November 16, 2021 • 41 mins
Michelle was 21-years-old when she met her husband-to-be Martin McNeill. The pair quickly eloped, and over their 30 year marriage raised eight children and were pillars of society, until...secrets started bubbling to the surface and it was revealed that this picture-perfect life was built on a stack of lies and deception including infidelity, plastic surgery and discovering you married a monster.
Check us out online! www.instagram.com/KT_Studios
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Crazy and Love is the true crime podcast that tells
love stories with a twist. She used this beautiful homecoming queen.
He is this young and up and coming doctor. I
mean they literally couldn't sound like a more perfect couple
sometimes the twist of a knife. He certainly checked all
the boxes of a psychopath. I mean someone who is callous,
not emotional, morally depraved, had a lot of charm, highly intelligent,
(00:23):
extremely manipulative. Just because things start off with once upon
a Time doesn't mean everyone lives happily ever after. This
is Crazy and Love, a production of Katie Studios and
I Heart Radio. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a crime producer at
Katie Studios, joined by fellow producers Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Shane,
(00:48):
Beth Greenwald, and Chris Graves. We're exploring the story of
the homecoming Queen, the husband, and his deadly midlife crisis.
Michelle was twenty one year old when she met Martin
McNeil in at an event for young Mormon singles. Despite
Michelle's concerned family, she fell for Martin quickly, and the paraoped. Eventually,
(01:13):
Martin and Michelle moved to Pleasant Grove, Utah, thirty five
miles south of Salt Lake City. They were considered pillars
of the community. Martin was a doctor of osteopathic medicine,
and years later he also received a law degree. Martin
and Michelle both wanted a big family and started having
children right away. Michelle gave birth to four kids in
(01:36):
five years and went on to adopt four more children.
By all accounts, Michelle was an amazing mother and her
kids were her life. Martin beats Michelle, who's a bombshell
and you know, high school homecoming queen and I believe
she just won some local beauty pageant and sweeps her
(01:59):
off her feet. And Michelle was twenty one when she
met Martin, and they only dated for a few months.
I think it's a common thing in the eldest church
to get married at a relatively young age, and you know,
they were compatible and so they buried quickly. The happy
times were actually not just when they met and got married.
If you look at videos of them at Christmas and
(02:19):
the kids are opening president like they've got all of that,
and you would think, seeing this couple from the outside,
that they were this perfect match. They lived in a
gated community and were active members of the church. I
think he worked at the Church of LDS at some point.
Um so by all accounts, I mean, she used this
beautiful homecoming queen. He is this young and up and
(02:41):
coming doctor who's also getting his law degree. I mean,
they literally couldn't sound like a more perfect couple. Michelle
grew up in Concord, California, which is about an hour
east of San Francisco, and her father left when she
was around sixteen, so her family really struggled financially. So
you know, she she ran towards Martin. Here's this motivated
(03:03):
guy who studied to become a doctor, eventually becomes a lawyer,
served in the military. I think she, you know, really
adored him and saw this big, bright future, and I
think he played into that with Michelle. If we're looking
at Michelle and they get married and then months later
he's in jail for forgery, which she must have known.
(03:23):
I mean, unless he was that great of a convincing
her and told her I'm going on vacation for a
couple of months, So that says something about to me,
he must have had some sort of sway on her,
because that's a red flag and also to an earlier
point they eloped, which probably means that you know, her
family already had red flags about this guy, So she
(03:45):
was already kind of walking away from her family and
her life, and once she committed to it, I think
she maybe felt stuck or maybe hope things would get better,
or maybe things were better, but she wasn't going to
turn around and say you were right. And also like
that there's one before Duran fraud, Like without knowing the
specific charges and not being a lawyer myself, like I
think you could kind of explain those away, like, oh,
(04:07):
I had to I had to sign this form and
I didn't need to sign it, and I had to
do it to get it out. You could kind of
explain that as something that you would just have to do.
And you know, she, not being an expert in the field,
might have just been naive to it. And as you said, Stephanie,
he's a world class liar, and so I imagined he
was pretty smooth and explaining his crimes to her, and she,
you know, whether she wanted to believe it or she
(04:28):
did fully believe it, I mean she she stuck with him.
And you know, like we said, there Mormons and so
divorce not okay, especially after just a few months of
being married. I would imagine, like, why wouldn't she stick
with him. He made a mistake, he paid for his mistake,
and now things are better. In March of two thousand seven,
after nearly thirty years of marriage, Martin turned fifty. He
(04:51):
suddenly became obsessed with his appearance and started working out,
losing weight, and even went to the tanning salon. Understandably,
Michelle suspicious Martin was having an affair and confronted him.
He vehemently denied he was cheating. Your spouse suddenly starts
hitting up the tanning salon, ned, you know, years and years,
(05:15):
eight children in and that's a new thing. That's a tell.
That's like the number one tell is when a spouse
starts to change their habits, so they go to the gym,
they start carrying, but they got a different haircut. Like
those are the things that like every Cosmopolitan magazine has
that as the number one thing when your spouse is
cheating on you. And and so it's whether or not
(05:37):
Michelle knew that or noticed that. She must have because
her kids were aware, so she must have been aware.
After continuing to deny cheating, Martin suggested Michelle should get
a facelift. She was conflicted, but ultimately agreed as she
thought it would help her marriage. Michelle had the surgery
(05:58):
and was released from the hospital. Alexis, the McNeil's twenty
four year old daughter, came home from medical school to
help her mother heal. Alexis was quickly concerned when she
found out that her mother was unresponsive. Her father, Martin,
didn't seem alarmed by this and told Alexis he quote
probably over medicated Michelle. It was later revealed that Martin
(06:20):
gave the plastic surgeon a list of pain medications that
he wanted prescribe to Michelle. At this point, Michelle had
bandages over her eyes and was so fearful of Martin's
efforts to administer the pain medicine that she had Alexis
help her feel each of the pills so she could
identify what Martin was trying to give her. On April eleventh,
two thousand seven, Martin picked up his youngest adopted daughter,
(06:43):
Aida from school. When they got home, he told the
six year old to go and check on her mother.
Aida found Michelle unconscious in the master bathtub. Martin called
nine one one all wold mortally, Okay, what the mob?
I'm saying, leave that side? What's on? Crowing in the
(07:07):
dog though? Under about? Doesn't about? Time on the wa? Okay?
Is she conscious? You don't be. I'm avis, so I
need to concious so I can't understand you packing it
Calm down and thought, man, Okay, what if your wife
is unconscious? She's unconcious in the world? Okay, did you
(07:31):
did you get her out of the water? And then
I cook you a little world? The only word her
she's under the water, she's on the wad woman. Okay?
Is she breathing at all? She is not? Okay, so
the ambulance has been paged there on that way, Okay,
do not hang out? What sir? Shut up up? No not?
(08:04):
What didn't I would? Why would an adult female piece?
So that is nine one one? Can I help you on?
(08:25):
They're on their way? Is your wife breathing? People in progress?
You're doing CPR? How old is your wife? Oh? What
kind of surgery? Did she have a little plate for?
She had a facelift? Okay? Do you know how to
(08:47):
j CPR? Lar? Okay, do not hang He calls and
then hangs up on nine one, and they doing their job,
tracked down the number of that called from to call back,
and he answers the phone and hangs up on them again.
Why would you hang up on nine one? You know,
I think he was trying to delay aid to his wife.
(09:09):
You know, she still had a pulse, and I think
he knew that obviously, being a doctor. What a psychopath?
Also to allow your little daughter to go find her
dead mother, I mean that's the most disturbing. Why would
he do that? I mean I'm trying to think of
how that lends itself to his story. Also, it makes
it seem like it asks you'd have to ask yourself
(09:30):
that same exact question, why would he do that? No,
no good man would ever let his daughter find her
dead mother. I mean I also think again, it was
all about Martin. You know that Martin thought maybe it
would look less like he was involved with, you know,
his six year old daughter stumbling upon her body. And
and then he sent that six year old to the
(09:50):
neighbor's house. And I think you know those antics as
six year old running over the neighbor's house because he
needed help getting Michelle out of the tub. And I
mean we've all seen pictures of her. She was not
a large woman, she was pretty petite. Well, yeah, the
the neighbor who ended up coming over to help the husband,
(10:10):
he actually testified in court that he wouldn't have had
any trouble lifting around on he on his own. We
know he had been going to the gym and working
on his physique, so he was in that ship of
his life. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Hearing then that a
one called just to be able to call nine on
one and fake the screaming and being upset is just
next level. I mean, to put yourself in his shoes.
