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Dick Cabot was a famous comedian and writer who hosted his own late-night talk show, starting in 1969.

Like his competitor, the Tonight Show, which Johnny Carson, celebrities, musicians, authors and politicians, locked to the show, often promoting their latest project and usually themselves.

To appear on either show was considered quite an accomplishment. They were gatekeepers to some of the largest television audiences in America.

So, when a former Army captain named Dr. Jeffrey McDonald appeared on the Dick Cabot show on December 15, 1970, all of his family and friends including his in-laws were watching.

Just a few months earlier though, Jeff was in a very different situation. His audience at that time was an Army courtroom in North Carolina,

where he was on trial for the brutal murder of his pregnant wife and two young children.

He was cleared of those charges due in large part to the ardent support of his father-in-law, Freddie Cassab.

Freddie and his wife, Mildred, watched as Cabot interviewed their son-in-law, excited to have such a large platform to bring the real killers to justice.

Freddie had just returned home from Washington, D.C., where he had spent four days and delivering 500 copies of a letter to lawmakers asking them to assist with their search for the killer.

The trip yielded no results, so this interview was very important to their case.

But instead of pleading for help finding the killers of his wife and daughters, Freddie watched as Jeff laughed and made jokes with the famous host.

And rather than mourning the horrific murder of his family, Jeff talked about how much he suffered, even exaggerating his physical injuries.

In his gut, he knew then that Jeffrey McDonald murdered his stepdaughter and two grandchildren, and he would spend every day of the next nine years attempting to prove it to the world.

From Wondery and Tree Fort, I'm Candace D'Long, and this is the second season of Killer Psychie.

I've spent five decades studying people's minds through my work as an FBI profiler and psychiatric nurse.

I've interviewed lots of murderers, including serial killers, and the question of why they did it is what I get asked time and time again.

It is difficult to get a satisfying answer without diving deep into their mindsets, so that's what we're doing.

And I will give you my best analysis in this series of what made them do what they did.

This episode is Jeffrey McDonald.

At 3.40 in the morning on February 17, 1970, a telephone operator in Fayetteville, North Carolina received a call asking for help from the military police and an ambulance.

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