Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Daughter Pushes for Murder Charges Against Dad After Mom of 8 Drowns in Bathtub

Episode Date: October 8, 2021

Michele MacNeill is home recovering from cosmetic surgery when she is found dead in the bathtub. Originally, her death was ruled an accident, but daughter Alexis, a medical student, wasn't convinced. Before her death, Michele MacNeill confided in her daughter that she thought her doctor husband was over-medicating her. At her husband's request, the operating surgeon prescribed four drugs, he would not normally give his patients. Two of the drugs were Diazepam and Oxycodone. Alexis took over administering her mother's meds. When Michelle seems on the mend, Alexis returns to med school. The next day, her mother is found by a younger sister; she was dead in the bathtub. The autopsy report concluded that Michele died of cardiovascular disease but Alexis had other suspicions, compounded by a comment made by her mother... " If anything happens to me, make sure it's not your father."Joining Nancy Grace Today:Dale Carson - Criminal Defense Attorney (Jacksonville), Former FBI Agent, Former Police Officer, Author: "Arrest-Proof Yourself, DaleCarsonLaw.comDr. Shari Schwartz - Forensic Psychologist (specializing in Capital Mitigation and Victim Advocacy), www.panthermitigation.com, Twitter: https://twitter.com/TrialDoc, Author: "Criminal Behavior" and "Where Law and Psychology Intersect: Issues in Legal Psychology"Dr. Michelle Dupre - Forensic Pathologist and former Medical Examiner, Author: “Homicide Investigation Field Guide” & "Investigating Child Abuse Field Guide", Former Police Detective Lexington County Sheriff’s Department www.DMichelleDupreMD.comJustin Boardman - Former Special Victim's Unit Detective, West Valley City (Utah), Author: "I Was Wrong: An Investigator's Battle-cry for Change Withing the Special Victims Unit", JustinBoardman.com, Twitter: @boardman_trainConnor Richards - Freelance Reporter (Utah County, Utah), Twitter: @crichards1995 connorrichardsmedia.wordpress.com Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. How does a beauty queen, a straight-A student when she was in school, the mother of eight, four bio, four adopted, ends up dead in the bathtub of her own home. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I'm talking about a beautiful mother, Michelle McNeil. Listen. Michelle Summers was a fresh-faced beauty queen from California, a sometime model with a string of suitors. But it was a handsome, aspiring doctor named Martin McNeil who made her fall hard and fast.

They eloped when Michelle was 21 and soon afterward started a family. Michelle Marie Summers grew up in Southern California and graduated in 1975. She was royalty, being chosen as homecoming queen that same year. She met Martin McNeil, who had ambitions, eventually becoming a lawyer and then a doctor. But after 29 years of marriage, it all came to an end one night in 2007. You were hearing our friends at ABC giving a recap about who is Michelle Summers McNeil. But there's so much more to her than what you just heard. And I think her starring role was being a mother.

Again, this is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Let me introduce you an all-star panel to make sense of it all. First of all, Dale Carson, renowned attorney joining us out of Jacksonville, former FBI agent, former cop, author of Arrest Proof Yourself. You can find him at dalecarsonlaw.com. Dr. Sherry Swartz joining us, forensic psychologist specializing in crimes just like this, at panthermitigation.com. She's the author of Criminal Behavior. Dr. Michelle Dupree, longtime colleague, forensic pathologist, former medical examiner, author of, she literally wrote the book, Homicide Investigation Field Guide. She's at dmichelledupreemd.com.

Justin Boardman joining us, former Special Victims Unit detective, author of I Was Wrong. You can find him at justinboardman.com. But first, I'm going to go to Connor Richards, reporter joining us out of Utah. You can find him at connorrichardsmedia.worldpress.com. Connor, thanks so much for being with us. You know, somehow in all of this discussion of her murder, we forget who is Michelle Summers McNeil. Not only was she beautiful on the outside, just as I said, a beauty queen. She was Miss Concord. She was a homecoming queen, but she was loved. Everybody

loved her. You know, homecoming queen is based on popularity. Who likes you? She was loved by everyone. And she gave all that love back to four bio children and then taking in four other children, even from other countries that didn't have homes. Yeah, she was a multi-winning beauty pageant contestant. And she had a lot of skills as well. She grew up playing the violin. She was active in theater and also she was a cheerleader. So she really had a lot going for her. And then when you hear her children talk about her, that's when you really get a sense for the type of woman she was. After all this happened, her children described her as being loving and forgiving and gave them a really excellent life. And so really by hearing her children talk about them, you get a sense of who she was, but certainly a talented person with a lot of love to give to the world.

Then she meets her soon-to-be husband, Martin McNeil, a doctor and a lawyer. Of course, she helps him get through graduate school, but they meet at a church function. They're both with the Church of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons. They meet at a church function and very quickly elope. How does it all end like this? Take a listen to a 911 call from husband Martin McNeil. We have a different address for medical care. I need a medical address.

