A friend told me "Green Beret" murderer, Jeffrey MacDonald, convicted in 1979 of killing his pregnant wife, Colette and their two young daughters, Kimberley, five, and Kristen, two at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina on February 17, 1970 now has a motion for a new trial being considered before the Fourth Circuit Court in Richmond, Virginia.This is not the place for an in-depth discussion of Jeffrey MacDonald’s guilt or lack of guilt or even his chances of getting a new trial. However, the discussion did lead me to reread Fatal Vision by Joe McGinness. Now, I’m not a "true crime" aficionada. Generally, I have no interest in "true crime" at all. But Fatal Vision was and still is a special book. It reads more like a spellbinding novel than a non-fiction book about one of America’s most notorious family slayers and the man whose murder conviction has become the most litigated conviction in American history. Once you pick up Fatal Vision and begin reading, it’s very difficult to put the book down. The final sentence resonated with me years after I read it the first time, and I was as enthralled and horrified on rereading as I was the first time through.Fatal Vision is an incredibly well written book. Joe McGinniss obviously knew his material and his subject extremely well. He did, after all, attend MacDonald's trial and even live in MacDonald's California condo. Better yet, he knew how to present that material and that subject so the reader gets to know them incredibly well, too. An intelligent reader finishes Fatal Vision knowing, beyond even a reasonable doubt, that Jeffrey MacDonald and only Jeffrey MacDonald murdered his pregnant wife, his daughter Kimberley, and his daughter Kristen. If one goes on to learn a little more about the facts in this case since the time Joe McGinniss wrote Fatal Vision, one becomes even more convinced of MacDonald’s guilt. Take just one aspect of MacDonald’s story. He claims four "hippies" broke into his home and killed his wife and daughters, three men and one woman. (The woman was, according to MacDonald, wearing knee-high boots, but his version of the color of those boots has run the spectrum over the years.) MacDonald claims that he was being attacked by all four of the "hippies" in the living room and at the same time he could hear his wife screaming, "Jeff, Jeff, why are they doing this to me," and one of his daughters screaming, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy."Okay. But if four "hippies" were attacking MacDonald in his living room, and four people are the only people who broke into the very tiny MacDonald home as MacDonald has said many times, then who was attacking his wife and daughters? If all four attackers were busy fighting with MacDonald, why didn’t his wife gather the girls and run (there was a backdoor right through the master bedroom). And, it should be pointed out that while MacDonald's wife and daughters were the victims of overkill, MacDonald, himself received only very minor, non-life threatening wounds.There are other, more complicated reasons why MacDonald’s story doesn’t wash with readers endowed with even the most casual of critical thinking skills, but they are far too complex to go into here.Strangely, Jeffrey MacDonald, who has been in prison for a little more than thirty years now and who has long since had his license to practice medicine revoked, still has his followers who will go to the ends of the earth to proclaim either his guilt or his innocence, depending on whether or not MacDonald, himself took the time to write to them. His most vocal detractors are, strangely, women who still see him as the "golden boy" he once was, the brilliant and compassionate doctor, with the bright, shining future and the world at his feet. The fact that MacDonald married a Maryland woman several years his junior in prison in Victorville, California in 2002 doesn’t sit well with these women who used to live for the receipt of one of his letters.Now, even Joe McGinniss found Jeffrey MacDonald to be a charismatic and, on occasion, a charming person, but McGinniss saw through this veneer, this façade, to the heart of darkness underneath. I believe the women who wrote MacDonald before his marriage and are now spending their days on forums creating posts about what an "evil" man he is do see through the gloss of charm and charisma, but simply choose not to do so. Why MacDonald has this hypnotic hold on some people is beyond my understanding, even after reading Fatal Vision and getting a much better "look" at MacDonald. One woman even perjured herself and swore under oath in an affidavit that another, innocent man told her he was guilty of the murders. That man, however, never confessed to anyone, and it’s been proven that he was far, far away from MacDonald’s home on the night of the crimes. I guess these women simply like to keep their "golden boy" intact. It’s a strange phenomenon, but one I think Joe McGuinness could have predicted would happen. But, back to the book because that's what's interesting.Fatal Vision is a riveting, spellbinding, and ultimately, tragic book. It’s the story of a man who had it all – a stellar career in the Green Berets, a life in medicine, a life for which he had a brilliant natural talent, a caring and compassionate wife, who loved him dearly, two lovely and intelligent daughters, and the son he’d always wanted about to be born. It’s the story of how, in one fatal night, he destroyed it all. Joe McGinniss doesn’t know exactly why, but he is able to give us clues along the way. How those clues add up will no doubt be different for different readers. In the end, the only person who knows why Jeffrey MacDonald destroyed Jeffrey MacDonald and every member of his immediate family is...Jeffrey MacDonald. And he isn’t talking. At least not about that. My guess is he never will.Even if you’re like me and true crime isn’t your cup of tea, I can’t recommend Fatal Vision highly enough. Once you pick it up, I think you’ll be hard pressed to put it down. The writing is as fresh and riveting as it was when McGinness wrote it, and since there is an outside chance that MacDonald may be granted a new trial based on prosecutorial misconduct by an attorney who was subsequently disbarred for embezzlement, among other things, it's still timely as well.5/5Recommended: Definitely. Even if you don't care for true crime, this book holds its own with Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, but in the case of Fatal Vision, nothing is fictionalized.
