Fatal Vision

  "You mean arrived in Raleigh? I arrived last evening at about seven o'clock."

  "And where did you come from when you came here?" "I came here from the airport." "The airport in Raleigh?" "Right."

  "How did you get to the airport in Raleigh?" "Eastern Airlines flight number 738." "And where did you embark on that flight?" "Philadelphia."

  "How did you get to the Philadelphia airport?" "In a limousine from the George Washington Motor Lodge near Fort Washington."

  "And how did you get to the Fort Washington Motor Lodge?" "In one of my automobiles."

  "And where did you start from when you went in one of your automobiles from wherever you were to—''

  "From a house on 307 Aquetong Road in New Hope, Pennsylvania, on the planet Earth, where the subpoena was delivered to."

  "Do you keep your personal belongings in that house?" "I keep my personal belongings in that bag in that room where we just came from."

  "But apart from those that you carry around, do you keep other personal belongings in that house?" "Some."

  "And you sleep there from time to time?"

  "Sometimes."

  "And you receive mail?"

  "Only when it is imposed upon me."

  "The U.S. Postal Service, however, occasionally delivers mail there for you? It's addressed to you at that address?" "As I said before, only when it is imposed upon me." "Do you have a business or an occupation of any sort?" "I don't know what you mean by business or occupation." "Well, do you have any means of livelihood?" "I don't know what you mean by that." "Do you have any means of self-support?" "I don't know what you mean by that." "Do you have a source of income?" "I don't know what you mean by that." "Do people ever pay you money for services performed?" "Sometimes."

  "What services do you perform?"

  "I occasionally would deliver a load of firewood."

  "Where do you operate this firewood delivery business?"

  "Where I can, if the deal was right, I would take a load of firewood to Peking."

  "If people want to get in touch with you to order a load of firewood to be sent to Peking or anyplace else, where do they get in touch with you?"

  "Word of mouth. In other words—and not to break your chops, but when I'm unloading a load of wood someplace, somebody might come along and say, 'Hey, pal, where did you get that load of wood? I'd like to get one.' In which case I would make a deal with the guy, and I would deliver another load of wood."

  "Let's say they don't see you unloading a load of wood, but they know that you are a source of supply for a load of wood and they want to get in touch with you?"

  "I just told you how I operate—word of mouth."

  "Where do they come to find you?"

  "Where they see me unloading the wood."

  "That's the only place they can contact you?"

  "Yes. That's the only place they could contact me—that's the only place that I have been contacted."

  "I see. Then you don't operate a store, or shop, or let's say, an established business?"

  "A shop—meaning a permanent place of business in one location? No."

  "Are you the brother of Jeffrey MacDonald?"

  "Yes."

  "And you're about a year older than he is?" "About nineteen months." "And you grew up together?"

  "Yes, I guess so. Some would probably say that he matured a little more than I did."

  "Will you, at this time, describe the sort of family life that you and your brother lived as you were growing up?"

  "With all due respect, I don't understand what that question has to do with anything about the situation that I thought I was brought here for."

  "Do you remember," Worheide said, "when I spoke informally to you in another room prior to your coming in here, that your brother had requested that we call to testify a psychiatrist who had been retained by him? And do you recall that you were shown portions of the transcript in which your brother testified before this grand jury concerning the family situation, the interpersonal relationships within the family?"

  "I recall that, and I recall that my response to that was that you could take all the psychiatrists and all the psychologists in the world, put them on an old troop transport, and you could tow that old warship into the middle of the ocean, and you could blow the fucking thing right out of the ocean and tomorrow the world would go on like nothing happened and nobody would miss nobody. That was my response to what we talked about in your office."

  "Yes, but we did talk about the family relationships, too, did we not?" "Yes."

  "Will you please give the grand jury the benefit of your observations?"

  "I don't understand what that has to do with the case." "Let me say this. I don't want to waste a lot of time." "You wasted four and a half years." "Just listen to me!" "I'm listening."

  "You're here to answer questions and not to ask questions! If necessary, we can take you before a judge—"

  "You can lock me up for twenty-five years. You can lock me up for a hundred years! You can throw me out the window. You can take me down the hall and shoot me, but don't tell me that I'm not here to ask questions also, pal! If you're going to ask a question, I'll ask a question." "You are here as a witness—"

  "I am here because I am commanded to be here by a piece of paper that was served to me in New Hope, Pennsylvania, and that's the only reason I am here. Because if I didn't appear, some Gestapo would come at gunpoint and take me away and bring me here to force me to try and answer questions. And if I refused to answer the questions, my ass would be locked up. Not yours. I understand that full well. And don't tell me that I am not going to ask a question if I am asked one. Now if you want to ask me a question, before I put my ass on the line I want to know why."

  "I'm going to ask you the question once more," Worheide said.

  "You can ask me the question ten more times." "Will you inform the grand jury of the interpersonal relationships in the MacDonald family, as you were growing up?" "I don't understand the question."

