True Crime Campfire - Episode 20: Dr. Martin MacNeill: The Doctor's Wife Part 2

Episode Date: December 13, 2019

Join Katie and Whitney for the conclusion of the twisting tale of Dr. Martin MacNeill. See description of Part 1 for list of sources.Follow us, campers!Patreon: https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. So, campers, last time we began the bizarre story of Dr. Martin McNeil. Handsome, charismatic when he wanted to be, and a nightmare to deal with when he didn't, Dr. McNeil. Dr. McNeil. Dr. Neil and his wife, Michelle, had built an all-American life in an affluent Utah neighborhood. But, as is so often the case with perfect families, there was a toxic mess going on behind closed doors. When we left you, we were just getting into Martin's infidelities. He'd begun phasing out his mistress Anna, who for some reason found him and his creepy talk of murder fascinating, in favor of a 20-something nurse he'd met on the internet, Gypsy Jillian Willis. This is going to turn out to be a matchmate in hell. Join us now for part two of the Doctor

wife, the murder of Michelle McNeil. So Michelle was depressed in the last year of her life. Martin was increasingly cold, secretive with his phone and computer. He lied about working late. Michelle would confront him, and he'd changed the subject. Michelle told a friend she was afraid her marriage was ending. Meanwhile, his relationship with Gypsy heated up. They got sexual and fast. They'd meet up in hotels. Martin was her dream guy. The prince she'd dreamed of as a kid who'd come from his castle to

rescue her. Yeah, disgusting. So her whole, I don't want anything serious thing, flew out the window really fast. And Martin's family noticed he was obsessing over his looks. He'd go to the tanning salon. He'd work out obsessively. He was in to Gypsy. Yeah. Soon they were hotter and heavier. He took her with him to medical conferences and on a few little trips. Letters exchanged between them later when both of them were in jail suggests that Martin told Gypsy things he couldn't tell anyone else in his life. Maybe the way he had with Anna. This is definitely up for debate, but I think almost certainly so. But we'd have no real proof. If Martin ever told Gypsy about his homicidal urges and previous supposed murders, she's never admitted to it. But they bonded hard that fallen winter of 2006.

I totally think he told her all that stuff. And I think she probably found it exciting, just like Anna had. So, ew. And then, in the winter of 06, Martin started having a weird issue with his foot. It got all swollen and inflamed and painful and he was limping a lot and using a cane. And he went to doctors, he had a few surgeries, I hope they all hurt. He bled everybody's ears about it constantly. And he told contradictory stories to different people about what was going on. In December, Martin told his family that he had gotten bad news.

He didn't have long to live. Bombshell, right? The toe was cancerous, which I don't know. Is toe cancer a thing? Maybe it is? I mean, I'm sure you could get certain kinds of cancer like melanoma or something on your toe. But he, like, presented it like it was toe cancer, which I'm genuinely not at all sure is a thing. But maybe it is.

For the next few months, he told everyone he was terminal. He made his own funeral arrangements. He took out a $2 million life insurance policy on himself with Michelle and Alexis as beneficiaries. He signed the house over into Michelle's name. To some people, he said he had cancer. Others heard it was MS. Others heard it was a condition similar to muscular dystrophy, but almost everybody heard I'll be dead in six months. The one exception was at work. At work, he told no one that he was dying. He did say he had the toe cancer, but he never said it was terminal. And he told Gypsy that it was a nerve disorder, like a genetic thing. So everybody

got a different story. And by January 07, Martin and Gypsy were getting really serious, talking about a future together. So Gypsy had lost her apartment, and Martin put her up in a new one. And Gypsy bragged all the time to her friends about her affair with Martin. Their sex life, et cetera, like really specific information about their sex life, like TMI. real classy stuff and as all this is going on Michelle got more and more suspicious but when she confronted Martin

he would just gaslight her every time you're crazy you're paranoid blah blah blah like they do and she finally broke down and told her daughter Alexis about you know look I think your dad is having an affair Martin and Michelle's 29th anniversary

was on February 21st 2007 Martin spent it with Gypsy in a hotel wow guy really oh and by the way I should specify that this daughter Alexis is an adult she didn't tell a child like your dad's

having an affair this is her adult daughter who by now is a doctor and you know she's a grown up but still I mean that must have been hard for Alexis to hear so he spent their anniversary with gypsy in a hotel Alexis was suspicious since her mom told her that she suspected Martin was cheating and she did a little bit of digging

around in her dad's car after this weekend was over and she found some of gypsy's luggage in the trunk. And there was sexy underwear in there, and high-heeled shoes, and women's clothing. So she called her mom, Michelle, and told her, and Michelle called Martin and confronted him. And she was in tears.