It's real. I need more. Okay, what's the problem, sir? Free medical. Sir, what's wrong? Who's in the bathtub? Who's in the bathtub? Okay, is she conscious?

Okay, sir. Sir, I need you to come. Sir, I can't understand you, okay? Can you calm down just a little bit? Okay, your wife is unconscious? She is unconscious. She's underwater. Okay, did you get her out of the water?

I can't. I can't let the water out. She's underwater. She's underwater? She's underwater. I was wondering if we could get an ambulance. Okay, is she breathing at all? She is not.

Okay, sir, the ambulance has been paged. They're on their way, okay? Do not ring up. What? Sir? Okay, you're hearing just part of that 911 call. You heard the first call, but now listen to this. There's more.

Why would an adult female be so awful? Sir, this is 911. Listen to this. There's more. In the rush of CPR, finding his wife in the bathtub, apparently drowned, he hangs up on two 911 calls. Straight out to renowned criminal defense attorney Dale Carson joining us out of Jacksonville. Dale, I love playing a 911 call at the beginning of a trial, as soon at the beginning as I can. You know, you've got to get it in evidence. It's got to be authenticated. So you have to go through a couple of evidentiary hoops. If you're a veteran trial lawyer, you don't even have to look them up in the code. You know what you got to do to get that 911 call in. Do you feel the same way? And why do you like a 911 call? Well, it shows what's going on at the scene at the moment. So it's elemental to understanding what went on at the scene at the moment. So it's elemental to understanding what went on at

the scene at the time that the person was discovered. I mean, because we hear something very critical. She just had surgery and she's in a bathtub. I mean, maybe it's just me, but Dr. Michelle Dupree, not only are you a forensic pathologist, that means you're a medical doctor. I thought when you had surgery, you're not supposed to submerge yourself in water for a period of time. That's true, Nancy. But if this was only on her face, then she would be able to take a bath. So, okay, she just had surgery. It was plastic surgery, cosmetic surgery. So she didn't have anything like a tummy tuck or a lipo or anything like that. It was all on her face. I don't know the answer to that. I think it was only on her face. I don't know the answer to that.

I think it was only on her face. Connor Richards, what kind of cosmetic surgery did she have? Yeah, this was a facelift surgery at the recommendation of her husband. Oh, whoa. Wait. Dr. Sherry Schwartz, it would be a cold day in H-E-double-L, I believe, that my husband David would come in and tell me I needed plastic surgery, even if I do. I mean, to tell husband, David, would come in and tell me I needed plastic surgery, even if I do.

I mean, to tell your wife, you need plastic surgery. No, I mean, of course. It's insulting. And she didn't want to. She was afraid to have the surgery. And he persuaded her. But the word I choose to use is more manipulated. You know, I was thinking about her getting talked

into plastic surgery. You know, Dr. Dupree, plastic surgery is not to be entered into lightly. Joan Rivers, believe it or not, I know we're unlikely friends, but she and I were friends. How did that happen? Oh, I was at a hit one time talking about a legal matter, and it was in the same building as Joan Rivers' offices. And she happened to walk by, and of course, I was too starstruck to say anything, but she said, hey, Nancy Grayson. We started talking. We became very unlikely friends and mostly talked about raising children. Okay. And she went in for a very minor procedure on her nose or her throat. I don't know what. She died. So you got to think long and hard about plastic surgery, Dr. Dupree. Exactly, Nancy. Any type of surgery carries risk with it. And it can be risk from the surgery itself or risk for the anesthesia or risk after the surgery is over so Justin Boardman former special victims unit detective Justin I understand she didn't want me have you

seen pictures of her before surgery she's gorgeous I understand she didn't want the surgery because she's worried about her blood pressure she didn't want that plastic surgery yes she's a very her blood pressure. She didn't want that plastic surgery. Yeah, she's a very stunning woman. Yeah, I mean, her feeling about her husband and his desire for her to look even younger than she already looked played into her decision for that plastic surgery. So it's not a good thing to be submerged in water, in a bathtub,

after surgery when you're still on pain meds. What was going on in that dynamic? Take a listen to our friend Elizabeth Vargas at Nightline. My father turned 50. He started acting very strangely. He became just very obsessed with losing weight and his appearance. How did your mom react? She was suspicious. Michelle became very suspicious and confided in her daughter Alexis that she thought that her husband was having an suspicious. Michelle became very suspicious and confided in her daughter Alexis that she thought that her husband was having an affair. Michelle confronted Martin McNeil with allegations of an affair.

And ever the manipulator, he turned the tables on her. Martin McNeil convinced her she needed a full-on facelift. She was afraid that she was losing her husband. Martin had found a plastic surgeon and came in with a list of things that he wanted Michelle to have. Michelle ended up being prescribed Percocet, Lortab, Valium, Ambien, Phenagan. Martin McNeil insisted his wife go home with prescriptions for lots of sedatives and painkillers. The surgeon deferred to Martin McNeil because Dr. McNeil planned to take care of his wife.