  Victor Woerheide paused. He walked back to his desk. He sat down. He conferred with an assistant. He began to look through a sheaf of papers. Sighing deeply, he stood again, with a new piece of paper in his hand.

  "Do you recall a birthday party for your mother, which you planned and organized in June of 1969?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you recall that Colette and Jeffrey MacDonald were there?" "Yes."

  "Do you recall that Penny Wells was there?" "No."

  "Do you know Penny Wells?" "Yes."

  "Was she a girl that you were dating at that time?" "At what time?"

  "During the time frame within which fell the birthday party for your mother in June 1969."

  "That is possible. In all the years that I've known that gal, I've gone out with her possibly ten or twelve times. At the time of that party, the main purpose in my mind was to satisfy a desire of pleasing my mother by giving her a fiftieth birthday party, since my father had been deceased for some time, and I felt that that was something to do. Now if I made a date with Penny Wells, it was purely an afterthought type of a situation so that I would have a companion for that particular day, or an escort, as it were."

  "Well, do you remember whether or not your brother suggested that you bring Penny Wells to this party?"

  "As I just said to you, I don't even know if Penny Wells was there that day. And as I said in your office before, I could have balled her that night and I still wouldn't remember if she was at that party. If she opened all the presents or handed out the presents to my mother at that party I am not aware of that. Now if I am not aware of all those things, there is no way I could truthfully say whether or not my brother asked me to ask Penny Wells to be at that party, with all due respect. I am not trying to break your chops. I am trying to help you. But I am answering that question to the best of my ability."

  "Do you recall that Colette was at the party?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you have any recollection that Colette was o
ffended because Penny Wells was there and was getting some special attention, let's say?"

  "I don't know if Penny Wells was at the party or not. And if I don't know if she was there or not, then I really don't know if there was any tension between Colette and Penny."

  "Well, in your observation, was Colette in any way jealous of Penny Wells?"

  "I don't think there is a woman alive who could make Colette jealous in the sense of nastiness or vindictiveness."

  "If she might have reason to believe, rightly or wrongly, that this other person was a threat to her marriage, how would she react?"

  "I'm not sure I understand the question."

  "Well, if she thought that Jeff were attracted to another woman, perhaps to another woman to whom he had been particularly close in the past, and that this attraction on the part of Jeff constituted a threat to her marriage, in the sense that Jeff might leave her or have an affair with her or something of that sort—"

  "Well, you're saying a lot there. When you're talking about threatening a marriage, there's a lot of room to play with. In other words, certainly gals' marriages would be threatened if their husbands were having an affair. I dare say there are certain marriages that are threatened if the man isn't having an affair."

  "Well, how do you size it up in this situation? You knew Colette and you know Jeff."

  "Yes, and if you're speaking about Jeff having an affair I don't think that would be a threat, in Colette's mind, to the marriage. Because I could very easily see Jeff having an affair and maybe ten affairs, but no romance to the extent of feeling involved, or a real true love sort of a situation."

  "I take it Jeff was a man who was attracted to women, and women found him attractive?"

  "There's an old family joke that when we were growing up the girls used to pay Jeff to dance with them in grammar school—ten cents a dance."

  "And I assume Jeff did have casual affairs with a number of girls from time to time?"

  "Well, that would be purely an assumption. I was never present at any of these alleged affairs. I don't have any films or tape recordings of those affairs. However, as far as my own opinion is concerned, and knowing Jeff quite well, I would say that he was capable of having many affairs."

  "All right, tell us about Jeff," Woerheide said. "What sort of a guy is he? What makes him tick?"

  "He's a highly energetic, ambitious person. Unfortunately for him, I am his older brother. And he has had to live in my shadow whether he wanted to or not. I am physically bigger than Jeff. We were brought up in a school system and a locality and by a set of parents who thought that football was good, and sports were good, and Boy Scouting, and participating in certain community situations where we, as children and students, were brought into the public eye, so to speak.

  "And just by the very fact that Jeff was a year behind me he had to suffer the consequences of me getting the headlines in high school. I had no control over that. I had no control over the fact that when I was on the varsity, he was on the JV. My mother and father would come to the games on Friday night or Saturday and see me under the lights and it wouldn't matter if I caught one pass and we lost by a hundred points, I was still a hero in my parents' eyes.

  "And not that they even went to his games, but even if they did go watch him play Monday, it was still a JV game. If Jeff scored nine touchdowns he was still a JV and I was still a varsity. He was still my younger brother.

  "I am trying to give you some idea of what did shape his life, perhaps, a little bit. I mean, it had to have an effect on him. Like, I made it a point never to bring a book home from school no matter how much work I had, and I could always get by. He carried every book home from his locker every single night, plus he would go to the library and bring home an extra ten for security. Then he'd read them all and he'd be a straight-A student while I was getting by with a 70.

  "Now, if you're asking me why he would do that, he was, in his own way, trying to be better than me, without saying anything to me or to my mother or father. Because he had to live in my shadow forever. And I think he might even have resented me a little for getting by without bringing home all the books.

