Stoeckley passed polygraph tests in 1971 and 1982, and she signed several statements that she was present during the murders. Stoeckley implicated Greg Mitchell as one of the murderers, and MacDonald’s habeas included affidavits from three friends of Mitchell who attested in 2005 that he confessed to them that he committed the murders. The affidavits are consistent with Stoeckley and Mitchell’s confessions, crime scene evidence supporting Mitchell’s presence at the crime scene, and MacDonald’s description of the intruders. Mitchell was also seen near a farmhouse that had the words “I KILLED MACDONALD’S WIFE AND CHILDREN” freshly painted on the interior wall. Mitchell died in 1982 at the age of 32 from liver disease. Stoeckley died a year later in 1983, also from cirrhosis of the liver.
MacDonald’s habeas included a request for DNA testing of all biological evidence in the case. In October 1997, the 4th Circuit remanded the matter of DNA testing back to the federal judge who denied the request for DNA testing. After some legal proceedings, the judge determined exculpatory DNA results could entitle MacDonald to relief and ordered the prosecution to file an answer. The government opposed any DNA testing, but the judge eventually ordered DNA testing of some 15 hair exhibits, but he did not order the testing of any blood evidence.
In March 2006, more than eight years after the DNA testing was ordered, the test results were released. Three pieces of evidence were exculpatory. A human hair recovered from under the fingernail of MacDonald’s 2-1/2 year-old daughter Kristen did not match him, his family, or any of the other samples submitted for testing. Another hair, found on Kristen’s bed also did not match MacDonald, his family, or any other sample submitted for testing. A third human hair, found underneath the body of his wife Colette, likewise did not match MacDonald, his family, or any other sample submitted for testing. The logical presumption is the three hairs came from the assailant who killed the family, and they were consistent with Britt’s affidavit concerning Stoeckley’s admissions to him, Mitchell’s confessions, and MacDonald’s description of the intruder’s attack on his family.
In March 2007 Stoeckley’s mother executed an affidavit that her daughter confided in her on two occasions that she had been present when Mitchell, who was her boyfriend at the time, murdered the three MacDonald family members with the help of another man.
In November 2008 MacDonald’s 2006 habeas petition was denied by the district court judge. In doing so the judge refused to consider the exculpatory DNA results obtained after the filing of the habeas, the three affidavits by Mitchell’s friends implicating him as the murderer, the affidavit by Stoeckley’s mother, and other statements and physical evidence suppressed by the government at trial.
MacDonald appealed that decision to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. In his brief filed on February 19, 2009 he argues that the new evidence supports his actual innocence of the murders, and the judge erred in not considering the exculpatory DNA evidence, and the affidavit’s implicating Mitchell as the murderer. Although the judge found Marshal Britt’s sworn recollections to be true, MacDonald argues that the judge not consider the “totality of the evidence” as mandated by House v. Bell, No. 04-8990 (U.S. 06/12/2006).