(10:31):
What he's thinking, what he's doing is insane, like someone
who's not in their right mind. I mean, it's it's egregious.
But it turns out Martin's entire life had been a lie.
In order to get into both medical school and law school,
he falsified records. You know, this is a world class wire.
So you know, sometimes a smooth talker can present themselves
(10:52):
one way and be completely another. And perhaps, you know,
Michelle really just wanted to find love. You know, Martin
had a law degree just by being a convicted felon
and as apparently only three states outright banded convicted felons
from ever becoming lawyers Kansas, Mississippi and Texas well. He's
(11:13):
clearly into himself, and I think we're dealing with an
arcissist again. He wants to have those accolades. He wants
everybody to look at him as this big person in
in the community. So who's who's going to look even
bigger than a doctor and a lawyer. That is such
a good point. What is the actual clinical definition of
a psychopath? He certainly checked all the boxes of a psychopath.
(11:36):
I mean someone who is callous, not emotional, morally depraved,
had a lot of charm, highly intelligent, extremely manipulative. I
mean he was certainly all those things, and to an
earlier point, he had a grandiose sense of self worth.
I think they'll like looking at this story afterwards. It's
easy to say that he seems like a psychopath now
(12:01):
that we know what we know. But I think when
you're in Michelle's position, and you're lying in bed next
to the sky every night, it's probably much more difficult
to notice these things and have like she's not writing
them on a list, all these things that he's done
that are wrong, and when you're in love with someone
and you have a family with them, I think it's
probably easy to kind of move past something and forget that.
He did that. In Michelle's defense too, he was he
(12:23):
was keeping all of that stuff like he was smart enough. Um,
like he got caught when he was younger. But it
sounds like he was a real master at living a
double life. And she's busy raising his kids. There's four
kids plus another four kids. The the amount of bandwidth
she'd have left to be like, hmm, what do you do?
(12:44):
And this I don't did you graduate high school to
get into that college to get law degree? I don't
do you you know, I don't know. I don't know
what she knew. Necessarily, she probably wasn't thinking that. She
was like, this is my husband and he's sleeping next
to me. Were having these children, he's bringing home a
paycheck and you know, from all accounts he loves me. Um.
(13:06):
And I think it was much. It was again, it
was a midlife crisis. I think that he just kind
of went a wild and got himself caught at that point.
The other thing that came up, and again, I mean,
when you think about it, she's not like looking at
his transcripts, but in I think he also pleaded no
contest to medicate fraud and he was banned for medicaid
(13:28):
billing for twelve years. I mean again, that's that's something
that you could possibly hide from your spouse. Um. You know,
it's not like Michelle seeing him, you know, for as
medical purposes and writing an off tern insurance. So you know,
I mean all of this stuff. He was charming enough,
you know, and certainly was successful enough in the way
(13:49):
they were living their lives that you wouldn't think, you know,
one of your neighbor, your doctor, your church member, we
would be doing that. You know. It's not like she's
looking at Martin's transcript You're not fact checking someone who
you trust. By the way, for him, what a great distraction.
So many children aside from the fact that she was
physically pregnant for so many years in a row, and
(14:10):
if not, you know, nursing an infant, then oh that's
getting you know, maybe she has more time, so let's
add some more children to the next you know, it's
a really perfect cover, but hideous. We're going to take
a quick break. We'll be back in just a moment.
(14:42):
At this point, we know she's afraid enough of him
that she's having, you know, doing this crazy thing with
the eyes and counting the pills, which is a horrible visual.
Speaking of the pills, I mean, he's not her doctor,
and yes he has a medical degree, but he's not
a plastic surgeon. So what is he doing giving a surgeon,
a plastic surgeon, a list of meta castions that his
wife needs post surgery? Like that's crazy, right, I mean
(15:04):
that's crazy. And on top of that, like, I mean,
you're a physician, you know you would know that this
drug combination is not safe. It's a it's a toxic
combination that will suppress your breathing and eventually it'll end
up in some cardiac issue. So you know the fact
that the surgeon let Martin suggest all the medications, uh,
you know they're not meant to be mixed. It's crazy.
(15:25):
Did anyone look into the doctor? Did we know? Is
he yes? And to his point of view? Was you
know he wouldn't have done it if Michelle's husband, if
Martin wasn't a doctor. And again, this is a community.
You know who that knew doctor Martin McNeil. You know
he was an osteopathic doctor, and I think he was
trusted and he was going to administer the medication and
(15:48):
Michelle correctly, he was going to take care of her
after the surgery. So I mean, even the doctor that
performed the surgery testified that these medications were not meant
to be mixed. It's to how manipulous if he was
to be able to convince another doctor to do that,
like to be in that room and give him a
list of scripts, like I write his script, pat or whatever.
(16:09):
That's crazy. But not only that, she listed Martin as
her primary care physician on her paperwork. He testified to that,
so that was part of what led the doctor. I
think that is so bizarre. That is crazy. That has
to be a I mean, that's a serious conflict of interest.
If you were actually trying to help someone, you wouldn't
be your wife's doctor. But a lethal combination of pills
(16:32):
is also different, you know, to the original point that
Beth was making. That was an actual cocktail of death. Obviously,
poor Michelle is cognizant of this enough that she's having
her eldest daughter look at the pills. I mean, that's nuts.
I mean, to be clear, ambient valium, purposet, and fenergen,
which I think is also I think it's in cold medicine.
(16:52):
It's like a cost suppressant, all the things that, when
taken together God forbid, is inevitably lethal. I think it
speaks to the crazy and love of it all, Like
how in love she must have been, how afraid she
was to leave him, that she's afraid of him enough
that she would do all these crazy things, but then
also would bring her kids into it to try to
protect her from him murdering her, which she felt was imminent.
Also just the pure fact that she's being forced to
(17:14):
have facial surgery to hopefully keep her cheating husband close
to home and knowing full well she's about to go under.
If you're already fearing for your life, which you must be,
if you're having your eldest daughter go through the pills
and make sure that you're not being drugged by your father,
it's kind of astounding, frankly. Yeah, these poor kids that
(17:35):
they were put in the middle of this situation that
they felt they had to protect her mom. And then
you know, in looking at promise, how it's energy, which
is definitely something that's in cold medicine. It's used to
prevent and treat nausea and to stop vomiting when people
before and after surgery. So the mix, you know, it
(17:56):
makes me wonder, do you think he was giving her
that to keep the other in her system? Because if
you take too many pillars are gonna be thrown up.
Michelle did actually at some point throw up and and
Martin gave her more medicine stop. I believe that was
something that happened before Alexis found her mother unconscious, you know,
so Martin thought it was okay to give her more
medicine because she had vomited. You know. In listening to
(18:18):
that nine one one tape, you know, I think he
sounds like an angry individual. I mean the nine dispatcher
said she's never spoken to someone that aggressive and angry
and condescending. I mean, she was trying to help him
revive his wife. It was amazing to me in this
moment that the nine one one operator could see Martin
McNeil's this posture man who is an osteopath, that she
(18:41):
just saw an aggressive, angry and condescending man who was
not being helpful in this situation. On April eleven, two
thousand seven, Michelle died. The police and the autopsy reports
concluded that Michelle's death was accidental and due to card
you vascular disease. But Michelle and Martin's daughter Alexis was
(19:04):
suspicious of her dad. She wanted to check her mom's
remaining medication to see how many pills she took. Martin
said the pill bottles maybe in the garage. He said
he'd moved them there because it made him sad to
look at them. It was later revealed that Martin ordered
his son, Damien and Damien's girlfriend to flush Michelle's medication
(19:24):
down the toilet. Martin rushed to have Michelle's funeral, and
just days later hired a live in nanny named Julian.
Alexis confided in her sister Rachel that Michelle had Alexis
look into their dad's cell phone records. These records revealed
to them that Martin had been calling one number repeatedly
day and night. It had been going on for quite
(19:45):
a long time. Alexis did an online search and the
number belonged to Gypsy Gillian Willis, a woman. Michelle assumed
Martin was having an affair with Rachel and Alexis confronted
their father, Martin, about his relationship with Gypsy. He was
enraged and kicked his daughter's out of the house for
not accepting the woman. You know, in different religions, you
(20:09):
have a funeral, like a certain amount of time maybe
before you bury so on. But this this seemed like
a rush job that he put together. He wanted her buried,
dead and gone. I mean, Martin also banned Michelle's side
of the family from attending her funeral. You know, he
he had threatened to have them arrested if they came,
and they kind of he kind of already had driven
(20:29):
a wedge in between this family, which is how they
ended up living in Utah. And I think he just wanted,
you know, he wanted this done and gone, and he
wanted to move on. The daughters though, were there, and
they at this point I think we're pretty suspicious, right
they obviously if they're counting the pills and all that
they did not they're not a fan of their dads
at this point. Yeah, not only that Gypsies showed up
(20:50):
at the funeral. She did. Martin actually like he didn't
know who she was, and the daughters knew who she
was once she introduced herself. These kids just lost their mother.