Personally, what could go wrong? What could go wrong? You're hearing me talking to our friend Elizabeth Vargas. A lot went wrong. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. When Martin McNeil came home from work. Wait, no wait. Connor Richards, was he at work or had he dropped the little daughter, one of the daughters at school?

Where was he when Michelle got into the tub? He got home with one of the daughters, and at that point he asked his daughter to go check on their mom, and it was the young daughter who discovered him. Oh, so he's going to pick the daughter up from school. She comes in. She runs in first and finds mommy dead in the bathtub. Take a listen now to our longtime friend and colleague, Jane Casares. And she said, Lexi, I don't know why, but your dad kept giving me medication.

I went to my father and I said, what happened? Obviously, mom is over medicated. She said she didn't want my dad to give her any more medication. She wanted me to be in charge. Alexis was always suspicious of Willis and says her father didn't wait long after her mother's funeral to move his lover into their home. My dad called me on the phone and said, Alexis, I found the perfect nanny. I said, well, dad, what's her name? And he started to say, he said, Jill. I said, dad, Gypsy Jillian Willis. I know that woman. I know mom was worried you were having an affair with her and you're not to bring her into this home. Okay. So as soon as the wife passes away, he's already got a plan to bring in Gypsy Willis, the nanny, into the home. To Connor Richards joining us out of Utah, Connor, isn't it

true that Gypsy Willis, the lover that Michelle was worried about, came to the funeral? Yeah, that is true. And she did so apparently without being invited. And her justification for that, that she said in an interview, was that, well, nobody there knew who she was, so she thought she could make an appearance. And she says that she did it as a nice gesture because she had felt bad. But of course, you know,

showing up to a funeral like that might not look the best. Isn't that the first time that some of the children had ever met Gypsy Willis? Yes, that is. I mean, Dr. Sherry Schwartz, I mean, I'm just a trial lawyer. You're the shrink. But to try to introduce a nanny who happens to be your mistress to your children at their mother's funeral, that's all wrong on so many levels.

It's incredibly callous, Nancy, at the very least. It shows an intense lack of empathy for your dead wife. It certainly doesn't scream that you are suffering and grieving. And it shows a lack of empathy for your grieving children who just lost their mother. You know, and in terms of gypsy, I don't understand the reasoning. Why would you even be a party to that? Why would you show up and participate in their grief? And you know, Dale Carson, criminal defense attorney, a lot of defense attorneys would argue that behavior such as this does not prove guilt, that a philanderer or cheater does not a

murderer make. And I have this to say, it sure doesn't help. It doesn't help. And I like to examine behavior at the funeral or the memorial. And what could be more callous than bringing in your new mistress at your wife's funeral, Dale? How are you going to dress that up at trial? How are you going to put perfume on that pig? You're going to try to keep it out as best you can because it's horrifying. Oh, it's coming in. Oh, it's coming in.

You're right. But of course, we don't have any control over someone else involved in a relationship. So she's going to do what she wants to do. It's a free country. Well, you know what? Good luck arguing it's a free country at trial because no woman on that jury is going to want to imagine her husband flouting his mistress at her funeral. N-O. I mean, I can't stress that enough, but this is what we know.

Let's get off the funeral and the mistress and who he's having sex with, and focus on the cause of death. Take a listen to our friend Marcos Ortiz, ABC4. At first, it was ruled accidental. A week earlier, she had cosmetic surgery, and Martin McNeil was personally medicating her. At the time, Alexis Summers was a medical student and was already suspicious. My mother began to suspect that my father was having an affair and she confided in me. It turned out her mother was right. Gypsy Willis

was Martin McNeil's mistress. Did the relationship become sexual? It did. And when was that? I think that was in January of 2006. Summer set out to prove her father gave their mother the wrong drugs causing her death. We uncovered who he truly was and he was actually a monster. McNeil introduced Willis as the younger children's nanny and moved in. Unhappy with the police investigation, Rachel McNeil began investigating her father online. Gypsy's roommate had contacted me and said that Gypsy, she overheard Gypsy saying that she wanted to cut the brake lines for my mother. Willis allegedly wanted Michelle McNeil out of the way. Wait a minute. What am I hearing, Connor Richards? Gypsy Willis, the mistress,

wanted to cut Michelle's brake lines? Well, there's also been allegations or talk about her having discussed or stalked Michelle as well. And so, yeah, there's a lot going on here. And when you dig deep into it, it really does look like Gypsy had some more involvement there. Why can't you tell me about her stalking Michelle before Michelle's death? Well, this is something that they looked into. And apparently, yeah, i don't really have the details on it but she would stalk michelle and as you said there's also talk about her cutting the brake lines and so there's a lot of things that happened before the death that don't really look

good for gypsy in terms of her involvement so dr dupree let's talk about cod We know that Dr. McNeil specifically asked for additional painkillers like oxycodone to be prescribed for his wife, including medications that typically would not have been prescribed following a facelift. We also know that Michelle was getting concerned that Martin McNeil, her husband, was over-medicating her. So concerned, she put her daughter, Alexis, a med student, in charge of her medications. Alexis got her stabilized. She was on the road to recovery. She went back to med school. One day later, Michelle is dead. Now, what do you think of the initial autopsy that ruled this was an accident based on heart problems? find that unusual. Anytime someone is in a bathtub with water, we have to rule out every other cause of death. We should have looked at this a lot more strongly, looked at all the other evidence,