She said, look, I know you're cheating on me. Just admit it. And he said that the luggage belonged to a colleague and that he'd just given her a ride after this medical conference he was supposedly at, and she'd left it in the trunk. And yeah, sure, bud. We buy it, not.

And Martin continued his book. bullshit about being terminally ill all that winter and spring. Sometimes he'd use a cane and limp. Other times he was completely fine. One afternoon Rachel, one of his daughters, watched him single handedly carry huge pieces of sheet rock up and down the

stairs for a home improvement project, which is interesting. You wouldn't think somebody with toe cancer could do that. Right? Who supposedly is terminally ill. So, interesting. And on Friday, March 16th, Alexis came home for a visit and helped her mom

snoop around for more affair evidence, but this time they found something else shocking. Paperwork from the Mayo Clinic, where Martin had been for tests recently, that showed there was no cancer. There was no MS. There was no life-threatening anything. The man had neuropathy, a type that's easily treated with lifestyle adjustments. Wow. So they were simultaneously thrilled and relieved that their husband slash father wasn't going to be dead in a few months, but also betrayed. Like, why the hell would you lie to us about this? And they also dug around enough to find cell phone records

that showed a lot of calls at all times of the day and late at night to the same number. And the name came up as gypsy Jillian Willis. So at this point, Michelle once again confronted him, demanding the truth, he still refused to own up to the affair, the frickin coward, saying she was paranoid and crazy, and everything. And the day after this latest big fight about the affair, Martin and Michelle are

sitting at breakfast. I imagine there's cereal and toast and fruit on the table and it's all lovely and sunny. And Martin looked over at his wife of 29 years and suddenly said, you need a facelift. Um, and Michelle's like, I'm sorry, what? Yeah. And when he saw her shocked reaction, he kind of softened it a little bit and said, no, no, I want to get you a facelift as a gift. Listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, people with wives out there. Please don't do this. Your wife doesn't want to hear this. If your wife wants a facelift, she'll tell you. She does not need you to say it at breakfast in the probably unflattering natural light from the kitchen window. But he was persuasive. You know, it'll make you feel better. You deserve this. You're already beautiful and you'll look 10 years younger. You know, I'm 42.

I can tell you that starts getting real seductive. And especially when you're 50, as Michelle was at this point, I imagine in eight years I'm going to be starting to think about Botox and all that kind of stuff. Lord help me. And he says, you know, after you're all healed up, we'll take a cruise. And instead of punting him like a football out of her life forever, Michelle looked herself in the mirror. And, of course, as most of us would, felt insecure. Martin had been obsessing over his looks lately. He was in the best shape he'd ever been.

and he'd been in the tanning bed and everything, and she'd gained some weight lately because of all the stress, and she just started to feel bad about herself, which was precisely, of course, what he wanted, the prick. So they scheduled a consult. And while they were there with the surgeon, Martin monopolized the conversation. He talked over Michelle.

He talked for Michelle. It seemed clear to the doctor that Michelle did not want to do this at all and had worries about the fact that she had a heart condition, and Martin kept steamrolling over and insisting, you'll be fine, you'll be fine. And so she finally just basically got bulldozed into this, and she agreed. And Martin bullied the doctor into prescribing an unbelievable amount of and combination of meds. Something that the doctor would normally never prescribe, but Martin kept reminding him he was a doctor and he would monitor her.

And she really has a lot of anxiety and she's very sensitive to pain and she has trouble sleeping and all this. So this doctor prescribed liquid Vicodin, which is an opioid painkiller, a steroid, Fennergan, which is a heavy-duty. anti-nause drug that makes you feel like you've been hit by a truck it's so sedating yeah ambian the sleep aid this ambient pops up all the time in our cases doesn't it geez louise it popped up in tracy richter matt baker and now here we are with martin mcneill plus valium a sedative and percassette yet another opioid pain reliever and the doctor said look do not give these all together and martin promised look i'm a doctor i understand i can't give all these drugs at once he even said don't even fill them all at once right the doctor was

really concerned and Martin just kind of bullied him into it because he himself was a doctor so they scheduled the surgery for april third Alexis their physician daughter insisted that Michelle get a physical before going through with it and Michelle did and the doctor suggested that look why don't we wait until you get your high blood pressure under control and Michelle wanted to do that but Martin threw a fit no she'll be fine we're going through with it scary so they went through with it and the surgery went well. By the way, a facelift is like a seven-hour surgery, which is bananas. I had no idea it took that long. But wow. It's like a major surgery. So when she woke up in the recovery room, Michelle wanted to stay in the hospital overnight. She was still worried about her

