Grandfather wrote:

He definitely was overconfident. And he didn't realize that people could see through his BS.
The Russia trip is a strange story to tell your wife.
I wonder if he was thinking about getting Lt Ron Harrison to do the deed for him?
I know this is pure speculation, but his friendship with Ron was a bit odd.

Agreed.

As I said, the month long Russia trip has always bothered me. Are you familiar with the Mark Sievers case, and his best friend who murdered his wife for him while he was out of town?


https://www.thetealmango.com/entertainment/mark-sievers-story-man-who-killed-his-wife-teresa-sievers-with-a-hammer/

Last edited by TexasPoet (11/06/2022 1:39 pm)

Grandfather wrote:

TP - yes I am familiar with that case. It is possible that he was brooding on this for a few months.
Maybe since Christmas. He may have been fantasizing about how to get rid of her.
Remember how he liked to read "mystery novels"?
What was that about?
We know he gets ideas from magazines. Not much of a stretch to think he would be planning the perfect murder. That was a theme of at least one Hitchcock movie in the 1950's. One had two strangers on a train agree to kill the others wife. That way they could have an alibi and play the innocent victim.

“Strangers on a Train” with Robert Walker and Farley Granger. It was Robert Walker’s (character) idea, because Farley Granger was mad at his wife. Walker killed Farley Granger’s wife and then tried to force Farley Granger to kill his father. A classic.

Such planning by MacDonald wouldn’t surprise me. I do believe that his unhappiness with his life greatly increased when Colette became pregnant a third time. However MacDonald was an over-achiever and saw himself as a “golden boy”, so for him divorce was out of the question. Also alimony and child-support would have put a crimp in his lifestyle. Something triggered rage that night, probably fueled by amphetamines, and the tragedy happened. Was it a wet bed, a wife standing up for herself, an accusation the Russia trip was phony, or something else? Maybe a combination and escalation. Only MacDonald knows the truth, and it will probably die with him.

By the way, you’re right about him reading mysteries, didn’t he say he was reading a Mickey Spillane novel that brutal night? I believe so. Very violent, misogenistic books, with lots of revenge. Hmmmmmm?

Last edited by TexasPoet (11/06/2022 3:43 pm)

Grandfather wrote:

Joe said Lt Ron Harrison, an ummarried green beret had been a frequent visitor at the MacDonald house that fall and winter. He had combat experience in Vietnam  and spoke often of having participated in covert special forces operations.
JRM seemed proud that a real green beret considered him an equal, and Ron had become his best friend at Fort Bragg.
Harrison had been the last person to see the MacDonald family alive.
On Saturday,  Valentines day,  he had been there for dinner, as he did 2 or 3 times a week, and left around 10 pm.
The book MacDonald was reading the night of the murder was "Kiss Me Deadly" by Mickey Spillane.

Thanks for the book title. You’re right, their friendship was weird. What brought them together?

Here is Harrison’s Grand Jury testimony;

http://www.crimearchives.net/1979_macdonald/grand-jury/1974-12-04_gj_harrison.html


Also; New York Times;

FAYETTEVILLE, N. C., Feb. 19, 1970—A Green. Beret team com mander said today that he and Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald of Pat chogue, L. I., discussed the ritualistic murders of the actress Sharon Tate and three of her friends only a couple of days before the doctor's family was found dead at Fort Bragg.

The doctor's wife and two children were knifed to death as were the victims in the Tate case.

Lieut. Ronald Harrison, 26 years old, of Columbus, Ohio, said that Dr. MacDonald, an Army captain, had called his at tention to the current issue of Esquire magazine, which car ries articles reviewing the Tate murders, the satanic religious end drug subcultures of the West Coast and what Esquire called “the banality of evil in California.”

Lieutenant Harrison described Captain MacDonald as a very kind and considerate man who sympathized with drug addicts. He said that the doctor showed him the magazine articles last Saturday while he was visiting at the Mac Donald home, and that his friend said, “Isnt that wild?”

Military and civilian investigators continued today to question hundreds of people in various parts of the United States. Photographs of scores of “hippie types” were taken to the Fort Bragg Hospital for viewing by Captain MacDonald.

The captain is reported to be recovering from a knife wound in the chest and a blow on the left side of his head.

The proprietor of a hippie hangout in Fayetteville posted a sign in the window today urging hippies to pass along to the police information they may have about the murders.

An unnamed police official was quoted in the Fayetteville Observer this afternoon as saying that the local police would continue to “lean on” the estimated 1,500 hippies in the. Fayetteville area “until we may be come up with something.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/02/20/archives/friend-says-captain-discussed-tate-killing-before-family-died.html

Last edited by TexasPoet (11/07/2022 12:34 pm)

Grandfather wrote:

Harrison's grand jury testimony was kind of useless.
The article on the 19th was Ron getting all the messaging out that JRM wanted to plant in the public. Ritual killings, drug users, hippies and Jeff is a great guy.
That is why he asked the doctor if he could have a visitor in the hospital that first day.
He prepped Ron with key messages he wanted put out there. Then he somehow arranged for Ron to contact the media, or for the media to contact him.
He was in full manipulation mode!

I absolutely agree. Shared the links and quotes for entertainment. Ron was also the purveyor of Cold Duck and probably nurses.

Hi Grandfather, I knew it was Kimberly.  I am dyslectic I got names mixed up.