and the trial date, MacDonald arranged with McGinniss to interview him, attend the trial, and write a book about the case. But McGinniss later became convinced that MacDonald was guilty of murdering his family. In the spring of 1983, McGinniss published Fatal Vision, saying that he had become convinced of MacDonald's guilt early in his research due to MacDonald's behavior and the court evidence, and presenting detailed arguments for guilt. As a motive, McGinniss suggests that MacDonald killed his family in a spur-of-the-moment, fit of psychotic rage as a result of taking amphetamines. Around the time of the murders Fort Bragg had been experiencing problems and crime associated with drug-addicted soldiers returning from Vietnam. Lawsuits MacDonald expected that the book would show his innocence; however, like other authors MacDonald had contacted, McGinniss insisted on a signed release from MacDonald, allowing him to write freely, and the final version was precisely the opposite of what MacDonald had expected. In 1984, MacDonald sued McGinniss for fraud and breach of contract, claiming he had breached an agreement to write a book about his innocence. In August 1987, the jury hearing the case deadlocked, and the case was settled out of court in November with MacDonald receiving $325,000. The Kassabs, MacDonald's in-laws, then sued MacDonald to try and prevent him from profiting from a crime for which he had been convicted. This suit was also settled, with the Kassabs receiving a percentage of the book's profit, but also paying for MacDonald's legal expenses. Subsequent publications In 1990, The New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm published an article, "The Journalist and the Murderer", with the thesis that journalism inevitably conflicts with morality as it is usually conceived; she considered Fatal Vision as the specific case leading her to this conclusion, and said that McGinniss committed a "morally indefensible" act in pretending that he believed MacDonald was innocent, even after he became convinced of his guilt. In 1995, Jerry Allen Potter and Fred Bost published Fatal Justice: Reinvestigating the MacDonald Murders, attacking the murder jury's conclusions. In 2012, Errol Morris published A Wilderness of Error reviewing the MacDonald case, including discussions of McGinniss's book and Malcolm's study. In 2012, McGinniss published Final Vision: The Last Word on Jeffrey MacDonald, rebutting MacDonald's case in his multiple post-1983 appeals. In 2017 "Final Vision" was adapted into a film. References Non-fiction crime books 1983 non-fiction books