heart condition and stuff. And Martin insisted she come home right away. And the doctor and Alexis had to strong arm him into letting her stay the night at the hospital. And he and Gypsy exchanged 24 cortex that night while his wife lay recovering in the hospital. She came home the next day. Her eyes were banded. She was sore. And her doctor-daughter Alexis took care of her that first day. And Martin kept trying to get Alexis to leave. You need to go back to your life. You need to go get some sleep, et cetera, et cetera, because I think she was in the middle of a residency at that time. And Alexis didn't want to leave, but Martin insisted so much that she finally gave in.

She didn't go home that night, but she didn't stay right by her mom's side. she wanted to, she went to sleep in another room and Martin took over Michelle's care and the next morning Alexis found Michelle passed out, like passed out so much that she couldn't wake her up any more than to just

get her to kind of whimper a little bit which is horrifying. Her heart rate was low, her breathing was shallow and Alexis could tell that she had taken way too much medication. It was really obvious. So she confronted her dad. She was like, what did you give her? And Martin was all Oh, I must have made a mistake.

But Michelle had always been really sensitive to meds, especially opioids and sedatives. And Martin knew this. The whole family knew this. So that's a really big mistake. And Alexis was just baffled and mad and freaked out. And she demanded a list of all the meds that he'd given Michelle, and she wrote them all down on a notepad.

And he admitted to giving her a shitload of stuff, like way more than she needed. And once Alexis took over, Michelle recovered from that woozy state completely and was lucid enough to talk and she told Alexis that Martin had just kept giving her pills just one after another and saying no you need this take this so many that she had thrown up and then he gave her more even after she threw up he insisted she'd take more pills and Michelle with her eyes still bandaged so she's blind so scary it's like a horror movie she asked her daughter to put every pill into her hand so that she could feel them the shape and the size of them

and remember what each one of them was so they went through this little thing where This is the Finnergan. Feel that? This is the Vicodin. One by one. And Michelle told Alexis that she was afraid to be left alone in Martin's care. And she was crying. And over the next day, as she came further and further out of that haze that she was in from the drug,

she seemed even more afraid. And that night, Alexis offered to wash her mother's hair for her, which is something that she had always done since she was a little girl, which is really sweet. And as she was washing her mom's hair Michelle suddenly said Alexis if something happens to me Make sure it wasn't your dad And I imagine

That would be a hard thing for a daughter to process So Alexis said mom Yeah what are you talking about And Michelle said Just make sure it wasn't your dad Okay and then she started to cry Oh wow Holy crap

I'll just turn your stomach I mean, it's such a missed opportunity. And again, I do not blame anybody for this, but Martin McNeil, so do not misunderstand me for a second. But it's just so often in these cases we find, just like with Carrie Baker, how she suspected that Matt Baker was planning on murdering her and she told people about this. And I know, I'm sure that Alexis wishes that she could go back in time and grab her mother and get her out of that house right then. But it's understandable because this is her father and the kids love their dad. Right. They looked up to him.

she couldn't conceive. She must have just thought, this is just mom being medicated and in pain and not thinking clearly. So Alexis monitored and cared for her mom for the next five days, and Michelle got better and was healing well and got the bandages off her eyes and everything, and once she could see, Michelle once again confronted Martin about the cell phone bill and Gypsy, and he screamed at her, he wasn't having a fair, he refused to let her see his phone or have his password, or, you know, yet another argument about Gypsy. And then she had a follow-up with her doctor, and she was doing great.

She wasn't in any pain anymore. And despite this, Martin called the doctor and demanded another script for Percocet and another for Fennergan, even though she had told the doctor she was not experiencing any pain or nausea. So why he felt she needed those scripts, I can't imagine. And Alexis had to go back home that night. And now we're up until April 11, 2007. Martin got to work at 6 a.m.