looked at, you know, why couldn't she get out of the bathtub? And we would have done a toxicology report. And having done that toxicology, we would see that she was overmedicated and that's why she couldn't get out of the bathtub. Overmedicated. In fact, she was so concerned about Martin McNeil's dosage, she specifically asked her daughter to take over her meds. To Connor Richards, joining us out of Utah at connorrichardsmedia.worldpress.com. Connor, what about the previous episode where she had been overmedicated and managed to live? Yeah, well, so there was a time when she confided in her daughter and told her, well, she had been overmedicated, as you mentioned, and she told her daughter that she wanted her to take the pills out and actually let her feel them in her hands so she would know

what her husband was giving her because she couldn't see because she had an eye patch on her eyes. And so she also told the daughter, hey, if something ends up happening to me, I want you to make sure that it wasn't your dad. And so this is really where the daughter started to become suspicious and worried that there was foul play here. To Justin Boardman, former Special Victims Unit detective, author of I Was Wrong and Investigators' Battle Cry for Change within the Special Victims Unit. Justin, how many times have you and I heard that where a homicide victim says in life, if anything happens to me, X did it. And she said that. Well, for me, that's happened once I was at the police department that investigated the Susan Powell case in Utah,

and she left a note in her file drawer at her work. One of the things I also thought was a little weird, and maybe the doctor can explain some of this, but if you are found dead over the edge of a bathtub, wouldn't you have some lividity issues from how she was found? That may have screamed out, this isn't how it happened. What about it, Dr. Dupree? Yes, absolutely. There should be telltale signs on the body, perhaps lividity, again, depending on actually when the time of death was.

But there should be other telltale signs, perhaps bruises or even pattern injuries from leaning over the bathtub. So what happened? Obviously, the correct procedures were not followed at the time investigators raced to the scene. Take a listen to our cut 31. This is our friend Elizabeth Vargas Nightline. Police didn't really conduct much of an investigation at all. They didn't collect any of the evidence, closed the book on this case and ruled it a natural death. Michelle's daughters were absolutely outraged that the police closed the case and ruled it a natural death. Michelle's daughters were absolutely outraged that the police closed the case so quickly on Michelle's death.

And Alexis and Rachel and Michelle's sister began their own investigation. We went to the Pleasant Grove police. We said, you know, we have this new information. We know about a girlfriend now. They took no notes. They acted like we were out of our minds. And talking with the investigator there, Pleasant Grove, they felt like this was all a natural

cause kind of thing. Could they have done more? They could have. But I think the initial response was appropriate. I don't. When you have a victim state, if anything happens to me, he did it. And then she ends up dead? No, I don't think appropriate procedures were followed. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Dr. Michelle Dupree, the medical examiner was asked to re-examine the case. What happened? Yes, exactly.

And so whenever we re-examine a case, we basically start over at the beginning and look at the evidence as we find it. And again, there's no way this could be an accident. Anytime someone is found, I'm sorry, not an accident, but there's no way this could be an accident. Anytime someone is found, I'm sorry, not an accident, but there's no way this could be a natural death because she was found in a bathtub. Maybe she had a heart attack, but again, that toxicology report is going to rule out any type of accident. Tell me what was found in the toxicology report to your understanding, Dr. Dupree. My understanding is, again, that she was found over-medicated. She was found with what we call a polypharmacy, which is a number of

medications. OxyContin certainly is one of those. That is a narcotic. That is tightly controlled. And again, she had way too much in her system of many different medicines. She was not taking the meds herself, Connor Richards, her husband was giving them. Not only that, he had actually insisted the operating surgeon add on meds for her, meds that would not normally have been prescribed under these circumstances. She had basically a cocktail of meds in her system, and it was only when they were forced to look at toxicology did the medical examiner realize how she was overdosed. Yeah, and this is a really interesting aspect. And you have to wonder why it took so long for them to find this. Something that likely played a large role

is just the credibility or influence that Martin might have had. Apparently, being medically trained himself and also being a governor appointed medical director, there is thought that he influenced the original autopsy report and that that is why it wasn't as in-depth as it should have been. You say that he was a government appointed medical worker. As a matter of fact, he had been put in charge of a public facility appointed by the governor, the medical director. But all, of course, was not as it seems. Take a listen to our friends at ABC Cut 32. Doug Whitney began investigating everything he did and uncovered a life of lies.

