By: Paul P
One thing that bothered me about Joe McGinnis’s book was his failure to tell us that the pattern of family murder attributed to MacDonald was a patten known to criminologists. Do people commit murders...
View ArticleBy: LifelongLib
“bizarre rantings about psychopaths on Joe McGinnis’ Web site” This may be what the writer is referring to. But it strikes me as neither bizarre nor ranting: http://www.joemcginniss.net/the-1989-epilogue
View ArticleBy: Lynn Parramore
I’d like to point out something about the diagnosis of “psychopath.” It’s a term that came into vogue through the work of an idiosyncratic Georgia psychiatrist named Hervey Clerkley. He also gave us...
View ArticleBy: Lynn Parramore
You have hit upon one of the most troubling aspects of this case. People constantly make reference to how a person “should” behave after undergoing trauma. Jeffrey MacDonald’s behavior has been endless...
View ArticleBy: sgt_doom
During Vietnam UnWar period, especially towards the latter stages when a variety of offbeat fighting methods were adopted (as in quick skeet shooting for quick response rifle firing without aiming),...
View ArticleBy: Ray Phenicie
“Plus, ‘witchcraft cult’? Really? Hippie murders? I know this is the era of Romney-bama and all things non-liberal, but still those sound like 80′s TV tropes.” What support do you have for your...
View ArticleBy: Min
When I saw the title of the post, the question that came to my mind was, “Which way?”
View ArticleBy: maynardGkeynes
Yves, the police dept photos of his injuries are available online. See for yourself. They are, indeed, quite minor. The one “serious” injury he suffered, a puncture wound that caused a collpased lung,...
View ArticleBy: just me
This passage in the article struck me funny: Bernie Segal, a long-haired Jewish lawyer from Philadelphia, took the lead in the case and managed to alienate the entire courtroom. Segal took up nearly...
View ArticleBy: LucyLulu
Thanks, LL. Fascinating link that paints quite a different picture of Dr. MacDonald.
View ArticleBy: LucyLulu
“Clinical psychiatrists hardly ever use the psychopath diagnosis; it has become highly controversial.” I’ve worked in the mental health field since 1979, and whether one calls it “antisocial...
View ArticleBy: skippy
WOW all the personal verdicts based on non exculpatory evidence, bias conformation duh… It was a poorly handled case from the get go and on the prosecutions side IMO. Having said that his defense team...
View ArticleBy: Tim Mason
For a dismantling of the concept of ‘psychopath,’ see http://lx.iriss.org.uk/content/what-are-psychopaths – a talk by criminologist Shadd Maruna. (He takes a while to get going, but it’s worth...
View ArticleBy: indio007
“The police are nothing more than an organized crime syndicate…” exactly America’s largest street gang… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qEr_mZf06Y
View ArticleBy: Katherine
Exactly. Further, there is very interesting information from a court transcript online in which a doctor/witness explains how intentional lung punctures were for a time sometimes used to treat TB...
View ArticleBy: Kim Kaufman
This piece is one reason I like NC so much — a surprise and “off topic” piece like this that is so compelling and makes me think about “our system” as a whole and how broken it is on many levels and...
View ArticleBy: vlade
Yves, if you haven’t read, I’d suggest reading “Mistakes were made (but not by me)”. It has a great (well, not so great when you think about implications) part on the interrogation techniques the US...
View ArticleBy: Laurence Smith
As a Psychotherapist Your points regarding Jeffrey MacDondald are quite accurate, injcluding not every murderer has to have had a history of violence, as many murders involved in love triangles never...
View ArticleBy: Ben
Most of the comments back and forth actually confirm the main hypothesis of the article. it is easier to label a seemingly normal man a killer than to accept that crazy strangers might invade our homes...
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