At 6.48, he called Gypsy, and they would talk off and on all that day. Martin's team at work was supposed to get an award at an annual event, and at some point that morning, Martin called the coordinator and made a big stink about needing to reschedule the ceremony, which was supposed to be at 1145. At some point that morning, Sabrina spoke to her mom and said that Michelle seemed fine. At 7.45, Martin left work, drove back home, and he didn't go and he just honked horn for the kids Giselle L. Sabrina and Ada to come out and he took

them to school. And on the drive, he seemed angry. He kept saying, your mom's not feeling well. And the kids said, no, she's feeling fine. And then he would get mad at them for saying that. She's not feeling well. Okay. He dropped the last kid off at 8.30. And then he wasn't seen back at work until 9-11. So for that little over 40 minutes, his movements are

unknown. Well, they're not actually, but they're untraceable. At 844, Alexa spoke to to Michelle on the phone. Michelle was upbeat she said your dad is being so sweet to me he's taking such good care of me 9-11 martin was back in his office 917 he left a loving sounding message on his wife's phone don't you go anywhere i'm going to come home later and fix you a lovely lunch that always reminds me so much of our boy scott peterson

who left a very similar message for lacey on a phone by the way that everybody knew had been dead and defunct for weeks and that lacy didn't use saying hello beautiful i'm coming home i miss you i can't wait to see you same kind of syrupy crap and then from 930 to 11 martin disappeared no one saw him during that time and he made no phone calls so we've got two time periods during that morning where he is unaccounted for and then at 10 a.m. Alexis checked her voicemail and on her voicemail was one from her dad which was weird because he almost never called her, especially not from his work phone. And he said, you need to call your mom. You need to call her right away.

She's not listening to me. She's getting up. She's out of bed. You need to call her and tell her she needs to rest. Which was very odd to Alexis, especially given how upbeat Michelle was earlier that day on the phone. And later, she realized that her dad didn't even have her number memorized, which meant that he would have had to look it up because he called from his work phone, not his cell, for some inexplicable reason. So Alexis tried calling Michelle, but got no answer. And that's about 10 a.m. that morning.

Martin's coworkers had scrambled to reschedule this award ceremony at his assistance. It had been scheduled for 1145. They moved it to 11. And everyone was confused as to why Martin would suddenly give a shit about being there. He never had before. And they had won this award every year. He said, his wife was sick and he needed to get home. home. And at the fair, he insisted on having his picture taken. He had never done this before ever. At 1130, he left to go get Ada from kindergarten and check on his wife. Ada and Martin

got home at 1145, and Martin let Ada run in ahead of him. Ada called out for her mom, but got no answer. She was the one who discovered her mother's body in the bathtub. full of brown-tinged water. She was slumped under the faucet, her head toward the drain, her eyes were open. Ada ran to her dad, and Martin slowly, slowly, followed her toward the bedroom. Ada tugged on him to get him to move faster. When he saw Michelle in the tub, he told Ada, run, get help, go next door. So poor little Ada went to the next door neighbors.

First, neighbor Christy Daniels followed Ada to the house. Ada had just said, my dad needs some help. Martin had shouted at her that he couldn't get Michelle out of the tub. He needed a man's help. Christy ran to another neighbor, a woman, and called her husband Doug to come as quick as he could. He was just a few houses down helping a friend with something. Precious moments ticked by as all this went down. When the neighbors walked in, Martin was kneeling by the tub.

cradling Michelle's head in his hands. He just reached in to drain the water. Michelle had on her Mormon temple garments and a black shirt and nothing else. There was a thick mucus all over her face. Doug helped Martin lift Michelle out of the tub. Christy offered to help Martin do CPR. She had compressions while he did the breathing.

Doug noticed at one point that Michelle's chest didn't seem to be rising with the breaths and he wondered if our Marmot. Martin was even doing them right. But he knew he was a doctor, so he deferred to him. Hi, I'm Darren Marler. Host of the Weird Darkness podcast. I want to talk about the most important tool in my podcast belt. Spreaker is the all-in-one platform that makes it easy to record, host, and distribute your show everywhere, from Apple Podcasts to Spotify. But the real game changer for me was Spreaker's monetization. Spreaker offers dynamic ad insertion. That

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There was no heartbeat. In between breaths, Martin shouted about how he tried to tell Michelle not to have the damn facelift. Why? Why? He alternated between totally calm and giving instructions and hysterical. Very, very odd behavior. At one point, he slammed his fist into Michelle's chest and shouted, all for a stupid surgery. Dude, dial it back a few clicks.

Good grief. Chewing the scenery, man. It's suspicious. Doug also noticed that none of the mucus was all over Michelle's face had transferred to Martin. That was odd too. Because he wasn't bloody well-due in CPR. He was miming it. That's what I think.

Right. Yeah, absolutely. finally the paramedics arrived and we know the rest of that story so Alexis knew immediately that martin had killed her mother when she got home she took rachel aside and told her rachel had always been the closest to martin so it was going to take her a while to come around but she listened to her sister's concerns Alexis confronted her dad about the medications where were they martin said police had confiscated the drugs Alexis looked everywhere for that notepad where she'd written down the meds Martin had given Michelle, but it was nowhere to be found.

