New Witness in ‘Fatal Vision’ Case

Lawyers for a former Green Beret convicted in the 1970 slayings of his wife and daughters, a crime dramatized in the bestseller and miniseries “Fatal Vision,” say that a new witness has come forward and that the court should throw out his murder convictions.

A former deputy U.S. marshal says he heard a defense witness tell a prosecutor that she was at Jeffrey MacDonald’s home on the night of the killings, according to a motion filed with the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Jimmy B. Britt, who was part of the security detail for MacDonald’s 1979 trial, says he heard prosecutor James Blackburn tell the witness he would indict her for murder if she told the same story in court.

The witness, Helena Stoeckley, testified that she couldn’t remember where she was on the night of the slayings. She had been a suspect because she fit MacDonald’s description of one of the intruders he said attacked his family.

Britt, now 67, said in an affidavit that he kept quiet for more than 25 years out of a sense of duty, but that the secret eventually became too much to bear.

Blackburn denies the allegation. “She never told us she was there,” Blackburn told Associated Press. “I never threatened her with murder prosecution. She testified at the trial that she was not there.”

Blackburn entered private practice soon after the trial, and later spent 3 1/2 months in prison for forgery, fraud embezzlement and obstruction of justice unrelated to the case. He was disbarred and now is a motivational speaker.

MacDonald, 62, is serving three consecutive life sentences in a federal prison for the murders of Colette MacDonald, 26, and their daughters Kimberley, 5, and Kristen, 2.

He has always claimed that intruders broke into his Fort Bragg, N.C., home and stabbed and clubbed his family to death in an attack that left him seriously injured.