Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - His Whole Family Hates Him // The Martin MacNeill Murder Story

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

In 2007, prominent Utah doctor and former LDS bishop Dr. Martin MacNeill pressured his wife of nearly 30 years, Michele MacNeill, into getting a facelift. Just days after the procedure, he intentionally overmedicated her with a lethal cocktail of prescription drugs and left her to drown in their bathtub so that he could freely pursue a relationship with his mistress, Gypsy Willis.

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Now the guy's name is Martin, and Martin is around 50 when this story starts, and he's living in Utah, and Martin, he's got a lot going for him. He has a law degree, he's also a doctor, a general practitioner, he's also a Mormon bishop, but the guy has a problem. He doesn't love his wife anymore. I mean, they've been married 29 years, but he's just not feeling it. So he starts meeting women online in internet chat rooms, and he'll meet up with them and he'll smash. And these affairs, they go on for a long while. But then one day in 2007, all that starts to fall apart. Because his wife finds out he's cheating. Now his wife is this woman, Michelle. And so Michelle finds out that he's cheating and she goes and she confronts him. But instead of apologizing,

Martin turns the blame back on her. And he tells her that, Maybe he's cheating because she just isn't attractive anymore. And if that isn't bad enough, he then suggests that she should get a facelift, because he says that she'd look much younger and prettier. And Martin doesn't just say this to her once. He keeps bringing it up over and over again, suggesting that this would save their marriage. And poor Michelle would do anything to save their marriage, so she eventually gives in and Martin schedules the surgery for her.

Here's the thing about all this, though. For Martin, this was never really about the surgery. He doesn't want her to look younger. He wants her out of his life completely. So he comes up with a plan to murder her after the surgery during the recovery process, when she'll be at her most vulnerable. Because he believes that once she's gone, he can then be with this side chick that he's been seeing.

So he gets to work on this plan. and he visits the plastic surgeon who's going to perform the facelift, and he gives this surgeon a list of specific medications that he wants Michelle to be prescribed afterwards. Now, under normal circumstances, no doctor would let a patient's husband choose her medications, but Martin is a physician himself. And so the plastic surgeon just assumes that he knows what he's doing and that Martin will properly monitor how Michelle takes the drugs. So eventually, Michelle has the operation done, and afterwards she returns home.

And her face is all bandaged up, and she's wearing eye patches, so she can't see shit. In fact, she can barely even function on her own. And all of this is part of Martin's plan. I mean, she can't see anything, so she doesn't notice when he starts taking the medicine that she was prescribed and combining it, which now makes it more dangerous. So he gives her the combined meds, and she takes them, And before long, the drugs start kicking in, and Michelle is heavily sedated, and she keeps blacking out. And this goes on for several days.

Then, about a week after the surgery, Martin decides that it's time to do what he's been planning. And he gives Michelle another round of drugs, and while she's barely conscious, he helps her into the bathroom. Then he lowers her into the bathtub, and he drowns her. After that, he leaves the house for work. Later that day, he goes to pick up one of his daughters from school, and they return home together. And then his daughter goes into the bathroom, and she finds her mom there, and, you know, Martin, he pretends to act all surprised, and he calls 911. And later, the medical examiners conclude that Michelle likely suffered a heart problem before drowning in the bathtub. And so her death is ruled natural.

So Martin's plan, it actually worked, and no one suspects that he had any involvement. But here's where things start to go off the rails. So Martin and Michelle, they have eight kids together. Some of them are younger, and some of them are adults. But immediately, after his wife passes, he decides to hire a nanny to move in and help him take care of some of the younger ones. And guess who he hires? He hires his side chick, this woman, gypsy. So nine days after Michelle's funeral,

Gypsy the side chick nanny, she moves in. And immediately, she's not doing the things that a nanny is supposed to do. Like she doesn't cook, she doesn't clean, she doesn't really take care of the kids at all. And at night, instead of staying in a nanny's quarters, she goes up right up to Martin's room. And so immediately, none of the kids accept her. I mean, they don't like her, they don't trust her.

Plus, she starts wearing Michelle's clothes and using some of Michelle's stuff. And so, of course, the kids are like, oh, hell no. And so from here, Martin decides not to get rid of Gypsy, but to get rid of the kids. And so he starts kicking some of the older ones out of the house. And he starts the process of relocating the younger ones. And if that isn't shitty enough, it actually gets worse. Because Martin discovers that Gypsy owes more than 50. $50,000 in back taxes to the IRS.

And he doesn't want either of them to be responsible for paying it. So he decides to steal one of his daughter's identity to give to Gypsy. Now the daughter is this girl, Giselle. And Giselle is 16 and she's actually adopted. So she was originally born in Ukraine. And so Martin, he goes to Giselle and he suggests that she visit Ukraine over the summer, you know, maybe to connect with her roots or something. So she goes to Ukraine to visit.

And the moment she arrives, Martin just straight up cuts her off. Like he stops sending her money and he makes no effort to bring her home. And he basically abandons her. And now she's stuck over there. And now that she's stuck, Martin and Gypsy began stealing her identity. They obtain official documents in her name. They even go to court and change her birth year. So now she's legally 20 years old. And now that she's legally 20 years old, Gypsy now assumes her identity, because Gypsy is 29. I guess they're somewhat close in age. And by doing this, Gypsy no longer has to pay back taxes to the IRS, because, you know, she's a totally new person now. And so it seems like things are going well for Martin. I mean, he's no longer with his previous wife. His new partner, Gypsy, is out of debt, and he's rid of all his kids. And don't forget, he got to be. He got to be. He got to his wife. He's no longer. He got his wife. He's no longer. He's. He got to his wife. He's new partner, he's out of his wife. He got to his wife. He's out of his wife. He got

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The Hawk. Only on Netflix, July 16th. Until. Here's the thing about Martin's kids, though. They're actually all still very close with their deceased mom Michelle's family. And so it's not long before Michelle's sister discovers that Martin sent Giselle to Ukraine and, like, abandoned her there. And so shortly after that, Michelle's sister discovers that Gypsy is now living under Giselle's identity, and she knows this is all kinds of fucked up.

And so she and one of Martin's daughters goes and reports them to the police. And so, bam, Gypsy gets arrested. Here's her mugshot. Also, bam, Martin gets arrested. Here's his mugshot. And they both get convicted of identity theft and forgery, and he gets prison time while she only gets probation. But Michelle's family still isn't satisfied with this conviction.

I mean, they've always believed that there was something suspicious about Michelle's death. So they keep pushing the county attorney's office to reopen the case. And eventually, they do. And they get a new medical examiner to take a second look at Michelle's toxicology report. And this medical examiner sees that Michelle died with several different drugs in her system, the combination of which could kill someone. Then the county attorney's office goes and they interview Michelle's plastic surgeon. And that is when they learned that Martin had personally required,

requested that unusual combination of medications after Michelle's surgery, the same medications that were found in her system later. Now, by this time in 2012, Martin, he's getting out of prison for his forgery and identity theft conviction. And as soon as he gets out, bam, he's arrested again. And so ultimately, he goes to trial for that, and he's found guilty of Michelle's murder, and he gets sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.