Plot

The family of Capt. Jeffrey MacDonald USA dies violently from an attack by person or persons unknown. Jeff comes under investigation. The Army clears him. But two CID officers, and his father-in-law, have doubts.

Part One:

On February 17, 1970, at 0340 hours, at the US Army base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on a rainy night, Captain Jeffrey R. MacDonald (Gary Cole), US Army Medical Corps, stumbles about in his on-base house. He makes a call for an ambulance and medics, and gives his address at 544 Castle Drive. He then says, "They're dying!" and "I think I'm gonna die" and drops the phone. Then he goes to a bathroom mirror, where there is an abrasion on his forehead, made by a blunt instrument. He is clad in only pajama bottoms, his whole face and chest is covered in blood and he also has what appears to be a stab wound on his right side. Then he goes to the kitchen and picks up the phone again, giving the same message saying "stabbing"..., before he drops that phone, too.

A small group of military policemen arrive at the house shortly thereafter. Upon entering the back door of the darkened house, they express shock at the sight of two adults lying on the bedroom floor: Captain Jeffrey MacDonald and his wife Colette (Wendy Schaal). They then realize that MacDonald is alive. There are two young girls in their respective bedrooms, both dead, and the walls splattered with blood. The ambulance arrives, and its crew take MacDonald to the post hospital. Sadly, the MP's make a major mistake as they carry MacDonald out: they accidentally knock over a potted plant, then stand it back up.

The chief investigator, Captain William Ivory (Scott Paulin), arrives. The MPs show him what remains, and the evidence, including the bloody word PIG on the headboard in the master bedroom.

In the hospital, MacDonald calls out for news of his family. Ivory struggles to secure the scene and interview witnesses. Meanwhile, the doctor at the hospital phones Colette's parents, stepfather Alfred "Freddy" Kassab (Karl Malden) and his wife Mildred (Eva Marie Saint).

Next morning, more medics remove the bodies of Collette and daughters Kristen (Dylan Galer) and Kimberly (Brandy Gold). One of the medics seals MacDonald's wallet from the house. Captain Ivory and his men find more evidence, including blue pajama-top threads in the master bedroom. Another investigator recovers the pajama top and finds a bunch of neat punctures in it. At the hospital, the pathologist tells Ivory that he has found a blond hair in Colette's hand, and a piece of skin under one of her fingernails.

The Kassabs arrive at the hospital, followed MacDonald's mother Perry (Paddi Edwards). A sobbing MacDonald tells all of them the same story: intruders broke into his house killed his family and he couldn't protect them.

The local police start rounding up suspects that fit the profile of the intruders that MacDonald gave the MPs: three hippie bearded men (two white men and one black man wearing a Army sergeant's jacket) and a woman in boots, long blond hair, a big floppy hat, and holding a candle. Jay MacDonald (Rex Ryon) gives a statement to the press in support of his brother Jeff. And, of course, the Army holds a triple funeral for Colette and the girls. MacDonald attends the funeral and openly weeps for his dead wife and two children.

Several days later, Bill Ivory talks to a technician who finds inconsistencies: no threads, no blood, no splinters from a wooden club in the living room (where MacDonald is supposed to have fought the intruders off), but splinters and threads in the bedroom. Sadly, the technician tells Ivory that a piece of rubber glove, also recovered at the scene, has been misplaced and lost along with the skin sample taken from the dead Colette's fingernail.

Freddy and Mildred mourn for their daughter and granddaughters. Next day, Freddy drives along Castle Drive and looks at the house. In a flashback to the spring of 1969, he remembers driving Colette and the girls to the house shortly after Jeff's arrival. When they go in, they find the house unfurnished and empty. Though Freddy suggests they stay at a motel until their furniture arrives, Jeff insists that the family stay in the house, in sleeping bags. At the end of the flashback, an MP tells Freddy to move on.

Another week later, Bill Ivory has to admit to the Provost Marshal (Jack Rader) that he has no evidence, no suspects, and nothing to suggest anything except a repeat of the murders of Sharon Tate and her house party in California, the previous year. Meanwhile, Freddy Kassab worries that four murderers are on the loose, and the Army can't seem to find them.

Six weeks after the three murders (April 1970), MacDonald goes to see the commanding officer, Colonel Franz Grebner (Barry Corbin) of the CID about getting his furniture out of the house. But Grebner has another agenda. He introduces Ivory and Robert Shaw (Andy Wood), the two CID investigators. Grebner starts a recording and takes a statement from Jeff, beginning with observing that he was inducted into the army in July of 1969--and then giving him the Miranda Warnings.

