The Utah Nanny Mistress Murder | The Case of the MacNeill Family | UNSEEN

I'm Harvey Guillen and this is Killer Stories. Every Monday I'm cutting the lights and telling you a bedtime story. Except these stories are all real. We're talking brazen heists, devastating cons, serial murders, and cases that defy tidy categories. So join me for new episodes of Killer Stories with Harvey Guillen every Monday. What did you see when you walked into the bathroom? I don't want to talk about it. The girl you've just heard hides the most disturbing secret. Six-year-old Ada McNeil is being interrogated by police after she discovered her mother, Michelle, unresponsive in the bathtub. Her dad, Martin, claims Michelle was found slumped over its side, face down. But little Ada tells police a different story and draws her mom face up. Was she all the way in the bathtub or just passed out? Just partway in the bathtub. Just days before the incident, Ada's mother, Michelle, had undergone plastic surgery. And because her husband, Martin, is a doctor, he insisted on administering her medication himself. But during her recovery, Michelle told her eldest daughter, Alexis, "If anything happens to me, make sure it wasn't your dad who killed me." Okay, what's the problem, sir? My wife, she is untouchable. She's under water. Okay, do you know how to do CPR? I'm doing it. I am a physician. I've got CPR in progress. The problem is, Michelle's husband, Martin, is lying. He's not a real doctor. Okay, do not ha-- Michelle's death is ruled an accident. The day of Michelle's funeral, her daughter, Alexis, spots a mysterious dark-haired woman who was not invited by anyone. She appears sympathetic and supportive of Michelle's family. But what Alexis doesn't know is that this woman has been meeting with her father in secret and that her mother's murder is only the first part of her father's master plan to get rid of his eight children. No one would have uncovered what really happened to Michelle McNeil if it wasn't for her daughter, Alexis, who will stop at nothing to avenge her mother and take down her own father. It's 2007. 24-year-old Alexis McNeil is attending medical school at the University of Nevada. 500 miles away from her seven siblings and loving parents, Michelle and Martin. Their family home is in Pleasant Grove, Utah, a town just outside Salt Lake City, where her father is a successful surgeon and osteopathic physician. And all her life, she's wanted to follow in his footsteps. I just always wanted to be grown up so I could be a doctor and be like my dad in helping people. While Alexis is away at school, she remains in close contact with her family, calling her mother every day. But on April 11th, 2007, when she calls her mom, there is no response. This is unusual, as Alexis' mother Michelle always answers her phone. At the same time, back home in Pleasant Grove, Alexis' father, Martin, leaves her work to go pick up his youngest daughter, Ada, from school. At first, when they arrive home, nothing appears out of the ordinary until the six-year-old girl goes to the upstairs bathroom. She walks inside, and discovers a disturbing scene. Her mother is in the bathtub, and she isn't moving. Ada runs downstairs and tells her dad that something's wrong with mom. When Martin finds his wife unconscious in the bathroom, he immediately calls 911. This is 911, can I help you? My wife, she's unconscious, she's underwater. Can you calm down just a little bit? I need help. Okay, they're on their way. Is your wife breathing? She is not. I am a physician. I got CPR in progress. How old is your wife? My wife is 50 years old. What kind of surgery did she have? She had a facelift. She had a facelift? Yes. Michelle McNeil, only eight days earlier, on April 3rd, had decided to undergo a facelift to the concern of her daughter, Alexis. I said, "Mom, you don't need that. You're beautiful." I mean, she was incredibly beautiful. Michelle is a stay-at-home mom to Alexis and her other siblings. A former pageant queen, Michelle is deeply involved in her local community as an active member of her church and a senior board member of the Utah Ballet. Growing up, Alexis fondly remembers her mother always coming to watch her dance classes and being there for her and her siblings no matter what. But when Michelle turns 50 years old, her husband Martin noticed his wife's growing insecurities around aging and decided he would try and help her. Martin says, "I would love to give you a facelift as a gift." "This is something that will make you feel young again." Ten days after the initial consultation and with the encouragement of her husband, Michelle's surgery is booked. The procedure is scheduled during Alexis' medical school spring break so that she can fly home to help her mother recover and nurse her back to health. April 3rd, 2007, Michelle checks into the hospital as her procedure begins. The surgeons work on