Grand Jury


August 21, 1974

Testimony of William Ivory (CID)

I, Carolyn Y. Hall, being a Notary Public in and for the State of North Carolina, was appointed to take the testimony of the following witness before the Grand Jury, Raleigh, North Carolina, commencing at 9:45 a.m. on August 21, 1974.  All Grand Jurors were present:

WILLIAM F. IVORY resumes the stand.

FURTHER EXAMINATION BY MR. WOERHEIDE
Q  Mr. Ivory, do you realize that the testimony that you are giving at this time is pursuant to the oath administered to you yesterday?
A  Yes, sir, I do.
Q  Will you please be seated sir?  Following the Article 32 hearing, was there a further investigation conducted with regard to the MacDonald murders?
A  Yes, sir, there was.
Q  Among other things that you investigated, did you attempt to locate the origin of the club that was removed outside the MacDonald house on the night of -- on the early morning hours of February 17th?
A  Yes, sir, I did.
Q  Would you describe to the grand jury what you did in the course of you search for the source of that club?  Did you go into the house and look for all possible pieces of wood that it might have come from?
A  Yes, sir.  There was quite a large amount of scrap lumber throughout the house.  It was apparent that Captain MacDonald had made some makeshift shelving for the storage of shoes and other things that were in the closets, making additional shelving in the closets.  We took samples of all the wood or we took all the scrap lumber that we could find in the house and submitted it to the crime Laboratory in Augusta, Georgia, for them to make a comparison with the murder weapon.
Q  In that connection, did you go into Kimberly's bedroom?
A  Yes, sir, I did.
Q  And did you remove the bed slats from her bed?
A  Yes, sir, I did.
Q  Now, I see a large piece of wood here.  Can you identify this piece of wood?
A  Yes, sir, I'm sure I can identified by its general appearance, paint, the bare wood.  Also I indicated on a piece of masking tape and affixed it to the board of where I had picked it up and on the day I picked it up and I additionally initialed and dated the wood itself.
Q  All right.  Tell us where you found that and when you found it?
A  It was on the 19th of February, 1971 in the bedroom of Kimberly MacDonald or the south bedroom of 544 Castle Drive.  This was the bed slat supporting the mattress at the head region of the bed of Kimberly MacDonald.
Q  Now, in the course of the subsequent examination that was made with respect to this wood, was it compared with this piece of wood which has been made an exhibit in this case?
A  Yes, sir, it was.
Q  In connection with that comparison, were certain photographs made?
A  Yes, sir, they were.
Q  Do you see those photographs in the document I show you?
A  Yes, sir, I do.  Yes, sir, there are a series of seven photographs here depicting the weapon as it was photographed at the crime laboratory and compared with this and other pieces of lumber from the MacDonald residence.
Q  All right.  How are these pages marked?  Are any numbers placed on them, exhibit numbers?
A  Yes, sir.  At the bottom of each sheet, there are exhibit numbers which correspond to our report and they are G-9, H-9, I-9, J-9, K-9, and M-9.

MR. WOERHEIDE:  I'm going to ask our reporter to mark these as Ivory Exhibits of this date and G-9 will be Ivory Exhibit #1, H-9 will be Ivory Exhibit #2, I-9 will be Ivory Exhibit #3, J-9 will be Ivory Exhibit #4, K-9 will be Ivory Exhibit #5, L-9 will be Ivory Exhibit #6, and M-9 will be Ivory Exhibit #7.

(IVORY EXHIBIT #1 THROUGH #7, MARKED FOR IDENTIFICATION)

MR. WOERHEIDE:  For the record, I am temporarily removing these photographs from the bound copy of the report.
Q  Referring to Exhibit #1 of this date, Mr. Ivory, is this a photograph of the club as it was picked up after certain identifying marks had been placed upon it?
A  Yes, sir, it is.
Q  And Exhibit #2, is that another photograph of the club?
A  Yes, sir, it is.
Q  Now, Exhibit #3; is that a photograph of a club in conjunction with another board that you picked up?
A  Yes, sir.  This board was picked up from the locked storage shed in the rear of 544 Castle Drive, that storage shed assigned to that set of quarters.
Q  And this board is not in the grand jury room at this time, is it?
A  No, sir, it is not.
Q  But it does indicate that both these boards were used in connection with a painting operation?
A  Yes, sir.
Q  All right.  Now, I show you Exhibit #4.  Does that show the club in part?
A  Yes, sir, it does.
Q  Which part of that picture shows a club?
A  The upper part of that picture shows a club.
Q  All right, does the lower part of the photo show you the bed slat that you have before you?
A  Yes, sir, it does.
Q  Does it show the side of the bed slat that we now have up?
A  Yes, sir, it does.

MR. WOERHEIDE:  For the purpose of identification, I'm going to ask our reporter to mark the bed slat now as Ivory Exhibit #8.  Will you place that mark, please, if you can, right up here, right up here in the margin?