You know, they obviously new things about their father, but
this is the straw that broke the camel's back. It's
almost like, you know, you're not just losing your mom,
You're losing You're losing two parents. This man you've known
(21:10):
your whole life. It's a little worse than just losing him.
You you don't know the monster lives in your house, right,
pillow bottles in the garage. I mean, it made him
quote unquote sad like that. That to me, it seems
like he's just trying to hide evidence. You know, Alexis
wanted to see what was remaining of those pills for
a reason. We already knew that he had accidentally given
(21:32):
her too much of the pain medication, even to the
point where she threw up. Uh, you know, he thought
it's it's not working, so I'm gonna give her more.
And and Michelle had concerns. I mean, she wanted to
know the shape of each pill so we couldn't give
her a lethal dose. And Alexis following through to see
how many pills were left, to see how many she
had taken in such a short amount. Of time. Well, yeah,
(21:53):
and then to add insult to injury, he moves this
woman who then you know that alexis new from the
phone records, into the house nine days later, under the
auspices this Gypsy, under the auspices that she's the nanny
to help take care of the younger daughters. And I
know that Rachel Um, the other sister, testified that she
(22:15):
just saw her dad doing all the house where this
woman wasn't doing any of it. She was just sleeping
in his room and hanging out on the couch. And
she would have expected her to take care of the
kids and at least cook a mute or two when
she wasn't doing it. So this woman, Gypsy Willis, was
not an expert nanny as far as I could find,
but she was kind of an expert con artist. Um.
(22:35):
It turns out that she had owed sixty dollars to
the I R. S. And that's a substantial amount of money,
and so what her and Martin decided to do together
was to avoid paying the debt. Martin helped facilitate that
they would steal one of the one of his daughter's
Social Security numbers so that Gypsy could essentially open bank
(22:57):
accounts in her name and start fresh. The mistress was
basically stealing her boyfriend's daughter's identity with the boyfriend's help.
In two thousand and nine, and two years after Michelle's death,
the FEDS finally charged Martin with identity theft and he
was sent in stop workers in prison for that. Gypsy
was indicted on similar charges and was sentenced to twenty
one months in prison. The worst part of that, like
(23:19):
I said earlier, is is this poor daughter was stuck
just all was stuck back in the Ukraine, uh, living
in a tiny little apartment with barely any running water apparently,
um kind of, and was there for months until they
were arrested, and all of this was figured out, and
and Alexis and I believe Michelle's sister could go over
(23:42):
to the Ukraine to pick her up and bring her
back to the US to her home. I mean, that's
that's some real expert level in baggery by by Martin.
You know, Martin had money. Martin was a doctor, and
and it later came out that you know, is still
receiving military benefits even though he was discharged. Did Martin
(24:05):
not have like sixty to clear this up? For Gypsy
or was it just another you know, another grift. Yeah.
I was gonna say, I bet you anything. He's addicted
to that kind of stuff, that rush that he would
get to try and pull one over, whether it's the
government or his wife or his family back in the day,
(24:26):
or whoever he wrote that bounced check to that got
him arrested. Originally, this was a rush for him. It
seems like everything he's doing is a little bit of
a rush, like stealing the daughter's identity, moving this mistress
into his house nine days after his wife's staff under
the guys that she's a nanny, like he didn't have
to lie. His daughters hated him at that point. They
(24:46):
thought he's a killer. Why are you even pretending she's
a nanny? If not just because he likes a con
m he likes to get away with things, which again
goes back to psychopath. Martin proposed to Gypsy and he
presented her with a four and a half carrot diamond
ring shortly after Michelle passed away. And the one thing
I don't know if we hit you know, with the funeral,
(25:09):
is Gypsy and actually texted Martin like half naked pictures
of herself while he was at Michelle's funeral, which to
me is just so disgusting. None of these things just
seem like he's such a he's a psychopath and he's
murdered his wife and he has this big plan, but
some of these things seem so sloppy, like the medication,
the text thing, and all those things are. He should
(25:30):
know that they're going to look through the time stamps
and if they're ever investing geting him, they're going to
figure it out that he just think he was never
going to even be looked at. He must have. I
think he thought he was too smart to get caught.
He's gotten a medical degree with with false information, He's
gotten a law degree with false information. He's had how
many years of marriage without getting caught before now. I
(25:51):
think he was living high on his himself and he was,
which is exactly where investigators like criminals like him, because
then they started making mistakes because they don't they don't
think they're gonna get caught. You know, Martin didn't get
tried for Michelle's murder until six years later. You know,
I think honestly they put effort into catching him on something,
(26:13):
to hold on to him while they investigated, you know,
Michelle's death further, because otherwise Martin would have probably married
Gypsy and you know, moved on to another khan or
another grift. Michelle's adult children vocally appealed to the media
and fought for an official review of Michelle's toxicology report.
(26:34):
The Utah County Attorney's office finally agreed to investigate Michelle's death.
The chief Medical Examiner found that the medications and Michelle's
body were not at a toxic level, but that the
combination of all the medicine, including ambient vallium, feenergen and
percocet quote could have led to sedation and heart arrhythmia,
(26:55):
resulting in cardiac death. On October six, two three years
after Michelle's death, her manner of death was changed to undetermined,
the cause listed as combined effects of heart disease and
drug toxicity. In July, Martin McNeil was released from prison
after serving two years for identity they have charges. Utah
(27:18):
County officials announced that Martin was a suspect and the
murder of his wife. Two months later, Martin McNeil was
arrested and held on one million dollars bond. He was
facing murder charges and the death of his wife. So
this is kind of when it all begins to unravel
for him, right They the Utah County Attorney's Office investigators
(27:40):
did a deep dive into his past and discovered that
literally everything he's accomplished in his life is built on lives.
He joined the military's on the team, but he was uh.
He was kicked out of the military very quickly after joining,
even though he was continuing to collect benefits for years.
He used phony transcripts to get into medical school, law
(28:00):
and law school. So all of these things combined and
really paint a picture of just what we've been saying
that this guy is a con artist from day one. Yeah,
I mean, he didn't just continue to get benefits. He
collected benefits for thirty years. And when you look at it,
he was kicked out of the military for being schizophrenic.
You know, he initially had four dreary charges and he
(28:22):
saw a piece on sixty minutes and thought he could
be a better forger. And let's not forget the Medicaid
building scheme that he pled no contest too. So I
think Alexis and Rachel really were trying to get this
case wide open, and once the Utah County Attorney's Office
got involved, it was just pulling a string on a
ball of yarn. Well, can you imagine Alexis and Rachel
(28:43):
and all the rest of the kids, you know, the
adult kids learning that when their dad was about their
age twenty three, that's when he falsified transcripts to get
into medical school to become a doctor. So he's been
a phony doctor since just about when they were worn.
But I mean, that's a long time to have been
doing fraud, you know. And I can only imagine that
(29:03):
Michelle didn't know about that. She probably celebrate They probably
went out to dinner and celebrated him getting into medical school,
all the house allies. Yeah, imagine being him too. You know,
it's all about the stuff. I'm crumbling down at some point,
and here we are. We're at that point. I also
believe that the investigation uncovered that Martin McNeil abused patients,
(29:24):
and a lot of them never reported it because of
his position in the community. They didn't think they were
gonna be believed. And I think they were also afraid
of him and the repercussions and possible retaliation. I can
totally see that there's a community that is letting this
man continue despite all of the allegations and there and
he's the one being believed, not necessarily the patients, but
(29:46):
not only that he had a girlfriend apparently Um. They
found out before Gypsy she was UM. I think he
met her through one of the medical centers that he
worked at, and she told told them that he had
told her that Um, he had killed tried to kill
his mom, and that he had also killed his brother Rufus.
(30:10):
Roy McNeil told her that there's a way to do it, um,
and there's a way to do it where it doesn't
look like it was homicide and you get away with murder.
And it happened to the same way Michelle was found
and the investigators when they looked into that, they found
out that yes, indeed his brother had been found in
that in a bathtub in New Jersey. That's startling to me. Yeah,
(30:32):
I mean he has an m O. Is what that says?