The story Captain MacDonald tells is this:

On that evening, his wife went to bed first, and MacDonald stayed up late to watch The Tonight Show. At 0200 hours, he went to bed, but found that Kristen had crawled into bed with Colette and wet the bed. So he put Kristen to bed and slept on the couch in the living room. Some hours later, MacDonald wakes up to screams: Kimberly yelling, "Daddy! Daddy!" and Colette yelling, "Jeff! Jeff! Why are they doing this to me?" He also remembers as he got up off the living room couch, three rugged men suddenly appeared in the living room trying to club him. Two men were white and one was black and the black man was wearing a US Army jacket with the sergeants strips on one sleeve. Before Jeff could react, one of them punched him in the gut, and another one of them raised a bladed weapon. He describes also a girl with blonde hair standing nearby in a big floppy hat, holding a lighted candle, wearing a raincoat and high-heeled boots, and saying, "Acid is groovy! Kill the pig!" Then he remembers being in the hallway, with his pajama top wrapped around his arms. He received a blow to the head and passed out. When he regained consciousness, the four intruders were gone. He went to the bedroom and found his wife lying on the floor, with a knife sunk into her chest. That is all he "remembers," except for a lot of blood on Colette and the girls. Vital signs, according to MacDonald, were all negative.

Briefly and silently stunned by the story, Grebner starts questioning MacDonald more closely, but MacDonald doesn't quite answer the questions, preferring instead to reinforce his own account. The location of Jeff's pajama top especially puzzles Grebner. Getting more nervous and agitated, MacDonald embellishes his account about where his pajama top was first by saying it was pulled off and over his head during the struggle, then adding that it was around his wrists while fighting one of the intruders. Jeff makes a few slips about the details and then corrects himself by adding statements like: "I forgot to say that," etc. He then mentions the puncture wounds on his abdomen.

Then Bill Ivory strikes the first sour note. He casually suggests that MacDonald deliberately wounded himself. MacDonald shrugs this off at first. Then Grebner observes that the three people were "over-killed" with multiple stab wounds, but MacDonald survived with only one serious stab wound among superficial cuts and lacerations. Grebner and Ivory also notice that the screams came from Colette and Kristen, while MacDonald was lying on the couch. So, Shaw then cuts in and suggests it might be possible that there may have been two more intruders involved... intruders that MacDonald never described? How could six people crowd into a house that size? Why didn't the house, walls, and furniture sustain more damage? MacDonald again shrugs and states that he doesn't know. Then Grebner comes out and says it: Jeff MacDonald's story doesn't ring true. Grebner shows MacDonald photographs taken of the inside of the house taken on the day after the murders and proclaims: "I've seen living rooms where all-night poker parties took place that caused more damage". In addition to the relative lack of damage to the inside of the house and the living room, the flower pot (which the MP's knocked over and stood back up) is standing up, and the living room coffee table is leaning over on its side. Grebner remarks that the table is top-heavy, and it should have landed upside down. The table was very likely and gently turned on its side. Conclusion: MacDonald staged the scene after killing his wife and two daughters himself. MacDonald suddenly stands up from his chair and reacts in anger and outrage at them implying that he killed his wife and kids in cold blood for no reason, but Grebner repeats that such things have happened before. MacDonald strongly denies killing his wife and two children and then accuses Grebner of picking him for a scapegoat just to close the case. However, Ivory, Shaw, and Grebner are all unsympathetic. They point out that experience says that the crime scene is inconsistent with MacDonald's story. The discussion, of course, goes nowhere as MacDonald basically pleads how much he loved his family and couldn't have done it. Grebner also has other evidence, however: he shows Jeff photos of two "other women" in MacDonald's life. Grebner openly speculates that MacDonald may have cheated on his wife with the two women and that Collette found out and it led to a fight which resulted in MacDonald killing her and his two daughters on a spur-of-the-moment rage. MacDonald admits to knowing the two women while he was working at a military hospital, but denies having any sexual relations with any of them. Jeff MacDonald then calmly and arrogantly says, "You're more thorough than I thought."

A few days later, Freddy Kassab thinks the Army is stupid for suspecting Jeff of the murders, and so does Mildred. Freddy is determined to fight for Jeff as hard as he can. Meanwhile, Perry MacDonald travels to Philadelphia and calls in a civilian lawyer named Bernie Siegel (Barry Newman) to represent her son. He asks the usual "defense lawyer questions" before he takes Jeff's case. Siegel agrees to talk to Jeff after talking to Perry.