her for over eight hours. And after the procedure, everything appears to have gone well. Michelle is cleared to go home the very next day. During her spring break, Alexis stays at her family's home in Utah, making sure her mother's recovery goes smoothly. But the night before she returns to medical school, her mother tells her something she will never forget. She said, "If anything happens to me, make sure it wasn't your dad." Alexis is stunned. She wonders if it's the pain medication talking, if her mother even knows what she just said. But Alexis can't shake the unsettling feeling left by her mother's odd statement, even as she heads back to school in Nevada. They dropped me off at the airport. I just remember looking back and seeing my mom and waving. Back in Pleasant Grove, Utah, just a few days after Alexis left her mother in seemingly good health, EMTs are now desperately attempting to save Michelle's life, rushing her to the hospital. That's when Martin makes a phone call to his daughter, Alexis, and delivers her the news no child ever wants to hear. He said, "Your mom, she's in the tub. She's not breathing. I've called an ambulance." And then he hung up. And I just started driving to the airport, and I was just screaming. Just screaming. Shortly after arriving at the hospital, Michelle McNeil is pronounced dead. She is taken to the medical examiner's office for an autopsy. Her death is ultimately ruled a result of natural causes. The report attributes her passing to a combination of heart inflammation and high blood pressure. The medical examiner's report indicated that Michelle had died of myocarditis and hypertension, and it listed it as a natural cause of death. The whole family is in shock. Michelle was healthy and only 50 years old. And when Alexis arrives back home, she immediately notices something is deeply wrong. I walked in my parents' room, and all of my mom's things that were in the room were now gone. April 14th, 2007, just three days after her death, Martin invites hundreds to gather at a church beside the Mount Timpanogos Temple to mourn the sudden and tragic loss of Michelle. On the day of the funeral, that church house was full to the brim. However, there is one person at the funeral that no one seems to recognize: a young woman with long, dark hair. She's not a relative or a friend of Michelle's. But before anyone can ask what her name is, Martin gets up to speak at the funeral. Lord, I thought I was your boy. Lord, I thought I was doing a good job. Lord, are you there? As the hours passed last night, the answer came to me. I've had such a good life. Martin's unsettling speech sets off even more alarm bells in Alexis' mind. And as she turns over the events of her mother's death in her mind, she has more and more questions about things that had once seemed fine but now strike her as suspicious. After a surgery like Michelle's, painkillers are usually prescribed by the doctor who performed the procedure. Since Martin is also a surgeon himself, he decided to manage his wife's medications. When Alexis arrives back in Pleasant Grove after her mom's death, she finds that the rest of the medication is missing. And when she confronts her father about it, he says that the police must have taken it with them during their investigation. Even though the autopsy concluded Michelle's death was due to natural causes, Alexis is sure that there's more to it. Something isn't right. In the meantime, the whole community reaches out to Martin, offering support in the wake of his wife's sudden death. Though four of the couple's children are adults, they have their four younger girls between six and 16 years old still at home, three of whom had been adopted into the McNeil family from Ukraine. Martin needs all the help he can get around the house, as he is now raising all his children alone. That's when just days after Michelle's passing, Martin announces to the children that he's hired a live-in nanny to help around the house, and that her name is Gypsy Jillian Willis. The name sounds alarmingly familiar to Alexis. That's when the young woman recalls a disturbing conversation she's had with her mother. Just two months prior to the tragedy, Michelle told Alexis she had suspicions that her husband was having an affair. With a woman who had the exact same name. In fact, Alexis had been the one to help her mother secretly check Martin's phone. I figured out a way to get into his phone. There was a number that came up repeatedly, and it was in June of this year. kind of bizarre hours, like one o'clock in the morning, two o'clock in the morning, and the name was Gypsy Jillian Willis. Alexis immediately confronts her father. She tells him that she knows the new nanny is the same person her mother was concerned about and insists that she cannot be allowed to move in. But he completely dismisses her, and within two weeks of Michelle's death, Gypsy is moved