Meanwhile, Martin texted and called Gypsy all through making his wife's funeral arrangements. Oh, my God, what is wrong with you? This is despicable. The day after Michelle died, Gypsy texted six sexy picks to Martin. Later, she said she sent the picks because she wanted to keep his attention on her. And to distract him because he was grieving so terribly, you see. Just, just how romantic, you guys. Oh, it's so sweet.

You've got to send nudes. It's a love story of the ages. And this little bit is just the icing on the cake. Martin told Michelle's family that if they tried to go to the funeral, the police would be called to throw them out. The one exception was Michelle's sister Linda. It's horrifying. Holy crap. While Linda was there from the memorial, she noticed Martin unloading and carrying big, heavy boxes of stuff to the church.

And she offered to help. He rudely put her off. Hmm. No limp today, Marty? I guess that toe cancer cleared up nicely. Yeah, I think it's a miracle. Always a classy lady. Gypsy went to the funeral of her lover's wife in a sexy, low-cut black dress.

Satin back, didn't speak to anyone, spent the whole service on her phone, texting Martin. And campers, Martin's eulogy was bananas. There was almost no mention of Michelle at all. He told the story of his crappy childhood and how his brother died of an overdose, and he did more of that, why God, why? Stuff he'd done before. Everyone was just stunned. I didn't grieve. Yeah, this guy.

After the funeral, Martin's moods shifted dramatically, depending on who he was talking to. Alexis noticed him talking several times to a young, dark-haired woman in a tight black dress, and when he talked to her, he grinned ear to ear. She didn't know at the time that this was gypsy, the mistress she and Michelle had suspected. Martin was using the cane off and on during the funeral. At one point, he was distracted and picked Ada up. But as people started approaching the gravesite, he suddenly looked like he remembered something, and he quickly put Ada down and picked up the cane.

Oh, right. I'm supposed to be limping. Dang, I almost forgot. After the burial, Martin made jokes about being a bachelor now and having more time to play golf. Ha ha. Ha, ha. Rachel, the daughter who had always worshipped Martin, was disgusted. And left. Michelle's family held a graveside service of their own the next day. and all suspected Martin had killed her.

They were determined not to let him get away with it. Martin took an entire two days off of work after his wife's death. That's it. Came in wearing a new wedding ring, too. Said he just wanted a ring on his finger. That's insane. What the actual fuck? It's a placeholder.

Just in case. He seemed like totally fine. He told people. Michelle had insisted on the facelift against his wishes, that she had an undiagnosed heart condition, that she had an adverse reaction to the meds they gave her, all of which are fucking lies. Now, Alexis insisted on listening in on Martin's phone call with the medical examiner about a week after Michelle's death. And interestingly enough, Martin didn't mention that Michelle had spewed up copious amounts of water once the EMTs took over CPR.

This would later be significant because it's an indication of possible drowning. Which he would know because he's a doctor. Right. Michelle's mom, Helen, had kept Martin's psych records and paperwork from his arrest and crimes for 30 years, just in case. She tried so hard to talk Michelle out of marrying him. Now, Michelle's sister took all of that paperwork and tried to get the police to look into Michelle's death. but they put her off, saying it was a natural death. There was no evidence of any foul play.

Martin refused to let his older daughters take off school to help with the younger kids. Things need to get back to normal. I don't need your help. He'd found the ideal, Nanny, you see? Gypsy, the quote-unquote nanny, moved in shortly after Michelle's death. Oh, my God, I hate this guy. It was baffling to the kids, though, because she did almost nothing to look after them or keep the house. If one of them mentioned that to their dad, however, he'd yell,

She is a guest in our home. You will treat her with respect. Gypsy had a bedroom in the basement. Several times, the kids heard the sound of feet, going down the basement stairs late at night. And campers, I'm so sorry. I have to tell you this. One evening, Alexis was packing up some of her mom's clothes in the master bedroom at her parents' house. She lay down to rest in her t-shirt and jeans and fell asleep. And she woke up to a hand down her pants and someone kissing her palm.

It was her dad. Oh, God, it's so awful. She jumped up and was like, what are you doing? And he said, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I thought you, I thought, I thought, I thought you were your mother. Ew. Oh, it's so gross. It's horrifying. Oh, Lord.