Mildred places roses on Colette's grave as the voice of Jeff narrates a letter to the Kassabs, giving his impression (negative) of the investigation. In further scenes, Jeff takes a Rorschach inkblot test, then a polygraph lie detector test, and then what might be a Thematic Apperception Test (though this is not shown clearly). Bernie Siegel and his assistant Dennis Eisman (Lance Rosen) are confident in their case. Freddy tells the press how angry he is with the U.S. Army for holding Jeff.

Days later, Freddy comes home to hear from Mildred that the Army will charge Jeff with three counts of murder in the deaths of Colette and the girls. Freddy pledges his support. But Mildred takes down a picture and has her own reminiscence:

In Mildred's flashback, she is playing with three-year-old Kimberly (Judith Barsi) in their home in Chicago back in 1967. The pregnant Colette ruefully observes that Jeff's medical-school schedule keeps him busy and he seems to have no time for her. Later, of course, Colette goes into labor and is admitted to Lakeside East Hospital, to bear Kristen. Mildred observes that Jeff is almost obsessively solicitous of Colette and insists she wait for a wheelchair to take her inside the hospital. Kimberly stays with Mildred at the house while Colette recovers. There on the next day, Jeff phones from the hospital to tell Mildred the joyous news that she has another granddaughter. But Jeff insists that Colette had been nearly neglected in the hospital and had a difficult delivery and that Jeff was there in the delivery room to help out. (Whether this is true or not, the show never makes clear.)

Back in the present, Freddy tells Mildred that he's spoken to Jeff. Freddy reveals that the Army wants hair samples from every part of his body, to try to match it to the hair strand that Colette was grasping when she died. Freddy is still frustrated with Jeff for not telling him any details of the crime. So Freddy offers a $5,000 reward for information leading to the apprehension of the "intruders" who killed his stepdaughter and two granddaughters.

On May 1, 1970, the US Army holds an Article 32 hearing in Jeff's case. Character witnesses, including the Army psychiatrist, testify in support of Jeff. Freddy is frustrated with the Army for closing the hearing to the public. But Jeff boasts to Freddy about how Siegel showed that the MPs had not adequately secured the scene or the evidence. Freddy asks Jeff to get a daily transcript of the hearing. Jeff vaguely promises to "try" to get one.

Jeff gives an interview to the Long Island Register and gives a lot of details that he never gave Freddy. That is the first thing that puzzles Freddy about Jeff's casual attitude. Mildred mourns that her granddaughters will never see something as simple as two blue jays feeding from a bird feeder.

Days later, the Army investigators create an incident when they take Jeff into custody to take hair samples. In the process, Jeff, for no clear reason, kicks one of the investigators in his leg. As a result, one investigator manhandles Dennis in front of Bernie, who then goes on a rampage, yelling at anyone in sight, "Now you know how the Army operates!" Naturally that provokes Jeff to write another letter to Freddy at how he is being treated, and apparently a letter to newspaper columnist Jack Anderson.

A few weeks later, a private investigator, named William Posey (Joe Mays), working for the defense tells Siegal and Eisman that he found a hippie woman named Helena Stoeckley (Alexandra Johnson), who wears high-heeled boots, a blond wig, and a big floppy hat. But after February 17, she never wore those items again. Instead she went about in "mourning," hung a funeral wreath on her door, and placed votive candles all over her apartment. Posey even quotes Stoeckley as saying, "We can't get married until we go out and kill some more people."

Bill Ivory goes to see Helena Stoeckley at her run-down apartment building first to question her about the MacDonald case. He gets little out of her, because she won't let him take notes. She admits just one thing: that she takes a lot of drugs (including marijuana), and never can keep straight what she does from week to week, let alone that far back in time. Helena claims that the blond wig she had was borrowed; the floppy hat she gave away; the boots she threw away; she denies having anything to do with witchcraft. Helena says that she will not "get involved." When Ivory asks Helena if she was in the house on the night that Jeff MacDonald's wife and children were murdered, she, more to the point, says, "I wasn't there."

At the Article 32 hearing, Bernie Siegal has a field day with Ivory, showing that Stoeckley was anything but "frank, candid, and open" as Ivory tried to say.

