimed, there are the people who die completely innocently because the rules of these markets means shooting first has become an unwritten rule. Another page in another chapter in the new gangland war. Released and honorably discharged by the Army, MacDonald seemed to be in the clear. 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