Yeah, so the next day, after this horrifying incident, Martin called a bizarre family meeting about the incident. And he was like, what if it had been one of the younger girls? I could have gotten in trouble. Whoa. Yeah, because that would have been the worst thing about you, you know, molesting your child, you fucking nightmare, that you might have gotten in trouble. God, he's so gross. But after this, all the kids were forbidden to go into Martin's bedroom. Alexis and Rachel discussed it, and they made the decision to hold off on pressing charges to sort of get leverage on Martin.

Alexis wanted to get custody of the younger kids to get them away from him, and they figured this would give them some pole with that, which was pretty smart, actually. The kids caught gypsy slipping into Martin's bedroom a lot after that, and I'm actually pretty convinced that this is why he abused Alexis in the first place, so that he would have an excuse to engineer that none of the kids would ever dare go into his bedroom again, which is just horrifying. I'm pretty sure that's the whole reason why this happened, honestly. Yeah, that's the thing that makes the most sense to me. Which is just horrifying and goes to show, you know, what this man is capable of. And on June 26, Martin bid on a four and a half-carat diamond ring for Gypsy for $7,000.

And in early July, Martin and Gypsy took another trip to Wyoming to visit Gypsy's parents, who, by the way, they'd been lying to. Like, he'd met her parents and charmed the pants off them and said that, like, they'd only started dating after Michelle's death and everything, which is, of course, is horseshit. So, Martin rented a banquet hall and hosted a big party and made a big gross show of proposing to Gypsy, tearfully, you know, accepted and blah, blah, blah, barf.

And by now, the atmosphere in the McNeil house was toxic. Alexis had filed paperwork to try to get custody younger kids. The kids hated gypsy. The older daughter suspected Martin of killing Michelle. I mean, it was just, can you imagine what the tension was like in that house? Horrifying. And around this time, Vanessa went to Martin to ask for money for a rehab program. And Vanessa is the daughter who has the heroin addiction.

And instead of giving her money for rehab, Martin offered to take her life and his own in a father-daughter suicide pact. I'm sure he had zero intention of taking his own life. Oh, definitely not. He just said, you know, just like he had with Anna, I can kill you. Why don't we just do that? No big deal. And then you can stop embarrassing me with your embarrassing drug addiction.

And Vanessa, like, this shows me that she at least somewhat knows what her dad is. She was terrified, and she called Alexis, and Alexis came and picked her up. and two months after the fondling incident with Alexis, Alexis called police. She didn't report her dad, but she asked about the procedure for reporting abuse. She was really torn about whether and when to press charges on that because she needed to keep access to the younger kids for their safety. Martin had a habit of forbidding her contact with them if she pissed him off, and he would forbid her from the house. Anytime she challenged him about anything. So this meant that Alexis often just had to suck it up and suck up to her abuser and the murderer of her mother in order to protect her siblings.

And I think she's a damn hero for that because I can't even imagine how hard that would be to have that kind of trauma from your own abuse. And you are convinced that he killed your mother. And you put yourself in that harm's way so that you can. can stand in the gap between him and your siblings. I mean, it's just incredible. And if she ever hears this, Alexis, seriously, I can't even believe how brave. Like, I get a little choked up every time I think about it. So she's a hero. And I'm sure her siblings are extremely grateful to her. So in July of 07, at Martin's request, Alexis took Giselle, who's one of the adopted Ukrainian daughters, on what was supposed to be a trip to Ukraine to visit her relatives over there.

They were going to go pick her up at the airport at the end of the summer. Martin told Alexis to keep hold of Giselle's passport when she flew back home so that Giselle wouldn't lose it, which is weird, but Alexis's like, okay, so Alexis dropped Giselle off with an older sister in Ukraine and flew home with Giselle's passport. And when she got home, she found out that Martin was planning to let family friends adopt her younger siblings. and she flipped out and a furious fight ensued Martin threatened to get Alexis kicked out of med school it was ugly

and finally Alexis and Rachel just told him look you either give Alexis custody to the kids or we're going to the police and we're going to get them to reopen the investigation into mom's death and the kids were packed and ready to go the next day Martin obviously had no way of knowing

that the police had already declined to investigate. So this worked like a charm. And the kids moved in with Alexis. Thank God. Finally, they're out of that toxic house. And in September, Alexis decided it was time to file charges for her own sexual abuse incident.

And she even got Martin on tape admitting to it. And as this was being investigated, he tried to extort her by offering to relinquish all his parental rights to the kids if she would drop the charges. So bad move because police added witness tampering to the sexual abuse charge. because, you know, you can't do that.

You can't bribe somebody to drop charges. That's illegal. She's a big damn hero for telling them all this. Incredibly, somebody have a lot of respect for. And Alexis and Rachel also contacted Martin's employer, letting them know about the pending charges for sex abuse and his previous felony conviction for the check fraud in 1977. And they fired him.