That's a lifetime of lies. Yeah, but there's decades between
that m O for investigators to realize that it's the
talented Mr. Ripley. You present yourself one way, and he
presented himself really lovely. It's scary. Let's stop here for
(30:53):
another quick break. I mean, there's always that one person
who sees through the veneer, and Michelle's family seemed to
have some sort of idea that the kind of person
(31:15):
Martin was. I mean, Michelle's mother did not like him
when she met him, and then of course there was
the warning from the bishop of the church, so Martin
made sure that Michelle's family couldn't attend the funeral because
they could see through and and see. Actually, who Martin
really was. Did he tell Michelle the judge? Is that
why he said he didn't like them? Is that what
(31:35):
he told Michelle? That he felt judged by them? No,
Actually that came out at the trial. He told that
to Gypsy. See that's interesting though, because I don't even
buy that, because that makes him the victim in that situation,
that it's like her family or the judge jerks, and
he's the poor guy who they're looking down upon, when
it's like really he's the one isolating his wife from
them and tearing her way. Yeah, he's telling the story
(31:57):
to Gypsy to make Gypsy feel sorry for him. I
met and to engender her loyalty, which is still there.
I believe I've seen a an interview clip with her
where she she's like, no, he didn't do this. I mean,
how does it look right to anybody that, First of all,
there's evidence that Gypsy had been popping up before Michelle died.
(32:19):
I remembered it was mentioned in a video that one
of the kid's birthday parties that Gypsy's car was parked
across the street and captured in the birthday video. And then,
in anyone's right mind, whether she was involved or not,
how could Gypsy possibly think it's right to move in
with the man that you were having an affair with
days after his wife passed away. I mean, either she
(32:43):
was madly in love with him and wanted this life,
or I mean, you know, she she already came to
this relationship with sixty dollars worth of debt and that
that was, you know, from not paying taxes. It was
an I R. S dead. So she already had something
about her that wasn't on the up and up. What
about her peering around the corner at one of Martin
(33:04):
and Michelle's kid's birthday parties, There was a video that
showed them celebrating this party out in the front lawn,
and in the background there was a car that was
Gypsy Willis's car was a roommates car, and she was
watching from afar. I mean, that's completely mentally if stalker. Yes,
she has a whole other narrative that she's been fed
by this clown you know who really is probably snowing her.
(33:28):
I think she's been snowed by him. But I also
think she's got questionable moral compass herself. Um, she knew
she was in a relationship with a married man, and um,
I've seen her interview before. No guilt in that respect,
no remorse for for being the older woman, the same
woman who's sending him half naked pictures of herself at
the funeral of his wife. Is that true? Yes? Yes,
(33:53):
And showing up to the funeral, why would you do that?
I mean, Gypsy was obviously crazy. She wanted in some
capacity Michelle McNeill's life. And here's Martin kind of delivering
it in the second act. Here he proposes with this
four and a half carrot diamond ring, and you know,
Michelle McNeill is dead, and Gypsy Wills moves in and
is now sleeping with Martin McNeil, living Michelle McNeill's life,
(34:17):
and Martin's taking her side over everything. He's killing, he's
kicking out his adult children for her. He's doing all
kinds like he's getting himself an identity theft trouble with her,
like I think there was some manipulation going on on
her into Martin. I think that was just a very
volatile relationship and situation. On October seventeen, six years after
(34:40):
Michelle's death, Martin McNeill finally went to child for her murder.
The plastic surgeon who performed Michelle's facelift testified he would
not have prescribed the medication requested by Martin McNeil had
Martin not been a doctor. The surgeon also stated that
when he prescribed these medications, they were never meant to
be taken at the same time. All of them were
(35:02):
central nervous system to pressents. Most of the McNeil daughters
took the stand and testified about their fractured relationship with
their father. They also talked about his life of lies
and now they believed that he had killed their mother.
Alexis Is testimony was particularly compelling. Here she is on
the stand. Its been a few minutes. Yeah, since we
(35:25):
talked about what happened. So you asked her what happened?
What is the what happened? What happened? Because she was
very sedated and over medicated when I went in that morning,
and she said, LEXI, I don't I don't know why,
but your dad kept giving me medication. He kept giving
me things, telling me to swallow, and she said, I
even started to throw up, but then he started giving
(35:49):
me more medication and kept giving me medication. Talked about
how she had to drink even like the like the
Laura tab the elixir that my dad had Dr. Thompson prescribed.
But um, she said that he kept giving her medication. Um,
did she say anything to you about Well, let's describe
(36:11):
her demeanor as best you can. She still has bandages
on her eyes and face. But she was upset. She
was upset or could you tell her she was upset?
Because I knew my mom. Um, I could hear it
in her voice. Um. Um, did she make any specific
(36:31):
requests as far as how the medications would be administered
to her? She said, she said that she didn't want
my dad to give her any more medicine. And that
she actually had me take out every single pill from
the pill bottles, and she wanted to feel what the
pills felt like in her in her fingers, um so
(36:55):
that if my dad tried to give her anything, she'd
know what he was giving her. But she had me
take out every single pill and she felt it in
her fingers, and I told her, this is this medicine,
this is this medicine, because at that time she couldn't see. Okay,
did that persist for a couple of days until the
bantages were off as far as her yes, yeah, But
(37:20):
she said she didn't want my dad to give her
any more medication. She wanted me to be in charge.
So the three week trial included testimony from not only
Martin and Michelle's daughters like we just heard, but also
foreign mistress says, and even one of martin cellmates who
claimed that he admitted to killing his wife. So really,
people just came out of the woodwork piling on that
(37:41):
that this guy did it. It was a three week trial,
so there was testimony from Martin and Michelle's kids, former mistresses, colleagues,
Michelle's friends, and you know, one of Michelle's friends testified
that after Michelle passed away, she wanted to help Martin,
you know, and help take care of the kids, and
he said he had already hired a nad and we
all know that that nanny turned out to be Martin's mistress,
(38:03):
Gypsy Willis As I just think something to note. The
six year between Michelle's death and the trial starting seems
like a long time, but having done a lot of
research about other crimes, it's actually pretty common for it
to take that long. The wheels of justice just moved slowly,
and people really want to the prosecution really wants to
make sure they have an iron plad case, so that
(38:24):
lag time is not uncommon. You gotta hand it to
Alexis and Rachel for yelling as loud as they did,
and Michelle's siblings, you know, getting officials to pay attention
to the case and getting someone back in there to
review that report and change the cause of death, which
allowed them to start investigating this as a crime. Great point.
(38:45):
It's that they needed to get it declared as undetermined
or homicide. It was declared undetermined, which is not necessarily
indication of a crime happening. It just allows investigators to
investigate it. To see if a crime has happened, just
to clarify. At that point, Um the corner determined what
he thought was her cause of death and being told
(39:08):
that she had been found in the bathtub and there
was inaccuracy. So Aida, actually, the youngest daughter that Martin
so callously sent up to go find her mom, didn't
testify in court. They deposed her when she was a
young kid. She described and drew the position that Michelle
was in and that there was some the water was
(39:29):
a little red, like there's some blood blood there, which
contradicts the story the position Martin told. I believe it
came out in court. They went up even as far
as is writing the governor right, it was the attorney general,
and I don't know, like they went all kinds of
places Alexis and Rachel. You know, they reached out to
(39:50):
the media to keep the story alive. They reached out
to government officials, anyone who would have any type of
power to reopen this and at least get the autopsy
report reviewed. And I think that was, I mean, the
serious factor, because otherwise, if they hadn't done anything, no
one would have thought otherwise Martin would have never been
arrested in charge well, the case wouldn't have been able
(40:11):
to be opened again and he would have gotten away
with it. Shortly after the trial, Alexis was awarded custody
of her little sisters. Martin was found guilty of first
degree felony murder and second degree felony obstructing justice. One
month after landing in the Utah County jail, he tried
to kill himself by cutting his femeral artery with the blade.
(40:34):
As a result, he was placed on suicide watch until
he was sentenced to prison in September. On April ninth,
two thousand and seventeen, just two days before the tenth
anniversary of Michelle's murder, Martin McNeil was found unresponsive in
the prison yard. He had jerry rigged a plastic bag
with a gas hose attached to it, killing himself. Crazy
(41:03):
in Love is produced by Stephanie Laie Decker, Beth Greenwald,
Chris Graves, Lisa d Giovin, Jeff Shane, Tim Hamilton, and
me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed by Jeff Ta
Additional editing by Davy Cooper Wasser. Crazy in Love is
a production of I Heart Radio and Katie Studios. For
more podcasts from I Heeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
(41:26):
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Crazy and Love is the true crime podcast that tells
love stories with a twist. She used this beautiful homecoming queen.
