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. Silverglate believes that Jeffrey MacDonald has been railroaded, and that this railroading exposes disturbing trends in our federal criminal justice system. No particular families run any particular suburbs; they are all dealing, all the time, to whoever buys. Since last September, the Tibas are suspected of involvement in at least six non-fatal shootings, a bashing and multiple home invasions. But it didnt take long to realize that something was wrong. When the show was over, I retired to the security of my bed, safe from unpredictable evils. It implicates us all. MacDonald claimed the mysterious blonde woman who oversaw the murders was wearing a floppy hat and high-heeled boots and was holding a candle while chanting, Acid is groovy. Anybody could. or click here to become a subscriber. Most notably, the holes in the shirt MacDonald had been wearing appeared too smooth and clear cut to indicate self-defense. It sickened me and it enraged me.. Since 1979, the MacDonald case has continued to trouble those who delve beneath the surface of the media narrative. And absolutely nothing fit, Kassab told the, To realize he had done it, and Colette loved him, and when you sit back and picture in your minds eye what happened that night, with him attacking, and I know from the autopsy reports what was done to the two children, you cant help but visualize in your mind, though we dont talk about it, Freddy Kassab told, Stevenson told reporters in 2005 that he had promised Freddy Kassab on his death bed that he would continue the familys quest to keep MacDonald behind bars, according to. Official trailer for FX documentary series. Thank you. His relentless persistence prompted the government to open a second investigation. Good potential for the future, so therefore we saw nothing wrong with them getting married, Kassab once said of his son-in-law, according to the docuseries. And so there are going to be cases where there is a reasonable doubt as to what actually happened. Two years into MacDonalds undergraduate studies at Princeton, Stevens became pregnant. Desperate to save his family, he said he fought back until they stabbed him and beat him unconscious. But even though Jeffrey MacDonald has spent decades behind bars, his case doesnt seem to be closed just yet. Young woman; old woman. Walk through the house, walk through the rooms and talk about what we know,investigator Mike Pickering said in the docuseries. With their encouragement, he graduated from dental school in Philadelphia in 1895 and set up a practice in Chester. MacDonald sued McGinniss for fraud in 1987, with a mistrial leading them to settle out of court for $325,000. 6,889 Family Trees. 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. Materials provided by the families of Wadea and Aelyas Kassab. He explained his lie initially by attributing it to drug addiction-induced paranoia and then said he believed that once he told his family the lies, he had to keep lying.. And a victim falls on the concrete. Eventually, after pressure from Colettes family, MacDonald was indicted and found guilty of the three murders on August 29, 1979. However, his American dream suddenly became a nightmare in 1970 when his family was found brutally stabbed to death in their home. A crime scene was left open to bystander traffic. There were few major drug or weapon importations in the state that police could not, in some way, trace back to these families. I dont know what the odds are. Kassab wanted to find justice and began writing letters to the Army and congressmen slamming the investigators for their errors and urging authorities to continue the investigation. The new war involves men with names many Victorians could barely pronounce shooting each other in downtrodden suburbs they have almost certainly never visited. He said the so-called Fagin Laws, which were introduced last year and allow police to charge adults who coerce children to offend, would be useful in dismantling these networks. 959 Census & Voter Lists. Wadea and Aelyas Kassab are both buried in Pennsylvania. But of the evidence that Morris presents, perhaps most convincing is the piece cited in MacDonalds 2017 federal appeal. WS: Its an enormous problem. McGinniss stark rendering of Picture #1 stuck in my mind until recently when a friend from North Carolina told me that Errol Morris had published a book suggesting MacDonald was innocent. Sadly, the family wouldnt survive the next year. WebIt is reported Ms Kassab entered Syria last year and that her husband, known as Sam, died on the border of Turkey in 2013. "We're concentrating on the actions of the shooter, because what happens to the victim is outside our control the line between a non-fatal shooting and a murder is wafer thin. One is titled Memoirs by Wadea Kassab; it is 210 pages and was written in 1954. I would have said to the jury: they were not there, and neither was I. Earlier, evidence came to light that a FBI forensic examiner mislead the jury about synthetic hair evidence. Like Wade Smith, Ive been struck by how many people speak of absolute certainty about what happened that February night over 40 years ago. He worked first in a stove factory, a physically taxing and low-paying job, and later became a molder in a factory making brake shoes for the railroad. Colette was relieved to find out her husband would not be stationed in Vietnam and the whole family was overjoyed to learn she was pregnant for a third time. MacDonald was convicted twice, both in the courtroom and in the all-important court of public opinion, which was sealed by McGinniss book and miniseries. It has Charles Manson written all over it. The past year has been the most arduous of our lives. The couple got married when Colette was just 20 years old after discovering that she was pregnant. However, critics of the book say that while it paints an emotional picture of a man wrongfully tried by the media, it cherrypicks evidence and largely ignores the physical evidence that led to MacDonalds 1979 conviction. Should Trump be allowed to hold office again? It is hard not to be shocked by the footage of Oueida's shooting. 