Victims of the State
MAC - MAN

Name Index

(Federal Case)  Army Captain Jeffrey MacDonald was convicted of the murder of his wife Collette, 26, and the murders of two daughters, Kimberly, 5, and Kristen, 2. According to MacDonald, he and his family were attacked by intruders to their home at 544 Castle Drive in Fort Bragg, a U.S. military base. MacDonald survived with wounds including a collapsed lung. MacDonald was acquitted of the murders at a Ft. Bragg Army hearing and probably would not have been tried again had he not angered the prosecution by criticizing them during interviews on national TV. MacDonald's Army acquittal meant that he could not be court-martialed, but he could still be tried in federal court and he was. Before his federal trial MacDonald invited author Joe McGinniss on his defense team to write a book and hopefully help to establish his factual innocence. At that trial MacDonald was unfortunately convicted.
Read More by Clicking Here

William Allison MacFarland, also known as “Bill,” took cyanide home from the plant where he worked. He used it to make a solution of the poison for his wife, who had used it to clean her jewelry and silverware. Bill explained he had taken an almost empty bromide bottle and poured the contents into another bromide bottle, which was almost full. He then funneled the poison solution into the now empty bromide bottle. To avoid any possible confusion, he affixed a poison label on the bromide bottle containing the cyanide. Bill then placed both bottles on a bathroom shelf.
Read More by Clicking Here

Dr. Robert MacGregor was convicted of the murder of 20-year-old Scyrel Sparling. Circumstances surrounding Scyrel's death in 1911 were unfortunate. His father had died in 1908 and two of his brothers died in 1910 and 1911. Arsenic was reportedly found in Scyrel's body. The arsenic finding, if true, may have been due to medicines he had taken. MacGregor's alleged motive in the killing was that his modest doctor fees could be paid from Scyrel's life insurance proceeds.

After Michigan Governor Ferris received an appeal on MacGregor's behalf, he had the case reinvestigated. The results of the reinvestigation were not made public, so it is not known what facts it established. Nevertheless, in 1916, the Governor issued MacGregor a full and unconditional pardon. The Governor took the unusual step of having MacGregor brought to the state capital at Lansing where he handed him the pardon personally. In his statement the Governor said, “I am firmly convinced that Dr. MacGregor is absolutely innocent of the crime for which he was convicted.”  (CTI) (The Sparling Murders) (People v. MacGregor)  [10/08]

Federico M. Macias was convicted of hacking to death Robert and Naomi Haney with a machete during a home invasion. Most of the goods stolen from the murdered couple were retrieved from the yard of 19-year-old Pedro Luevanos. Luevanos implicated Macias as his accomplice and as the actual killer. In return Luevanos received a 25-year-sentence while Macias was sentenced to death. Macias's lawyer failed to call alibi witnesses who would have placed him elsewhere at the time of the crime and to present evidence that the corroborating witnesses had not in fact been at Macias's home on the day of the murders. Macias's conviction was reversed in 1992 for ineffective assistance of counsel. A grand jury then refused to re-indict him because of a lack of evidence.  (CWC)  [7/05]

Harry MacKenney - See Pinfold & MacKenney

Father Gordon MacRae, a Catholic priest, was convicted in 1994 of raping Thomas Grover. In the months prior to his 16th birthday, the then much older Grover testified that he had five weekly meetings with MacRae to discuss his problems and that he was raped at each meeting. When asked by the defense for an explanation of why he would return for four subsequent sessions after having been raped, Grover cried, apparently on cue, while talking incoherently about having out-of-body experiences, and having “repressed” the memory of being raped from week to week. A coaching therapist was barred from the courtroom after she was observed signaling Grover to cry, a complaint the jury never heard. At sentencing, Judge Brennan cited MacRae's lack of remorse, his insistence on a trial, and his refusal to take proffered plea deals. Brennan sentenced MacRae to five consecutive prison terms for a total of 34 to 67 years. There is also a background story about MacRae that includes previous attempts to incriminate him using evidence completely lacking in credibility. Subsequent to MacRae's conviction, Grover and others who made accusations against MacRae, but whose claims were never prosecuted, each received a six-figure settlement from the Diocese of Manchester.  (www.gordonmacrae.net)  [6/09]

