ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 23, 1997 TAG: 9704230051
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RALEIGH, N.C.
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jeffrey MacDonald's lawyers asked a judge Tuesday to reopen his murder case, saying a report critical of FBI scientists could help clear the former Green Beret doctor in the 1970 slaying of his family.
In a 1,500-page appeal filed in U.S. District Court, MacDonald's lawyers argued that FBI forensic expert Michael Malone gave misleading information about fiber evidence in the case.
MacDonald, now 56, is at a federal prison in Sheridan, Ore., for the Feb. 17, 1970, slayings of his pregnant wife, Colette, and daughters, Kimberly and Kristen, at their Fort Bragg home. He was convicted after a 1979 trial, chronicled in Joe McGinniss' book and a TV miniseries, ``Fatal Vision.''
In seeking a new trial in 1990, MacDonald's attorneys said hair fibers found in a hairbrush at the murder scene came from a blond wig worn by one of the drug-crazed intruders MacDonald said killed his family.
But Malone, then a top FBI hair-and-fiber expert, submitted written testimony saying that kind of hair fiber - a saran fiber - was not used in making wigs.
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