(IVORY EXHIBIT #8, MARKED FOR IDENTIFICATION)

Q  Does this photograph, your Exhibit #4, indicate that the grain of the club matches the grain of the bed slat?
A  Yes, sir, it does.
Q  Is this the manner in which the two boards are depicted in the photograph?
A  Yes, sir, that's exactly the position.
Q  Now, the next photograph is the cut ends of the club which we held together here and the bed slat placed side by side?
A  Yes, sir.
Q  Does this photograph show that the growth rings of the wood on the club match and coincide perfectly with the growth rings of the wood on the bed slat?
A  Yes, sir, it does.
Q  All right.  Now referring to your Exhibit #8, does this show a side view, another side view, not an end view, but a side view, not of the narrow side but the broad side, indicating that the growth rings of the club correspond to and perfectly match with the growth rings of the bed slat?
A  Yes, sir.
Q  Now, turning it over a hundred and eighty degree, does this likewise show that the growth rings of the lumber which is the bed slats corresponds perfectly with the growth rings of the club?
A  Yes, sir.  The growth rings can be seen continuing from the club right across and into the bed slat.
Q  And the spacing of the color and the density of the growth rings matches perfectly, is that correct?
A  Yes, sir.
Q  For my information, Mr. Ivory, where is this board located now?
A  That is in the evidence locker at Fort Bragg CID Office.

MR. WOERHEIDE:  All right.  I'm indicating a board on the right of Ivory Exhibit #3, which indicates that, another board which we do not have here at this time, was apparently used for painting a piece of furniture.
     I'll circulate these pictures at this time.  Do you want to take a brief break while we're circulating them or do you just --

FOREMAN:  You want to go ahead and finish and let us look at these at lunch?  Let's go ahead.

MR. WOERHEIDE:  All right.  That's all I have anyway.  Unless, you have any further questions of Mr. Ivory, I'll excuse him, or ask our Foreman to excuse him.

FOREMAN:  Are there any questions from the floor?

JUROR:  I have a question, Mr. Woerheide.
     The investigation after Article 32 was closed, that you, Mr. Ivory, conducted, could you tell us what you came up with outside of the fact like the urine specimen and the boards like these, can you give up any other thing that was brought to your attention after everything else was closed?

A  Yes, ma'am.  In addition to the boards and so forth, we also did, or caused to have more examinations made of the clothing of the victims.  This was done with the cooperation of the SBI Laboratory in Washington.  One of the items of clothing of great significance that I'm sure will be brought to your attention later by more competent expert testimony, was the pajama shirt of Jeffrey MacDonald which was found across the upper region of the body of Colette MacDonald as you've seen in the photographs.  FBI technicians, and I hate to steal their thunder and testify for them, but I can tell you generally what they told us is that the ice pick marks, and there were numerous ice pick marks in the pajama shirt of Jeffrey MacDonald in regions which do not correspond to any injury that he may have sustained himself, such as in the back region, the shoulder region.  It's my own unprofessional, un-medical opinion that if he had been wearing that shirt when it had been stabbed, he would have been, I'm quite sure, dead.  Like I said, there were so many holes in it.  They told us at the laboratory that the shirt was stationary at the time that the punctures were put in it.  That is, it was not being held by a person or fending off blows.  It was in a stationary position and the holes are punctures rather than tears.  They were just put there.  And additionally, there was an examination made of the blood stains of Colette MacDonald's blood.  It's quite a bit of it on the shirt, type A blood.
     Again, going back to Captain MacDonald's story that he was attacked by the intruders in the living room and at that time the pajama shirt was torn over his head except for those portions which remained at his wrists and then he went and placed it on top of his wife's body when he entered the master bedroom.  The FBI examination told us that the shirt was blood stained with her blood prior to the time that it was torn.  I felt that this was pretty significant.

MR. WOERHEIDE:  We're going to have Mr. Stombaugh here, the laboratory man who made the examination.

JUROR:  Mr. Ivory, during your investigation did you think that club was cut on purpose or just by accident?

A  I think that with all the scrap lumber that was in the home, used purposely for the making of these makeshift little shelves, I'd say this club was cut purposely, probably to fit this under the bed, rather than cutting this for the purpose of using it as a weapon.

JUROR:  Did you state that the shed was locked?

A  Yes, ma'am.

JUROR:  And was it locked the night of the crime?

A  Yes, ma'am.  We acquired the keys from the handbag of Colette MacDonald from inside the house and then we opened the storage shed and found that piece of lumber among others.

MR. WOERHEIDE:  You are referring to the lumber with the paint on it that's part of your Exhibit number 2 or 3, is that right?

A  Yes, sir.  That which is depicted in my Exhibit #3.

JUROR:  Where in the house did you find the other scrap lumber?

A  In each room, in each closet, there were little makeshift shelves where a board, perhaps of this width and thickness would be cut, perhaps like this, and another two by four stuck under it at each end where items could be stored under and over it, just makeshift shelving.

JUROR:  It was pieces that had been used, not just laying around.

A  That's right.

JUROR:  Were there some other pieces of lumber in the shed outside, other than the ones in the photographs?

A  Yes ma'am.

