Turns out he was a Princeton acquaintance, who volunteered to assist the defence team during the Article 32. 

He was quoted in the 1997 Vanity Fair article "The Devil and Jeffrey Macdonald":

If he holds to his promise never to apply for parole (for that would require admission of guilt, and the federal system seldom grants it anyway), he will not be eligible for release until the year 2071. Even then, the debate about him will probably be unresolved. Because Bernie Segal has it wrong: MacDonald is not Dreyfus, about whom the facts are known, but Sacco and Vanzetti, Bruno Hauptmann, Judge Crater, and the Rosenbergs. He's also a man, an increasingly old and narrowed man, says his friend and college roommate, Michael Malley, who helped defend him during the Article 32 hearing, and who thinks he'll never get out. "He has a world defined entirely by his own problems," says Malley. "He's reminded of them every time he gets up and every time he goes to bed. He has nothing else to focus on but himself, nothing that really interests him but himself. In that sense, his world is down to one thing."

Apparently Michael Malley still believes JRM is innocent. Or perhaps that he should have been found not guilty due to reasonable doubt.
That is based on his opinion that JRM is not crazy, and only a crazy monster could have committed that crime.
And Mike thought he was such a good guy, that he simply couldn't have done it.
He decided that on first hearing about it, and never questioned his assumption.

Last edited by Grandfather (8/15/2022 1:18 pm)

Grandfather wrote:

Turns out he was a Princeton acquaintance, who volunteered to assist the defence team during the Article 32. 

He was quoted in the 1997 Vanity Fair article "The Devil and Jeffrey Macdonald":

If he holds to his promise never to apply for parole (for that would require admission of guilt, and the federal system seldom grants it anyway), he will not be eligible for release until the year 2071. Even then, the debate about him will probably be unresolved. Because Bernie Segal has it wrong: MacDonald is not Dreyfus, about whom the facts are known, but Sacco and Vanzetti, Bruno Hauptmann, Judge Crater, and the Rosenbergs. He's also a man, an increasingly old and narrowed man, says his friend and college roommate, Michael Malley, who helped defend him during the Article 32 hearing, and who thinks he'll never get out. "He has a world defined entirely by his own problems," says Malley. "He's reminded of them every time he gets up and every time he goes to bed. He has nothing else to focus on but himself, nothing that really interests him but himself. In that sense, his world is down to one thing."

Apparently Michael Malley still believes JRM is innocent. Or perhaps that he should have been found not guilty due to reasonable doubt.
That is based on his opinion that JRM is not crazy, and only a crazy monster could have committed that crime.
And Mike thought he was such a good guy, that he simply couldn't have done it.
He decided that on first hearing about it, and never questioned his assumption.

 
This is one of the things that has sustained JRM  for so long; that there is a mystery, “ Because Bernie Segal has it wrong: MacDonald is not Dreyfus, about whom the facts are known, but Sacco and Vanzetti, Bruno Hauptmann, Judge Crater, and the Rosenbergs. ” But, there’s is no mystery and there never was one. There was a narcissistic, adulterous doctor who went into a rage and brutally murdered his pregnant wife Collette and daughter Kimberley. He then in despair, probably planning to flee (hence the suitcase) saw the Esquire magazine and visualized his salvation, as a hero who fought for his family. His diseased, warped brain then decided that his youngest daughter, Kristi, would have to be sacrificed. He went to Kristi’s room and encountered his brutally beaten, stabbed, but very courageous, wife struggling to rescue Kristi. He thought Colette was dead, and so flew into another rage that she was interfering with his brilliant plans, and finished what he had begun. Then with premeditation and ice-cold cruelty he murdered Kristi, to eliminate the last witness (in his mind) and set the stage for the murderous hippies. Except, Kristi was carefully tucked into bed, as a father would do, not drugged-out hippies. And he shed fivers from his pajamas, transferred blood from victims, and left a bloody footprint. There is no mystery, no unanswered questions, no hidden killers. Just Jeffery MacDonald family annihilator.

I think it’s very possible  that Colette’s last, great courageous effort to save Kristi may have doomed MacDonald. I’m sure that finding Colette alive and in Kristi’s room shook MacDonald and confused his planning. It also delayed him and shortened the time he had to set the stage. In his mind he had to be fighting a clock, not knowing what the neighbors heard, if they called the police or if police were on the way. In his mind, he couldn’t turn on any lights for fear of exposure, so he worked in the dark, something no experienced competent doctor, especially an emergency room doctor, would do. And he missed things, forgot things, and made mistakes.

I have little interest in Micheal Malley and his friendship with MacDonald, because he seems to have forgotten, or never cared about the victims; Colette, the unborn baby, Kimberley and Kristi.

I’m wondering how much of JRM’s followers have fallen into the “Sunk Cost Fallacy.”

This theory is based upon Leon Festinger’s research into people who become involved in cults (and cults aren’t just religious—they can be political, as well as a situation like JRM)

Festinger, a sociologist, imbedded himself in an apocalyptic cult in the 1950’s. His colleagues all said that this cult would fall apart when the world didn’t end on the day Marion Keech predicted.  They would see this lady for who she was, and walk away.

But Festinger predicted the opposite would happen, and he turned out to be right.  Her followers dug in their heels and became even more devoted.  And this is where the term “Cognitive Dissonance” was created.

When a person has embraced a lie, or is in an abusive relationship, or devote themselves to a cause that they believe in, it’s like they’re wearing a pair of glasses that will only allow themselves to see a certain narrative.  Their very identity becomes tied up with it.

And if those glasses are ripped away, and the facts are seen, EVEN IF IT IS THE TRUTH, they can’t handle the idea that they’ve devoted all this time and energy to a lie. That their idea of who they were is wrong.  So, rather than face the anxiety, they dig in their heels and convince themselves that they can “make” it become the truth.

It never works, but you cannot convince anyone to change their belief system. 

They have to be willing to face it on their own.

Last edited by WendyW11389 (8/16/2022 6:05 pm)

I haven't read past the first page after the letter, but the tone set is "Hey my dude, let me tell you my long drawn out thoughts because I find the murder of your family fascinating"