Case never ends for Jim Blackburn

I saw Jim Blackburn coming through the restaurant and rose to speak to him. A buddy was with me, and I introduced them. Blackburn's a most affable man, courtly, silver-haired and ready with a smile. Later, my friend said Blackburn somehow seemed familiar to him, as if he should have known him. "That's the fellow," I said, "who put Jeffrey MacDonald in prison."

Ah, yes, the story fell into place then. The "cry one for them" guy, the hero of the Joe McGinniss book "Fatal Vision," wherein the author concluded, after being brought inside the defense team, that MacDonald, a physician, had killed his wife and two children, and that the murder was not done by three men and a woman who had been in his apartment chanting, "Acid is groovy, kill the pigs," which had been alleged by MacDonald. The guy who has been under fire from MacDonald's supporters ever since the doctor's 1979 conviction and life sentences, through this motion or that. The guy who later had professional trouble and lost his law license.

Some days later, after another story pertaining to the case found its way into The News & Observer, Blackburn, now 61, was sitting in a coffee shop, opposite me. What had happened was that the 86-year-old mother of Helena Stoeckley, the young woman who was a shadowy, sad figure in the MacDonald case (she died in 1983), offered an affidavit as part of a federal appeal to overturn MacDonald's conviction. Stoeckley's mother (also Helena) says her daughter confessed she'd been in MacDonald's apartment at Fort Bragg on Feb. 17, 1970, and that her boyfriend of the time and another fellow killed MacDonald's wife, Colette, and daughters Kimberley and Kristen. Her daughter told her, she said, that she wished she hadn't lied in court -- she said she wasn't at the apartment -- but that she was afraid of the prosecutor, then a young man trying his first murder case (Blackburn).

Accusations have been made that Blackburn threatened Stoeckley. That claim, by a retired federal marshal who was with Stoeckley during the trial, is one basis of MacDonald's appeal.

Blackburn says it just isn't so. "I've never threatened anybody in my life," he says. "It did not happen. Believe me, I was going through that case carefully, painting inside the lines. I was young, and I was not that confident in myself."

On the day in 1979 that MacDonald (who is 63 and has been in prison for 26 years) was convicted -- he'd later get out of prison briefly on a ruling that his speedy trial rights had been violated -- and on every day since, Blackburn has never wavered. He believes the doctor (who was in the Army at the time of the slayings) did the crime, and in casual conversation, can mention the most specific evidence: "What I know is, someone that night, wearing his pajama top with his blood type, with his footprint, killed that family."

His passion was evident in his closing argument to the jury. Some of it was formed in reaction to seeing some jurors weep earlier in the trial. Blackburn remembered that, and from it came his suggestion to jurors that they "cry one" for the victims.

After the conviction, Blackburn was lionized. He was in private practice in Raleigh with a prominent firm. But it all fell apart some years later. He believes today that depression and other problems were entwined with misconduct charges to which he pleaded guilty and for which he went to prison. He was hospitalized for a time and acknowledges that he took anti-depressants for many years. These troubles are used by MacDonald's supporters, of course, when they argue that the doctor was railroaded. But Blackburn's problems were years removed from the trial.

Today, he makes a living giving motivational speeches and speaking to lawyers and groups connected with the profession about ethics. "The case is never too far away," he says. "Not a week goes by when someone doesn't introduce me as the fellow who prosecuted Jeffrey MacDonald. I'd just as soon be known for something other than that, or that I got in trouble, but that's how it is. What I tell people is, if you screw up in life, it will follow you. The same thing is true if you do well. But you just have to go on with your life, walk down the street and hold your head up."

In telling his story to groups, Blackburn doesn't spare himself, and he talks about going from the very top to the very bottom. "Having gone to prison, having lost my license ... I know better than anyone else the consequences of not telling the truth," he says, noting that he didn't try to deny his wrongdoing and served time as a result.

But there is no bitterness. "I would have no story to tell," Blackburn says, "if I hadn't been punished."