True Crime with Kendall Rae - Former Beauty Queen Murdered by Her “Doctor” Husband… the Michele & Martin MacNeill Case

Episode Date: August 8, 2023

Michele MacNeill was a former model and mother of eight children with her husband Martin. While recovering from a face lift, Martin, a licensed doctor, started giving her larger doses of her medication than she needed. One day, while she was in the bath, she seemingly just died out of nowhere, Martin was behind it, and the kids were on to him. Other cases mentioned in this episode: Fraud Docs: -Murder for Hire Deal at Olive Garden? The Valerie McDaniel & Leon Jacob Case -Online Dating Nightmare: The Dirty John Story Donate to NCMEC through my campaign! https://give.missingkids.org/campaign/kendall-rae/c438796 This episode is sponsored by: ZocDoc Nutrafol - promo code: KENDALLRAE Check out Kendall's other podcasts: The Sesh & Mile Higher Follow Kendall! YouTube Twitter Instagram Facebook Mile Higher Zoo REQUESTS: General case suggestion form: https://bit.ly/32kwPly Form for people directly related/ close to the victim: https://bit.ly/3KqMZLj Discord: https://discord.com/invite/an4stY9BCN CONTACT: For Business Inquiries - [e-mail]

Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. So before I get into today's case, which is a crazy one, it's gonna be really long, so buckle in. But first I wanted to tell you guys some really great news. I recently did a video on Vanessa Giann, and if you did not see it we ran some fan designed merchandise. We had four artists involved who were awesome. Thank you guys so much again and they created designs that we put on t-shirts and stickers to raise money for the Giann family and their fight for Justice for Vanessa. When we started this I had an initial goal in my head and I normally don't say fun raising goals

out loud just because in the past we haven't hit them and I don't want it to be a sad thing you know what I mean like I don't want to set us up for failure in any way so I really don't make goals but in my head I had a goal of around $10,000 which I thought was a lot and I thought you know that's gonna be hard to do. But I was blown away by the response to this collection. You guys bought so many shirts, so many sticker packs, we restocked them like six times. My original estimates were way, way off, and we ended up raising over $50,000 for the Guine family.

Do you know what that's gonna do for them? You guys, I have no words. And that's not even it. We're still running this, so that number is going to go up. This was definitely the most successful charity campaign I've ever run on my channel. And I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who bought an item, who shared it, even if you couldn't afford to buy an item. This is gonna help their family in a massive, massive way. They are so, so grateful. I am so proud of my audience for caring,

for treating this content as more than just true crime, entertainment, and understanding that this is real stuff that's affecting people every day, seeing how many people cared enough for Vanessa's family and what happened to her to want to help them was just amazing. All right, so let's go ahead and get into today's case. So this is Michelle's summers.

She's really, really beautiful. She's a Capricorn born on January 15th, 1957, and she grew up in Concord, California. And growing up, Michelle was really, really popular in high school. She got really good grades as well and was very involved in athletics and played violin, but was very, very popular and was a cheerleader

and homecoming queen. And she was so beautiful that she ended up becoming a beauty queen. She was in several pageants and she was voted Miss Concord in 1976. But like I said, she was also smart and well educated and wanted to learn about the world. She even did an exchange program where she got to go to Switzerland for a semester. She also loved to act like in plays and was in drama. And another huge part of Michelle's life was her faith in the Mormon church.

She was very involved in her church actually, and when she was 21 years old, she ended up meeting a guy at church. And he seemed like the perfect guy for her. His name was Martin McNeil. And they had one of those fast-track relationships where, you know, they meet and then they're dating. It gets really serious. And before you know it months later, they were getting married. And when they did get married, they aloaked. So they left all their friends and family and everyone was kind of a little bit confused

about it at the time, but accepted it. Now Michelle's ultimate dream all along was to become a mother. She just really wanted to have kids. And so they did not waste any time when it came to having kids. She ended up having four kids in their first five years of marriage. So they were very busy. And her kids described Michelle as a wonderful mother.

She was really attentive, truly cared about what was going on in her kids' life, and was just very active. It was clear that her passion was to be a mom, and that she was thriving, you know, having kids. And her kids said that she was just kind to everyone in general. I mean, no one really had anything bad to say about Michelle. She was known as being very warm, very friendly, talkative. She was known as a very, like, gentle soul. Being a beauty queen, Michelle kept her kids very...

They were very well groomed, you know, always wore fancy clothes. Pretty much anytime they were in public, they were looking sharp. So even though they already had four biological children, Michelle loved being a mom so much that she decided to adopt four more kids from Ukraine. This was a big change for them. I mean, it brought their family up from four to eight kids. Pretty crazy. But I think that says a lot about Michelle that she wanted to give that many more children a home

and help as many people as she could. She was just a truly genuine, caring, loving mother. But you may be wondering, what about Martin? Was he a good dad? Well, according to his kids, yes, Martin was a good dad. He was also really into his kids' lives, very involved in their activities and loved being a dad. Martin and Michelle were different in their kind of

personalities though, because Martin was very outgoing and had a really big ego and wanted to be the center of attention, was really loud. And Michelle was very reserved, very, like I said, gentle, soft, quiet. Martin was a doctor and he was very proud to be a doctor. And not only was he a doctor, but he was also a lawyer. Dr. Lawyer, eight kids, busy dude.