And Martin was suddenly in financial trouble. Yay. And for her part, Gypsy had awful. credit because of her tax debt. So Martin was really starting to worry about how marrying her might affect his finances. So they came up with a plan to steal Giselle's identity. She was safely tucked away in Ukraine, expecting to be picked up in a few weeks, and she was just a perfect target. This is just bananas beyond belief. Giselle was living in poverty in Ukraine, basically. She didn't have money for food or school. And when Martin didn't.

didn't show up to pick her up at the end of summer, she tried in vain to get in touch with her adopted father. And he didn't respond again and again. And months went by. And this poor girl is living with her relatives in Ukraine who have very little money. She doesn't have any money left, you know, of her own. And she's just there abandoned. Which I can only imagine how hard that would be for a child who's already been abandoned once in her life, you know? So Martin, Meanwhile, created a new identity for Gypsy to mask her debt and her bad credit. So Gypsy Jillian Willis became Jillian Gilles McNeil, wife of Martin, all with Giselle's birth certificate and social security number. They altered the birth certificate by 20 years.

Use that to get Gypsy a new social security card and a new Utah ID. So identity theft perpetrated against your own daughter, who you have abandoned in poverty. in Ukraine. This man is a shit stain. Just, wow. Fortunately, Michelle's sister found out around this time that Giselle was still over there, and she immediately blessed her, bought a plane ticket, went, scooped her up, and Linda would eventually adopt Giselle and give her a new chance at life.

Bless her for that. Another hero in the case. And in April 2008, the sexual abuse charges Alexis filed against Martin were dropped for lack of evidence, which sucks, but the silver lining was that the charges had gotten prosecutors interested in Michelle's death. And they assigned new investigators, detectives Whitney, and Robinson to the case. And they started digging into Martin's background, and they did not have to dig too long before they uncovered a hornet's nest of stuff. The 1977 check fraud was the least of it. They also learned that Martin had faked his transcripts to get into med school in.

Mexico. He'd faked his grades in med school as well. And all of this had launched a 30-year career in medicine that was based on lies, which is just terrifying. Like, no wonder he kept being guilty of malpractice and stuff, because he was bad at it. God only knows how much actual medical training he had. He'd also claimed over $150,000 in disability benefits from the Veterans Administration that he was not entitled to. He was getting, at the time of Michelle's death, $3,000 a month in disability from the U.S. Army, completely fraudulently. Plus, they uncovered a slew of sexual assault allegations, the sex with patients, medical malpractice, and a lot of this was news to Alexis and Rachel, and it was devastating.

I mean, their dad was a lie, and they had never realized this before. The detectives also talked to Gypsy's old roommate, Michelle Savage. She said Gypsy had been obsessed with Martin and with getting him away from Michelle. And she hung up a creepy little collage of pictures of Michelle in her closet to, quote, know her enemy. Just, just, yikes. And Gypsy had, yeah, I'm sorry, go ahead. This is, I don't know, have you ever seen the cartoon, Hey Arnold? No, I have not.

So there's a character in Hey Arnold named Helga, Millennials, you know what I'm talking about. And Helga had this shrine in the back of her closet with like a sculpture of her. the object of affections and pictures, and this is exactly like that. Oh, definitely, yeah. And Gypsy had started talking a lot about wanting to get rid of her rival. She'd talked about poisoning her, cutting her brake lines, and she had said, and I quote, her kids will probably be strapped into their car seat, so they'll probably survive. Wow.

Yeah. And Gypsy had stalked Michelle, according to her roommate, and her roommate had become scared of her, which is understandable based on all that. And they discovered the theft of Giselle's identity. Now, this was something that they could sink their teeth into. This was something that they could nab Martin on. And not only Martin, but Ms. Gypsy, too. There was ample evidence.

And they arrested both Martin and Gypsy in January of 2009 and charged them with a slew of felony counts for the ID theft, the fraud. And Martin was also recharged with the sexual abuse of Alexis because this new prosecutor thought that there was enough evidence to go forward, which goes to show you that that is very subjective. And sometimes prosecutors are more cautious and sometimes they're less. And Martin and Gypsy both pled guilty to the fraud charges against them. Martin got like 48 months and Gypsy a little bit less.