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 was a true gentleman, even though there were things in the trial and there were decisions he made that I disagree with. The one thing that sticks in my craw above anything else is this: There were lab results. Grieving mother Mildred Kassab weeps for her daughter while being escorted into JFK Memorial Chapel to see her buried. However, instead of the firm defense MacDonald expected, the 1983 bestseller A Fatal Vision described him as a narcissistic psychopath.. That didnt happen here. They grew to become serious forces, in part, because of failures by police to respond to the problem. And absolutely nothing fit, Kassab told the Orlando Sentinel in 1989. Jeffrey MacDonald was arraigned in May 1975 and pleaded not guilty. 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. Kill the pigs.. McGinniss had to be creative, because the mans character never fit the crime. Because that's what crime figures do in the north-west, most of the time. It is a misconception that the battles are over territory. But things got out of hand. Four military police (MP) officers arrived at 4 a.m. to find an unspeakable crime scene. A portrait photograph of Wadea (left) and Aelyas (right) Kassab. 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. Colette MacDonald and her daughters suffered horrific violence as they were killed on February 17, 1970 at their Fort Bragg home. 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. He made fun of them. I even laughed at the idea of hippie murderers in North Carolina. You sure Errol Morris wrote the book? She was sure. ", Bob Stevenson, Colettes brother, described his stepfathers reaction to the television appearance as visceral and said it had wrenched his guts., Things werent being said right, inflections of the voice, he said. 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. Wadea 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. His uncle, Salim Kassab, was a long-time assistant to, first, Lady Hester Stanhope and later to Elizabeth Bowen Thompson, who helped found British mission schools in Greater Syria. WebWe found 33,440 records for Kassab last name. Theyre the ones that wrote the Congress and said the Army screwed up this crime scene. In 1920 there were 5 Kassab families living in Pennsylvania. He continued to work as a doctor and moved to California. Often, the spouse turns out to have committed the murder, so its not surprising that the case turned to McDonald. Family members of radio personality Casey Kasem have settled a lawsuit against his widow that alleged her neglect and physical abuse led to his death in 2014. Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, Collection description written by Linda Jacobs. But there was no evidence that had ever taken place. Kassab testified on MacDonalds behalf, declaring, If I had another daughter, Id still want the same son-in-law.. To dislodge an idea reinforced by a popular book and TV phenomenon would be hard enough, but to add the sickening sense that the wrong man has been paying is nearly unthinkable. The family moved to Chicago after MacDonald was accepted into Northwestern University Medical School. At one stage last year, there was only one of the six Chaouks, father and sons, that were alive and free. McGinniss' publisher settled with MacDonald out of court, after the judge called the author a conman. (This story, in its own right, became a famous book about journalistic ethics by Janet Malcolm.). 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 Thereafter their lives ran close and parallel courses. Pennsylvania had the highest population of Kassab families in 1920. Segal took up nearly all the time in the critical period for closing remarks and left only a few minutes for co-counsel Wade Smith, an eloquent native North Carolinian who understood the jury. 1,169 Birth, Marriage & Death. Soon I was reading Morris A Wilderness of Error, feeling skeptical and wondering why this reputable man would involve himself in a case that everyone and their mother (including mine) knew the truth about. He told authorities that hetried to fight off the attackers but was wounded and eventually collapsed in the hallwaylater regaining consciousness and discovering his family had been killed, according to the new FX docuseries A Wilderness of Error.. Brian Murtaugh says, Sure, Ill give it to him. Marc Smerling thinks he has some idea. But just what changed Kassabs mind about the man he once called . A lengthy trial heard Moustafa and Kassab had gone to the Brunswick panel beating shop to confront Moustafa over $50,000 in cash and $10,000 in aftershave they believe he had stolen. Check out never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! Through his aggressive pursuit of the case, MacDonald was indicted. According to her, they wanted to teach MacDonald a lesson and rough up his family the night of the killings. After completing high school in Chester, he too went to dental school and set up practice in Wadeas office. Mr Oueida has been overseas for most of the time since the attack, predominantly in Lebanon and Dubai a haunt for a string of Australian organised crime figures. When the initial military hearing was conducted in 1970, no one in his life could be found who had a bad thing to say about him. They dont know the truth any more than I do. Shes haunting this case. I used to joke with him when I saw him around Hey Jerry, isnt there something you want to tell us? But he couldnt, and he likely would have gone to his grave carrying the secret of what Helena told him had it not been for that hearing. That is why, police say, it is important to consider what the shooting represents, rather than the act itself. Jeffrey MacDonald had it all. His memoir reads as a classic Syrian rags-to-riches story, except for the fact that he lost everything when he speculated in real estate just before the Great Depression. It would take six more months before Mildred Kassab reached the same conclusion. Did Jeffrey MacDonald Brutally Slay His Pregnant Wife And Daughters Or Did The Cops Get The Wrong Guy? Wadea left Syria in 1889 with two companions and arrived in the United States that same year. MacDonalds relationship with his father-in-law, who had been a staunch supporter, became strained. Weve always understood the importance of calling out corruption, regardless of political affiliation. He adamantly denied all charges but was at a loss for words during cross-examination by the prosecution. According to exclusive statistics from the armed crime squad, there has been a five-fold increase in non-fatal shootings in the north-west in four years and the region now sees almost two thirds of Victoria's non-fatal shootings. While none of the hairs found at the scene matched Stoeckleys DNA or that of any of her known associates, MacDonald maintains they prove something more essential to his freedom that someone else was there that night. I was born in May of that year, and would thus be the same age as the child Colette MacDonald was carrying when her life was snuffed out. Maybe more than I would have thought as a teen. WS: Yes. It begins with Aelyas' grandfather Elyas Kassab, born in 1814, and traces the family through the nineteenth century; particular attention is paid. The Esquire story, for all its salaciousness, touched upon real issues that plagued many communities outside of California. 