When he was in his early 20s, he went to jail for check-kiting. He was a convicted felon. He was charged with forgery, fraud. Okay, I'm gonna take a picture. Cute. We basically found out that our entire lives had been based and surrounded on lies, that everything about our experience with our father was a lie you've played a part in destroying our whole family dad i am the victim i am the victim my logic is i didn't commit adultery

i didn't kill your mother i didn't have a mistress i don't have one now there's that possibility whether you want to accept it or not i I've done nothing wrong. Okay, there's so many things to look at right there. First of all, claiming he didn't have a mistress. We all know that's a lie. And I'm going to circle back to Gypsy Willis' own words. But we're also learning he had a long history of crime. Yeah, well, a lot of resemblance here to the movie Catch Me If You Can in that really when this got investigated, his whole life got unraveled as a fraud,

all the way back to his transcripts for medical school being fraudulent and him having taken somebody else's transcript and pretended that they were his. And so a lot of this came to light. And yeah, this goes way back. So even just a few months after him and Michelle Alok, he was serving a six-month jail sentence for federal fraud and forgery for writing fake checks. So really going all the way back to his early 20s, this man has been perpetuating a lot of fraud. Connor Richards joining us, reporter there in Utah. Many argue that Martin McNeil was neither a doctor nor a lawyer because he faked all of his credentials to get into school. Yeah, that's right. And it would be one would be hard pressed to argue that he is a credible doctor or

lawyer because of this. Because as this all unraveled, it became clear that he used falsified transcripts in order to get into medical school. And then later, and then later, he used the same transcripts or used that same path to take his way into Brigham Young University Law School. So by using falsified transcripts to get in there, it really does not look good for him. You know what's interesting? Dr. Sherry Schwartz, forensic psychologist. I imagine that poor Michelle McNeil's family was thrilled that she was getting a doctor and a lawyer all in one package. Little did they know. How can one person manipulate not just his wife but his whole family into believing what he wants them to believe? I mean, you just heard him saying, I don't have a mistress, a mistress.

I've never had a mistress. I'm the victim here. Well, what we see that's common with individuals like this that perpetrate these kinds of frauds is that they have a lifetime of practice and if he faked things like credentials to get into programs like to become a lawyer to become a doctor then he became very skilled at a very young age now in psychology we use something called the diagnostic and statistical manual and so there's a number of criteria for a disorder called antisocial personality disorder. And obviously, I don't know what Martin McNeil psychopathology is, but a lot of what's being described here on your show sounds very consistent with that. They

have disregard for right or wrong, persistent lying, deceitfulness, they're callous, cynical, disrespectful of others. And a key is they use charm or wit to manipulate others for personal gain and personal pleasure. You know, during her life, Michelle Summers McNeil was on to her husband. Take a listen to Our Cut 29 ABC. While he he was sleeping i printed out all of his phone records and we found this number that he'd been calling a lot gypsy jillian willis gypsy jillian willis was a woman that martin mcneil had met online did you know he was married i did my father demanded that we have a funeral

within just a couple of days among the crowd was gypsy jillian willis you crashed her funeral i i had felt sorry that i had been involved with martin inappropriately and we'd come to find out that my dad had been dating gypsy for several years before my mom's death so who are you going to believe? The daughters and the mistress or Martin McNeil? Listen to more from Elizabeth Vargas. Martin had a set plan right away that he was going to hire a nanny. And he said there is going to be an interview for a nanny.

And that was Gypsy. Gypsy. Why did you move into the home? Martin told me that he needed help with his younger children. Were you still sleeping with him? I was. So were you the nanny or were you the girlfriend? I moved in to help with the kids. When we had opportunity, I still slept with him.

So you were both? If you want to look at it like that. She walked into the house like she owned the place. And then when I questioned my dad and he said, oh, she's a guest in our home. He wanted to make it known that it was either Gypsy or his children, and he chose the nanny. Yeah. The nanny. But you must have been shocked when three months after she died, he proposed marriage to you.

I wasn't shocked. It seemed like a natural progression. I believe he loved his wife. He did sincerely mourn Michelle, but she was gone. And I didn't suspect anything unusual. She was gone because he murdered her. Connor Richards, that's really the tip of the iceberg. What can you tell me about claims he molested, sexually molested his daughter? So this is a claim that he was later found guilty of. And so it apparently happened just shortly after his wife had died.

But his daughter, Alexis, as you had mentioned, she says that she was sleeping and he came up behind her and he fondled her and then also kissed and licked her hand. And then when she was startled by this, he said, oh, my gosh, I'm sorry. I thought you were your mother. And so, yeah, she reported that to police. But it wasn't until later, until after he was convicted that he was also found guilty of that charge as well. I just don't know what to make of this guy. Justin Boardman, former Special Victims Unit, have you ever seen anything like it? I have, and it's kind of a common way that perpetrators will get to a victim, certainly in the middle of the night, and claim that they were sleepwalking or having some sort of sleep

issue to go about and climb into bed with somebody and start fondling them. It happens sadly a lot. Take a listen to our cut 21. This is Aditi Roy. We the jury having reviewed the evidence for testimony in the case by the defendant as to count one murder guilty. The shrieks of joy came the instant the guilty verdict was read. Martin McNeil's daughters sobbing while their father remained expressionless. Afterwards, family members spoke about their years-long crusade to prove Martin McNeil killed his wife. We're just so happy he can't hurt anyone else. For six years, we've put everything we have into it,

and we can finally take a deep breath and put it behind us. The five-man, three-woman jury found McNeil guilty of murder and obstruction of justice after 11 hours of deliberation. Jurors sat through 13 days of testimony for more than five dozen witnesses during the month-long trial. Martin McNeil murdered his wife, Michelle. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Out to you, Connor Richards.