And he would always be sure everyone knew about his prestige about his status. He was very show offy with money and just wanted to be known as a big shot. At one point, he had a small moment of fame in Utah because the governor actually asked him to work as a medical director in the Utah State Development Center in American Fork, Utah. And he thought he was very, very cool for that. Now people that were around Martin started to get a little bit annoyed with him. It was said that several

people just didn't like them together. Thought that Michelle was honestly too good for him, that he was controlling and manipulative of her. Even the kids said that they had to constantly defend their father to people. That they'd have to explain that he was a different person behind closed doors, and that he just kind of came across as an asshole out in public. And over time, his behavior just got worse and worse with age. Many of Michelle's friends came to her and told her that they didn't like her in a relationship with him

and they felt that she deserved better. And they were bringing up some red flags to Michelle about how he could possibly be cheating on her or doing other things that she would not approve of or just not treating her right. But Michelle had eight kids with this man and she kind of just ignored all of this. Have you ever been on the hunt for a new doctor

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Zock-Dock as I need it. I'm telling you, you've got to check it out. Just go to zock-dock.com slash kennel-ray and download the Zock-Dock app for free today. Then find and book a top-rated doctor today. That's zoc.coc.com slash kennel-ray. Zock-dock.com slash candle ray. Zock.com slash candle ray. So around the time that Martin turned 50 years old,

he started acting a little strangely. All of a sudden, he was obsessed with his physical appearance. He was working out, losing weight, trying to gain muscles, self-taning. And it was just to an unhealthy level. Like, the dude would just drop down and start doing pushups in the middle of a conversation with people. Like he was just constantly working out. It became a complete obsession for him.

So at first the whole family thought that this was just like a midlife crisis. I mean, he was right at that age. It is kind of normal behavior for that. But the longer it went on, Michelle started to come to her own conclusion. That she thought that Martin was cheating on her. Why was he so obsessed with wanting to make himself look good? Was it possible he was outseeing a younger woman?

She started just having that feeling, you know, things were off in the relationship. She felt like there was that weird barrier between them. So finally, Michelle just confronted Martin about this and asked Are you cheating on me? And it ended up being true that he was cheating on her and I'll explain more about that in a second But during his whole time obviously Michelle's feeling incredibly insecure about their relationship and Martin starts just Piling on about how it's all really her fault that they're failing. He said that she had let herself go and her physical appearance was not what it used to be. He started telling her that she needed to make some physical changes to her face,

to her body, and just pointing out all her flaws. Sounds like a wonderful guy. Martin somehow convinces Michelle, who I'm sure is in a really fragile state just having been cheated on, to get a full facelift that she really didn't want. This was completely out of the ordinary for her. She had never talked about wanting this for herself, but she was desperate to fix things with him.

It took a while, but finally Martin convinced Michelle to go ahead and get the surgery. She finally agreed to it, but she said, you know, I wanna do this a few months down the road, not anytime soon, but he was adamant that she needs to do it soon He wanted her to do it within the next week. I just can't even understand the situation. I mean, he gets caught cheating And she in turn gets forced to get a facelift. I mean, this guy was next level manipulative and he started using the excuse that their daughter Alexis who is in med school Would be free that week because she had spring break. So it's

good timing. She could come home and help take care of her mom. So Michelle went in for her surgery and she was getting a lot of stuff done. Many different lifts on her face, different fillers, nose like she was doing a lot. And most plastic surgeons from what I understand will break this type of surgery up because the longer you're under anesthesia the more possible risk there is for a complication. So she was under anesthesia for nearly nine hours. And it was because Martin was so insistent on her having everything done at once. He didn't want it broken up like the doctor originally had wanted. And Martin also told the doctor that he was

extremely worried about his wife being able to handle the pain that she has a terrible pain tolerance and she's just going to be miserable after this so you need to prescribe her like every medication under the sun. And because Martin was a doctor this surgeon listened to him. And he ended up prescribing a bunch of stuff that he normally would not have prescribed for facial surgeries. This included percassette, lore tab, valium, ambion, and fenergian. And the thing that all these medications have in common

is that they all suppress your central nervous system. And these medicines cannot be taken at the same time because it's very likely you would overdose. So the surgeon was very worried about prescribing all of these medications for Michelle, but Martin was like, it's fine, I'm a doctor. I know how to dose these properly. I know how much to give her and when and what not to mix.

And that he will take care of her. He will keep her safe. That she's in the best possible hands because he loves her more than anyone else. And he's a doctor. So the surgeon listened to him and gave him all of those drugs. So Michelle made it through the procedure just fine.

And Alexis, her daughter ended up picking her up from the hospital. And when she picked her up, she's in a lot of pain. She's really upset and uncomfortable, which is pretty normal So she brought her home and you know got her settled into bed and her dad was like, you know You can just take the afternoon off. I'm gonna be home the rest of the day. I'll take care of her through the night I'll make sure she gets right medicine stuff. You can come back in the morning. So she did that she left

So the next day rolls around and Alexis comes over to the house and sees that her mom is Completely out of it like I'm talking sedated barely functioning So the next day rolls around and Alexis comes over to the house and sees that her mom is completely out of it. Like I'm talking sedated, barely functioning, she was heavily, heavily medicated. So Alexis goes to her dad and is like, what the fuck dad? Why did you give mom so much medication? She clearly didn't need that much and he said, well, she threw up at one point and I thought she may have thrown up her medication. So I gave her more. Now I think I may have given her too much. And Michelle was wearing an eye patch so she wasn't able to see anything that he was giving her. I mean she could have said I'm giving you Advil and it can be a percussed.