JUROR:  Is there any evidence that the hippy clan has ever done anything like this before in Fayetteville?

A  No.  In fact right after this happened, CID people, the County Sheriff's Department and the City Police alerted their informants throughout the hippy community, throughout the drug community and that coupled with the fact that later on there was a substantial reward offered for information and we just got nothing out of it.  In fact, the word was on the street in the Fayetteville area and the Cumberland County area that it had just not been done by a hippy group.

JUROR:  Did you find in your investigation any supposed application that the club might have been used for?

A  Yes, sir.  Of course, it's strictly supposition but you can notice in the master bedroom in the photographs that the foot of the footboard of the master bed is broken.  It's possible because this is of the same width as that broken off foot, this could have been laid underneath the footboard of the bed to keep it level.  You can observe this in the photographs.
This is supposition.

MR. WOERHEIDE:  If we go down to the house later on this year, and I know we can't get down there until before sometime in October, there is no reason why we can't take that exhibit with us and see how it fits under that footboard.  I understand -- I didn't look at it closely myself, the footboard is supposed to be fastened on both sides of the bed and the fastener on the left side of the bed is broken, isn't that correct sir?

IVORY:  Yes, sir.

MR. WOERHEIDE:  And this could be used to prop it underneath to maintain the footboard at the proper level.  This is supposition.  We don't know that it was used but we could try it and see if it works all right.

JUROR:  Could four, possibly six to seven people, under the influence of drugs go into a house in an area such as this, in a housing area, quietly enough for the neighbors not to hear?  Would they be noisy people under the influence?  Are they quiet under the influence?

A  I will go on my experience with this drug crowd.  If this had been committed by some druggers, dopers, if you want to call them that, it probably wouldn't have been done by someone under the influence of LSD or heroin -- Both of these drugs are kind of an energy stifler, they slow you down.  It would be more compatible with someone under the influence of speed, amphetamines, methamphetamines where they're charged up.  People in this condition wouldn't be quiet and they wouldn't be overly cautious about not leaving identifiable evidence and what not.  I'm sure there would have been more of a ransacking and vandalism of the house and probably again, my supposition, more mutilation of the bodies.

JUROR:  If there were that many people in the house, say four or five people, not leaving any evidence, how would you classify that?

A  I would classify that as a professional job.

MR. WOERHEIDE:  But if it were a professional job, wouldn't they have knocked off MacDonald?

A  Definitely.  He would have been the target.

FOREMAN:  The wiping, the towel or the bath mat that had indications of wipings like something had been wiped, you have established that it was probably a knife, not the club?

A  Yes sir, the knife and probably the ice pick.  Just by the configuration of the blood stains on it where something -- the towel or bath mat had been held and the sharp instrument wiped.

FOREMAN:  The club was wiped also or had no prints on it?

A  Had no prints on it, no sir, but did not really have the appearance of being wiped, there was still blood on it, the fibers adhering to it where it had been laid on that little throw rug that was at the foot region of Colette MacDonald's body, there were those fibers adhering to the blood.

FOREMAN:  Was there hair on it?

A  There was hair on it also.  There was no indication really, no way to tell if it had been wiped off.  It had been exposed to the elements quite a bit also.

FOREMAN:  Who were the first MP's to come in?

A  Sgt. Tevere and Specialist Mica.

FOREMAN:  They were the first two at the scene?

A  Yes sir, to the best of my recollection, those were the first two.

JUROR:  Could this club have been wrapped in the portion of his pajama top?

A  Very possible.

FOREMAN:  But there was no evidence of material fibers?

A  I would have to refer back to the laboratory report.  I am not sure if there were any fibers from his shirt on it.

FOREMAN:  If it was, I'm sure you would have remembered that.

A  No --

MR. WOERHEIDE:  We're going to bring in the lab technician who made these examinations and they are more qualified to answer some of these questions than Mr. Ivory is.

JUROR:  If they had on surgical gloves there wouldn't be any prints no way would there?

MR. WOERHEIDE:  No.

FOREMAN:  Do you have a time element between the first telephone call that was supposed to have come from the bedroom and the second conversation which was supposed to have come from the kitchen?

A  (Mr. Ivory)  Yes.

FOREMAN:  What distance?

A  Two minutes.

FOREMAN:  Two minutes?

A  At 340 followed by the second call at 0342.

JUROR:  Mr. Ivory, I have a question about that telephone.  There were two phones in the house, is that correct?

A  Yes, sir.

JUROR:  Well, he stated that the phone was left off the hook.  I thought with just one line run into the house, if you left one phone off the hook, you couldn't use the other one with it off the hook.

A  Yes sir, this is true.  At one time it would have been disconnected, but this call was never disconnected.  It was still an open line.  When the first call was made from whichever phone it is, we can only suppose, the phone was left off the hook leaving the circuit open, just as if you have someone talking on two extensions.

MR. WOERHEIDE:  May Mr. Ivory be excused?

FOREMAN:  Anyone else?

Mr. Ivory, thank you very much.

Witness dismissed.