The tragic case of Michele MacNeill
It was in the early morning hours.
The police received a frantic call from a distraught husband.
Martin: My wife has fallen in the bathtub!
Dispatcher: Ok, is she conscious?
Martin: She’s not. I’m a physician. She’s unconscious. She’s underwater.
Dispatcher: Ok did you get her out of the water?
Martin: I can’t. I couldn’t lift her out. I let the water out.
Michele Came From California
Michele MacNeill was a beautiful woman from California, USA. And She had many suitors. But she ended up falling for an aspiring doctor and lawyer, Martin MacNeill.
The two married and had eight children; Rachel, Vanessa, Alexis, Damian, Giselle, Elle, Sabrina, and Ada. Their last four children were adopted.
The MacNeill family lived in a gated community in Pleasant Grove, Utah. And their family seemed happy from the outside.
However, Martin’s behavior changed as he grew older.
He became obsessed with his looks when he turned fifty. He started tanning a lot and exercising to lose weight.
Martin also started disappearing from home for days in a row.
Michele confronted Martin about it, but Martin always found a way to change the topic.
Martin Convinced Michele to Do Plastic Surgery
Martin told Michele to better herself by undergoing a full facelift plastic surgery.
Michele agreed.
But Martin was hurrying Michelle to do the surgery as soon as possible. Martin reserved an anesthesiologist, and the surgery was scheduled in about two weeks.
On April 3rd, 2007, Michele had her surgery.
One of the couple’s daughters, Alexis, came home from Nevada medical school to care for her mother.
Alexis realized that her mother was heavily sedated the next morning. Michele regained consciousness almost twenty-four hours later.
Michele told Alexis that Martin kept on giving her medication.
Then Alexis confronted Martin about it, and he admitted to it.
So Alexis warned Martin to stop giving her mother any more medicine. And she spent the next four days taking care of Michele and monitoring her medication.
Around that time, Michele told Alexis;
“If anything happens to me, make sure it wasn’t your dad.”
Michele Believed Martin Was Cheating
Michele also suspected Martin was cheating on her, so she asked Alexis to investigate. And Alexis soon found out that Martin was having an affair with a woman named Gypsy.
Nonetheless, Michele appeared to be healing, and so Alexis returned to school. But a frantic 911 call was made from the MacNeill home the following day on April 11th, 2007.
Martin hung up on the dispatcher three times in less than five minutes. He didn’t give an audible address, so the police took time trying to locate his home.
Meanwhile, Martin sent his youngest daughter, Ada, to get help from their neighbors.
The neighbors rushed to the MacNeill home only to find Michele half dressed in the tub. They helped Martin to lift Michele out of the tub.
Martin attempted CPR on Michele to no avail.
Martin, also called Alexis;
“Your mother, she is in the tub. She is not breathing. I called an ambulance.”
Then he hung up.
Alexis couldn’t believe the news she had gotten. She dropped all her books and rushed to the airport.
Unfortunately, Michele didn’t make it.
The doctors concluded that Michele died from natural causes since she also had underlying medical conditions. The police closed Michele’s case.
Michele’s funeral was held a few days later.
Alexis Suspected That Martin Killed Michele
Meanwhile, Alexis told her older sister, Rachel, that she suspected their father had killed their mother.
It didn’t make sense that Martin, who claimed to be an experienced doctor, repeatedly hung up on 911.
Alexis had asked Martin about her mother’s pills. She wanted to figure out how much he had given her before she died. But Martin told Alexis that he had flushed them in the toilet because it made him too sad to look at them.
Martin seemed to be moving on too fast shortly after his wife’s death. His girlfriend, Gypsy, had already moved in with him.
Martin threatened to kick Alexis out of med school when she confronted him about Gypsy.
He went on to propose to Gypsy three months later.
Alexis Knew Something Was Off
Alexis and Rachel never stopped fighting for justice for their mother’s death. Then two years after Michele died, an investigator agreed to reopen the case.
Martin had a lot of hidden skeletons.
Martin’s career as a doctor and a lawyer was all a lie. It was based on fake transcripts from various colleges.
The investigator discovered that Gypsy had stolen Martin’s fourteen-year-old adopted daughter Giselle’s identity.
Martin and Gypsy applied for a new social security card with Giselle’s personal details.
Martin and Gypsy also made a lot of fake IDs, including state ID cards and bank accounts. So Martin and Gypsy were arrested for identity theft and put behind bars.
Meanwhile, investigators worked hard to find evidence that Martin killed Michele. Martin was soon charged with Michelle’s murder.
Many People Testified Against Martin
Martin’s daughters testified against him.
Alexis stated how Martin continued to overdose Michele with pills even after she threw up.
“Well, I don’t know. I must have done something wrong… Your mom threw up, so I gave her more meds.”
Martin told his daughter after she confronted him.
The surgeon who performed Michelle’s plastic surgery told the court that;
“Martin insisted that he should prescribe a strong combination of painkillers and sedatives that were rarely taken to recover from that type of surgery.”
The surgeon knew that Martin was a doctor, so he agreed.
Martin’s fate was sealed with his prison inmates’ testimonials.
Martin had confessed to some of the prison inmates that he had killed Michelle and gotten away with it.
The prosecution focused on Martin’s movements on the morning that Michele died. There was about an hour and a half when no one knew where Martin was.
The prosecutors brought in a replica of the tub where Michele was found. The tub was very small for Michele to have slipped under the water.
So Martin staged a drowning accident.
The Aftermath
Martin was found guilty of first-degree murder and was sentenced to 17 years to life. But he committed suicide in prison in April 2017.
Meanwhile, Gypsy had an alibi for where she was on the day Michele died, so she was never charged with anything related to her death.
However, she remains the motive in Michele’s murder.