Daughter relieved slain dad’s name cleared

CARIBOU – After 18 months of speculation and three days of testimony about allegations of sexual molestation by a Masardis man who allegedly was killed by his son, it was said in court Thursday that the accusations were delusions in the mind of the defendant.

Several witnesses in the Michael D. MacDonald murder trial in Aroostook County Superior Court this week testified that MacDonald had told them he was molested as a child. That was part of the reason he wanted to kill his father, they said.

On Thursday morning, MacDonald’s defense attorney, Eugene McLaughlin of Presque Isle, said the allegations of sexual molestation were hallucinations and delusions in MacDonald’s mind.

“Voices were telling him what to do,” McLaughlin said. “That was based on the hallucination that his father molested him.

“It [the molestation] never happened,” McLaughlin said, “except in his head.”

That gave relief to many people in court, especially Michael W. MacDonald Sr.’s 32-year-old daughter, Bo Knight.

“Now we can clear my father’s good name,” she said. “He never did those awful things they have been talking about all week.

“He was just a good man who helped many people,” she said outside the court. “Why else would there have been more than 300 people at his funeral last year?

“He was just a good man,” she said.

Harry Hafford, for many years a friend of Michael W. MacDonald Sr., also was enraged earlier in the week by the allegations that surfaced during the trial.

“He was just a good guy who tried to help his son for decades,” Hafford said during a Tuesday afternoon break in the proceedings. “After being killed, he didn’t deserve being dragged through the mud like this.”

He loved young people, especially that young grandchild of his, Tyler, MacDonald Jr.’s son who lives with his mother, Cathy Ann Ferris of Ashland, Hafford said.

Ferris had testified that the elder MacDonald spent nearly every weekend with his grandson. She said he treated the child “very well.”