And she ended up telling Alexis that she was worried that Martin was giving her too many medications. So she asked Alexis to bring her all for medications, so she could go through and feel each one and get an idea of, you know, what they felt like in her hand, so she could have a better idea of what she was taking and see if he was giving her too much. And I just think that's really sad that Michelle had that feeling that she couldn't trust her husband. I can't imagine not trusting Josh and thinking that he would over-medicate me like that when I'm in such a vulnerable and helpless position. It's just really sad to think about what was going on in her mind during all this. So days pass and Michelle is recovering pretty well. Alexis had been spending a lot more

time there, was monitoring what her mom was being given a lot more. And there's one day that Alexis was washing her mom's hair. And she's washing her mom's hair and suddenly her mom looks up and goes, if anything happens to me, make sure it wasn't dad. Which kind of just blew Alexis away. At first she was said she was kind of set with her mom for even saying this and just felt totally confused and just weirded out by the whole thing. But she ended up kind of putting it out of her mind. She actually had to go back to school the next day. And she felt like

Michelle was in a pretty good place to leave her that she was definitely recovering and doing much better. And she actually said that she felt completely confident leaving. So the next day she got on a plane and went back to med school. So then on April 11th, 2011, Martin and his daughter Ada were coming home. He had picked her up from school, I believe. And they got back to the house at 11.35. They walk into the house just like normal. And he tells Ada to go upstairs and check on her mom. So she does. And Ada's pretty young at this point. She goes upstairs and she finds her mom unconscious and not breathing in a bathtub full of water.

She goes running out of the room, screaming to her dad, tells him what she found and he calls 911. And the 911 call is just bizarre. Martin seems very angry. And I'm not sure who he's angry with. I understand it's normal to be very upset and you really can't judge someone's behavior on a 911 call at all times because it is hard to say how you would react in this situation. Everyone has a different response to adrenaline and grief and all of those things. But it's very

uncommon to hear people be so mad. It seemed like he was literally mad at the dispatch person or maybe mad at Michelle even. There was a few times he said some things about Michelle. So he calls and he's screaming at them. My wife. Okay, is she conscious? I can't understand you okay? Can you come down to the little man? Okay, what is your wife's unconscious? She's unconscious. She's under water. Okay, but just get her out of there water. I'm telling you, I'm gonna put her out of the water. I see telling you, I'm just gonna follow the water out. I see all the water. She's under the water.

She's under the water. I was looking for her in the bathroom. Okay, is she breathing at all? She's not. Okay, sir, the man doing some dent-paste that on that way, okay? Do not hang out. What?

Fair. And then he hangs up, which is really weird. Most people stay on the phone with dispatch. They want you to stay on the phone until police get there. So they call him back because they don't even have his address. They call, they get his address. And by the way, he gives them the wrong address,

which we've seen before if you've been watching my channel for a while, and that normally means they're trying to delay the EMTs from getting there. But they call him back and he is still upset. He starts screaming, I'm a physician, I'm doing CPR and then he hangs up again. So this is 911, can I help you? I'm going to help you. They're on their way.

Is your wife breathing? She's not on the list of patients. I'll just keep going. You're doing well. I'm going to turn. They're on their way. Is your wife breathing? She's not. I don't know. I wish I was. You're not in progress.

You're doing CPR. You know? Oh, no. Where? How old is your wife? Her birth is 50 years old. She's a birth surgery. Is it coming to you?

Or will you? What kind of surgery did she have? She had a face病. Shard of face病? Yes. Okay. Do you know how to do CPR? I'm doing it. Okay, do not hit.

Oh. Oh. Oh. Super weird. So they call back again. And this is when Martin claims that he cannot get Michelle out of the bathtub, which is kind of strange. I mean, he's been working out lately.

He's like this big shot and can't lift his wife out of the tub. And his wife was about 180 pounds. She wasn't that that heavy so many people find that to be just very odd So he tells Ada his daughter to run across the street and get a neighbor The neighbor comes over and helps get Michelle out of the tub before the EMTs get there and by the way Martin did drain the water But unfortunately by the time paramedics got there Michelle Michelle was gone. Paramedics describe Martin as extremely frantic, angry, and he seemed to be even mad at Michelle. He said things like, why did you have to have this surgery? Oh, like he was talking at her while she's laying there dead.

And then Martin also calls Alexis, and very aggressively and frantically starts screaming at her over the phone too, that mom felt and isn't breathing and that paramedics are here. And then he just hangs up. So Alexis drops everything and immediately heads over to the airport to try to get back as soon as she can. And while she's driving to the airport, it hits her.