He is this young and up and coming doctor. I
mean they literally couldn't sound like a more perfect couple
sometimes the twist of a knife. He certainly checked all
the boxes of a psychopath. I mean someone who is callous,
not emotional, morally depraved, had a lot of charm, highly intelligent,
(00:23):
extremely manipulative. Just because things start off with once upon
a Time doesn't mean everyone lives happily ever after. This
is Crazy and Love, a production of Katie Studios and
I Heart Radio. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a crime producer at
Katie Studios, joined by fellow producers Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Shane,
(00:48):
Beth Greenwald, and Chris Graves. We're exploring the story of
the homecoming Queen, the husband, and his deadly midlife crisis.
Michelle was twenty one year old when she met Martin
McNeil in at an event for young Mormon singles. Despite
Michelle's concerned family, she fell for Martin quickly, and the paraoped. Eventually,
(01:13):
Martin and Michelle moved to Pleasant Grove, Utah, thirty five
miles south of Salt Lake City. They were considered pillars
of the community. Martin was a doctor of osteopathic medicine,
and years later he also received a law degree. Martin
and Michelle both wanted a big family and started having
children right away. Michelle gave birth to four kids in
(01:36):
five years and went on to adopt four more children.
By all accounts, Michelle was an amazing mother and her
kids were her life. Martin beats Michelle, who's a bombshell
and you know, high school homecoming queen and I believe
she just won some local beauty pageant and sweeps her
(01:59):
off her feet. And Michelle was twenty one when she
met Martin, and they only dated for a few months.
I think it's a common thing in the eldest church
to get married at a relatively young age, and you know,
they were compatible and so they buried quickly. The happy
times were actually not just when they met and got married.
If you look at videos of them at Christmas and
(02:19):
the kids are opening president like they've got all of that,
and you would think, seeing this couple from the outside,
that they were this perfect match. They lived in a
gated community and were active members of the church. I
think he worked at the Church of LDS at some point.
Um so by all accounts, I mean, she used this
beautiful homecoming queen. He is this young and up and
(02:41):
coming doctor who's also getting his law degree. I mean,
they literally couldn't sound like a more perfect couple. Michelle
grew up in Concord, California, which is about an hour
east of San Francisco, and her father left when she
was around sixteen, so her family really struggled financially. So
you know, she she ran towards Martin. Here's this motivated
(03:03):
guy who studied to become a doctor, eventually becomes a lawyer,
served in the military. I think she, you know, really
adored him and saw this big, bright future, and I
think he played into that with Michelle. If we're looking
at Michelle and they get married and then months later
he's in jail for forgery, which she must have known.
(03:23):
I mean, unless he was that great of a convincing
her and told her I'm going on vacation for a
couple of months, So that says something about to me,
he must have had some sort of sway on her,
because that's a red flag and also to an earlier
point they eloped, which probably means that you know, her
family already had red flags about this guy, So she
(03:45):
was already kind of walking away from her family and
her life, and once she committed to it, I think
she maybe felt stuck or maybe hope things would get better,
or maybe things were better, but she wasn't going to
turn around and say you were right. And also like
that there's one before Duran fraud, Like without knowing the
specific charges and not being a lawyer myself, like I
think you could kind of explain those away, like, oh,
(04:07):
I had to I had to sign this form and
I didn't need to sign it, and I had to
do it to get it out. You could kind of
explain that as something that you would just have to do.
And you know, she, not being an expert in the field,
might have just been naive to it. And as you said, Stephanie,
he's a world class liar, and so I imagined he
was pretty smooth and explaining his crimes to her, and she,
you know, whether she wanted to believe it or she
(04:28):
did fully believe it, I mean she she stuck with him.
And you know, like we said, there Mormons and so
divorce not okay, especially after just a few months of
being married. I would imagine, like, why wouldn't she stick
with him. He made a mistake, he paid for his mistake,
and now things are better. In March of two thousand seven,
after nearly thirty years of marriage, Martin turned fifty. He
(04:51):
suddenly became obsessed with his appearance and started working out,
losing weight, and even went to the tanning salon. Understandably,
Michelle suspicious Martin was having an affair and confronted him.
He vehemently denied he was cheating. Your spouse suddenly starts
hitting up the tanning salon, ned, you know, years and years,
(05:15):
eight children in and that's a new thing. That's a tell.
That's like the number one tell is when a spouse
starts to change their habits, so they go to the gym,
they start carrying, but they got a different haircut. Like
those are the things that like every Cosmopolitan magazine has
that as the number one thing when your spouse is
cheating on you. And and so it's whether or not
(05:37):
Michelle knew that or noticed that. She must have because
her kids were aware, so she must have been aware.
After continuing to deny cheating, Martin suggested Michelle should get
a facelift. She was conflicted, but ultimately agreed as she
thought it would help her marriage. Michelle had the surgery
(05:58):
and was released from the hospital. Alexis, the McNeil's twenty
four year old daughter, came home from medical school to
help her mother heal. Alexis was quickly concerned when she
found out that her mother was unresponsive. Her father, Martin,
didn't seem alarmed by this and told Alexis he quote
probably over medicated Michelle. It was later revealed that Martin
(06:20):
gave the plastic surgeon a list of pain medications that
he wanted prescribe to Michelle. At this point, Michelle had
bandages over her eyes and was so fearful of Martin's
efforts to administer the pain medicine that she had Alexis
help her feel each of the pills so she could
identify what Martin was trying to give her. On April eleventh,
two thousand seven, Martin picked up his youngest adopted daughter,
(06:43):
Aida from school. When they got home, he told the
six year old to go and check on her mother.
Aida found Michelle unconscious in the master bathtub. Martin called
nine one one all wold mortally, Okay, what the mob?
I'm saying, leave that side? What's on? Crowing in the
(07:07):
dog though? Under about? Doesn't about? Time on the wa? Okay?
Is she conscious? You don't be. I'm avis, so I
need to concious so I can't understand you packing it
Calm down and thought, man, Okay, what if your wife
is unconscious? She's unconcious in the world? Okay, did you
(07:31):
did you get her out of the water? And then
I cook you a little world? The only word her
she's under the water, she's on the wad woman. Okay?
Is she breathing at all? She is not? Okay, so
the ambulance has been paged there on that way, Okay,
do not hang out? What sir? Shut up up? No not?
(08:04):
What didn't I would? Why would an adult female piece?
So that is nine one one? Can I help you on?
(08:25):
They're on their way? Is your wife breathing? People in progress?
You're doing CPR? How old is your wife? Oh? What
kind of surgery? Did she have a little plate for?
She had a facelift? Okay? Do you know how to
(08:47):
j CPR? Lar? Okay, do not hang He calls and
then hangs up on nine one, and they doing their job,
tracked down the number of that called from to call back,
and he answers the phone and hangs up on them again.
Why would you hang up on nine one? You know,
I think he was trying to delay aid to his wife.
(09:09):
You know, she still had a pulse, and I think
he knew that obviously, being a doctor. What a psychopath?
Also to allow your little daughter to go find her
dead mother, I mean that's the most disturbing. Why would
he do that? I mean I'm trying to think of
how that lends itself to his story. Also, it makes
it seem like it asks you'd have to ask yourself
(09:30):
that same exact question, why would he do that? No,
no good man would ever let his daughter find her
dead mother. I mean I also think again, it was
all about Martin. You know that Martin thought maybe it
would look less like he was involved with, you know,
his six year old daughter stumbling upon her body. And
and then he sent that six year old to the
(09:50):
neighbor's house. And I think you know those antics as
six year old running over the neighbor's house because he
needed help getting Michelle out of the tub. And I
mean we've all seen pictures of her. She was not
a large woman, she was pretty petite. Well, yeah, the
the neighbor who ended up coming over to help the husband,
(10:10):
he actually testified in court that he wouldn't have had
any trouble lifting around on he on his own. We
know he had been going to the gym and working
on his physique, so he was in that ship of
his life. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Hearing then that a
one called just to be able to call nine on
one and fake the screaming and being upset is just
next level. I mean, to put yourself in his shoes.
(10:31):
What he's thinking, what he's doing is insane, like someone
who's not in their right mind. I mean, it's it's egregious.
But it turns out Martin's entire life had been a lie.