“Rafael Madrigal Jr. was wrongly convicted in 2002 for a July 2000 shooting. His conviction was based on the testimony of several eyewitnesses. The jury disregarded Madrigal's alibi defense that at the time of the shooting in East Los Angeles he was at work 36 miles away in Ontario. He was sentenced to 53 years to life in prison. After Madrigal's direct appeal was affirmed and his state habeas was denied, he filed a federal writ of habeas corpus. On September 3, 2009 a federal judge in Los Angeles granted Madrigal's writ, ruling that his lawyer was ineffective for failing to present additional evidence that at the time of the shooting Madrigal was at work. Madrigal was released on bond on October 6, 2009.” – FJDB  (Madrigal v. Yates)

Ronnie and Dale Mahan were convicted of kidnapping and raping 18-year-old Pamela Pope. Pope identified the brothers from a photo lineup. She said she got a look at the perpetrators when they lifted their masks. The Mahans were sentenced to life and 35 years respectively. Ronnie and Dale spent more than 12 years in prison before DNA tests exonerated them in 1998.  (IP1) (IP2) (CT)  [12/05]

Dennis Maher was convicted of two rapes and one attempted rape. He apparently had worn clothes similar to those worn by the actual rapist and was identified by the three victims. DNA tests exonerated him in 2003.  (IP) (TruthInJustice)  [12/05]

Krishna Maharaj was sentenced to death for the murders of Derrick Moo Young, 53, and his son, Duane, 23. The victims, both Jamaicans, had been fatally shot in a room at the Dupont Plaza Hotel. Maharaj, a Trinidad born British national, owned and operated the Caribbean Times, a newspaper which catered to the West Indian community. Maharaj has six alibi witnesses that can testify that at the time of the killings, he was 30 miles away at a Fort Lauderdale business meeting. An investigator working for the defence claims that Maharaj's lawyer was threatened just before the trial – at which he called none of the witnesses. All six alibi witnesses were willing to testify.
Read More by Clicking Here

Govinda Mainali, a Nepalese migrant worker, was convicted of the rape and murder of a Tokyo woman. The victim, though a prostitute by night, was a respected economist for the Tokyo Electric Power Co. Although Mainali initially denied knowing the victim, he later admitted to investigators that he twice paid her to have sex with him. Mainali said he had not seen the victim for days prior to her murder. There were no witnesses to dispute his statement. A condom found at the scene of the crime contained Mainali's semen. After reviewing an expert's analysis of the semen, the trial judge ruled that the semen found was too old to have been produced on the day of the murder. The judge then stated there was no evidence of Mainali's guilt and acquitted him.

Following Mainali's acquittal, he was held in detention for over eight months while prosecutors sought a court more receptive to their case. In Dec. 2000, the Tokyo High Court reversed Mainali's acquittal and sentenced him to life in prison. The presiding judge, Toshio Takaki, was the same judge who had granted the prosecution's request to keep Mainali imprisoned pending appeal. After a few brief hearings that introduced no new evidence, he wrote that the record from the Mainali's first trial left no doubt of his guilt.  (Japan Times) (Legal Affairs)  [8/09]

Joseph Majczek and Theodore Marcinkiewicz were convicted in 1933 of murdering Chicago police officer William D. Lundy. Lundy was killed in a delicatessen-speakeasy at 4312 S. Ashland Ave. during an apparent holdup. The main witness against the two was the owner of the speakeasy. Police had threatened to prosecute her for violating prohibition laws if she did not implicate the two men.

The case came to the attention of a Chicago Times reporter in 1944 after Majczek's mother placed a classified ad offering a $5,000 reward for information on Lundy's killers. The Times did a front-page human-interest story on how the mother scrubbed floors on her hands and knees six nights a week for over a decade to raise the money.

A Times researcher got a statement from Joseph Majczek that said his trial judge met privately with him and promised him a new trial. Normally the researcher would dismiss as preposterous a claim that a judge would host a private conversation with a convicted cop-killer, but the story reporter wondered aloud to him why Majczek was not sent to the electric chair, the usual sentence for a cop-killer. Further research produced a compelling case for innocence. The judge had not carried through on his promise because prosecutors had threatened him that granting new trials would end his career in politics.

