Fatal Vision controversy
First US edition cover
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| Author | Joe McGinniss |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | True crime, Biography |
| Publisher | Signet Books |
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Publication date
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August 1983 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover & paperback) |
| ISBN | |
| Followed by | Blind Faith (1989) |
The controversy over Fatal Vision, journalist and author Joe McGinniss's best-selling 1983 true crime book, is a decades-long dispute spanning several court cases and discussed in several other published works.
Fatal Vision focuses on Captain Jeffrey R. MacDonald, M.D. and the February 17, 1970 murders of his wife and their two children at their home on Fort Bragg, North Carolina. In 1979, MacDonald was convicted of all three murders and sentenced to life in prison. McGinniss was hired by MacDonald, prior to the start of the criminal trial, but he later became convinced that MacDonald was guilty, and the book supported MacDonald's conviction.
The book sold well, and gave rise the next year to an NBC miniseries under the same name. The book led to MacDonald suing McGinniss, a case that was settled out of court. The book and its conclusions were challenged by several subsequent publications.
In the early morning hours of February 17, 1970, at their home on Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Green Beret Captain Jeffrey MacDonald, M.D., was injured, and his pregnant wife and two young daughters were murdered. MacDonald told Army investigators that they had been attacked by multiple assailants; the details were reminiscent of the sensational Tate-LaBianca murders of the preceding year.
After several months of investigation, Army lawyers charged MacDonald himself with the three murders, leading to a three-months-plus adversarial hearing that recommended he not be prosecuted. In 1971, his father-in-law, Freddy Kassab, became progressively suspicious of MacDonald and sought formal reopening of the case. In July 1974, a Federal judge acted on a citizen's criminal complaint by Kassab and others, by putting the case before a grand jury. MacDonald was indicted for all three murders in January 1975, and after two rounds of appeals to Appeal and Supreme Courts, went to trial on July 16, 1979.
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