She realizes that Martin killed her mom. I mean, her mom had literally told her, if anything happens to me, make sure it wasn't your dad. She knew that he had possibly been over-medicating her and that her mom was concerned about that, and all the pieces just fell together. As soon as Alexis got to their house, she immediately asked Martin where all of her mom's medication was, because she wanted to count the pills and see how much had been given to her mom's medication was because she wanted to count the pills and see how much had been given to her mom since she was last there. At first, he said, I don't know, check the garage. Like, okay.

So she did, they're not in the garage, obviously. And Martin told Alexis that he actually had asked his son's girlfriend, Eileen, to flush all of the medication down the toilet because he was making him sad to look at it. So obviously, Martin's already looking extremely guilty here. And once Alexis hears that her dad got rid of the pills, it all made sense to her. I am so excited to be sponsored by NutriFull. It is one of my favorite products on the market. It is a must-have. I have now been on it for About nine months and I cannot tell you how much of a change it has made in my hair

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and free shipping when you go to nautical.com and enter promo code Kennell Ray. Find out why over 4,000 healthcare professionals recommend neutrophil for healthier hair. That's neutrophil.com spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L.com promo code Kennell Ray. Neutral.com promo code Kennell Ray. So backtracking a little bit. I mentioned that Martin had been cheating on Michelle. Let me tell you more about that. So while Alexis was taking care of her mom, her mom had mentioned to her that she was worried her father was cheating on her.

And Alexis is a very smart girl, so she ends up pulling phone records from her father. And the phone records looked fairly normal. However, there was one number that Martin kept calling and receiving calls from over and over again, in Salt Lake City, Utah. And this number ended up belonging to someone named Gypsy Jillian Willis. Gypsy was a woman that Martin had met online.

According to Gypsy, there was instant chemistry between the two of them. And that they really bonded over quantum physics. Gypsy also knew that Martin was married but just didn't care. She said that she wasn't looking for anything serious and men cheat on their wives all the time. She really didn't care how it was affecting their family at all. Martin was assuring her that he had the perfect life and the perfect life back at home and didn't want to get in anything serious with Gypsy either. So it was a perfect fit.

But Michelle knew that name. She knew that Martin had been talking to a woman named Gypsy Julian Willis and she was suspicious of this person. And Alexis knew this name as well. Now like I said, Martin was a super manipulative guy and he ended up talking to police and convincing them that this was an accident and Michelle had just drowned while he wasn't home. When they did the autopsy, it was ruled that Michelle died of natural causes, but all of her kids felt like this was bullshit. How does a 50-year-old healthy woman just drop dead? Michelle did have high blood pressure, but they did not think that this was enough to kill her in a natural way. Plus the older kids knew the circumstances

around the marriage what was going on. That Michelle knew that he was cheating on her, that he was possibly overmedicating her. And of course, the fact that Michelle had told Alexis that she was worried her dad might kill her. And what's also suspicious is Martin decided they needed to have the funeral immediately. He was super super adamant about them all moving on really quickly and they had the funeral just three days after she died. And Michelle's family

was very skeptical about Martin. They already didn't like him and they just thought that her death was super unusual. They had talked to the kids, suspicion and rumors were already starting to float around the family. So Martin told her whole side of the family pretty much that they weren't allowed to come to her funeral because of this, because they weren't being supportive. And if they did come to the funeral, he would call police and have them escorted out. A few of Michelle's friends were allowed to attend the funeral, but it was mostly Martin's friends. He controlled the whole thing. He was really bossy to the kids and not, you know, nurturing to them

in a way that he should have been after their mother just died. He was just extremely cold and agitated. So a lot of the people that Michelle would have wanted out of her funeral literally were not allowed to be there, but guess who was? Gypsy Jillian Willis. That's right, this bitch literally went to her funeral. To this day, she says that she has no regrets, she doesn't feel bad for going, and she's there to support Martin. Who to this day, she says that she doesn't regret

loving him at all, and doesn't regret being there for him in those times. So they have the funeral, they bury their mom, and pretty quickly after that, Martin and Gypsy start turning up the heat in their own relationship. Right after Michelle died, Gypsy was already sending him nudes, and she said that this was too distracting and help him during these hard times. She does say now looking back, she's sorry that she did it. So it turns out that this was not a new thing. Martin had actually been seeing Gypsy for several years before Michelle died.

Now since Michelle was the main caretaker for all the kids and Martin worked, he decided after she died that they needed to get a nanny. The two oldest daughters in the family, Alexis and Rachel, said that they would volunteer to come home and take care of the kids and be there for their family. But Martin said no. He said that they needed to hire a nanny.

And of course, there was only one applicant for this nanny position. And Martin tried to play it off to his daughters. Like he didn't know who this was. He said that her name is Jillian something and they were like, wait, Gypsy, Jillian Willis. And he said yes. And that's when they told him, we know who that is.

We've seen that phone number. Mom was actually worried you were having a fair with that person. But he tried to play it off like he didn't even know her. In fact, when they first all came together, he pretended to meet her and say, what's your name again? Even though they had been together for years at this point.