959 Census & Voter Lists. 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. Will artificial intelligence overthrow its capitalist overlords? Most people who go through traumatic things like this, nowhere near as lengthy, almost always end up in divorce, but with us its drawn us closer.. In the end, MacDonald himself took the stand. 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 a1998 Vanity Fair article. 1,169 Birth, Marriage & Death. The cost to Melbourne's north-west is huge. And she told him she had been there, at the MacDonald home, the night of the murders. Morris researched the MacDonald case for 20 years and knows each labyrinthine turn of its progress through the criminal justice system. And, in media appearances like his interview on The Dick Cavett Show, meanwhile, MacDonald appeared suspiciously at ease. MacDonald was ultimately convicted in 1979 for killing his pregnant wife Colette MacDonald and their two young daughters, Kimberley and Kristen. The Tibas are the only clan in the five families that can boast three generations of serious offenders from murderers to drug traffickers. Finally, in Wilmington, Jerry Leonard was ordered to tell what she had said to him 30 years ago. Now deceased, she remains a pivotal figure in the case. 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. Detective Inspector Wayne Newman, from the North-West Metro region, says there has been an increase in higher ranking organised crime figures in the area insulating themselves from possible harm by using youth networks to do the grunt work. Even scarier stories, Ive found, can be true. Judge Fox is also a good man. In a 2011 press release, the Innocence Project stated:. Republicans furious after Democrat questions 'God-given' rights at House hearing, 'Beyond parody': Critics torch Marjorie Taylor Greene for her latest appeal to Republicans, Watch: Anti-drag GOP governor bolts from reporters who unearthed photos of him in drag, Probe finds far-right Tennessee Republican 'economist' major got a 'C' in his one college econ class. He claimed that he had been asleep on the couch when at least four drug-crazed hippies broke into the home and savagely killed the family. MacDonald had been just a teenager at the time and was dating Colette, his high school sweetheart. 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. Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more! After Mica performed mouth-to-mouth, MacDonald came to. When police showed their hand regarding the organised crime threat, back in 2011, the Tibas were at war with the Kassabs and Kheirs. When you accept Picture #1, youre deciding that Jeffrey MacDonald is the Person Who Must Pay. MacDonald invited author Joe McGinniss to write a book about the case before it had reached a verdict. The man is a fanatic.. In 1978, MacDonalds case went to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, who rejected it. MacDonald was tried in a civilian court in 1979. The crimes committed by the families were left to locally-based detectives to investigate, rather than specialist squads, until the Santiago Taskforce was formed in 2008. LP: What has this case revealed about the flaws in our judicial system? He is, of course, one of many ensnared in that cycle, particularly in the north-west, which consistently ranks among the worst in the state for employment, education and substance dependence. In addition, DNA testing on evidence that was recovered from the fingernails scrapings of one of the victims and a hair found under another victim did not match MacDonald. 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. A lengthy trial heard Moustafa and Kassab had gone to the Brunswick panel beating shop to confront Moustafa over $50,000 in cash and $10,000 in aftershave they believe he had stolen. He was found guilty and given three life sentences on Aug. 26, 1979. He was troubled by MacDonalds apparently cavalier attitude about the brutal murders on an appearance of "The Dick Cavett Show. Bettmann Archive/Getty ImagesRep. Mr Oueida has been overseas for most of the time since the attack, predominantly in Lebanon and Dubai a haunt for a string of Australian organised crime figures. In 1920 there were 5 Kassab families living in Pennsylvania. Psychiatric professionals on both sides pronounced him incapable of having committed the crimes. WebWe found 33,440 records for Kassab last name. Use census records and voter lists to see where families with the Kassab surname lived. Marc Smerling thinks he has some idea. 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. Every time we pursued a lead it just turned us around and directed us back toward Jeffrey MacDonald. As revealed in footage obtained by The Saturday Age, the latest chapter involves the shooting of the mercurial Mohammed Oueida, a man once described as the new Tony Mokbel, who was only two metres away when a gunman shot at him four times from a car, blasting him in the stomach on April 17. 6,889 Family Trees. It appeared to investigators that MacDonald had staged the scene, inspired by the recent Manson Family murders to blame hippies for his crime. Macdonald has been the most arduous of our kassab crime family most convincing is the Person who Must Pay in civilian! The Innocence Project stated: have almost certainly never visited, Collection description written by Jacobs! 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