Fatal Vision

by Joe McGinniss

Book Overview

Fatal Vision is the electrifying true story of Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald, the handsome, Princeton-educated physician convicted of savagely slaying his young pregnant wife and two small children, murders he vehemently denies committing. Bestselling author Joe McGinnis chronicles every aspect of this horrifying and intricate crime, and probes the life and psyche of the magnetic, all-American Jeffrey MacDonald, a golden boy who seemed destined to have it...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0451130987
• ISBN13: 9780451130983
• Release Date: August 1984
• Publisher: Signet Book
• Length: 653 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Beautiful Book, Good Binding

My order arrived to me here in Manila, the Philippines, thank you, and it is in good condition. Thank you for a very good service, I will order again. Very satisfied here.

Detailed to the Max

The best book I've read about this case.

Thank you!!!! IL seller

I have not read the book yet. I just received it and can’t wait to start! I had to write this review ASAP because the seller was amazing. They included newspaper clippings about the case with a little note. I was so excited. And I can’t thank you enough. I agree, he’s guilty as sin. Thanks again!!!

Brilliant

One of the best nonfiction books I've ever read. I continue to recommend it to everyone I know who reads journalism or true crime, and they've all been impressed by it. In the first half of the book, McGinniss presents the history of the case and lets Jeffrey MacDonald present himself, via transcripts of cassette-tape recordings he sent the author. As the falseness and the inconsistencies in MacDonald's version of events, small in themselves, begin to accumulate, the reader begins to wonder. Most of the second half covers the grand jury hearings and the trial in detail, including the years-long work of MacDonald's (step)father-in-law to have the case tried. Again, the inconsistencies and improbabilities continue to mount, and the reader's uncertainty grows. In the last section, after the trial, McGinniss begins to research the case and its defendant more closely, looking for answers, feeling his own uncertainty and discomfort. By the end, whether one agrees with his deductions and speculations regarding motive and inciting circumstances, he's done a masterful job of picking apart the thin story MacDonald hid behind for a decade.

Justice plods along, but in the end gets to wet its teeth

'Fatal Vision' has to be my favorite true-crime story, partly because of the compelling way McGinniss leads us through the long process of catching Dr. MacDonald, and the cold brutality of MacDonald himself. If there was a store for Psychopaths R' Us, Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald would be in the front window. On February 17th, 1970, pregnant Colette MacDonald and her two young daughters, Kimberly and Kristen, were brutally murdered in their own home. Left alive was Colette's husband, Green Beret Jeffrey MacDonald, to tell a Manson-like story of home invasion resulting in the slayings. There was a man with a knife, a woman in white boots holding a candle while chanting "acid is groovy", and "Kill the pigs" written in blood on the headboard. MacDonald sustains a superficial puncture wound in his chest. Colette's parents, Freddy and Mildred Kassab, were devastated and rushed to MacDonald's side. There was nothing but sorrow for this young man who, in one fell evening, lost his entire family. But MacDonald's continuing stories of that fateful evening didn't hold water, and the more he talked, the more suspicions began to mount around him. Freddy, once his staunchest supporter, suddenly turned on him and became MacDonald's most bitter opponent. Too many people begin to suspect that there were no home invaders that night, only MacDonald, alone with a family he had come to resent. MacDonald went on about his life, free at last of the burdens of the family that he felt had been weighing him down, to become a successful doctor in opulent Huntington Beach, California. But his past would continue to haunt him, as those who realized his guilt refused to give up. MacDonald was finally convicted and sentenced to three consecutive life terms in prison. Joe McGinniss brings the tale of the MacDonald murders into vivid, breathing life. His account of the murders, investigation, and trials are dramatic and so real you can feel them. McGinniss was approved by MacDonald himself to write an account of the murders, though MacDonald later tried to pull him off the project when he saw that McGinniss would be writing the facts and not just an overblown account of MacDonald himself and fawning for his innocence as many in Huntington Beach did. Included in the gripping account are floor plans of the murder house, transcribed recordings from MacDonald where his own words are put to the page, love letters from Colette to Jeffrey, and five pages of photographs. Honestly, this is one of the best books I have ever read, and I strongly recommend it to readers of all types of genre, not just true crime fans. Enjoy!