So as crazy as it sounds, Gypsy ends up moving into their house. She's there to cook and clean and help the kids, but she ended up doing none of this. She did no cooking, didn't have anything to do with the kids. She's clearly just moving in. It seemed like Martin was just replacing his wife with a new woman. When Alexis and Rachel questioned Gypsy at all or questioned the whole situation, eventually they were kicked out of the house. So a few months go by, the older sisters are very suspicious and kind of working behind the scenes. And in the meantime Gypsy is telling Martin that she really wants him to come and meet her family in Wyoming. So they did. They took a trip to Wyoming just months after

his wife had died to meet his new girlfriend's parents. And Gypsy's parents say that when he came there, he actually told them that he never loved Michelle, that he didn't experience true love until he met Gypsy. And what's interesting is a lot of family members and Gypsy's family, including her parents, say that Gypsy is just a shitty person pretty much. Specifically, they said that she is deceptive, that she is malicious, and that she's overall a bad person. Gypsy's mom said that she actually bit her one time, so hard and left a huge bruise. They didn't have much to do with their daughter. And then get this. Martin ends up asking Gypsy to marry him only 90 days after Michelle died. His wife that he had eight children with. So like I mentioned, the older sisters at this time

are working to gather as much info against their dad as possible to present to police. So they finally presented to police and at first they didn't take them seriously at all. They just thought they were mad at their dad for having an affair and was trying to blame everything on him. So they turned to trying to get media attention. That's the best thing that you can do if you need attention on a true crime case to kind of get the ball rolling and put pressure on the police is to get it out to more people and make other people angry too.

But unfortunately every journalist or media outlet they went to turned them down, no one was interested in running the story. Eventually, though, they went to the governor's office with tons of different documents, and that's when they got in contact with Doug Whitney and Jeff Robinson, who were two investigators with Utah's prosecutor's office. Both Doug and Jeff only worked special cases, and the two of them were given this case specifically to look further into it. So, they started looking into Martin and his whole life before all of this happened

And it was then that they realized that Martin's whole life was full of lives You guys aren't gonna believe this, but it turns out that Martin had gotten into med school without getting an Undergraduate degree. He literally faked all his transcripts to get into school and never went to college He did go to med school He did somehow graduate, and many people that talk about Martin say that he was really, really smart. He just was a con man and manipulated his way through the system. Which just blows my mind that people can actually do that. I mean, how many cases have I covered with fraudulent doctors? People lying about their

degrees, it blows my mind. And it also makes me a little scared and you know, think twice about my doctors. I've covered like three cases with fraudulent doctors just in the last couple months. I'll link all those below if you're curious. But not only that, they found out that Martin had also served in the military, which is something he really bragged about to people.

But it turns out that he was actually discharged from the military because he told them he was schizophrenic. He said that he was hearing voices and because of this, he was able to live on army disability money for years. 30 years to be exact, Martin was getting an extra $3,000 a month from the military. They also figured out that at one point, Martin actually went to jail. Basically, he would open a checking account He would take the checks and spend tons of money using these checks even though he didn't actually have this in his account And manipulate the system he'd buy everything from socks shoes jewelry and a years worth of chocolate covered cherries

Okay, he also got convicted of forgery fraud and went to jail for 180 days. After this, he was on parole for three years, but not many people in his life knew about this. And this all happened before he attended med school, which makes the whole thing even more confusing. How did he get into med school with no real college degree? And he was a felon. I swear, these people that get through the system, it's so bizarre. So going back to after Michelle has died and the kids are trying to get anyone to listen to them

that they think it was their father. The girls ended up finding out that Martin at this time was trying to get rid of their adopted sisters and get them adopted by a new family. He just randomly told Alexis and Rachel one day that he was planning to have them adopted by some family in California that really wanted them. And Alexis basically said over my dead body well you give my sisters to someone else I will take care of them before that ever happens. So they went back and forth and argued about it and it became this

big point of contention. And in addition to this a few months after this Martin decided that he wanted to send their oldest daughter from the Ukraine, Jacelle, back to the Ukraine, just to visit. It was supposed to be just for the summer, but she ended up staying for months. And Martin decided he didn't want her to come back. And in the meantime, Martin and Jipsy are cooking up a plan

to take Jacelle's identity and give it to Gypsy. He literally took Jizel's social security number and made a new identity for Gypsy. They literally went to court, they changed the birthday on the social security number and everything. And the reason that they did this was because Gypsy had about 50 to 60 thousand dollars worth of credit card debt in her name. And this was their plan to get rid of it. According to Gypsy, she didn't really want to do this. It's really Martin's idea, but because of this, she had two fake military ID cards with that fake name and three joint bank accounts under the name as well. She had a fake birth certificate, a fake Utah ID, and even a fake social security card.

And Gypsy swears that this was just Martin influencing her the whole time, which may be he was a very manipulative person, but I think Gypsy was a lot like him. So eventually Michelle's sister Linda found out that Gisele was still in Ukraine and hadn't come back yet, and she was really pissed off and tried to get her home right away. She ended up sending her own daughter to Ukraine to visit Gisele and found out that she was living in terrible living conditions and was totally miserable there. She was actually sharing a pull-out couch with four different family members. So after nearly a year of her being in Ukraine, she was brought back to the US. But now because she was back, there were now two people with her identity. So they ended up

figuring it out and they went to the police and this is when Gypsy and Martin were arrested for stealing Jazelle's identity. So Martin was sentenced to four years in prison and during this time it was really good because Alexis was able to get back to the house and kind of take control of their family again. Alexis actually had temporary custody of the kids while Martin was in jail and he did not like this. He would call her and say, one day I'm gonna get out and I'm gonna walk to the kid's school, I'm gonna take them out of school and I'm going to send them back to the Ukraine.