Next, Freddy Kassab testifies at the Article 32 hearing and gives more character testimony, including that if he had another daughter, he'd be happy to have Jeff marry her, too.

Now Jeff testifies, describing in a proud tone about his clubs and sports teams in high school, scholarship at Princeton University, medical training, and decision to join the U.S. Army. Then he re-tells this story of the night of the deaths:

At 1815 hours on the night of February 16, Colette left for a night class. Then he put away some dishes from dinner in the kitchen sink, and stayed up with the two girls as they watched TV. He put Kristen to bed and fell asleep in the living room with Kimberly until Colette got back at 2100 hours. When Colette does come back, he proposes a nightcap. They sit in the living room for a while, and Jeff tells Colette that he's still working on going to Russia with the Army boxing team. Colette went to bed, and Jeff watched more TV and washed the dishes, wearing rubber gloves. He finished reading a novel at about 0200. Then he found Kristen on his side of the bed, which was wet, and put her to bed. He went to sleep on the couch, and then came the screams, the fight with the three hippie-looking men, and all the rest that he earlier had told Franz Grebner. The pajama top comes up, and he can't remember how it came to be wrapped around his arms in front of him. He remembers dropping the pajama top, but doesn't know where. He pulled a knife out of his wife's chest and tried to resuscitate her without success. Then he picked up the pajama top and covered her chest and face with it.

The Army has two old knives that were found at the crime scene (a bent one beside the dead Colette and the other one outside the back door), which Jeff denies recognizing. An ice pick is introduced as another murder weapon. Again, Jeff denies ever seeing it before. Jeff also says that some of his drug-rehab patients threatened him with death in the course of his treatment of him.

On October 13, 1970, the Army decides to drop the case with lack of evidence. Jeff is writing letters to a publicity agent when he is ushered into the office of the Provost Marshal, who tells Jeff that Colonel Rock has recommended dropping all charges. Afterwords, Jeff MacDonald resigns from the US Army and receives an honorable discharge.

Freddy and Mildred are ecstatic about Jeff being cleared, but Freddy still wants a copy of the transcript of the Article 32 hearing. Jeff is far more interested in talking to reporters--including reporter Betsy Gilmore, who openly flirts with him over the telephone, a thing he's interested in. 'Look' magazine gets interested, and a interview is granted with both Jeff and Freddy. During the interview (not shown on camera), Freddy says that he still wants to find "the real killers" by now. Freddy contacts a set of reporters to investigate the case, but Jeff wants the investigating paper to pay him. That's the second thing that puzzles Freddy: Jeff's near-obsession with making money over the case. Jeff also tells Freddy that the Army has instructed him not to give him a transcript of the hearing, a thing Freddy won't accept.

In December 1970, Jeff appears on a TV talk show, he tells the interviewer Dick Cavet (Billy James) about his interrogation, and that he had 23 stab wounds, some life-threatening, and then needed surgery. Watching the interview, Freddy knows that's false, because he remembers Jeff's hospitalization and nothing like that ever happened during it.

At the CID, Colonel Pruett (Carmen Argenziano) summons Major Peter Kearns (Dennis Redfield) to reopen the investigation. Jeff MacDonald has made the Army resent him with his salacious interview. One of Col. Pruett's investigators finds Helena Stoeckley, now living in Nashville. While having coffee with the investigator at a local diner, she then for the first time says that Jeff may have did the deed himself.

Some time later, Freddy finally gets a copy of the Article 32 transcript. That makes him even angrier when he finds even more inconsistencies in Jeff's story:

• Whom was Colette shouting to ("Jeff, why are they doing this to me?"), if Jeff was in the living room, she in the bedroom, and the four intruders were fighting with him there? And how could she talk at all?

• Jeff was knocked back on the couch by the intruders and blacked out. Why didn't they finish him off?

• Jeff heard Kimmie screaming, "Daddy!" But her skull was crushed by then, wasn't it?

• Why was there no blood on the living room floor, where he fought the intruders?

• Jeff never washed a dish in his life, with or without rubber gloves.

• Jeff used a kitchen phone to call for help. But there was no blood on that phone.

In summary: Jeff made 123 statements during the hearing that Freddy knows are false, or impossible to believe. Now, for the first time, he believes that Jeff might have done the deed.

Meanwhile, Jeff MacDonald moves out to California, where he has signed on to a civilian hospital as an emergency-room physician. Jeff is seen boarding a flight for Los Angeles, while his ever-loyal mother Perry MacDonald sees him off.