And while they were in prison, they wrote each other a bunch of gross love letters, some of which are in the book The Stranger She Loved by Shanna Hogan, which is one of our main sources for this case. And they are, yuck. Read the book if you want to read them. In 2010, a guard found a stashy. of those letters and turned them over to the investigators, Whitney and Robinson, and the investigators went to the prison where Gypsy was to talk to her. See, felons who are in prison are not supposed

to write to each other. That came up in the Tracy Richter case, if you recall. So she was in trouble. And she eventually, after a lot of lying and Hemminton Hall, and she finally admitted to the affair that it started in 2005 before Michelle's death, that he'd paid for her apartment. But she denied that it had really heated up in the months prior to Michelle's death, liar. She told them that Martin had mentioned Michelle having a facelift in February, so months before it actually happened, so we know that he was premeditating it. And Gypsy denied knowledge of the murder. She said she didn't believe Martin had killed Michelle to be with her. Yeah, whatever, Gypsy. And despite her many love letters to Martin, when Gypsy realized that she

was facing more charges for the identity theft, these were state charges after she'd served time for the federal ones and might do more jail time, she agreed. agreed to testify against the love of her life to get her sentence reduced. So I don't know about you, Cambers, but this really shakes my faith in true romance. I'm giving up on hope and love. Yeah, I think, you know, if those two crazy kids couldn't make it, what hope is there for the rest of us? I've got a single tear. So they worked out a plea for 36 months of probation, and they forbade her from seeing Martin or going near his house and she was released, ugh.

But she'd lost her nursing license and had trouble finding a job after her release, now that she was a convicted felon. And she said people stared at her in public. So woo-hoo for Gypsy. And she says she blamed Martin for all this,

because, you know, he talked her into the identity theft, much against her will, I'm sure. But she said she'd always love him anyway, despite, like, random testifying against him and everything. She never took any personal responsibility for any of it, but after prison, she cut off contact with Martin. So again, love is a lie. And investigators Whitney and Robinson soon found out about Martin's fake cancer, MS, whatever it was, toe cancer.

They believed it was a ploy to make it seem like he was too sick to kill Michelle and too weak to lift her out of the tub after he killed her. I completely agree. I think that's exactly what that was about. A thousand percent. And soon the detectives consulted toxicology experts to look at Michelle's results. and they wondered, you know, first of all, why would Michelle take an Ambien at 10 a.m.? It wouldn't, right? The original medical examiner, Dr. Fricky, said the doses found in Michelle's body were at therapeutic levels,

but the toxicologists said that this combination of meds would have rendered her either very out of it or completely incapacitated. Two experts agreed that the combination of meds in her system could have been lethal themselves or because of exacerbating Michelle's underlying heart problem. They also consulted a famous forensic pathologist who concluded that Michelle had probably been incapacitated by meds, held underwater, and drowned. This was enough to get the ME to change Michelle's manner of death to homicide. Now we're cooking with gas, and in July 2012, Martin was released from his prison sentence for the fraud, and he went home to Pleasant Grove to the house where he'd killed his wife. It had sat empty for four years.

Like Gypsy, he'd lost his medical license. And he just kind of holed up in his empty house like Howard Hughes, you know, just rattling around in there. He was broke. His last $30,000 was earmarked for paying back the money that he'd fraudulently gotten from the VA over the years. And the prosecutor finally decided that the case was as good as it was going to get that summer. He decided, I'm going to go ahead and prosecute this prick. So on August 24th, 2012, praise the Lord, campers, it was habeas gravest time. And they went and got him.

And his daughters and Michelle's sister Linda were there in the courtroom when he was arraigned on like a crazy bail. I think it was like $1.5 million. There was no way he could raise it. So in prison, awaiting trial. And, you know, we can't go into the details of the trial or we will be here for four more episodes. Suffice it to say, it began in October 2013. And Martin was convicted of the first degree murder of Michelle after 11 hours of jury deliberation. And he was sentenced to 17 years to life, which I don't think is nearly.

enough for this premeditated bullshit, but whatever. He was also eventually convicted of Alexis's sexual abuse and given an additional one to 15 years, which is a little bit better, right? But unfortunately, and I hate it when they do this, he took his own life in prison a few years later, which I hate because I would have really liked for him to rot in prison for years and years and become a daughtering, sad old man in a prison cell. But like a typical narcissist, he decided he wasn't having that and he took control of the situation himself.

at least he's not polluting our planet anymore I guess and unfortunately there's never been any hard evidence to prove Gypsy's involvement in Michelle's murder so she has never been prosecuted for this do you guys think she was involved I'm very curious to know I have my own suspicions but obviously there's no proof but let us know what you think on our social media and you know we're going to have another one for you next week campers but for now lock your doors light your lights and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire.

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