Or sometimes he said they would just drop them off somewhere where no one would find them. But it was clear he had fully lost his mind and was just being open about his evilness at this time. So during all of this, Gypsy pleaded guilty to four felonies. But police started believing that she did something a lot worse than steal someone's identity. With all of this weirdness and her assuming one of the children's identity who was sent off to Ukraine

and just the timing that they got married and how she was at the funeral. So they started believing that maybe she was involved in Michelle's death, which was four years ago at this point It took them a long time, but investigators did start to see that it was clear Martin and Gypsy were involved in Michelle's death So they had to quickly pull together a case while the two of them were behind bars for the identity theft All of Michelle's family was super supportive of this because they all believed that Martin had something to do with Michelle's death. So the first step for this is getting the official medical examiners' cause of death changed. And their main argument to the medical examiner was about the position of her body. Both Ada and the neighbor who came over to the crime scene said that when they found her, Michelle was completely under the water other than her head, which was above the water and her eyes were open.

And she was right underneath the tub faucet. And they also said that the water was red. This can't be confirmed since Martin drained the water immediately. But Martin's account of things was completely different. And I don't know how there can be so much confusion over this, but Martin said that she's actually bent halfway over the tub. Like her upper half of her body was in the water, but the rest was hanging out almost as if she slipped trying to get into the tub. And they also made the argument that Martin gave them that wrong

address when he called, which just looks very suspicious. I mean, they've lived in that house a long time. He knew the address by heart. What's weird is Martin claimed that he was doing CPR on her, but when the first responders got there, they started doing CPR and water started gushing out of her mouth, which made them think that he didn't actually attempt to get for CPR at all. So while Martin and Gypsy are in jail,

the kids have really gone public, and now they're getting media attention and being taken seriously, that their dad's in jail and all this information is starting to come out. So they start asking the community to come forward with any stories about Martin see if he had possibly hurt anyone else or had done anything else and it wasn't long before many people started coming forward and saying that Martin had sexually assaulted them.

He was also known for being extremely inappropriate around his patients. And victim said that they were too scared to come forward because he would threaten them. And he said that he would get away with anything and he would leave the hospital before he ever got caught. One woman in particular that came forward

was named Anna Osborne. And according to her, she said that one time they were together and he just randomly told her that he had killed his brother. His brother's name was Rufus Roy McNeil, and he said that he killed him because he became an embarrassment to his family. He had told her that he had given his brother a syringe filled with drugs. He also claimed to her that he had tried to kill his own mother and that he had done several mercy killings while he was working as a doctor. He told Anna that he would only kill people who were handicapped or had no chance anyway. So this guy was completely deranged way more than anyone even realized and now looking

back, many people believe that he was a serial killer. So now that the family and lawyers have a lot more information and dirt on Martin, they are much more confident that they're going to be able to get this case reopened. Investigators ended up figuring out that Martin had really manipulated the medical examiner and lied about things such as the position of her body, which just confused them. So after a while of the family pushing and pushing authorities decided to review Michelle's talk ecology report, which you think they would have just

done anyway. But when they did, they found out that Michelle had a plethora of drugs in her system, including oxy, valium, ambient, and mortab, all very, very strong medications. Immediately, this is looking extremely bizarre. Michelle was apparently pretty much recovered. She was feeling really good that day. There was no reason for her to have this many drugs in her system.

So it started to look like someone was possibly force feeding her these medications. And because of this, they changed the official autopsy report from natural causes to undetermined. So in July 6, 2012, Martin was actually released from jail for his identity theft and went home. However, he wasn't home for long because at this point, investigators are ready to go full force and try to get justice for Michelle. He had seven weeks of freedom before he was arrested again and charged with the murder of Michelle McNeal. He had to stay in jail and tell the trial because he was put on a million dollar bond and couldn't pay it. But after some time, the finally trial began. And during the trial, all of Michelle's kids came holding signs of their mom. They wanted to make sure their dad remembered her and faced her photo while he was trying to defend himself. And they went from having almost no media coverage to tons of media coverage

because the media, especially HLN Nancy Grace, got super, super obsessed with this case. It was all Nancy Grace, like every night people were just following it, like a soap opera, and they were covering each step of the way. And then, I mean, I mean, I put yourself in this position. Let me go to Hugh G. Kassar's. G. Kassar's, he's saying he's trying to save his wife. Think about it, Jean, and he's answering the phone. Hello, I don't get it.