into the family home. Alexis' suspicions of her father only grows after her younger sisters, still living at home, begin explaining that Gypsy never helps around the house, and that they notice the live-in nanny is sneaking into Martin's room late at night. Between Martin's affair with Gypsy, his strange funeral speech, the missing painkillers, and Michelle's final ominous warning to her daughter, Alexis is all but certain her mother was right. Her death was not an accident. It was murder. I was the only one that knew this. So I needed to start figuring out what had happened and protect the rest of my family because my dad was a killer. On the outside, Martin McNeil appears to simply be a grieving man mourning a tragic loss of his wife. But Alexis knows that her four younger sisters are in grave danger, and she heads over to the family home, determined to force her father to admit to everything. I said, I don't like Gypsy being there. I think you're having an affair with her. And I think you murdered mom. Martin immediately becomes defensive. The argument escalates, and he ends up calling the police on his own daughter, claiming she is crazy and that she is harassing him. The cops, who know Martin as a respected doctor, don't question his claims. They then immediately escort Alexis out of the house before she can even put her shoes on. I looked crazy. I remember people looking at me. I couldn't even try to clean myself up. With no place to go, Martin goes to the hospital. With no place left to turn, and fearing that no one will ever take her concerns seriously, Alexis brings her suspicions to her older sister, Rachel, who lives close by in Salt Lake City. My father underestimated my sister's love for me. She ended up believing it. And she said, if Alexis is kicked out of the family, then I guess I am too. Felt finally like this weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. Alexis and Rachel find another ally in their mother's sister, who reveals the truth. Disturbing details about Martin's secret criminal past, which he had kept hidden from his children. Just prior to his marriage to Michelle, Martin had been involved in several illegal money-making schemes, eventually being convicted and serving six months in prison for forgery and grand theft. In fact, when he'd started medical school, he'd actually been on felony parole. And as they dig deeper into their father's past, they continue to uncover more evidence that Martin isn't who he says he is. But it quickly becomes clear he won't go down without a fight. He begins bombarding his daughter with threatening texts. I will win every time, little girl. I have the power under the law. I will call the police next time. I am not afraid of you or your threats. And if either you or Rachel tries to hurt me, I will not hesitate to destroy you. He said if you go to the police, if you do anything to defy me, you're going to live to regret this day. But his threats don't stop Alexis. She keeps fighting, the way she knows her mom would have fought for her if she were in her shoes. I knew that my mom would do anything for me. So I had to fight for her. And I had to fight for her children. Alexis and her sister ramp up their campaign to expose their father. They make a website, asking anyone on the internet to send in any incriminating information they have about Martin McNeil. And it's not long before Alexis' email inbox overflows with accounts of Martin's concerning behaviors. Multiple women reveal they've engaged in affairs with him. The allegations even turn criminal, with reports that Martin had sexually assaulted a disabled woman, plotting to kill his mother, and had allegedly confessed to murdering his brother. Alexis goes public with all the information they have, in an attempt to show everyone her father's true nature. But it's been over a year since her mother's death, and Alexis can't find anyone in law enforcement or in the media to take her accusations seriously. I went to every single newspaper in Utah. I go to the governor's office. I cannot understand why no one would listen. My mother was murdered, and no one cares. After years of Alexis and her family desperately trying to convince someone, anyone, to take them seriously, Captain Doug Whitney from the Utah County Sheriff's Office finally listens. He said that he was going to do anything he could to help us. It was a really incredible feeling, because we'd been fighting for so long to get anyone to just listen to us. With Captain Whitney's help, Alexis' investigation expands, using all the resources at the sheriff's office's disposal. And they're able to discover even more disturbing lies about Martin's past. We ended up finding out that he had forged his college transcripts. In order to get into medical school. Her father's entire medical career had been based on lies and deception. The father that I thought I had never really existed. With