Fatal Vision (80 page)

"Bobbi was either already gone or she was in the midst of leaving, or something like that," he said, "and I walked into a restaurant one day for my normal brunch about nine or ten in the morning, and Sheree walked through with a girlfriend of hers by the name of Laura, another super-fox.

"They both had on their, you know, California
‘I
-shirts and short shorts or something, and they walked through and I asked, 'Who the hell was that incredible blonde that just walked by?'

"About two weeks later, I saw her again in the same restaurant, and this time the cook introduced us. And Sheree told me later that she fell in love as we met. I batted my eyes once and she was gone. She was twenty at the time, and I of course thought this was a lark, and took her out to take out a gorgeous blonde, basically. And we eventually had this relationship.

"She grew up in a lifestyle very different than the one I did, sort of a spoiled California kid without any real goals or direction or ability to work hard, or really think too much, other than maybe another trip to Europe, or, you know, a good party

somewhere. By the same token, she's a super-good person with really a good heart and soul: warm, beautiful, fun to be with."

On that second weekend of July 1979, Jeff and Sheree stayed at the Park Lane Hotel in New York City. They went for a horse-and-buggy ride through Central Park. They ate a lavish dinner at Maxwell's Plum. They saw a baseball game at Yankee Stadium. Then, when the weekend was over, Sheree flew back to California, and Jeffrey MacDonald flew to Raleigh, alone, to stand trial for the murder of his wife and children—murders that had been committed almost nine and a half years before.

In early June, Bernie Segal had written Jeffrey MacDonald a letter.

Dear Jeff:

I am a little concerned about your wardrobe for the trial. The most important matter is for you (1)
not
to convey a "southern California image," (too much sun tan, polyester and beachy colors); (2) that you not appear to be "too casual" about the whole matter (the world needs to see you looking somber, serious, burdened and even concerned about this trial); and (3) that you
do
appear to be (at least as to your looks) truthful, reliable and responsible.
...

Segal was also concerned about the jury. At a cost of $15,000, he employed a Duke University psychology professor to assemble a demographic profile of the "ideal juror." The professor's staff made more than nine hundred random phone calls', asking respondents such general questions as whether they believed people in military service were more likely to commit violent crimes than civilians, whether they felt doctors made too much money, and whether they accepted the notion that a person who has an extramarital affair is not necessarily a bad person.

In reference to the MacDonald case specifically, those contacted were asked whether they had heard of it (81 percent had) and whether they had formed an opinion about his guilt (6 percent said he was "certainly guilty"; 29 percent said "probably guilty"; 33 percent said "probably not guilty"; 5 percent said "certainly not guilty"; and 27 percent said they did not know).

The respondents were also asked a series of demographic questions pertaining to age, race, marital status, length of residence in the county, educational background, political affiliation, and regularity of church attendance.

A subsequent analysis of the demographic and attitudinal responses disclosed the combinations most closely associated with a predisposition toward belief in innocence. The professor had then weighted each of the factors, much as a horse player will do when analyzing a field of thoroughbreds, and had devised a mathematical formula that would enable Segal to evaluate each prospective juror quickly on the basis of responses to questions asked during the selection process.

The surprising result of the survey, the professor from Duke said, on the Friday before jury selection was to begin, was that the ideal jury would be composed mainly of conservative whites over the age of thirty-five—in most cases, just the kind of jury sought by the prosecution.

"It's true," the professor conceded in the temporary office Segal had acquired in downtown Raleigh. "What we want is the kind of typical 'good citizen' that the government is probably going to go after. They won't be able to figure out what we're doing. In fact, they may think we've gone a little crazy. You know, normally you see an American flag in the lapel, you get rid of the guy. Here, that's just the type we're looking for."

Jeffrey MacDonald, who was at the meeting, shook his head. "I hope you're as good as your reputation," he said, "because everything you're saying goes against my gut feeling."

"I know, I know," the professor said, "and I know that it's your life, not mine. But I'll tell you what," he continued, suddenly smiling. "If I'm wrong, I won't serve any time for you, but I promise I'll work for free on your appeal."

Jeffrey MacDonald glared at the man from Duke. Bernie Segal quickly interceded, employing his most soothing tone. "Jeff, Jeff, relax. There's not going to be any appeal. We're going to pick a jury that will not only acquit you but will come back and award punitive damages."

"I hope you're right," MacDonald said, getting up to leave the office. "Because, frankly, this scares the hell out of me."

Once the client had departed, the professor, who himself could be described as young and liberal, was able to speak with greater candor. "What Jeff doesn't understand," he said, gesturing toward his pile of statistical analysis, "is that it's my friends we want most to get rid of. They all think he's guilty as hell."

* * *

MacDonald was living in a small room at one end of the second floor of the Kappa Alpha fraternity house on the campus of North Carolina State University. The house was occupied also by MacDonald's mother, by Bernie Segal, and by five other lawyers and legal assistants (including Mike Malley, the ex-Princeton roommate, now a corporate attorney in Phoenix, who had taken a leave of absence to work without pay in his old friend's behalf), as well as by four fraternity brothers who were remaining on campus for the summer. Segal felt that Jeff would have a better chance for privacy at the college than he would in a downtown motel.

The housing at Kappa Alpha had been arranged by Wade Smith, the local counsel whom Segal had retained to assist him. An accomplished bluegrass musician who had been, in the late 1950s, a starting halfback on the University of North Carolina football team, Smith was a senior partner of the respected Raleigh firm of Tharrington, Smith and Hargrove, and the same attorney who had been recommended to MacDonald by Allard Lowenstein in 1971, when Lowenstein had become convinced that MacDonald was not a victim of military injustice but, rather, a man in need of a good criminal lawyer.