Could you describe the trial? It was so long and arduous. How many witnesses were there? I don't know the exact number of witnesses, Nancy, but you are right. It was a really long and traumatic trial. The McNeils had a lot of children, and those children were there, and they were holding up pictures of their mother and they were there to get their father convicted. And while the trial

itself was long, the discussion, the deliberation between the jury was actually relatively short and they came back with that guilty verdict and all the daughters were very happy about that. But even now, many people, including Gypsy Willis, doesn't accept the murder conviction. Didn't she testify at trial, Connor? Yes, she did. What was the crux of her testimony? Well, she talked a lot about how she really loved this man really loved this man and she believed him to be a good man. And she really testified to his character

and said that this was something that she should do. And with all of her actions in terms of moving into the house or showing up to the funeral, she really tried to justify this and make it seem as if there was no ill intent on her part. And she really cared about these children and she was trying to help them out now that their mother was gone.

So Dale, the defense had to argue something at trial. They only called four witnesses. But what was their argument to the jury? Well, the argument of the jury ultimately had to be that the credibility of the witnesses was improper and that the doctor, who is well known in the area, would testify accurately and truthfully to what really transpired. But the original investigation, the preliminary crime scene investigation, was clearly substandard. The witnesses were not separated, and the investigation didn't look into the position of the body, which had lividity on the back of the legs and on the buttocks,

which clearly means that she wasn't leaning over the bathtub when all of this transpired. Now, isn't it true that that is what he, Martin McNeil, claimed, that she was kind of leaning over, maybe washing her hair? That's exactly right. And I've handled these bathtub drownings before. And candidly, what probably happened is they positioned her in a way that they thought, and I say they, because it's not likely he did this by himself, they positioned her in a way that it appeared as though there was water in the tub and her head was submerged in the water. But of course, when the daughter, the child, the little child finds the mother and the neighbor comes in to help lift the mother out of

the bathtub, she's supine in the bathtub with her head well above the water. So it was critical for the doctor to say he drained the water out of the tub because there was no water in the tub. Sometimes when the body goes in, it moves the drain top, and the result is the water all drains out. And water is critical in these circumstances to determine the actual manner of death, because it's part of the crime scene. Is the water hot? Is it cold? Is it filled with blood? All of those things are critical to the investigation. But of course, the doc drained it all. So all that evidence goes away along with throwing the medications away so you can't count the number of pills. And finally, the elixir that was used, if you look at the insert packaging on the Lortab elixir, one of the warnings is be careful. It can kill you.

So it was clever of the doctor to put that in the request for the medications, because that way he could claim, hell man, I don't know, she must have taken some of that, and it clearly is package labeled, don't do that, or it could kill you. Dale, why are you so convinced that he did not perform CPR on his wife? To perform proper CPR, you got to have the body supine, meaning flat face up, and you've got to have some hard surface behind it. If she was in the tub, scrunched in there with her head under the faucet, how can you perform CPR? The answer is you can't. And certainly, any man could get this woman out of the tub she wasn't that

overweight and you just pull her by the legs until she's out on the flat surface and then perform cpr but we remember that phone call that came in initially that phone call he said i am instituting cpr right well how the hell he sure did he's He sure did. He's just lying. So you're saying that he's telling 911 she's in the tub and I'm performing CPR. Correct. Which is impossible. Absolutely. That's why, as you mentioned, Nancy, those phone calls to 911 are so critical. That's why I hung up the phone right after he spoke the words. And as you know, the dispatcher tried to keep him on the phone, but he didn't want to do that. And think about this. If you're performing CPR on your wife, you love her, you want her to survive, are you going to answer the phone when 911 calls back?

I don't think so. No, you will not. To you, Connor Richards, who is Doug Whitey? He's a Utah County. He's a Utah County investigator who's really the one who, at the request of Martin's daughters, is the one who really looked into this and started digging things out. So he's the one, for example, who found that it was Martin who that Martin had actually falsified his transcripts. And that's what unraveled all these things. The other really interesting thing that he found was that Martin was actually a convicted felon,

and he had served a jail sentence for forgery when he wrote fraudulent checks when he was in his 20s. And so this is really where it all began because then they were able to convict Martin on these charges, and then that really snowballed into investigating the murder and uncovering this. Now, it's my understanding that he had multiple convictions that Michelle may not have known about. Were they all stemming from the forged checks? Well, there were a lot of, uh, really, there were a lot of things going on here. So

in 2000, uh, Michelle actually reported to police that Martin had threatened to kill her. Um, and also himself with a knife after he had gotten caught looking at pornography. Okay. Wait a minute. Was that when that was in 2000? So that was, that was afterwards. But so I guess, sorry, I guess that doesn't really answer your question. Um, but there were more. That's okay. Go ahead and tell me about it anyway. Yeah. So that's just one of the example of where, uh, just this kind of behavior. One other one is he was also, he was also the head of a help of a help center at BYU.