This is my second time reading this book. Why read it twice, you may ask. Because I recently found a book contradicting the guilty verdict of Jeffrey MacDonald. Alright, settle in, this will be a long review. These murders occurred before I was born. The eventual actual trial occurred before I can remember. The book and the eventual two part mini-series that came out afterwards (back in the day of the popularity of the mini-series) had huge ratings were before I would have been allowed to know of such things. But, I feel I have known of this case my entire life. I grew up approx. 50 miles from Fort Bragg. Things like this didn't happen in NC. I've since seen the movie on Lifetime or somewhere on cable. I read the book in high school. Since then I've become an attorney - mostly working in criminal prosecution. The first time I read this book - and now the second time - I believe beyond a reasonable doubt that Jeffrey MacDonald murdered his pregnant wife, Colette and his two daughters. I don't believe it beyond ALL doubt, but I do beyond a reasonable doubt. The author, Joe McGinniss, was hired to write a book sympathetic to MacDonald. He lived with MacDonald during the trial at the Kappa Alpha house on the campus of NC State during the trial. He was there for the entire trial. And, he just couldn't do it. He couldn't write a book sympathetic to MacDonald - why? For no one particular reason, but one doubt, built on another doubt, built on another. MacDonald - in this book - comes across clearly as a narcissistic pathological liar. Psychotic breakdowns were not unknown in his family and it is highly likely, from the evidence and his own written words, that he was taking a form of amphetamine at the time which can precipitate psychotic breakdowns - as it did in his brother, Jay. If you like true crime, this is practically a classic. Also, just to note - I have started on the book that just came out trying to proclaim MacDonald's innocence (when I think the author really just wants a movie deal) and...on page 38, a quote from MacDonald himself convinced me more of his guilt than anything else b/c of what I know from Fatal Vision and my own personal knowledge of the law and defendants. I'm still not convinced beyond ALL doubt, like I am that Casey Anthony is guilty and O.J. Simpson is guilty and George Zimmerman is nothing but a murderer...but, at this point, I do believe beyond a reasonable doubt that MacDonald did kill his pregnant wife and his two daughters. Let's see how I feel after I finish the new book.
What do You think about Fatal Vision (1984)?
Maybe I'm setting myself for disappointment but ever since reading Truman Capote's In Cold Blood I've been looking for its modern-day equal. Midnight in The Garden of Good and Evil came close but slightly missed the mark. I was cautiously optimistic when I read a description of Fatal Vision describing it as "a true-crime classic." It became clear very quickly that I was in for another disappointment. The journalistic ideal of remaining objective and keeping the writer out of the story is necessary in short form and hard news reporting but in longer works it creates an unnatural distance between the reader and the story and a linguistic frigidity that leaves the prose feeling awkward and clunky. In Fatal Vision the absence of the writer-voice is noticeable to the point of being unsettling. Furthermore McGinniss, like many true-crime writers, relies far too heavily on investigative and court transcripts leaving large sections of the text unedited, dull, and stylistically incongruent. The reader never connects with the killer, the victims, or the investigators. The story feels like it's being told by a dispassionate omnipotent narrator, the proverbial god who doesn't care. And if the writer can't be bothered to care, why should the reader? Before In Cold Blood I had written off true-crime as drugstore counter trash. Surely no good prose could be wrapped in glossy salacious packaging with raised bubbles promising "26 Pages of Crimes Scene Photos!" And unfortunately Joe McGinniss does nothing to change this perception.
—Dawnelle Wilkie
I had to stop reading this halfway through, which is still an achievement since it is a 600 page behemoth of crap. I have no idea how this book gets such glowing reviews!McGinniss is not only highly biased and fails to present a convincing case against Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald, a doctor accused (and later convicted) of killing his family in 1970. First, the book is poorly written and lacking in editing. It seems that McGinniss includes anything anyone ever said about anything related to this case at all. It's not exhaustive, it's exhausting. McGinniss' book is basically a character assassination rather than a forensic argument for guilt. MacDonald is an asshole, but that doesn't mean he is a murderer. I am not so sure that McGinniss understands this. My breaking point was when McGinniss begins over-analyzing the class notes Colette MacDonald took in her Child Psych class the night of her murder, as if her study notes were some kind of diary. Come on.I have read neither Janet Malcolm nor Errol Morris' book about Fatal Vision, but I am eager to. Seems like we are on the same page (yuk yuk).
—Caroline
I first read this book shortly after it came out, and remember being absolutely riveted by it. I just re-read it, having recently completed Errol Morris' "A Wilderness of Error" promoting MacDonald's innocence.On second reading, Fatal Vision is not particularly well written. Basically, it is court proceeding transcripts interspersed with MacDonald's musings into a tape recorder. It is boring and one feels like one is wading through a marsh to get to e other side.That being said, there is also no mistaking that MacDonald's account of four intruders is utter nonsense -- completely unsupported by both his retelling of his activities that night as well as the abundance of blood and fiber evidence. The juxtaposition of hard circumstantial facts against MacDonald's verbose and arrogant narcissistic rumblings makes the reader realize that the ONLY person who stood to benefit from the deaths of Colette, Kimberly and Kristen -- and who, for some time, did indeed benefit -- was the husband and father who killed them.Rot in jail, Dr. MacDonald, and continue to proclaim your innocence. I'm sure your Maker looks forward to discussing the topic with you at length.
—Karen Stinneford