In order to get into both medical school and law school,
he falsified records. You know, this is a world class wire.
So you know, sometimes a smooth talker can present themselves
(10:52):
one way and be completely another. And perhaps, you know,
Michelle really just wanted to find love. You know, Martin
had a law degree just by being a convicted felon
and as apparently only three states outright banded convicted felons
from ever becoming lawyers Kansas, Mississippi and Texas well. He's
(11:13):
clearly into himself, and I think we're dealing with an
arcissist again. He wants to have those accolades. He wants
everybody to look at him as this big person in
in the community. So who's who's going to look even
bigger than a doctor and a lawyer. That is such
a good point. What is the actual clinical definition of
a psychopath? He certainly checked all the boxes of a psychopath.
(11:36):
I mean someone who is callous, not emotional, morally depraved,
had a lot of charm, highly intelligent, extremely manipulative. I
mean he was certainly all those things, and to an
earlier point, he had a grandiose sense of self worth.
I think they'll like looking at this story afterwards. It's
easy to say that he seems like a psychopath now
(12:01):
that we know what we know. But I think when
you're in Michelle's position, and you're lying in bed next
to the sky every night, it's probably much more difficult
to notice these things and have like she's not writing
them on a list, all these things that he's done
that are wrong, and when you're in love with someone
and you have a family with them, I think it's
probably easy to kind of move past something and forget that.
He did that. In Michelle's defense too, he was he
(12:23):
was keeping all of that stuff like he was smart enough. Um,
like he got caught when he was younger. But it
sounds like he was a real master at living a
double life. And she's busy raising his kids. There's four
kids plus another four kids. The the amount of bandwidth
she'd have left to be like, hmm, what do you do?
(12:44):
And this I don't did you graduate high school to
get into that college to get law degree? I don't
do you you know, I don't know. I don't know
what she knew. Necessarily, she probably wasn't thinking that. She
was like, this is my husband and he's sleeping next
to me. Were having these children, he's bringing home a
paycheck and you know, from all accounts he loves me. Um.
(13:06):
And I think it was much. It was again, it
was a midlife crisis. I think that he just kind
of went a wild and got himself caught at that point.
The other thing that came up, and again, I mean,
when you think about it, she's not like looking at
his transcripts, but in I think he also pleaded no
contest to medicate fraud and he was banned for medicaid
(13:28):
billing for twelve years. I mean again, that's that's something
that you could possibly hide from your spouse. Um. You know,
it's not like Michelle seeing him, you know, for as
medical purposes and writing an off tern insurance. So you know,
I mean all of this stuff. He was charming enough,
you know, and certainly was successful enough in the way
(13:49):
they were living their lives that you wouldn't think, you know,
one of your neighbor, your doctor, your church member, we
would be doing that. You know. It's not like she's
looking at Martin's transcript You're not fact checking someone who
you trust. By the way, for him, what a great distraction.
So many children aside from the fact that she was
physically pregnant for so many years in a row, and
(14:10):
if not, you know, nursing an infant, then oh that's
getting you know, maybe she has more time, so let's
add some more children to the next you know, it's
a really perfect cover, but hideous. We're going to take
a quick break. We'll be back in just a moment.
(14:42):
At this point, we know she's afraid enough of him
that she's having, you know, doing this crazy thing with
the eyes and counting the pills, which is a horrible visual.
Speaking of the pills, I mean, he's not her doctor,
and yes he has a medical degree, but he's not
a plastic surgeon. So what is he doing giving a surgeon,
a plastic surgeon, a list of meta castions that his
wife needs post surgery? Like that's crazy, right, I mean
(15:04):
that's crazy. And on top of that, like, I mean,
you're a physician, you know you would know that this
drug combination is not safe. It's a it's a toxic
combination that will suppress your breathing and eventually it'll end
up in some cardiac issue. So you know the fact
that the surgeon let Martin suggest all the medications, uh,
you know they're not meant to be mixed. It's crazy.
(15:25):
Did anyone look into the doctor? Did we know? Is
he yes? And to his point of view? Was you
know he wouldn't have done it if Michelle's husband, if
Martin wasn't a doctor. And again, this is a community.
You know who that knew doctor Martin McNeil. You know
he was an osteopathic doctor, and I think he was
trusted and he was going to administer the medication and
(15:48):
Michelle correctly, he was going to take care of her
after the surgery. So I mean, even the doctor that
performed the surgery testified that these medications were not meant
to be mixed. It's to how manipulous if he was
to be able to convince another doctor to do that,
like to be in that room and give him a
list of scripts, like I write his script, pat or whatever.
(16:09):
That's crazy. But not only that, she listed Martin as
her primary care physician on her paperwork. He testified to that,
so that was part of what led the doctor. I
think that is so bizarre. That is crazy. That has
to be a I mean, that's a serious conflict of interest.
If you were actually trying to help someone, you wouldn't
be your wife's doctor. But a lethal combination of pills
(16:32):
is also different, you know, to the original point that
Beth was making. That was an actual cocktail of death. Obviously,
poor Michelle is cognizant of this enough that she's having
her eldest daughter look at the pills. I mean, that's nuts.
I mean, to be clear, ambient valium, purposet, and fenergen,
which I think is also I think it's in cold medicine.
(16:52):
It's like a cost suppressant, all the things that, when
taken together God forbid, is inevitably lethal. I think it
speaks to the crazy and love of it all, Like
how in love she must have been, how afraid she
was to leave him, that she's afraid of him enough
that she would do all these crazy things, but then
also would bring her kids into it to try to
protect her from him murdering her, which she felt was imminent.
Also just the pure fact that she's being forced to
(17:14):
have facial surgery to hopefully keep her cheating husband close
to home and knowing full well she's about to go under.
If you're already fearing for your life, which you must be,
if you're having your eldest daughter go through the pills
and make sure that you're not being drugged by your father,
it's kind of astounding, frankly. Yeah, these poor kids that
(17:35):
they were put in the middle of this situation that
they felt they had to protect her mom. And then
you know, in looking at promise, how it's energy, which
is definitely something that's in cold medicine. It's used to
prevent and treat nausea and to stop vomiting when people
before and after surgery. So the mix, you know, it
(17:56):
makes me wonder, do you think he was giving her
that to keep the other in her system? Because if
you take too many pillars are gonna be thrown up.
Michelle did actually at some point throw up and and
Martin gave her more medicine stop. I believe that was
something that happened before Alexis found her mother unconscious, you know,
so Martin thought it was okay to give her more
medicine because she had vomited. You know. In listening to
(18:18):
that nine one one tape, you know, I think he
sounds like an angry individual. I mean the nine dispatcher
said she's never spoken to someone that aggressive and angry
and condescending. I mean, she was trying to help him
revive his wife. It was amazing to me in this
moment that the nine one one operator could see Martin
McNeil's this posture man who is an osteopath, that she
(18:41):
just saw an aggressive, angry and condescending man who was
not being helpful in this situation. On April eleven, two
thousand seven, Michelle died. The police and the autopsy reports
concluded that Michelle's death was accidental and due to card
you vascular disease. But Michelle and Martin's daughter Alexis was
(19:04):
suspicious of her dad. She wanted to check her mom's
remaining medication to see how many pills she took. Martin
said the pill bottles maybe in the garage. He said
he'd moved them there because it made him sad to
look at them. It was later revealed that Martin ordered
his son, Damien and Damien's girlfriend to flush Michelle's medication
(19:24):
down the toilet. Martin rushed to have Michelle's funeral, and
just days later hired a live in nanny named Julian.
Alexis confided in her sister Rachel that Michelle had Alexis
look into their dad's cell phone records. These records revealed
to them that Martin had been calling one number repeatedly
day and night. It had been going on for quite
(19:45):
a long time. Alexis did an online search and the
number belonged to Gypsy Gillian Willis, a woman. Michelle assumed
Martin was having an affair with Rachel and Alexis confronted
their father, Martin, about his relationship with Gypsy. He was
enraged and kicked his daughter's out of the house for
not accepting the woman. You know, in different religions, you
(20:09):
have a funeral, like a certain amount of time maybe
before you bury so on. But this this seemed like
a rush job that he put together. He wanted her buried,
dead and gone. I mean, Martin also banned Michelle's side
of the family from attending her funeral. You know, he
he had threatened to have them arrested if they came,
and they kind of he kind of already had driven
(20:29):
a wedge in between this family, which is how they
ended up living in Utah. And I think he just wanted,
you know, he wanted this done and gone, and he
wanted to move on. The daughters though, were there, and
they at this point I think we're pretty suspicious, right
they obviously if they're counting the pills and all that
they did not they're not a fan of their dads
at this point. Yeah, not only that Gypsies showed up
(20:50):
at the funeral. She did. Martin actually like he didn't
know who she was, and the daughters knew who she
was once she introduced herself. These kids just lost their mother.