And he was asked to resign, um, because of some allegations including sexual harassment and unprofessional behavior. So as far as other convictions, he certainly had a history of things being reported to the police or having to step down from positions because of inappropriate behavior or even illegal behavior. So he has a very long history of misbehavior and convictions. I want to circle back to the trial itself. Why do you believe, Dale Carson, that Martin McNeil did not testify? as a defense attorney would not make any real sense because his personality of being a sociopath would clearly be brought out by the prosecution. And key, as you know, is that if you get somebody angry on the stand, which seems to be very achievable with this particular killer, then,

of course, you win the case because he's going to reflect his total disregard for other people and it would lead to an easy conviction. I always try to talk my clients into not testifying at trial if I believe there's not sufficient evidence to convict on the face of the evidence that's been presented. You know, Dr. Dupree, how do you believe the daughter, Alexis, who had been to medical school herself, figured out the original coroner's report was wrong? Probably, Nancy, because of what her mother had said, because of her medical knowledge. When you simply look at the prescription list that was provided, it's going to cause warning signs. It's going to raise red flags. I mean, oxycodone and some of these other things mixed together,

they're narcotics. They're sedatives. It's just too much. Nobody in their right mind would do that. The plot really thickens when we find out about Martin McNeil's plan to ship one of his adopted daughters back to the Ukraine so Gypsy Willis could assume her identity. Explain that bizarre facet of this case, Connor Richards. So Martin and Michelle had adopted a number of children, including multiple daughters from Ukraine. The oldest of them was a girl named Giselle. And so after the death, investigators believe that Martin had the plan to, one, have a family adopt these other children. But then for Giselle, he sent her back to Ukraine on a plane, and she was supposed to spend two months there with her biological sister. Well, that two months stretched into a year, and it became pretty clear that his plan was to leave her there. And there are reports that she was living there in pretty

despicable conditions. She was in a single room sleeping on a bed with four or five other people. She didn't have any sanitary conditions or anything like that. So really something horrible for this young girl to go through after being adopted by this family. How did the girl, the little girl, end up getting saved? Well, so it was really the family that got involved. So I believe it was Michelle's sister who started investigating. And I believe it was her daughter who went down there and saw these conditions that she was living in. And then it all got unveiled that the reason she was being sent away is part of a plot for Gypsy to take on her identity and get a new Social Security number. And so it was when that plot unraveled that things turned around for Giselle.

Why did Gypsy Willis need a new Social Security number? She says that she had a lot of outstanding tax debt. And so it looks like it was a plot for her to escape bad credit. And so she would be able to take on this new identity and kind of start a fresh life. She says that she knew it was something that was illegal and potentially not right as well. But she was just going along with Martin and she was in love with him and she trusted his judgment. So that's her side of the story. Dale Carson, isn't it true that there were two incidents where Michelle McNeil was overdosed? That's exactly right. She was overdosed at first and her daughter recognized this. And then, of course, most probably, even though the the toxicology report reflects that they were sub doses in terms of

her potential death from taking on board those barbiturates and opioids, she really was put in a position, probably, where she was led to the already filled bathtub and simply drowned. And what they failed to calculate was that the body weight over the side of the tub would allow her to slide into the tub and remain face up, which is where she expired based on the lividity that was on the back of her legs and on her buttocks. That's where the blood pools after the heart stops pumping. What do you know about the first time Michelle was overdosed? Well, her daughter discovered it. She went to the room and saw that she was just heavily sedated. This was right after the surgery, the facelift, and she was obviously concerned. And that's when the mother

said, look, I'm afraid that I'm being overdosed by your father. Let me hold the pills so I can physically feel them so that I know what I'm getting. But of course, she didn't recognize that there was an elixir, which is a syrup that's involved in all of this, and you can't feel a syrup. And certainly anything you take on board by drinking could contain that syrup. I don't understand that to you, Dr. Dupree. Why are meds given in an elixir? Basically because it's going to help them be absorbed better without causing irritation to either the intestinal or stomach lining. And then for the absorption reason, you may also want to have them be more time-released,

which an elixir can help do. To you, Connor Richards, why was Michelle's tub, her actual bathtub, brought into the courtroom? So yeah, prosecutors brought this in as a prop and there's pictures of it in there and it's pretty startling to see a big round oval bathtub in the middle of a courtroom. But the reason that that was brought in because of what was talked about a little bit earlier is that the position of how, the position that Michelle's body was in

when she was found is really something that played a large role, particularly because the way that she was found did not match up played a large role, particularly because the way that she was found did not match up with the story that Martin said. He said that he found her when she was hunched over. So he said that he found her hunched over in the bathtub with her head submerged. But there are details that really contradict that, including the account of the daughter who found her, who said that she was lying in the tub. And then there's other things. So he said, it's been mentioned that he said that he tried performing CPR,

but then when medics came in, they performed CPR, she regurgitated water. And so the idea is that that's not something that would happen if he had already performed CPR. So the bathtub was brought in as a prop to really just demonstrate, I think to attack the credibility of Martin and show and just demonstrate how important of a role that aspect of this case played. So to you, Dr. Michelle Dupree, the bathtub was significant. It was critical because Dr. Martin McNeil claims he comes in and she's hunched over the tub with her head in the water or under the water.

