Jeffrey MacDonald - The Kassabs

In a letter he wrote to congress, complaining about the way he son in law was being treated by the Army, Freddie Kassab documented in his own handwriting seeing 19 stabs wounds and multiple head contusions on MacDonald. In that letter he clearly stated his belief that his son in law was completely innocent. Later he would recant that statement, but that letter still exists.

Jeffrey MacDonald's in-laws, Mildred and Freddie Kassab, stood by MacDonald throughout the Article 32 Hearing, believing in his innocence. MacDonald loaned Kassab his copy of the Article 32 Hearing transcripts and later signed a release so Kassab could get his own copy.

The Kassabs, having lost their daughter and two granddaughters, were still devastated and wanted to see justice. Freddie became obsessed with finding their murders.

They took it hard when MacDonald moved to California to work with an old army doctor friend. They could not understand how he could just leave and go on with life, without trying to find who killed his family. They believed no normal man would just leave and start over. Before MacDonald left for California, the Kassabs told him he would live to regret it. Not knowing what they meant he didn't take it seriously, little did MacDonald know what was yet to come.

Freddie Kassab claims he first started to doubt his son in law when he read the Article 32 Hearing transcripts MacDonald had given him. That doesn't make sense because there is nothing in those transcripts indicating MacDonald had anything to do with the murders.

The evidence stated in those transcripts is the evidence Colonel Warren Rock used to to determine the charges against MacDonald were not true.

Kassab claimed it was impossible for him to have done everything he said he had done in that amount of the time frame, even though it was already established that the MP did not respond promptly because they thought they were responding to domestic disturbances.

By this time, Freddie and Mildred were in tight with the CID Agents and they all believed MacDonald was guilty of the murders.

Here is a situation where the government was withholding evidence from the defense team while sharing it with Kassab, including allowing him to roam around in the crime scene.

What could the reason for this be?

Were they were feeding Kassab information, so he would fight to get the case reopened?

This, of course, is exactly what he did. But he did not do it by himself, he had the CID Agents help all the way.

In 1974, Mildred Kassab, MacDonald’s mother in law, who had turned against him 3 years earlier, told the grand jury of seeing an ice pick in the MacDonald home. No CID or FBI interview prior to 1974, and there were several, did she recall an ice pick in the MacDonald house. The CID’s final report in 1972, relied in part, on information from the Kassabs, made no mention of Mildred seeing an ice pick.

So exactly what is the Government's Case Against MacDonald?