A native of the small North Carolina town of Albemarle, Wade Smith was a sturdy, gracious, exuberant man and the father of two bright and attractive teenaged daughters who were just a bit older than Kimberly and Kristen MacDonald would have been had they lived. At forty-two—having recently retired undefeated from state politics after two terms in the legislature— Smith was, perhaps, the most renowned practitioner of his craft in the state. He also possessed, in uncommonly full measure, a combination of kindness and wit. "Wade's the golden boy," Bernie Segal had said. "He's the best of what they have down here."

It was neither Segal nor Smith, however, who was on Jeffrey MacDonald's mind when he reached the Kappa Alpha house late Friday afternoon. It was the jury selection man from Duke.

MacDonald did not speak about it right away. He changed into a pair of red gym shorts and—despite the heat and humidity— went out to run five miles around the North Carolina State University track. When he returned, he lifted weights for twenty minutes. Then he showered and put on a pair of white slacks and a
T
-shirt that said, "California Breast Stroking Team—Stroker." Then he opened a can of beer and looked up at the wall of the Kappa Alpha dining room, where a picture of the fraternity's most distinguished graduate member, J. Edgar Hoover, was hanging.

"What worries me," MacDonald said, "is that by our figures
he
would be the ideal juror."

On Saturday morning, July 14, Jeffrey MacDonald and his mother drove twenty-five miles to Chapel Hill to be interviewed by a new psychiatrist Bernie Segal had hired.

Robert Sadoff, the Philadelphia psychiatrist who had examined MacDonald in 1970 and who had testified at both the Article 32 hearing and the grand jury proceedings, was prepared to do so again, but Segal, a Jew from the urban Northeast, did not want to go before a Southern jury—however carefully chosen it might be—with only a Jewish psychiatrist from the urban Northeast to explain that Jeffrey MacDonald could not possibly have killed his wife and children. He wanted a man from North Carolina to say the same thing. In Chapel Hill, at the University of North Carolina, he had located one with impeccable credentials. And the psychiatrist seemed willing to testify, pending his interview with the defendent and the defendant's mother.

Segal himself went on Saturday to the chambers of Judge Franklin Dupree to argue a series of pretrial motions. His relationship with the judge was not good. Since 1975, in fact, when Dupree had rejected Segal's bid to have the indictment dismissed on constitutional grounds and then had denied his request for a change of venue, he had considered the judge an enemy.

"He is, in brief, an asshole," Segal said at breakfast at the Kappa Alpha house on Saturday morning. "He is the pits. A despicably low individual. The problem is that he has all the proper mannerisms for a judge and manages to communicate a totally spurious aura of fairness. He may be a dummy, in other words, but he doesn't have a style that makes him easy to hate."

Accompanied by Wade Smith, Segal returned from the judge's chambers to the downtown office at 4
p.m
. The temperature was 92 degrees and the humidity was 90 percent. It had been that way in Raleigh for a week.

Segal took off his suit jacket (dark pinstripes), loosened his tie, lit a cigar, opened a can of diet soda, and stared glumly and silently out the window.

Wade Smith took a seat next to the desk.

"How did it go?" asked Mike Malley, who had been working in the office all day.

"Well, we won a few things," Smith said. "Nothing that would gladden anyone's heart, but it didn't go nearly as badly as it could have. I think he's beginning to understand that we're not bad guys. We didn't gain an awful lot on some points, but we did manage to get his attention. I had the feeling that the ice was melting just a bit. I believe he's starting to come around."

Segal, wreathed in cigar smoke, his feet on his desk, continued to stare out the window.

"It was not a day to feel elated about," Smith continued, managing a smile, "or even greatly encouraged by. But neither should we feel discouraged."

Bernie Segal put his feet down, removed the cigar from his mouth, and swung slowly around in his chair. "Actually," he said, "it was a disaster. We didn't get the sweat from his armpits today."

Judge Dupree had agreed
that the jury could remain unse
questered and that prospective jurors could be questioned individually and not in groups—a point vital to the selection technique Segal intended to employ—but since the prosecution had not opposed either of these motions, Segal did not consider the judge's granting them to be a victory.

There had been, on the other hand, nothing ambiguous about Dupree's ruling on the motion that the defense be provided with a free copy of the daily trial transcript—something which otherwise would cost $1,000 per day. He had denied it. And when Segal had argued that his client could not afford to pay for daily transcript—while the prosecution, backed by a limitless, taxpayer-funded expense account, of course could—the judge had replied that Dr. MacDonald did not strike him as an indigent defendant, and that, in fact, he had recently received a newspaper clipping from California describing a "disco party" designed to raise funds, presumably for just such a purpose as this.

Even more ominous, from Segal's point of view, had been the judge's announcement that he was reserving decision on the admissibility of certain points Segal considered vital to the defense. These included references to the constitutional questions of speedy trial and double jeopardy, as well as mention of Helena Stoeckley's continuing admissions to others that she (whose whereabouts were currently unknown) believed herself to have been involved in the murders. Other points on which the judge had not yet made up his mind were whether the jury should be told of the report filed by Colonel Rock which had found the charges against MacDonald to be
^1
’
not true," and whether they should be informed of Dr. Sadoff's 1970 testimony that MacDonald lacked the capacity to have committed the crimes. Indeed, the judge said, he was not at all certain that he would permit any psychiatrists to testify, since the question of insanity was not at issue and since he believed that conflicting expert testimony tended to confuse a jury needlessly.