The Jeffery Macdonald Murders

          It has been 35 years since the Macdonald murders happened. Jeff Macdonald has been the one that has paid for the murder of his wife, Colette and two children, Kimberly and Kristin. He has claimed to be innocent even after all of these years. In fact, he was found not guilty during his Article 32 hearing while he was still in the military. So how was Helena Stoeckley a part of this? Well, if the authorities listened she would have been in Macdonald's place along with the other people that did all of the dirty work. She was in the Macdonald home that night.
Helena Stoeckley was the daughter of now retired Colonel Clarence Stoeckley. At the age of 17 she had become an informant for not only the local police, but the military police at Ft. Bragg. She was a known drug user by the local and military police at Ft. Bragg. There was a lot of illegal drug trafficking at Ft. Bragg. Which is why Ft. Bragg had such a big secret and a major drug use problem. Helena was in the center of this and had friends and aquantinences that were also a part of this as well.
          Murder night, February 17, 1970, at 544 Castle Drive, Ft Bragg, North Carolina. Helena was spotted a couple of blocks from the murder scene by an MP named Kevin Micca. He was on his way to the Macdonald house when the murders were reported. Kevin was later told by an authority above him that he was not to say anything about seeing Helena that night. Almost right away Helena contacted a friend in the police department and had told him that she was at the Macdonald house the night of the murders. She told him she was wearing the clothing that Jeff Macdonald said that he saw her wearing. She confessed that she burned them so that they wouldn't incriminate her.
          Helena produced a signed written confession as well as in front of television cameras. She had stated that her and her friends had planned on "shaking up" Jeff Macdonald to see if they could scare him into giving them methadone for their heroine addiction, but things got out of hand. Helena told authorities that her boyfriend, Greg Mitchell, was the one she saw killing Colette. She had also confessed that there had been a phone call in the middle of the murders and when they had asked for Dr. Macdonald Helena said that she laughed at the caller because she had seen Dr. Macdonald laying on the floor and assumed he was already dead. Helena also stated that she had seen one of the children sleeping in bed next to where Colette was as well as while the murder was going on. She claims that she did not see who murdered the children and had thought that the children were still alive when they left. Some people believe that they were a part of a cult and that this was meant to be Helena's "initiation". Others claim that the way of sacrifice is in the order as such: woman, especially pregnant woman, then children, then men. Helena says that they just talked about making it look that way so that others would believe it had to do with the people involved with the Manson murders. She also recalls that when they were leaving the weapons were ditched in the back yard by the back door near a bush. Helena does admit that they were all very high on heroin during these events. She claims that while giving any confessions as to what happened that night that she was completely sober.
The day came when Helena was to testify in court at Jeff Macdonald's trial. With the information that she could have given the court, it would have cleared Macdonald of murdering his family. Unfortunetly, the worst happened. The judge ruled that her testimony was not credible because she was such a heavy drug user. He claimed that there was no way to know if she was telling the truth because she could be high while testifying. Helena's day in court was thrown out and Jeff Macdonald's hope of being released from prison was shattered. So why was Helena so trustworthy when it came for her to be an informant and yet not good enough for a murder trial where she claims to have had something to do with it? They trusted her information then, but not now. Doesn't make much sense except no one would have wanted to see a Colonels daughter go to prison. Either way Helena was deemed unreliable and this became just one of the many mishaps that became tainted in this case.
          In the early 1980's Helena and her boyfriend, Greg Mitchell, died from liver disease within a few months of each other. This story dies with them. After the death of Greg Mitchell many people that were his friends claimed that he did tell them about murdering Colette that evening and admitted to being at 544 Castle Drive that night. Currently there has been DNA testing that has come back that will hopefully give Jeffrey MacDonald a new trial and one well deserved. An innocent man has spent his whole life in prison for a crime I believe he did not commit.