Jeffrey Robert MacDonald (born October 12, 1943) is an American former medical doctor and United States Army captain who was convicted in August 1979 of murdering his pregnant wife and two daughters in February 1970 while serving as an Army Special Forces physician. MacDonald has always proclaimed his innocence of the murders, which he claims were committed by four intruders—three male and one female—who had entered the unlocked rear door of his apartment at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and attacked him, his wife, and his children with instruments such as knives, clubs and ice picks. Prosecutors and appellate courts have pointed to strong physical evidence attesting to his guilt. He is currently incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland. The MacDonald murder case remains one of the most litigated murder cases in American criminal history. Early life Jeffrey MacDonald was born in Jamaica, Queens, New York, the second of three children born to Robert and Dorothy (née Perry) MacDonald. He was raised in a poor household on Long Island, with a disciplinarian father who, although nonviolent towards his wife and children, demanded obedience and achievement from his family. MacDonald attended Patchogue-Medford High School, where he became president of the student council. He was voted both "most popular" and "most likely to succeed" by his fellow students, and was king of the senior prom. Towards the end of his eighth grade year, MacDonald became acquainted with Colette Kathryn Stevenson (b. May 10, 1944). He would later recollect he had first observed Colette "walking down the hallway (of Patchogue High School) with her best friend" and that, although he was attracted to both girls, he found Colette more attractive. Approximately two weeks later, they began talking and formed a friendship, with MacDonald soon "asking her out to the movies". The two formed a brief romantic relationship in the ninth grade, with MacDonald later recollecting they fell in love while holding hands on a balcony while watching the movie A Summer Place at the Rialto Theater in Patchogue. He would later reminisce that whenever he or Colette heard the song "Theme from A Summer Place" across the airwaves, "either of us would turn up the radio". The following summer, while visiting a friend on Fire Island, Colette announced to MacDonald their relationship was over. MacDonald later formed a relationship with a girl named Penny Wells. Scholarship and marriage MacDonald's high school