  "It's very difficult for me to converse with my brother and really make any sense. In other words, I really can't get into a conversation with him anymore and really have an understanding at a certain level. I think, philosophically speaking, my thoughts go off in a totally different direction from his own. My value system is altogether different from his. Now why his value system developed the way it did—if it was just because of the position by nature that he was placed at—I don't know.

  "I went into the Marine Corps. You know, like in the gung-ho sense, the rah-rah American-type situation, I think the only thing that could be better than that would be the Green Berets, and that's probably why, in my mind, he chose the Green Berets. Although if I said that to him, not only would it offend him, but he would deny it vehemently. But you tell me why he went in the Green Berets. You tell me why if I do a hundred sit-ups, he wants to do a hundred and one. If I drive five thousand miles in two days, he wants to drive six thousand. But not to beat me. Well, you tell me why.

  "As far as what motivates Jeff, I think as he was growing up there was more of a sense of desperation on his part as to what the future held, or what was going to happen, because he was always following in my footsteps and they might not have been pleasant footsteps to follow.

  "Like I always had a job and he could never get the same job. He'd have to take something a little bit less. When I was working as a stock clerk, he was delivering newspapers because I had already delivered newspapers. Then when he got to be a stock clerk I was working on the back of an asphalt truck. And when he was working on the back of an asphalt truck, I was driving the truck.

  "He had to become a doctor because he knew that I wasn't a doctor. He was going to be a political scientist or whatever. He became a doctor. I don't know why, but I do know why, if you can understand what I'm saying. It's one of those unspoken things. I can't—I know why inside of me, and yet if I say it, that ruins everything and then—because it would be denied.

  "I think he still is—he had a tremendous sense of loss when my father died. I called him about ten minutes after my father passed away, when he was living in Chicago, and I said, 'Jeff, I have some bad news. Daddy died.' And he instantly broke down on the telephone and cried.

  "He really sensed a tremendous loss. I don't know if he ever really developed a—I think everybody needs a father of sorts. Somebody that they can talk to or lean on or cry on his shoulder once in a while. And I don't know who that person would be in my brother's case, after my father passed away. There was no one alive that would be an adequate substitute. If he was looking to me for guidance, he didn't see any, and so he went on his own.

  "And, well, I think myself and my sister and my brother, we realized how much effort and how much of my own mother's and father's lives were literally given to us as children, in order for us to have things they never had. The things they had to give up in order for us just to go to school. My father would get two jobs so my brother could go to college. And my sister went to college and my mother had the job. Things like that.

  "We never talked about it, but then you begin to think, well, now, we can almost see the end of the tunnel and we'll be able to help them—meaning my mother and father, financially. Start to give them back the things they had to give up. But after you lose a parent, you can't repay those things. Now we can't repay anybody. You can buy a bigger headstone."

  "Speaking in terms of Jeff, now," Worheide asked, "would that leave him with a sense of guilt?"

  "I don't see what that has to do with the case. Guilt could enter into the picture in the sense of an unfulfilled desire, or a disappointment, but if you are a reasonable person, and my brother was a truly reasonable person, you'd have to assume that he knows that he had no control over the fact that my father died."

  Woerheide then asked Jay MacDonald about his brother's a
ttitude toward Freddy and Mildred Kassab. First, Jay expressed his own opinion.

  "Mildred—I wouldn't waste my time telling you what I think about her. If she had twelve cents in her pocketbook, she would go out and get a twenty-five-dollar hairdo just to keep herself on the chopping block.

  "She marries Freddy and he treats her very well. Puts her in, you know, a five-hundred-dollar-a-month apartment that's not good enough for her. She wants a thousand dollars—living in the best place in New York, you know. They should have been living in a two-hundred-dollar-a-month place. They were living way over their heads.

  "But Jeff, you know, sort of liked that kind of life. I think he saw in the way they were living that that's the way he would like to live someday. From the way we grew up as kids, in a house that was constantly under construction, with very poor-parents, to see Freddy and Mildred living in these luxury apartments, I am sure that was the way he wanted to live. But Jeff was too much of a real person to do it on credit. He wanted to pay as he goes.

  "Still, he admired Freddy. Like the day they were married we parked the cars in front of the apartment house and went upstairs to drop off some gifts, and we got back down and there were 'No Parking' stickers slapped on the windshield, that the doorman had put on the car.

  "Well, Freddy ran downstairs, and I had never seen that done before. He chewed the guy out, berated him in front of everybody, made the guy get a bucket of water and a sponge and wash these things off the car. That made Jeff laugh. He said, 'Gee, I like the way he does things.'

  "But, in other words, the guy didn't have a pot to piss in, and he was ordering people around, living in these big fancy places, and I guess Jeff just figured, because of the way he was brought up, that's the way he would like to live. In other words, Jeff is the kind of a guy who would sit down with Freddy and say, 'Freddy, you are a schmuck. You are really a phony son of a bitch, but I like you.' I mean, that's really where it's at with Jeff."