By the time the victims' bodies were exhumed, a woman named Helena Stoeckley had told police

4.2.12 WC: 191694 By the time the victims' bodies were exhumed, a woman named Helena Stoeckley had told police and others that she and three friends had been in the MacDonald house on the night of the murders and that her friends had committed the crimes. Though Stoeckley's word alone may not have been worth very much—she was known to be a drug addict—she provided some details, which tended to corroborate her story and the story Jeffrey MacDonald had told the police. For example, she described a broken rocking horse like one found in Kristen's bedroom. At the time of the crime, she had owned a floppy hat, black clothing, boots, and a long blonde wig, all of which corresponded with MacDonald's description. And a woman fitting that description had been seen by a military policeman near the MacDonald home shortly after the crime. But the single hair in Colette's hand turned out to have come from her own head. The government investigators reported that they had found no other physical evidence—no hairs, no fibers, no skin, no blood—that could not be traced to the inhabitants of the MacDonald house. The prosecution could therefore argue to the jury that Jeffrey MacDonald was lying - - because if there had been intruders, they surely would have left some evidence behind: The absence of such evidence was evidence of the absence of intruders. Moreover, at the trial Helena Stoeckley claimed to have amnesia as to her whereabouts on the night of the murders. The defense was surprised by Stoeckley’s sudden inability to remember what she had previously described in such detail, but they could not effectively challenge her claim of amnesia, because they had no basis for suggesting that she had been pressured to forget what she actually remembered having done—namely participating in the murder of the MacDonald family. Now, however, in a shocking turn of events, Jeffrey MacDonald's legal team has discovered that, before the trial, the government had in its possession handwritten lab notes indicating that investigators had discovered long, blonde wig hairs at the scene of the crime that did not match anything in the MacDonald household. This evidence was already in the government's secret files before the graves of the victims were disturbed. Nor was this all the prosecution had in its secret files. The handwritten lab notes confirmed the presence of black wool fibers on the murder weapon used against Colette, and around her mouth. These fibers did not match any clothing belonging to Jeffrey MacDonald or to anyone else in the MacDonald household. (Helena Stoeckley, however, had said she often wore black clothing.) In addition, in the bedclothes of each victim—Colette, Kimberly, and Kristen—the government experts found other unmatched human hairs, which did not belong to any of the victims, or to Jeffrey MacDonald. But these hairs were never tested against Stoeckley or any members of her group. These lab notes were powerful evidence that an intruder wearing a long, blonde wig and black wool clothing was at the murder scene on the night of February 17, 1970. But Jeffrey MacDonald's lawyers were not aware of the notes' contents. Had they been, the entire trial would undoubtedly have unfolded differently. 196 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017283