In 1970 the wife and daughters of Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald--a Green Beret

stationed at Fort Bragg--were killed. The chain of evidence eventually led to

MacDonald himself, and despite testimony at the pre-trial hearings by Drs. Sadoff and Halleck to the effect that it was all but inconceivable that he was the murderer, he was tried and convicted. Mr. McGinniss had begun researching his book on the case with the expectation of proving the verdict wrong, only to find additional evidence that it was right. He is rather hard on the psychiatrists; they reply defensively--but also movingly at times. SH: "There are some ethical things that are just excruciating and probably unresolvable. You are often using your empathic skills which were developed originally totally to help people and then turning around and communicating what you have learned as a result of using those skills to an agency which then uses that to harm an individual."