Released and honorably discharged by the Army, MacDonald seemed to be in the clear. Almost all the of shootings in the north-west, one underworld source said, relate to those at the bottom of the criminal food chain. In 1921, Aelyas married Soumaya Khoury of Beirut, Lebanon; by all accounts the two were deeply in love, and they died within 48 hours of one another. 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. Materials provided by the families of Wadea and Aelyas Kassab. Young woman; old woman. 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. The crime scene was so messed up that you couldnt depend on it. Im giving you an extra copy for Bernie Segal [the defense counsel]. 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. The Kassab brothers both raised their families in Chester, where they also practiced dentistry. Use census records and voter lists to see where families with the Kassab surname lived. 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. In a 2011 press release, the Innocence Project stated:. A finger squeezes a trigger until the chamber empties. As I read Morris meticulous examination the evidence, the picture in my mind became less clear. We needed the Kassabs to shut up, just calm down, let us do the investigation and well find out who did it.. He was the lawyer she was talking to one-on-one who had been appointed to advise her of her rights. Not only did the U.S. Army surgeon marry his high school sweetheart, but he had a flourishing career, two beautiful young daughters, and a son on the way. 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. Use census records and voter lists to see where families with the Kassab surname lived. 1,169 Birth, Marriage & Death. Donor retains full ownership of any and all copyright currently controlled in agreement with Khayrallah Center. That was my closing argument. LP: In Joe McGinnis book, Fatal Vision, Freddy Kassab, MacDonalds father-in-law, was presented as the protagonist. Both brothers married women in Syria and brought them back to the United States. There may be hope that MacDonald will eventually gain his freedom and at least be able to live the last few years of his life outside of a prison cell. "Memoirs" by Wadea Kassab recounts Wadea's life from his childhood in Damascus and Bloudan, to his immigration to America in 1889, and through his pursuit of education and a career in dentistry. Freddy was not going to quit. Smerling is the director of the documentary series A Wilderness of Error, which examines the MacDonald case. At least six have faced significant criminal charges. They dont know the truth any more than I do. A portrait photograph of Wadea (left) and Aelyas (right) Kassab. McGinniss drew on pop-sociology to render an image of a psychopathic killer in the guise of the friendly doctor-next-door; the kind we know from endless horror movies. Anybody could. 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. I wouldnt allow myself to believe it, because it made it so much worse that it was he instead of strangers, she later said in an interview, according to the docuseries. WS: We all depend on excellent, honest detective work. This note says: 'Brian, Im giving you this lab report. Two possibilities: MacDonald is a monster, or he is a victim of terrible injustice. She was a pretty girl, not beautiful, but pretty, and she was down to earth and she hated to see anybody hurt.. The simple acts of coming and going as I please and caring for my own basic needs have been denied him. So MacDonald was the logical choice. Bettmann Archive/Getty ImagesGrieving mother Mildred Kassab weeps for her daughter while being escorted into JFK Memorial Chapel to see her buried. Aelyas (Elias) Kassab, Wadeas younger brother, was born in the Kassabs' summer residence in Bloudan, Syria in 1883. MacDonald had been just a teenager at the time and was dating Colette, his high school sweetheart. Then he injured himself and set up the scene to make the crimes appear to be the work of intruders. Kassab a one-time Canadian Army intelligence operator who had once lost his own wife and daughter in a bombing of London during World War II initially believed MacDonalds account of the night and became a staunch and vocal supporter of his son-in-law, the Washington Post reported in 1984. 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. Although the family started out as his benefactors, he ultimately became their caregivers as their positions reversed. The family claims his body has never been found. Link your TV provider to stream full episodes and live TV. 959 Census & Voter Lists. Its a case that if you were telling scary stories around the dining room table and you had all your family gathered, people could hardly believe it. Marc Smerling thinks he has some idea. These shootings rarely involve significant figures, such as Oueida, or Nabil Maghnie, who was shot in the head last September but survived, or George Marrogi, who was charged with a shooting murder that same month. 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. We reconstructed the murders using what McDonald said. That is why, police say, it is important to consider what the shooting represents, rather than the act itself. It is hard not to be shocked by the footage of Oueida's shooting. Is it possible that Jeffrey MacDonald will get justice under these circumstances? You sure Errol Morris wrote the book? She was sure. In 1920 there were 5 Kassab families living in Pennsylvania. Even after the conviction, the Kassabs remained haunted by the heinous crime. One is titled Memoirs by Wadea Kassab; it is 210 pages and was written in 1954. And she told him she had been there, at the MacDonald home, the night of the murders. He survived. Coverage of the latest true crime stories and famous cases explained, as well as the best TV shows, movies and podcasts in the genre. Bernie Segal, a long-haired Jewish lawyer from Philadelphia, took the lead in the case and managed to alienate the entire courtroom. Maybe more than I would have thought as a teen. 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 now 76-year-old is serving three consecutive life sentences and is currently housed at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland . 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. He was more interested in working with people on hallucinogenic and things like that. And the physical evidence, the circumstantial evidence, just kept mounting against him and contradicting his story for events from that evening.. Lynn Parramore: In all your years as a lawyer, what makes this case stand out? Currently serving three life sentences for their murders, MacDonald continues to maintain his innocence even as a new documentary series digs into his case. McGinniss made the murders sound like the work of a diabolical genius, a man who could transform in a moment from a loving father to a homicidal maniac, and again, in the blink of an eye, to a calculating conman. His most significant injury was a puncture wound and deflated lung. I dont know what the odds are. 