Editing Fatal Vision (section)

==MacDonald murders and trial==
{{Main|Jeffrey R. MacDonald}}

In the early morning hours of February 17, 1970, at their home on Fort Bragg, North Carolina, [[United States Army Special Forces|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#Tate murders|Tate-LaBianca murders]] of the preceding year.

After several months of investigation, Army lawyers charged MacDonald 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 [[U.S. Federal Courts|Appeal and Supreme Courts]], went to trial on July 16, 1979.

After a six-week criminal trial, MacDonald was convicted of second-degree murder of his wife and older daughter and of first-degree murder of his younger daughter on August 29, 1979 and was immediately sentenced to three consecutive life terms (equivalent to life imprisonment). Afterwards, MacDonald raised further appeals, one of which set him free on bail for about 15 months before yet another reversal by the Supreme Court in March 1982.