Errol Morris on ‘The Wilderness of Error’ in Jeffrey MacDonald case

Hour 2

Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker ERROL MORRIS gained fame 25 years ago when his third film, “The Thin Blue Line,” helped prove that a man convicted of murder was innocent. With his new book, “A Wilderness of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald,” Morris is at it again, this time with a far more notorious murder case: The 1970 murder in Fort Bragg, North Carolina of the pregnant wife and two young daughters of Green Beret doctor Jeffrey MacDonald. MacDonald was cleared in the initial Army investigation, then convicted in 1979 and remains in prison. A number of best-selling books, including Joe McGinniss’s “Fatal Vision” and Janet Malcolm’s “The Journalist and the Murderer,” and a blockbuster television miniseries have told their versions of the MacDonald case and what it all means. Now, after investigating the case for more than 20 years, Morris makes the case that “almost everything we have been told about the case is deeply unreliable.” It’s not just Morris: On Sept. 17, a new hearing ordered by the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will begin, with MacDonald being supported in the case by The Innocence Project.

Photo Credit: Penguin Press

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