One of the classics of the true crime genre

This is one of the most sobering of true crime tales, and one of the most intriguing. Former Green Beret officer Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald (still in prison last time I checked) called the police early one morning to report that his pregnant wife and two young daughters had been murdered by a marauding gang of hippies shouting "Kill the pigs, acid is groovy" while he received some superficial wounds trying to fight them off.Joe McGinniss who at the time was best known for his Nixon campaign book (The Selling of the President 1968) jumped on the case and made arrangements with MacDonald to follow him around and interview him. McGinniss has said that initially he believed MacDonald was innocent, but as he grew to know MacDonald, and as he sifted through the evidence he began to change his mind until in the end he believed along with the prosecution and the jurors that MacDonald had murdered his family. McGinniss reports all this in such a compelling manner that the reader is lead step by step to the same horrific conclusion (or at least most readers are). Also changing their minds about MacDonald were the wife's parents who at first refused to believe that he could have done something like this. Yet in the end they too were convinced.Not convinced however were MacDonald's many supports including as I recall members of the Long Beach, California police department, many of MacDonald's co-workers, and a number of women who found the doctor very attractive.All of this is interesting but what I think most fascinated McGinniss and what most fascinates me is an answer to the questions of Why did he do it? and How could any human being do something like that?The most plausible theory (this is basically McGinniss's theory as well) to explain why he did it goes something like this: In a rage (possibly induced in part by amphetamine use) MacDonald badly or fatally injured one of his family. Rather than own up to this and face the consequences he had the "fatal vision" (thought to have been conjured up in part from an Esquire Magazine article or in remembrance of the Mason family murders) of acid-crazed hippies breaking into his home and attacking his family with him in heroic defense. To make this work he would have to kill everybody except himself and construct a crime scene that would support his story. The prosecution and McGinniss careful show how MacDonald's crime scene construction failed. Readers interested in forensic science will find this aspect of the book absolutely fascinating, even if not entirely convincing.But to convict a man of murdering his family based on circumstantial evidence especially when the motive is not another woman, or money, but is instead merely a desire to hide what at worse would be manslaughter, seems quite a stretch for any jury, or so MacDonald apparently figured. But what went wrong was not only the evidence, but his personality.As McGinniss spent time with MacDonald he came to realize that Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald was

Gripping

FATAL VISION provides a gripping account of the 1970 MacDonald murders. Did Army doctor Jeff MacDonald murder his wife and daughters (as much evidence suggests), or was he beaten unconscious by late-night intruders who committed this brutal crime? When the case finally went to trial after nine years of legal wrangling, Dr. MacDonald hired author Joe McGinnis to cover what doctor hoped would be his acquittal - but the jury (and separately, McGinnis) concluded that he was guilty. McGinnis then wrote this page-turning account of the crime, investigations, six-week trial, legal maneuvers, plus additional facts the jury never saw. The author concludes with a shaky psychological conviction based on MacDonald's arrogant, self-absorbed personality. Seemingly more persuasive is evidence suggesting MacDonald abused a dangerous amphetamine for weeks leading up to the crime. Whatever your take, this compelling true-crime drama leaves many convinced of MacDonald's guilt, but others harboring enough doubt to stimulate debate. MacDonald's supporters attack this book as inaccurate and unfair. They point to investigative errors, [substance abuser] Helena Stoeckley, and disturbing claims of suppressed evidence from a book of similar title (FATAL JUSTICE) that requests a new trial. But MacDonald secretly flunked two polygraphs in 1970 - after refusing an army polygraph to clear his name - and the absence of blood, splinters, and pajama fibers in the suspiciously tidy living room appear to refute MacDonald's claim that he battled several intruders in there. FATAL VISION doesn't prove MacDonald guilty, but it's a compelling read.

Brilliant--I'd Give It Ten Stars If I Could

Joe McGinniss is one of the two or three greatest writers of the century. Although many contend that McGinniss's book is "biased" I firmly believe he began with a "blank slate" and only later came to the conclusion that MacDonald was guilty.(And to MacDonald supporters who contend that McGinniss is "persona non grata" is the literary world--check out his latest, published by Little, Brown & Co.) I rarely read a book more than once, but I've read Fatal Vision time and time again. McGinniss is absolutely perfect in the way he lets MacDonald himself create his own darkly monstrous character with his own words. This is the ONLY book that ever really scared me. McGinniss's enormous talent takes us inside the mind of a convicted murderer like no one ever has before or since and the result is a revelation horrifying beyond belief about the dark side of the human soul. The only thing in the book I don't buy is the diet pill theory, and McGinniss lets us know this is his own theory and we are free to accept it or not. I don't and believe instead that MacDonald simply has a vicious temper when out of control and he certainly was out of control on the night of February 17, 1970. Why? We'll never know. McGinniss does a brilliant job of presenting the facts surrounding the murders and subsequent trial without ever letting them become dry and boring as many true crime stories are. But it is the characterization of Jeffrey MacDonald that sets this book apart from all others. Even if you firmly believe in MacDonald's innocence, I'd still urge you to read "Fatal Vision." It can teach all of us more than we'll probably ever need to know about writing. The best true crime book ever written and one of the top five books of the century. Unforgettably perfect.