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A Wilderness of Error

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Errol Morris has turned his lens on flaws in America’s justice system before. His 1988 documentary “The Thin Blue Line” was pivotal in getting a wrongly convicted Texas man out of prison. Now, Morris is the author of a new book called “A Wilderness of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald” (Penguin/2012) that examines the famous “Fatal Vision” murders of a young mother, her two children and her unborn child. The man convicted of the crimes is Jeffrey MacDonald, husband and father of the victims. He’s already served more than 30 years in prison, but MacDonald has always maintained his innocence, saying that a gang of people who seemed to be high on drugs killed his family. Morris’ book shows that countless mistakes were made in the collection, preservation and presentation of crime scene evidence and argues that MacDonald did not get a fair trial. Morris also strongly considers MacDonald’s version of events and makes the case that the testimony of a key witness was suppressed. Errol Morris joins host Frank Stasio to talk about his attempts to uncover the truth.

Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.