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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 6, 1992                   TAG: 9202060122
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Short

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`FATAL VISION' LAWYER SAYS EVIDENCE HIDDEN

Attorneys for convicted "Fatal Vision" murderer Jeffrey R. MacDonald told a three-judge appeals panel Wednesday that physical evidence excluded from MacDonald's 1979 trial could have proven him innocent.

The former Army Green Beret doctor convicted in the 1970 killings of his pregnant wife and two daughters is asking the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to order a new trial.

The case became a best-selling book and television miniseries called "Fatal Vision."

Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz told the judges that attorneys in 1990 discovered evidence of blonde wig fibers, corroborating MacDonald's account that intruders killed his family.

MacDonald claimed the intruders were hippies, including a young woman wearing a long, blonde wig.

Dershowitz said defense lawyers couldn't have learned earlier about the fibers found at the crime scene because the government had misled them.

Justice Department attorney John DePue called the fiber evidence inconsequential. He said other fibers that didn't match family items were found at the scene.

"Fibers are nothing more than household debris," DePue said.

MacDonald was convicted in the 1970 stabbing and clubbing deaths of his 26-year-old wife, Colette, and their two daughters.

- Associated Press

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