Jeffrey R. MacDonald - Justice Department

Justice Department

After the Article 32 hearing MacDonald returned to work as a doctor, briefly in New York and then in Long Beach, California in July 1971, where he was an emergency room physician at the St. Mary Medical Center. He also made media appearances, most notably on the December 15, 1970 episode of The Dick Cavett Show, during which he made jokes and complained about the investigation and its focus on him as a suspect.

During this time Alfred Kassab, MacDonald's stepfather-in-law, turned against MacDonald. Initially he was one of MacDonald's supporters during the Article 32 hearing in which he testified in support of MacDonald's innocence; his support lessened after MacDonald's performance on the Cavett show. His support continued to erode after MacDonald refused to provide him with a transcript of the Article 32 hearing. MacDonald also made contradictory claims; in one instance he told Kassab that he and some Army friends had actually tracked down, tortured and eventually murdered one of the alleged killers of Colette and the children, but refused to provide details about who the person was or what he might have told MacDonald. MacDonald later claimed that it was a lie to try to put Kassab's persistence to rest over finding his stepdaughter's killers.

Once Kassab finally received a copy of the Article 32 hearing transcript (after lengthy evasions by MacDonald), he noted numerous inconsistencies in MacDonald's testimony. One example was MacDonald's assertion that he had sustained near-life-threatening injuries during the alleged assault on him; Kassab saw MacDonald in the hospital less than 18 hours after the attack and found him sitting up in bed, eating a meal and with very little in the way of bandages or dressing.

In March 1971, in company with U.S. Army investigators, Kassab visited the crime scene for several hours in order to test the physical evidence against MacDonald's testimony. His work convinced him that MacDonald himself had committed the crimes. Since the Army's investigation was completed, the only way that Kassab could bring MacDonald to trial was via a citizen's complaint through the Justice Department. The citizen's complaint was filed in early 1972, but was held in limbo because the three murders happened while MacDonald was serving in the U.S. Army, and since he was no longer with the Army, the citizen's complaint was declared moot.

Between 1972 and 1974, the case remained trapped within the files of the Justice Department as they struggled over whether to prosecute. On April 30, 1974, after much persistence in pursuing the prosecution of MacDonald, Alfred and Mildred Kassab, aided by Peter Kearns, and the Kassabs' attorney Richard C. Cahn of Huntington, NY, presented a citizen's criminal complaint against Jeffrey MacDonald to U.S. Chief District Court Judge Algernon Butler, requesting the convening of a grand jury to indict MacDonald for the three murders. As a result of the complaint, a grand jury was convened on August 12, 1974. Justice Department attorney Victor Worheide presented the case to the grand jury, and U.S. District Judge Franklin Dupree was assigned to oversee the hearing.