'Fatal Vision' house to be a fatality

According to the Fayetteville Observer, the infamous house where former Army Special Forces doctor Jeffrey MacDonald killed his wife and daughters will be torn down Saturday to make room for a new neighborhood center.

"The house is on Fort Bragg, at 544 Castle Drive in the Corregidor Courts subdivision.

"Picerne Military Housing, the private company in charge of building and maintaining homes on Fort Bragg, has been systematically renovating or demolishing older homes on the post to make room for new homes," said the paper.

The case is legendary in Fayetteville and was made famous across the country in the book “Fatal Vision.”

Colette MacDonald — Jeffrey MacDonald’s wife — and their two daughters, 6-year-old Kimberly and 2-year-old Kristen Jean, were stabbed to death in the early morning of Feb. 17, 1970. Colette MacDonald was pregnant when she was killed.

Jeffrey MacDonald, then an Army captain, told investigators that day that four people dressed like hippies broke into his house and attacked him and his family.

Army investigators linked MacDonald to the murders, but the Army’s version of a grand jury hearing found there was not enough evidence to try him. A federal grand jury indicted MacDonald in 1975; he was free until 1979, when he was convicted of their murders. He is in federal prison and has maintained his innocence for the past 38 years.

A spokesperson said the house, one of 28 to come down, was not targeted because of its notoriety.