FOXNews.com: 'Fatal Vision' Murder Case Gets New Day in Court

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'Fatal Vision' Murder Case Gets New Day in Court Sep 19th 2012, 01:03 WILMINGTON, N.C. –  Former Green Beret doctor Jeffrey MacDonald hopes to overturn his 1979 murder conviction for the 1970 deaths of his pregnant wife and two young daughters with previously unheard testimony from now-deceased witnesses. On Tuesday, the brother of admitted drug user Helena Stoeckley, described their mother's deathbed conversation. "My mother said Helena was there and MacDonald was not guilty of the crimes," Eugene Stoeckley testified. MacDonald's new wife, Kathryn, who has never seen her husband outside of prison, was pleased with Stoeckley's testimony. "He said exactly what happened," she told reporters as she left the courthouse. "He's unimpeachable." Defense lawyers are trying to prove a prosecutor used the threat of murder charges to dissuade Stoeckley from testifying that she was at the crime scene with three men who attacked MacDonald, his children and his wife Colette. But Colette's brother Bob Stevenson says Stoeckley was merely being advised of her rights and insists the conflicting statements she made when she was alive can not be trusted. "Her mind is that of a drug-addled witness," Stevenson told reporters. "If you take a lie detector test, of what value is it to an insane person talking with a drug-addled mind. It's useless." The public narrative of MacDonald as a killer is spelled out in "Fatal Vision," the 1980s book and TV mini-series by Joe McGinniss, the controversial author who, most recently, moved next door to Sarah Palin while writing a book about the former vice-presidential candidate. In an essay published Monday on Breitbart.com, Palin writes, "I sympathize with MacDonald and his defense team because I saw firsthand the twisted way McGinniss operates." Another author Errol Morris, whose documentary "The Thin Blue Line" helped free a Texas man convicted of murder, hopes his latest book "A Wilderness of Error" has a similar effect on the MacDonald case. "The justice system has its flaws," Morris said. "But I believe that when all of the evidence in this case is presented, that it will be absolutely clear that there was a miscarriage of justice in 1979 and this man will be set free." That's exactly what MacDonald's lawyers are asking for or, at the very least, a new trial. U.S. District Court Judge James Fox is expected to continue hearing evidence in the case over the next two weeks.

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