TV and Movies

[SydneyH]

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@mousiegirl wrote:

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@SydneyH  Did you ever see the interview  of the way MacDonald acted after he murdered his wife and children on the ****** Cavett show, despicable!

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No but that's hardly proof of guilt, again just my opinion.  Remember he was initially not charged for almost a decade, practiced medicine and had no charges during that time.  The fact that he refuses to confess after all this time is unusual.

[SydneyH]

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@Moonchilde wrote:

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@SydneyH wrote:

I'd watch a rehash of this case. The woman in the floppy hat seemed to know a lot about the crime, which bothers me because she is dead now.

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@SydneyH, Helena Stoeckley was totally drug-addled, a heavy user of every recreational drug known to man. Multiple times over the years through various appeals she was judged utterly non-credible. She had no actual memory of that night as she was too high/out of it to remember where she’d been or what she’d done. She told LE whatever she thought they wanted to hear at any given moment over the years and then recant it - over and over again. There has never been a shred of physical evidence to show she was ever in the MacDonald house, and a lot of physical evidence showing MacDonald was guilty.

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I'm aware of all of what you claim, however, some of what she went on the record for could not have been known to someone that was either not there or familiar with the crime scene.  Drug addiction, despite what some insist doesn't negate the possibility of being a witness.

[Moonchilde]

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@SydneyH wrote:

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@Moonchilde wrote:

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@SydneyH wrote:

I'd watch a rehash of this case. The woman in the floppy hat seemed to know a lot about the crime, which bothers me because she is dead now.

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@SydneyH, Helena Stoeckley was totally drug-addled, a heavy user of every recreational drug known to man. Multiple times over the years through various appeals she was judged utterly non-credible. She had no actual memory of that night as she was too high/out of it to remember where she’d been or what she’d done. She told LE whatever she thought they wanted to hear at any given moment over the years and then recant it - over and over again. There has never been a shred of physical evidence to show she was ever in the MacDonald house, and a lot of physical evidence showing MacDonald was guilty.

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I'm aware of all of what you claim, however, some of what she went on the record for could not have been known to someone that was either not there or familiar with the crime scene.  Drug addiction, despite what some insist doesn't negate the possibility of being a witness.

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It’s not “what I claim”, it’s in multiple transcripts of multiple depositions and testimonies from the first until she died, backed by living witnesses to all of the depositions and testimonies. Unless one chooses to believe that for some bizarre reason, to no logical purpose, every single person has been lying about everything except Stoeckley. What would be the point of that, I wonder? It makes no sense.

[Teddie]

I saw the original movie when it came out and believed him to have done this horrible crime. 

I don’t remember when but not that long ago I saw a documentary or some such thing that walked through all the evidence and showed how there is a great possibility that, he in fact, did not do it. It was quite compelling and left me questioning. 

[Pearlee]

I watched this last night and the Gary Cole / Karl Malden TV movie (miniseries) is waaaay superior.   That one is absolutely riveting.  I found this show boring and it never did "grab" me, esp. the way the earlier TV film did.  No comparison.  This one lagged and the flashback technique didn't work IMO.

I also didn't like that the MacDonald character and the McGinnis character had similar looking actors.  I had to remind myself which was which at times when they were both in a scene.

Two thumbs down.  If you want to watch a film about this crime, spend your time with the Cole/Malden one. It's excellent.

[wishmoon]

They just don't make serial killers like they used to. I didn't see it last night but have it recorded.

[OKPrincess]

@Moonchilde What did you think of the doctor before he was arrested?  I watched it too.

[mousiegirl]

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@Moonchilde wrote:

It’s sure possible, @Pearlee - after all, you wouldn’t think much, back in the day of the original book (might well be different now, heaven knows), of someone who went into it believing the guy was guilty - it’s just logical that he wouldn’t say he’d taken it on not thinking MacDonald was innocent, otherwise it would look like a railroad job. I think that through the years McGinniss got older and a lot wiser about many things.

I thought Fatal Vision was a good book, and the mini-series did a brilliant job of concentrating on the physical evidence. It was hard physical evidence, period, that convinced me - bloodstains and puncture holes that could lead to only one conclusion forensically. Lack of DNA evidence that random strangers ever entered the house/had anything to do with the bodies of the murdered. The case for him not being guilty, the grasping-at-straws maybe this happened, maybe that happened - has been created solely bt MacDonald himself - and he has changed his stories, too. He’s always searching for anyone he can con.

I always admired (and felt sorry for) Bugliosi. I had a hard time reading the book alone at home, only a few years after the murders occurred. Living in LA, it was very “close to home” - and we’ve aways known that there were “family members” who were never arrested, out there ready to do it again it was thought at the time.

I have mixed feelings about all these programs about famous murder cases. On the one hand, some of them have been done to death. OTOH, just because you and I and others our age remember the murders and trials first-hand, younger people don’t know anything about these infamous crimes, so depending upon how they’re done, I see a value/point to them for others who were too young to know or remember.

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@Moonchilde  I was replying to a post which stated that it would help the younger genration, AND, I also was referring to aring the same old cases over and over through the decades, why not cover different cases, was my point.

[qualitygal]

Gee, talk about dragging a show out!  I had to give up on it.  I agree, disappointed.  Do remember when it happened too.

[Moonchilde]

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@OKPrincess wrote:

@Moonchilde What did you think of the doctor before he was arrested?  I watched it too.

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@OKPrincess, I have to admit - I caught it as it started, but decided not to watch because I’d been expecting a documentary, not another film dramatization. I wanted facts presented, not a movie, so a new film didn’t interest me that much, where a new documentary would have.

However, because of what I had learned from reading the mini-book that McGinniss wrote that this film was made from, I can kind of understand why they did it as non-documentary - there are too many people left alive who could be suing each other if they included all the information McGinniss learned in the ensuing years - not only suing him, but several other investigators and LE suing each other based on what he knew. It didn’t mean MacDonald was innocent, it just meant a lot of people lied all along.