the mounting evidence against Martin, Alexis, worried for the safety of her siblings, tries to file for custody of her four younger sisters, who are all still living with a murderer. But what she doesn't know is that Martin and Gypsy are already plotting to get rid of the four girls. So they can be alone together. Martin decides to send Giselle, his young daughter who was adopted from Ukraine, on a special trip to visit her biological sisters back in her home country. My dad had just basically said, we'll get her after the summer. But behind closed doors, Martin had a bigger plan. Stealing his adoptive daughter's identity. With Giselle abroad, Martin uses her social security number to forge a new identity for Gypsy, who needed to escape her mounting debts. Renaming her as Jillian McNeil. They even start pretending to be husband and wife, using April 14th, Michelle's funeral date, as their wedding date. Taken together, there's strong grounds to suspect that Martin used Michelle's plastic surgery to obscure her murder, so he could be free with his mistress, Gypsy. But despite everything, investigators still have a problem. Michelle's death had been ruled as being due to natural causes, not murder. During the initial trial, Giselle was found dead. In the initial investigation, Martin's account of what had happened was taken as the truth. After all, she was a respected doctor, and there was no reason for the cops to question his authority. Now the truth about Martin's life of lies, and his affair with Gypsy, is exposed. But they still need something concrete from the day of Michelle's murder. Something to prove that Martin lied about Michelle's death, too. There was one other person at the crime scene with Martin. His six-year-old daughter, Ada. And her story might just be a little bit more than that. She might just be able to expose her father's lies, once and for all. She drew a sketch of how she found my mother. Following the murder, Ada had drawn a picture of her mother that would become key to the investigation. The drawing shows her mom in the bathtub, lying, face up. But Martin's description of how they found Michelle, was the opposite. He always claimed that Michelle had been found with her head submerged in the water, lying face down. Was she all the way in the bathtub, or just partway in the bathtub? Partway. Had you ever seen your mom wet her hair like that before? It doesn't make you feel talking about your mom. It ended up being a critical thing, because it differed from how my father told the police that she was positioned. Investigators, with the testimony from the six-year-old and her drawing, are close as ever to making the arrest. But there's one final thing that will put a nail in the coffin on this case once and for all: Michelle's blood. Though the initial autopsy had revealed nothing unusual, the secondary results, years later, reveal something troubling, especially given that Martin was in charge of her medication following the surgery. There were four drugs, individually. They're dangerous, but collectively, they could be deadly. Finally, after years of fighting, in August of 2012, Alexis receives the phone call she's been waiting for. He said, "I just want to let you know, your father was just arrested for first-degree murder of your mother." October 17th, 2013, six and a half years after Michelle's death, Martin McNeil is finally brought to trial for the murder of his wife. "I just didn't want to disappoint my mom." "Next witness, the state calls Alexis McNeil." "I was sitting by my aunt's and my sister's, and I just remember us squeezing each other's hands so tight." "State of Utah, final defendant, as to count one murder, guilty." "I burst into tears. I was sobbing, so many emotions, so much sadness, loss. Martin McNeil is sentenced to 15 years to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Gypsy Willis is charged with two counts of giving false statements and sentenced to time served plus three years probation. Alexis is awarded custody of her younger sisters and Giselle is finally found and flown home from Ukraine to be with the rest of the family. Those were my sisters and I needed to be there for them and I needed to protect them so that kept me that kept me going. Alexis throughout impossible odds has not only avenged her mother but also protected her sisters by refusing to abandon them to a monster. Today the siblings still share a close bond and have supported each other as they have all grown up to start families of their own. Little sister Elle that just had her first baby. Ada's 18 years old. She graduates this month from high school. Alexis has become a doctor and is now married with children of her own. Through her actions her mom's love still lives strong in the family. We celebrate her every January 15th balloons and cake and she would have been 62. We can just be a family and remember the good things.