Local News in Brief : ‘Fatal Vision’ Figure Gets $50,000 in Suit

Former Army doctor Jeffrey MacDonald, convicted of killing his wife and daughters, may keep only $50,000 of the $325,000 settlement he won in a dispute over a book about the killings, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Edward Ross deducted $92,000 from the remaining $275,000 to cover attorneys fees steming from MacDonald’s lawsuit against “Fatal Vision” author Joe McGinniss. The rest of the money will be placed in a trust with the beneficiaries to be determined later, the judge said.

Ross said MacDonald’s argument that he needed the money to care for needy relatives, pay future legal fees and fund an investigation into the slayings did not entitle him to the full settlement.

Attorneys for MacDonald’s mother-in-law, Mildred Kassab, had argued that state law bars a convicted criminal from profiting from his crime, and, therefore, MacDonald should not be able to keep the money. Kassab said earlier that she wanted the money to go toward a memorial or charity in honor of her dead daughter and granddaughters.

MacDonald had sued McGinniss, claiming the author lied to gain his confidence to write a book, which eventually concluded that the former Green Beret doctor killed his wife and their daughters, ages 2 and 5, at their Ft. Bragg, N.C., apartment in 1970. MacDonald is at Terminal Island federal prison.