You know, they obviously new things about their father, but
this is the straw that broke the camel's back. It's
almost like, you know, you're not just losing your mom,
You're losing You're losing two parents. This man you've known
(21:10):
your whole life. It's a little worse than just losing him.
You you don't know the monster lives in your house, right,
pillow bottles in the garage. I mean, it made him
quote unquote sad like that. That to me, it seems
like he's just trying to hide evidence. You know, Alexis
wanted to see what was remaining of those pills for
a reason. We already knew that he had accidentally given
(21:32):
her too much of the pain medication, even to the
point where she threw up. Uh, you know, he thought
it's it's not working, so I'm gonna give her more.
And and Michelle had concerns. I mean, she wanted to
know the shape of each pill so we couldn't give
her a lethal dose. And Alexis following through to see
how many pills were left, to see how many she
had taken in such a short amount. Of time. Well, yeah,
(21:53):
and then to add insult to injury, he moves this
woman who then you know that alexis new from the
phone records, into the house nine days later, under the
auspices this Gypsy, under the auspices that she's the nanny
to help take care of the younger daughters. And I
know that Rachel Um, the other sister, testified that she
(22:15):
just saw her dad doing all the house where this
woman wasn't doing any of it. She was just sleeping
in his room and hanging out on the couch. And
she would have expected her to take care of the
kids and at least cook a mute or two when
she wasn't doing it. So this woman, Gypsy Willis, was
not an expert nanny as far as I could find,
but she was kind of an expert con artist. Um.
(22:35):
It turns out that she had owed sixty dollars to
the I R. S. And that's a substantial amount of money,
and so what her and Martin decided to do together
was to avoid paying the debt. Martin helped facilitate that
they would steal one of the one of his daughter's
Social Security numbers so that Gypsy could essentially open bank
(22:57):
accounts in her name and start fresh. The mistress was
basically stealing her boyfriend's daughter's identity with the boyfriend's help.
In two thousand and nine, and two years after Michelle's death,
the FEDS finally charged Martin with identity theft and he
was sent in stop workers in prison for that. Gypsy
was indicted on similar charges and was sentenced to twenty
one months in prison. The worst part of that, like
(23:19):
I said earlier, is is this poor daughter was stuck
just all was stuck back in the Ukraine, uh, living
in a tiny little apartment with barely any running water apparently,
um kind of, and was there for months until they
were arrested, and all of this was figured out, and
and Alexis and I believe Michelle's sister could go over
(23:42):
to the Ukraine to pick her up and bring her
back to the US to her home. I mean, that's
that's some real expert level in baggery by by Martin.
You know, Martin had money. Martin was a doctor, and
and it later came out that you know, is still
receiving military benefits even though he was discharged. Did Martin
(24:05):
not have like sixty to clear this up? For Gypsy
or was it just another you know, another grift. Yeah.
I was gonna say, I bet you anything. He's addicted
to that kind of stuff, that rush that he would
get to try and pull one over, whether it's the
government or his wife or his family back in the day,
(24:26):
or whoever he wrote that bounced check to that got
him arrested. Originally, this was a rush for him. It
seems like everything he's doing is a little bit of
a rush, like stealing the daughter's identity, moving this mistress
into his house nine days after his wife's staff under
the guys that she's a nanny, like he didn't have
to lie. His daughters hated him at that point. They
(24:46):
thought he's a killer. Why are you even pretending she's
a nanny? If not just because he likes a con
m he likes to get away with things, which again
goes back to psychopath. Martin proposed to Gypsy and he
presented her with a four and a half carrot diamond
ring shortly after Michelle passed away. And the one thing
I don't know if we hit you know, with the funeral,
(25:09):
is Gypsy and actually texted Martin like half naked pictures
of herself while he was at Michelle's funeral, which to
me is just so disgusting. None of these things just
seem like he's such a he's a psychopath and he's
murdered his wife and he has this big plan, but
some of these things seem so sloppy, like the medication,
the text thing, and all those things are. He should
(25:30):
know that they're going to look through the time stamps
and if they're ever investing geting him, they're going to
figure it out that he just think he was never
going to even be looked at. He must have. I
think he thought he was too smart to get caught.
He's gotten a medical degree with with false information, He's
gotten a law degree with false information. He's had how
many years of marriage without getting caught before now. I
(25:51):
think he was living high on his himself and he was,
which is exactly where investigators like criminals like him, because
then they started making mistakes because they don't they don't
think they're gonna get caught. You know, Martin didn't get
tried for Michelle's murder until six years later. You know,
I think honestly they put effort into catching him on something,
(26:13):
to hold on to him while they investigated, you know,
Michelle's death further, because otherwise Martin would have probably married
Gypsy and you know, moved on to another khan or
another grift. Michelle's adult children vocally appealed to the media
and fought for an official review of Michelle's toxicology report.
(26:34):
The Utah County Attorney's office finally agreed to investigate Michelle's death.
The chief Medical Examiner found that the medications and Michelle's
body were not at a toxic level, but that the
combination of all the medicine, including ambient vallium, feenergen and
percocet quote could have led to sedation and heart arrhythmia,
(26:55):
resulting in cardiac death. On October six, two three years
after Michelle's death, her manner of death was changed to undetermined,
the cause listed as combined effects of heart disease and
drug toxicity. In July, Martin McNeil was released from prison
after serving two years for identity they have charges. Utah
(27:18):
County officials announced that Martin was a suspect and the
murder of his wife. Two months later, Martin McNeil was
arrested and held on one million dollars bond. He was
facing murder charges and the death of his wife. So
this is kind of when it all begins to unravel
for him, right They the Utah County Attorney's Office investigators
(27:40):
did a deep dive into his past and discovered that
literally everything he's accomplished in his life is built on lives.
He joined the military's on the team, but he was uh.
He was kicked out of the military very quickly after joining,
even though he was continuing to collect benefits for years.
He used phony transcripts to get into medical school, law
(28:00):
and law school. So all of these things combined and
really paint a picture of just what we've been saying
that this guy is a con artist from day one. Yeah,
I mean, he didn't just continue to get benefits. He
collected benefits for thirty years. And when you look at it,
he was kicked out of the military for being schizophrenic.
You know, he initially had four dreary charges and he
(28:22):
saw a piece on sixty minutes and thought he could
be a better forger. And let's not forget the Medicaid
building scheme that he pled no contest too. So I
think Alexis and Rachel really were trying to get this
case wide open, and once the Utah County Attorney's Office
got involved, it was just pulling a string on a
ball of yarn. Well, can you imagine Alexis and Rachel
(28:43):
and all the rest of the kids, you know, the
adult kids learning that when their dad was about their
age twenty three, that's when he falsified transcripts to get
into medical school to become a doctor. So he's been
a phony doctor since just about when they were worn.
But I mean, that's a long time to have been
doing fraud, you know. And I can only imagine that
(29:03):
Michelle didn't know about that. She probably celebrate They probably
went out to dinner and celebrated him getting into medical school,
all the house allies. Yeah, imagine being him too. You know,
it's all about the stuff. I'm crumbling down at some point,
and here we are. We're at that point. I also
believe that the investigation uncovered that Martin McNeil abused patients,
(29:24):
and a lot of them never reported it because of
his position in the community. They didn't think they were
gonna be believed. And I think they were also afraid
of him and the repercussions and possible retaliation. I can
totally see that there's a community that is letting this
man continue despite all of the allegations and there and
he's the one being believed, not necessarily the patients, but
(29:46):
not only that he had a girlfriend apparently Um. They
found out before Gypsy she was UM. I think he
met her through one of the medical centers that he
worked at, and she told told them that he had
told her that Um, he had killed tried to kill
his mom, and that he had also killed his brother Rufus.
(30:10):
Roy McNeil told her that there's a way to do it, um,
and there's a way to do it where it doesn't
look like it was homicide and you get away with murder.
And it happened to the same way Michelle was found
and the investigators when they looked into that, they found
out that yes, indeed his brother had been found in
that in a bathtub in New Jersey. That's startling to me. Yeah,
(30:32):
I mean he has an m O. Is what that says?
