Review: Shake the Devil Off: A True Story of the Murder that Rocked New Orleans

Shake the Devil Off: A True Story of the Murder that Rocked New Orleans by Ethan Brown
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The author finally admits, when the book is almost complete, that he is sympathetic to the murderer. He stops shy of this admission, actually, writing that his wife felt he was, to the point of being angry with him. This book is an apology for the murderer, and the author forgot that the murder was not a quick act of passion, but rather a planned, gruesome saga that involved living with the corpse for over two weeks, and setting up a horrid tableau in order to scar those who followed the instructions in his suicide note. Brown works so hard to exonerate, somehow, the murderer from the full guilt of his crime that the book becomes a history of the war at some points.

View all my reviews >>

Best quote ever wrt misplaced values

I was finishing Blind Faith, the story of Rob Marshall’s murder-for-hire of his wife, Maria, and I was struck by a comment made by an anonymous acquaintance.
See, Rob Marshall wanted to have it all:
wife-be-gone, her life insurance money, girlfriends galore, and no loss of social standing.

His neighbor summed it all up so perfectly:

Rob’s problem, I should say, one of his problems, was that he could not distinguish. He mistook an erection for a vocation. (371)

• New York Times archive of stories concerning the case

Books read: November, 2008

1. (NF) When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? * George Carlin
2. (NF/true crime) While They Slept: An Inquiry Into the Murder of a Family * Kathryn Harrison
3. (NF/criminology) Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children * Jonathan Kellerman
4. (NF/criminology) School Shootings: What Every Parent and Educator Needs to Know to Protect Our Children * Joseph A. Lieberman
5. (NF/serial killers) Inside the Mind of BTK: The True Story Behind the Thirty-Year Hunt for the Notorious Wichita Serial Killer * John Douglas
6. Silent Partner * Jonathan Kellerman (Dr. Alex Delaware series, no. 4)
7. (audio) The Perfect Family * Pamela Lewis
8. (NF/true crime) Because You Loved Me * M. William Phelps
9. (NF/true crime) In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences * Truman Capote
10. (NF) Against Medical Advice: One Family’s Struggle with an Agonizing Medical Mystery * James Patterson and Hal Friedman

Caylee Anthony: Casey Anthony’s diary

Five days after Florida toddler Caylee Anthony was last seen alive, her mother, Casey Anthony, made a mysterious entry in her journal, according to documents released Wednesday by the Florida State’s Attorney office.

I have no regrets, just a bit worried …I completely trust my own judgment I know that I made the right decision. I just hope that the end justifies the means…This is the happiest that I have been in a very long time.

(full article)

SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “”, url: “” });

Originally published at The Haunted Palace. Please leave any comments there.

Fatal vanity

After reading only the first few pages of Fatal Vision * Joe McGinniss, I picked up my paper reading journal and began scribbling furiously, writing:

The first-person vignettes are striking–and crucial. They demonstrate how shockingly narcissistic and self-absorbed Jeffrey MacDonald is. Sex is mentioned extensively in almost all of them, incl. sex w/an earlier girlfriend, and in extensive detail. How is detailing your and your wife’s sex lives an appropriate response to McGinniss’ request for memories?!

Scribbed in the margin of that page is “and many were lies, see p. 616″.

I didn’t read Fatal Vision with a decision on MacDonald’s guilt or innocence already made. However, by page five, I was already overwhelmed by his narcissism. I know that controversy still (somewhat) swirls about this murder case, so I was determined to read this book with an open mind, just as McGinniss explained how he approached the project with an open mind. By the time I finished reading, I couldn’t come to any other decision–with the information I had, that is–except the one that now legally stands. Colette, Kimberly, and Kristen MacDonald were killed by their husband and father, the Green Beret, Jeffrey MacDonald.

Another note of mine, written directly after the vignettes note:

…watch for how he speaks about Kimberly, the older daughter => she sustained much more injury than her sister (who was also tucked in after the fact)

Questionable grammar notwithstanding …
Kimberly: most severely injured/damaged of the three
Kristen: tucked in after murdered–only one of the three to be treated carefully after being murdered; MacDonald would not discuss her injuries or murder with the CID (military) or FBI
Colette and Jeffrey had to get married because she became pregnant with Kimberly. This marriage and pregnancy threw off MacDonald’s grand plans for himself; he had to leave Princeton, and didn’t get the opportunity to be a hero in Vietnam. Even years later, he was still bemoaning these losses to anyone who would listen.
MacDonald also repeatedly described, in great detail, Kimberly as frail, hyperfeminine, dependent…and used the same terms to describe Colette. Kristen he described as “tough”.
It is my opinion that Kimberly became for him a symbol of all that he’d lost, all that life had (supposedly) cheated him.

One moment struck me as eerie; during a CID investigation, MacDonald explained that he had cheated on Colette when she was pregnant, and that she was at peace with his affairs/one-night-stands. Sound familiar?

In the months after his family’s death, MacDonald became fascinated by his own press and the press coverage of the murders; he had actively sought a book deal by October (they were murdered in February); and, while he was confined to base and under CID investigation, he had at least one sexual partner visiting him in the barracks.

The title of this book, I had assumed, came from the quote from Macbeth in the frontpiece:

Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

but there existed yet another inspiration. In one of MacDonald’s last correspondences with McGinniss, he wrote about Colette:

I still see her as the epitome of womanhood. A fatal vision.

–literally gave me chills. If anyone can possibly explain what he meant by that (and he apparently meant it as a compliment, not as an attempt to paint her as a vixen or place any blame on her head), I’d love to try to understand.