The Times crusaded for Majczek's exoneration and he was pardoned in 1945. Marcinkiewicz was seemingly forgotten, but in 1950, he was legally exonerated through a state habeas corpus proceeding. The legislature later awarded $24,000 to Majczek and $35,000 to Marcinkiewicz. The case is the subject of a 1948 movie, Call Northside 777 starring Jimmy Stewart.  (Not Guilty) (CWC)  [12/05]

Andrew Mallard was convicted of the murder of Perth jeweler Pamela Lawrence, who was killed in her Glyde St. shop. At trial, witnesses with varying degrees of credibility testified that they had seen Mallard in or about the shop around the time of the murder. Police notes of interviews with Mallard were produced, with which the police claimed he had confessed. These notes had not been signed by Mallard. Also produced was a video recording of the last twenty minutes of Mallard's eleven hours of interviews. The video shows Mallard speculating as to how the murderer might have killed Lawrence. Even though Mallard speculated in the third person, police claimed it was a confession.  (NetK) (IPWA) (Mallard v. The Queen)

Richard Mallory - See Cumberland Four

Everett Baily Malloy was convicted of the murder of 25-year-old William Smiddy. While Smiddy was in a North Houston nightclub, he saw a man, believed to be Malloy, take $20 from a waitress' serving tray and then leave the club. Smiddy followed the man outside, choked him, and took the stolen money back. However, the man fatally shot him with a .22 caliber pistol.

Malloy maintained his innocence and had witnesses testify that he was not at the club. But four prosecution witnesses identified him as the killer. They also said a woman accompanied him at the nightclub. Following Malloy's conviction, the woman described by witnesses was located and her information led to the filing of charges against a different man for the killing. Malloy was released from prison in 1984.  (Herald-Journal) (Star-News)  [8/10]

John Maloney, a detective in the Green Bay PD, and an arson investigator, was convicted of strangling his estranged wife, Sandy, and setting her body on fire. Maloney was a suspect because of their impending divorce, ongoing child custody battle, and history of domestic disputes. Sandy was a heavy user of prescription pills and was very drunk at the time of her death. She apparently tried to hang herself shortly before her death, but the cord broke causing her to bruise her head on a coffee table. She then apparently started a fire by careless smoking or perhaps deliberately. The state maintained that Maloney hit her on the head, strangled her, and then set a fire that was staged to look like the result of careless smoking.

Special prosecutor, Joe Paulus (DA of Winnebago County), withheld evidence. Initially the fire was labeled an accident but circular reasoning developed: “The fire guys decided it must be an arson because it was murder. The coroner decided it must be a murder because it was arson.”  (TruthInJustice) (Article 2) (Article 3) (48 Hours)  [11/05]

Jay Cee Manning - See Broam & Manning

Michael Manning was convicted of the third-degree murder of Harry Burley Jr.  Burley, 30, was fatally stabbed at a Sunoco gas station on Route 611 in Scotrun. Burley was the boyfriend of Manning's stepsister. On Route 611 Burley and his friend Tyrone Bass, 30, were behind Manning in Bass's car, and after Manning, then age 27, stopped for gas at the Sunoco, Bass and Burley pulled in behind him. At trial, witnesses disputed events, but apparently Burley and Manning wrestled and punched each other for nearly two minutes.
Read More by Clicking Here

Steven Manning was convicted of a 1984 kidnapping in Clay County, Missouri and the 1990 murder of trucking company owner Jimmy Pellegrino in Illinois. Pellegrino was last seen leaving his Will County home on May 14, 1990 and his body was found floating on June 3, 1990 in the Des Plaines River near the Lawrence Avenue Bridge in Chicago. Manning's convictions were based on the testimony of jailhouse informants. Manning, a former Chicago cop, had been an FBI informant, but when he no longer wanted to work for his FBI handlers, Robert Buchan and Gary Miller, he sued them for harassment. They retaliated by framing him for the crimes, for which he was sentenced to death. Manning was released in 2004 and awarded $6,581,000 in Jan. 2005 after a jury agreed that he had been framed. The 1984 kidnapping apparently never happened, as the kidnapped drug dealers did not report the crime for 6 years. The FBI refuses to criminally charge Buchan and Miller for their actions.  (CWC) (Chicago Tribune) (Justice: Denied) (Appeal)  [9/05]

Warren Douglas Manning was convicted of pistol whipping and shooting to death George T. Radford, a state highway trooper. Manning was sentenced to death. The trooper was shot at close range with his own revolver. The defense argued that although the trooper arrested Manning for driving with a suspended license, Manning escaped when the officer stopped another car. The defense also claimed that if Manning had shot the officer, he would have been covered in blood. Witnesses who saw Manning minutes after the shooting noticed no blood on him. A retrial resulted in a hung jury, but Manning was reconvicted at a third trial. This reconviction was overturned and a fourth trial resulted in a mistrial. At Manning's fifth trial, his new lawyer told the jury, “The law requires the state prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Without that, the law says you cannot find him guilty.” The fifth trial jury acquitted Manning of all charges.  [9/05]