A wilderness of error : the trials of Jeffrey MacDonald

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Title:

Author:

Morris, Errol.

ISBN:

9781594203435

Personal Author:

Morris, Errol.

Publication Information:

New York : Penguin Press, 2012.

Physical Description:

xviii, 524 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.

Contents:

People associated with the case -- Prologue: 544 Castle Drive -- 1. A convincing story ; Lee Marvin is afraid ; Breaking the sound barrier ; A subtly constructed reflex machine ; The impossible coffee table ; Ten-hour drive ; The flowerpot ; The girl with the floppy hat ; No evidence ; Not true -- 2. Totally wrong ; Terrible, terrible, terrible idea ; Colonel rock ; A great fear ; Convinced in her mind ; The impossible coffee table, part II ; A losing proposition ; Media freak ; A conclusion could not be reached ; Mute witness ; I'm not a CSI guy ; A comb and a toothbrush -- 3. The jail cell ; Things do not lie ; Pigs on ice ; Forty-eight holes ; Target in motion ; California evil ; Troublesome psychopathy ; Round in circles ; Ace in the hole ; Wanted ; In my mind, it seems that I saw this thing happen ; The journey's end ; Unclearly trustworthy ; The four-legged table ; The slaughterhouse -- 4. The use and abuse of physical evidence ; A rounded picture ; Absolutely batshit crazy ; The sound of music ; A Satanic cult ; E-323 and Q-89 ; It wasn't a doll ; 1-821-3266 ; In bright red ; The almost inescable conclusion -- 5. Cops who came in from the cold ; Just be Jeff ; I can't talk about what I think ; A book story ; Eskatrol ; Essential integrity ; Delightfully blue -- 6. Before the law ; I know. I know. I know. ; Crumbs ; The morning newspaper ; The five percent ; Coincidences ; Gene Stoeckley -- 7. Two prisoners ; Flame-out ; Specimen 91A ; A black sky.

Abstract:

Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker and former private detective Errol Morris examines the nature of evidence and proof in the infamous Jeffrey MacDonald murder case. In 1979 MacDonald was convicted of the brutal 1970 murder of his wife and two children, and remains in prison today. Since then a number of bestselling books, including Joe McGinniss's Fatal Vision, and a blockbuster television miniseries have attempted to solve and explain the MacDonald case. Here, Morris, who has been investigating the case for nearly two decades, reveals that almost everything we know about it is ultimately flawed, and an innocent man may be behind bars. In a reinvention of the true-crime thriller, Morris looks behind the haze of myth. Drawing on court transcripts, lab reports, and original interviews, he brings a complete forty-year history back to life and allows the reader to explore the case as a detective might by confronting the evidence as if for the first time.--From publisher description.

Personal Subject:

MacDonald, Jeffrey R., 1943-

Subject Term:

Murderers -- United States -- Case studies.

Murder -- North Carolina -- Case studies.

Copies:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Copy	Status
Searching... 1:IIEMSA	1:GEN-BOOK	33168025580172	364.1523092 M875W 2012	1	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Academy Award-winning filmmaker and former private detective Errol Morris examines the nature of evidence and proof in the infamous Jeffrey MacDonald murder case

Early on the morning of February 17, 1970, in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Jeffrey MacDonald, a Green Beret doctor, called the police for help. When the officers arrived at his home they found the bloody and battered bodies of MacDonald's pregnant wife and two young daughters. The word "pig" was written in blood on the headboard in the master bedroom. As MacDonald was being loaded into the ambulance, he accused a band of drug-crazed hippies of the crime.

So began one of the most notorious and mysterious murder cases of the twentieth century. Jeffrey MacDonald was finally convicted in 1979 and remains in prison today. Since then a number of bestselling books--including Joe McGinniss's Fatal Vision and Janet Malcolm's The Journalist and the Murderer --and a blockbuster television miniseries have told their versions of the MacDonald case and what it all means.

Errol Morris has been investigating the MacDonald case for over twenty years. A Wilderness of Error is the culmination of his efforts. It is a shocking book, because it shows us that almost everything we have been told about the case is deeply unreliable, and crucial elements of the case against MacDonald simply are not true. It is a masterful reinvention of the true-crime thriller, a book that pierces the haze of myth surrounding these murders with the sort of brilliant light that can only be produced by years of dogged and careful investigation and hard, lucid thinking.

By this book's end, we know several things: that there are two very different narratives we can create about what happened at 544 Castle Drive, and that the one that led to the conviction and imprisonment for life of this man for butchering his wife and two young daughters is almost certainly wrong. Along the way Morris poses bracing questions about the nature of proof, criminal justice, and the media, showing us how MacDonald has been condemned, not only to prison, but to the stories that have been created around him.

In this profoundly original meditation on truth and justice, Errol Morris reopens one of America's most famous cases and forces us to confront the unimaginable. Morris has spent his career unsettling our complacent assumptions that we know what we're looking at, that the stories we tell ourselves are true. This book is his finest and most important achievement to date.