That's a lifetime of lies. Yeah, but there's decades between
that m O for investigators to realize that it's the
talented Mr. Ripley. You present yourself one way, and he
presented himself really lovely. It's scary. Let's stop here for
(30:53):
another quick break. I mean, there's always that one person
who sees through the veneer, and Michelle's family seemed to
have some sort of idea that the kind of person
(31:15):
Martin was. I mean, Michelle's mother did not like him
when she met him, and then of course there was
the warning from the bishop of the church, so Martin
made sure that Michelle's family couldn't attend the funeral because
they could see through and and see. Actually, who Martin
really was. Did he tell Michelle the judge? Is that
why he said he didn't like them? Is that what
(31:35):
he told Michelle? That he felt judged by them? No,
Actually that came out at the trial. He told that
to Gypsy. See that's interesting though, because I don't even
buy that, because that makes him the victim in that situation,
that it's like her family or the judge jerks, and
he's the poor guy who they're looking down upon, when
it's like really he's the one isolating his wife from
them and tearing her way. Yeah, he's telling the story
(31:57):
to Gypsy to make Gypsy feel sorry for him. I
met and to engender her loyalty, which is still there.
I believe I've seen a an interview clip with her
where she she's like, no, he didn't do this. I mean,
how does it look right to anybody that, First of all,
there's evidence that Gypsy had been popping up before Michelle died.
(32:19):
I remembered it was mentioned in a video that one
of the kid's birthday parties that Gypsy's car was parked
across the street and captured in the birthday video. And then,
in anyone's right mind, whether she was involved or not,
how could Gypsy possibly think it's right to move in
with the man that you were having an affair with
days after his wife passed away. I mean, either she
(32:43):
was madly in love with him and wanted this life,
or I mean, you know, she she already came to
this relationship with sixty dollars worth of debt and that
that was, you know, from not paying taxes. It was
an I R. S dead. So she already had something
about her that wasn't on the up and up. What
about her peering around the corner at one of Martin
(33:04):
and Michelle's kid's birthday parties, There was a video that
showed them celebrating this party out in the front lawn,
and in the background there was a car that was
Gypsy Willis's car was a roommates car, and she was
watching from afar. I mean, that's completely mentally if stalker. Yes,
she has a whole other narrative that she's been fed
by this clown you know who really is probably snowing her.
(33:28):
I think she's been snowed by him. But I also
think she's got questionable moral compass herself. Um, she knew
she was in a relationship with a married man, and um,
I've seen her interview before. No guilt in that respect,
no remorse for for being the older woman, the same
woman who's sending him half naked pictures of herself at
the funeral of his wife. Is that true? Yes? Yes,
(33:53):
And showing up to the funeral, why would you do that?
I mean, Gypsy was obviously crazy. She wanted in some
capacity Michelle McNeill's life. And here's Martin kind of delivering
it in the second act. Here he proposes with this
four and a half carrot diamond ring, and you know,
Michelle McNeill is dead, and Gypsy Wills moves in and
is now sleeping with Martin McNeil, living Michelle McNeill's life,
(34:17):
and Martin's taking her side over everything. He's killing, he's
kicking out his adult children for her. He's doing all
kinds like he's getting himself an identity theft trouble with her,
like I think there was some manipulation going on on
her into Martin. I think that was just a very
volatile relationship and situation. On October seventeen, six years after
(34:40):
Michelle's death, Martin McNeill finally went to child for her murder.
The plastic surgeon who performed Michelle's facelift testified he would
not have prescribed the medication requested by Martin McNeil had
Martin not been a doctor. The surgeon also stated that
when he prescribed these medications, they were never meant to
be taken at the same time. All of them were
(35:02):
central nervous system to pressents. Most of the McNeil daughters
took the stand and testified about their fractured relationship with
their father. They also talked about his life of lies
and now they believed that he had killed their mother.
Alexis Is testimony was particularly compelling. Here she is on
the stand. Its been a few minutes. Yeah, since we
(35:25):
talked about what happened. So you asked her what happened?
What is the what happened? What happened? Because she was
very sedated and over medicated when I went in that morning,
and she said, LEXI, I don't I don't know why,
but your dad kept giving me medication. He kept giving
me things, telling me to swallow, and she said, I
even started to throw up, but then he started giving
(35:49):
me more medication and kept giving me medication. Talked about
how she had to drink even like the like the
Laura tab the elixir that my dad had Dr. Thompson prescribed.
But um, she said that he kept giving her medication. Um,
did she say anything to you about Well, let's describe
(36:11):
her demeanor as best you can. She still has bandages
on her eyes and face. But she was upset. She
was upset or could you tell her she was upset?
Because I knew my mom. Um, I could hear it
in her voice. Um. Um, did she make any specific
(36:31):
requests as far as how the medications would be administered
to her? She said, she said that she didn't want
my dad to give her any more medicine. And that
she actually had me take out every single pill from
the pill bottles, and she wanted to feel what the
pills felt like in her in her fingers, um so
(36:55):
that if my dad tried to give her anything, she'd
know what he was giving her. But she had me
take out every single pill and she felt it in
her fingers, and I told her, this is this medicine,
this is this medicine, because at that time she couldn't see. Okay,
did that persist for a couple of days until the
bantages were off as far as her yes, yeah, But
(37:20):
she said she didn't want my dad to give her
any more medication. She wanted me to be in charge.
So the three week trial included testimony from not only
Martin and Michelle's daughters like we just heard, but also
foreign mistress says, and even one of martin cellmates who
claimed that he admitted to killing his wife. So really,
people just came out of the woodwork piling on that
(37:41):
that this guy did it. It was a three week trial,
so there was testimony from Martin and Michelle's kids, former mistresses, colleagues,
Michelle's friends, and you know, one of Michelle's friends testified
that after Michelle passed away, she wanted to help Martin,
you know, and help take care of the kids, and
he said he had already hired a nad and we
all know that that nanny turned out to be Martin's mistress,
(38:03):
Gypsy Willis As I just think something to note. The
six year between Michelle's death and the trial starting seems
like a long time, but having done a lot of
research about other crimes, it's actually pretty common for it
to take that long. The wheels of justice just moved slowly,
and people really want to the prosecution really wants to
make sure they have an iron plad case, so that
(38:24):
lag time is not uncommon. You gotta hand it to
Alexis and Rachel for yelling as loud as they did,
and Michelle's siblings, you know, getting officials to pay attention
to the case and getting someone back in there to
review that report and change the cause of death, which
allowed them to start investigating this as a crime. Great point.
(38:45):
It's that they needed to get it declared as undetermined
or homicide. It was declared undetermined, which is not necessarily
indication of a crime happening. It just allows investigators to
investigate it. To see if a crime has happened, just
to clarify. At that point, Um the corner determined what
he thought was her cause of death and being told
(39:08):
that she had been found in the bathtub and there
was inaccuracy. So Aida, actually, the youngest daughter that Martin
so callously sent up to go find her mom, didn't
testify in court. They deposed her when she was a
young kid. She described and drew the position that Michelle
was in and that there was some the water was
(39:29):
a little red, like there's some blood blood there, which
contradicts the story the position Martin told. I believe it
came out in court. They went up even as far
as is writing the governor right, it was the attorney general,
and I don't know, like they went all kinds of
places Alexis and Rachel. You know, they reached out to
(39:50):
the media to keep the story alive. They reached out
to government officials, anyone who would have any type of
power to reopen this and at least get the autopsy
report reviewed. And I think that was, I mean, the
serious factor, because otherwise, if they hadn't done anything, no
one would have thought otherwise Martin would have never been
arrested in charge well, the case wouldn't have been able
(40:11):
to be opened again and he would have gotten away
with it. Shortly after the trial, Alexis was awarded custody
of her little sisters. Martin was found guilty of first
degree felony murder and second degree felony obstructing justice. One
month after landing in the Utah County jail, he tried
to kill himself by cutting his femeral artery with the blade.
(40:34):
As a result, he was placed on suicide watch until
he was sentenced to prison in September. On April ninth,
two thousand and seventeen, just two days before the tenth
anniversary of Michelle's murder, Martin McNeil was found unresponsive in
the prison yard. He had jerry rigged a plastic bag
with a gas hose attached to it, killing himself. Crazy
(41:03):
in Love is produced by Stephanie Laie Decker, Beth Greenwald,
Chris Graves, Lisa d Giovin, Jeff Shane, Tim Hamilton, and
me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed by Jeff Ta
Additional editing by Davy Cooper Wasser. Crazy in Love is
a production of I Heart Radio and Katie Studios. For
more podcasts from I Heeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
(41:26):
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.