The daughter, Anna, the little girl who finds mommy, says mommy's lying in the tub. The liver mortis, which is the settling of the blood in a dead body to the lowest common denominator, reveals something different from her being dead hunched over the side of the tub in a dead body to the lowest common denominator reveals something different from her being dead hunched over beside the tub. Explain. Yes, Nancy, you're right. The liver mortis is the settling of the blood according to gravity. So the lowest part of the body is going to contain the liver mortis or that purple-red discoloration. Again, depending on how long this has gone on, that live remortis will be fixed or not. And once that person is moved, if the live remortis is not fixed, in other words, it can change by movement of the body. If it doesn't change, then we know that this person has been deceased for longer than may be expected because it is now fixed and will not move.

And also, Dr. Dupree, if he says he finds her hunched over the side of the tub, like you hang your head over to wash your hair under the faucet, is the way I imagine it, the blood would not have settled on her back and her rear end and the back of her legs. The blood would be settled at the bottom of her knees, from the knee down the calf, because all the blood would go to the lowest common spot. It would not be the way that it was found. The blood would not have settled the way that it was found. That's right, Nancy. We have to look at what the body is telling us.

And wherever that lever mortis is, that is where the lowest spot was. That is how the body was positioned. And we can position that body back to show where that lever mortis is and determine exactly how that was. To Connor Richards, I understand that the lever mortis was along her back and rear end. Is that correct? Yes, I believe that is correct, Nancy. And Connor, when the EMTs got there, where was she? I believe she was found, I believe they found her on the side of the tub.

She was on the floor of the bathroom. I'm sorry, is that you, Dale? Yeah, it is. She was on the floor of the bathroom because the neighbor had come over earlier. You're absolutely right. So, Dale Carson, you are the master of courtroom props and demonstrative evidence. Why do you believe they brought the actual bathtub in front of the jury into the courtroom? You know, jurors love the actual props and oftentimes we

take the jury actually to the crime scene that the court will allow it. So you want to see, get a feel for what's going on. And candidly, her being found face up in the tub is critical to the lies told, critical to prove the lies told by Martin, the doctor, at the time of his initial interview. I mean, clearly, and another point is that if you perform active CPR, lividity can't settle because the blood's still moving through the body. So if this guy is really a physician and he's performing CPR and she's only been in the tub for a brief period of time, you shouldn't see any lividity at all at least initially do you agree dr. Dupree well not necessarily because living that he can actually actually begin when people are still alive but

in a coma it doesn't happen often but it does happen and so well do you think that happened here because I don't know I don't but again, lividity is going to settle and it's going to become fixed after hours, hours. So we're talking, we don't know how long supposedly she was in the tub, but does that make sense? Did it have time to settle? She would have been in the tub from 9.30 to 11.30. so that's whatever number of hours it is is that sufficient time for lividity to set i think no it isn't no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no EMTs got there? Yes, that is my understanding. Then how is it, Dr. Dupree, that she coughed up water? Well, that was really not because she was alive. That's simply because of the pressure when she was taken out and CPR was started to be performed. That's just pressure out of the lungs. Another point here is if CPR is done correctly, oftentimes there is breathing and there is also broken ribs

associated with that. And as a physician, you would know that. And that's very common. And I don't know that there was any signs of that at all. You know, I'm curious, did Dr. Sherry Schwartz, forensic psychologist, in the end, after he's convicted, Dr. Martin McNeil, if I should call him that, actually commit suicide behind bars. Why do you think he did it? That is a real head scratcher because people who have, you know, these exhibit the kind of behavior that he does, you know, the charm, the manipulation, they really like themselves and don't generally commit suicide. But occasionally someone that might be high in narcissism, psychopathy will if they see no other way out. So if he, I don't know how, you know,

he was in terms of appeals and all that sort of thing. If he had come to a place where he realized this is it for me, I'm going to be stuck in prison for the rest of my life. Then he might be able, he might be able to bring himself to commit suicide because that would be the final way for him to take control of the situation. Dale Carson, how did he commit suicide ultimately? Well, he'd already tried to do it on one occasion by slitting his wrists. And later he snuck into the prison grounds and had permission to be in the greenhouse where he took some propane loose from his container

and inhaled it to the point that he died. Why did they let him in the greenhouse, Dale? Well, that I can't tell you, but I'm glad they did. And with that note, I'm signing off. Goodbye, friend.