Why would you answer the phone? Why you're trying to save your wife's life? This is a very prominent doctor and lawyer who served with our American military. So the defense was arguing that this was just a natural death, that Martin had nothing to do with it. And even though the circumstances were weird and his behavior was bad, he was cheating, yada, yada, yada,

he would never have killed his wife. And that's just out of the question. However, the prosecution was arguing that he did kill his wife, that he gave her a concoction of drugs, possibly drowned her, possibly smothered her, held her in the water. No one's exactly sure what he did, but it's pretty obvious that he did something. It's even possible that he gave her, you know, all those medications right before getting in the bathtub and she got in and drowned just because she overdosed. I mean, that's possible, but it's pretty clear

that without Martin, she would still be alive. The defense ended up arguing that the reason that Martin couldn't pick his wife about of the tub, even though he was working out and stuff was because he had toe cancer. Martin was going around telling people he had toe cancer. In court, they actually just claimed that it was a bad foot, but in real life, he was

telling people it was cancer, and that he may not live a long time because of it. It made him really weak and sick, but there is no proof that he actually had this. But he would walk with a limp because of this, and even in trial, he's walking with the limp. The prosecution really drove home the idea that she did not need all these drugs. It was very clear that his intent was to kill her just by him getting all of these drugs. He drove her to a doctor that was way out of their town

just because he knew that he would prescribe anything. And they had this guy up on the stand and he just said that, you know, Martin was a doctor. So I thought, you know, he'd take care of his wife. He would know how to dose her properly and felt like she was in good hands. Why did you prescribe it here? Because Martin was a physician and he asked me for these things.

Was it your intention that Michelle take all these joys together? No. Would you prescribe this combination to her if Martin was not a physician? No. And one of the days they actually brought in a bathtub as evidence. This makes an impact on the jury for sure for them to look at the actual crime scene in a way, and they could demonstrate a physical representation of what actually happened to Michelle. And the prosecution also brought up the inconsistencies with Martin's story about how

he found Michelle halfway into the tub and halfway out, yet Ada and the neighbor both so that she was completely submerged in the water. They also brought up the fact that Martin had asked Eileen, you know, his son's girlfriend, to flush all of Michelle's medication down the toilet. Like, why? Why was that a priority? It just looks like you're getting rid of evidence. A Martin was seemed frustrated and he's like, I don't want to do this anymore. And then he asked me to flush the pills down the toilet. And did you do that? Yes.

Did that request seem strange to you? At the time I, it did seem strange, yes. Why did you comply with that request? Because he asked me to, and he just lost his wife, and I wanted to help. Okay. So then they actually brought Anna Osborne on the stand. And this is the woman that Martin had confided in about killing patients, about wanting to kill his mother, about killing his brother. And she said on the stand that there were multiple times that Martin told her,

I have the perfect way of killing someone without getting caught. He had actually mentioned to her that if you give someone potassium, it can cause a heart attack for them. But you really can't detect this in the body because we already have potassium in our bodies and everyone has a different amount. So you can't really determine how much someone had before their death to see if, you know, someone gave them potassium. It's just a really sneaky way of killing someone. There's something you can give someone that's natural, that's there after they have a heart attack,

so that it's not detectable. And so you could cause someone to have a heart attack, and the drug would supposed to be there anyway, and so you wouldn't be able to tell. That's correct. Now during the whole trial, Martin really showed no emotion, no remorse, no expressions really at all. He even sat there and watched his own kids testify as they told how horrible their lives have been since their mother died and how much they just trust him and that they straight up

think he killed their mother and he had no reaction to this at all. My mom was just wonderful. My mom was my best friend. Who is Martin McNeil? It was my dad. Is he in the court today? Where is he seated, Vanessa? Right there.

My father picked up the phone. He said that your, your mother's not breathing. She's in the bathtub. He physically showed step by step how he found my mother and talked about Ada. showed step by step how he found my mother and talked about Ada first finding my mother. When it was time for Alexis to get it there and testify who clearly had the most information about all this, the judge actually made a ruling that she was not allowed to talk about what Michelle had told her,

you know, when she said if anything happens to me, it was dad. They said that that was hearsay and she could not say it in the trial, which was crazy. But she ended up having a really successful testimony anyway. So on the sixth day of the trial, Gypsy actually took the stand. Gypsy stayed very matter of fact, almost kind of like unbothered. She came across on a really gross way to me. How do you know the defendant? She stayed very matter of fact, almost kind of like unbothered. She came across on a really gross way to me. How do you know the defendant? We were involved a number of years ago.

We met online. Did the relationship become sexual? It did. I think we probably had sex half the time. I mean, sometimes it was just lunch. She didn't bring any emotion to her testimony. Didn't feel any remorse either. And really tried to defend Martin as much as she could.

It turns out that all that time in jail, Gypsy and Martin were still communicating, they were writing love letters back and forth. And some of these letters were actually read during the trial, and that actually made Martin emotional, so much so that he would cry when they would read them. Couldn't cry over his wife, couldn't cry over his eight kids that hate him, and then he killed his wife, but he cried over Gypsy in their love. You know, this was two years after she passed away, I don't. I'll ask questions, thanks.

Okay, so he wrote to you. Well, we wrote back and forth, yes. And you refer to each other with terms of engearment and such. Prison is a very lonely place. How does he address it to you? Dear sweetheart. Well you laid the grid this line.