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. The Esquire story, for all its salaciousness, touched upon real issues that plagued many communities outside of California. As the only survivor, MacDonald claimed that a mysterious blonde hippie oversaw three male intruders who slaughtered his family. Colettes sister-in-law Vivian Pep Stevenson told the outlet that Colette knew of the affairs and was growing tired of the infidelities before she died, at one point lamenting, I dont want to do this anymore.. He claimed that he had been asleep on the couch when at least, Kassab a one-time Canadian Army intelligence operator who had once lost his own wife and daughter in a bombing of London during World War II initially believed MacDonalds account of the night and became a staunch and vocal supporter of his son-in-law, the, We reconstructed the murders using what McDonald said. This was about 31% of all the recorded Kassab's in USA. Nonexclusive right to authorize all uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA). It is also a Manson-like killing. Colette MacDonald and her daughters suffered horrific violence as they were killed on February 17, 1970 at their Fort Bragg home. He could get an answer by the end of this year. MacDonald now waits to see if the federal judge will vacate his 33-year-old conviction. Together, Mildred who Stevenson said came to mortally hate her former son-in-law and Freddy Kassab pushed for MacDonalds arrest. 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. Out of all the evidentiary and procedural twists and turns, I asked Silverglate to name the one that bothered him the most about the MacDonald case. The prosecution, led by James Blackburn and Brian Murtagh, argued that MacDonald staged the crime scene to blame hippies. Aelyas kept the practice going while Wadea gave himself to real estate; when Wadea lost everything, he was able to resume his practice seamlessly by rejoining his brother. WebIt is reported Ms Kassab entered Syria last year and that her husband, known as Sam, died on the border of Turkey in 2013. 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. View all records. Furthermore, an FBI lab technician reenacted how MacDonald claimed he defended against the intruders attacks and proved his testimony contradicted the evidence. Waters rubbished that explanation. In the early '80s, I whipped through a dog-eared copy of Fatal Vision, Joe McGinniss sensational true-crime novel about the killings. Additionally, MacDonalds medical records showed that he had no defensive wounds on his arms or hands consistent with the alleged attack. That huge standard protects us from miscarriages of justice. That, in turn, drives a burgeoning black market for firearms, and has made the north-west the centre of the gun trade in this state. An arm extends out of the passenger side window of a car. Earlier, evidence came to light that a FBI forensic examiner mislead the jury about synthetic hair evidence. Wherever you see the label psychopath," you could almost substitute monster or vampire youre talking about an unnatural person who does not behave according to normal human rules, and with that label, you can believe anything of them. Eventually, after pressure from Colettes family, MacDonald was indicted and found guilty of the three murders on August 29, 1979. Because that's what crime figures do in the north-west, most of the time. 741 Immigration & Travel. A crime scene was left open to bystander traffic. WS: For me to say that he is innocent would require magic. The family moved to Chicago after MacDonald was accepted into Northwestern University Medical School. The social justice movement is now involved; the Innocence Project, a prestigious nationwide network dedicated to exonerating the wrongfully convicted, has worked strenuously to overturn MacDonalds conviction. 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. Since MacDonald was convicted of the murders in 1979, considerable evidence of his innocence has come to light. The veneer of the MacDonalds perfect marriage had also began to crack. Recently, the Fourth District Court of Appeals ordered Fox to consider new evidence, and to examine all the evidence as a whole. The idea that people that were so certain who dont know any more than I do -- I dont believe Ill ever understand how they could be so sure. Kassab testified on MacDonalds behalf, declaring, If I had another daughter, Id still want the same son-in-law.. 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. Another page in another chapter in the new gangland war. Then, meet Christopher Scarver the man who killed cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer. We even came back at night so we would have the same lighting conditions as the night of the murders. Eventually, after pressure from Colettes family, MacDonald was indicted and found guilty of the three murders on August 29, 1979. It is a misconception that the battles are over territory. The walls will tell you what happened if you keep it pristine. LP: One of the things that struck me in reading Errol Morris book was the use of the psychopath diagnosis in court and how problematic that is. Theyre the ones that wrote the Congress and said the Army screwed up this crime scene. WebThe Kassab family name was found in the USA in 1920. Aelyas followed Wadea to the United States in 1899. 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. 6,889 Family Trees. 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. 741 Immigration & Travel. Even before bureaucratic stalling and federal machinery overtook the search for truth, things were working against Jeffrey MacDonald. The couples youngest daughter, 2-year-old Kristen, had a total of 33 stab wounds. After learning about the case of convicted killer and U.S. Army surgeon Jeffrey MacDonald, read about John List, who killed his family in cold blood and then disappeared for 18 years. Sadly, the family wouldnt survive the next year. 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His Innocence has come to light that MacDonald staged the crime scene to blame hippies of... Macdonald had been appointed to advise her of her rights this was about 31 % of all evidence! Read Morris meticulous examination the evidence, the Kassabs to shut up, just calm down, us. Rather than the act itself the killings back at night so we would have thought as a teen all on! Kassabs to shut up, just calm down, let us do the investigation and well find who. Family name was found in the new gangland war married women in Syria and brought them back the.
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