He wrote to you right there. I will work hard to keep your love for me. But they ended up bringing in a bunch of inmates that Martin had spent time in jail with. And they said that while he was in jail, he never lived, never talked about foot pain. Just wasn't a thing. There were a few inmates that said that he sometimes would walk with a cane and told people

he had multiple sclerosis in there. But not only that, they also talked about some things that Martin had told them that were really concerning. One inmate testified that Martin had told him about his relationship with Michelle and said they had a really bad relationship. He said that Martin told him that Michelle was trying to steal his money and that she wasn't gonna let him get away with cheating on her. So he had to take care of her. He also mentioned to another inmate that he had given her oxy and some sleep medicine and told her to get into the bath. He also said to another

inmate that he kind of had to help her out, meaning he had to hold her head under the water and make sure she stopped breathing. And multiple inmates said he would say things like, I'm happy the bitch drowned and I'm glad she's dead. He said he murdered his wife. He didn't say it like that, but he said, I'm getting away with murdering my wife. Poyer was the fourth of five inmates to testify for the prosecution. The others did so off camera, still incarcerated and fearing for their safety by snitching on McNeil.

The inmates testified McNeil confessed to killing his wife, but without actually saying it. He said he gave her some oxy and some sleeping pills and then got her to get in the bathtub. Did he say what he did next? Later on, he just said he had to help her out. And I asked him what that was, and he said he held her head under the waterfall a little while.

He said that she was in the way that she wanted the house and the kids. He said they couldn't prove that he did anything. I just went up to him and said, hey man, I apologize about your wife. And he was, I'm not glad the bitch is dead. Did Martin talk to you at all about the relationship he had with his wife before she died?

There was going downhill that they're trying to get his money. She was not going to let him keep cheating on him, keep cheating on her. That was all a lie, of course, right? Yes it was. So after hearing all of this information, the jury was pretty convinced that Martin had something to do with Michelle's death. They ended up deliberating for hours. They were kind of struggling with the exact charge to give him,

but on September 19th, 2014, the jury came back into the room and gave the verdict. I will now request that the clerk read the verdict. Mr. McNeill, if you will stand, please. State of Utah versus Martin, doesn't know. We, the jury, having reviewed the evidence of the test in the case, find a defendant as to count one murder guilty. As you count to, abstract criminal justice, guilty, dated this night, dated November. Thank you. Please be seated.

So a few months went by before sentencing. And when they actually did the sentencing, all of the kids were able to get up and say something to Martin. This was really healing for a lot of them to be able to face him directly and say what they needed to say. This man who I once admired and loved made the choice to destroy others. He made the choice to destroy his family. He made the choice to murder my mother. He has victimized so many and has never shown remorse or taken any responsibility for

what he has done. Please let him know that there are consequences for his actions. Let him see that he is not above the law. He has created his own state. He has destroyed so many lives. He has been able to get away with so many crimes in his life. My father's missal is now crumbled. My father is a monster, and let's be held accountable for his actions. Please give my father the maximum sentence. I'd be for justice.

However, Martin acted completely and bothered by this. He was joking around with his attorneys during it, didn't look like he really gave a care at all, and in the end, the judge gave him the harshest possible sentence they could, and that was 15 years to life in prison. He will likely never get out of prison. Gypsy was never actually prosecuted in Michelle's death because there's no evidence that she actually participated in her death at all or that she even knew about it.

However, Michelle's family thinks that she did have something to do with it, that she was involved somehow and just her lack of remorse and total support for Martin in the end makes them feel like she wanted Michelle dead as well. Gypsy claims that she is so sorry to all Michelle's family and her daughters, but they really don't care. They don't think she cares at all claims that she is so sorry to all Michelle's family and her daughters, but they really don't care. They don't think she cares at all and that she just says that for, you know, public perception. Martin did appeal his sentence, however, he lost, and it was determined that he would stay

in prison for the rest of his life. However, on April 9, 2017, Martin was found dead in his jail cell. He had taken his own life. And it was only a few days before the 10th anniversary of Michelle's death. Officials with the Utah Department of Corrections say McNeil was discovered in one of the prison yards, unresponsive. New Specialist Nicole Val has the details about his death. Officials do not suspect foul play at this point, but unified police are heading the investigation to determine an official cause. Ashley and Keith, we also reached out to McNeil's daughters tonight for comment. They declined to speak.

His daughters actually did go to his funeral and they said that it was a healing time for them to kind of say goodbye, have a strange sense of forgiveness, which is really important in the stages of moving on. And it allowed them to kind of release all that fear and anger that they had been dealing with for so long and know that he can never harm them or anyone else again. Alexis ended up adopting her younger sisters and raised them to this day. Rachel ended up going to school to become an LCSW so she can help other families one day, which is amazing. Alexis got married

and had kids of her own and she changed her last name to summers. One of the younger sisters L actually had her own daughter as well but it's just really hard for them to know that at the end of the day Michelle is in there to meet any of her grandkids and she loved kids so much she would have just been over the moon to have you know her family growing. The family has done everything they can to remove Martin out of their lives in any way, including taking wife of Martin off of Michelle's gravestone. It's a really, really sad case,

but it just shows you how important it is to fight for justice if you think something's wrong. It's really amazing what Rachel Lexus and all the kids and their family did to fight for their mother and without them Martin may have just continued on with his life and gotten away with murder and it's a good thing that he is no longer on this earth to hurt Anyone else because I believe he probably would have That is gonna be it for me today guys Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really does help me out.

If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendal Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there. you