The Secrets of Dr Martin MacNeill

hey you and welcome my name is mike and in this whole video we got a uh well a weird one this is the story of dr martin mcneill and his wife michelle mcneill and what happened after he encouraged her to have some cosmetic surgery old marty mcneal was a very successful doctor and had a law degree to boot michelle a beauty queen and they had eight children together over almost three decades however for old marty i guess that just wasn't enough you know beauty queen wife really rich doctor having a law degree eight kids living the dream easy to imagine that's never enough am i right cause it's a big ol whoops wink this case has it all and it's set in utah because they're mad for madness over there come on let's get into it martin mcneill had been married to michelle mcneil for 29 long years you know it's pretty long time it's a long marriage and you would think by you know almost three decades they would know you know the ins and outs of each other by then but it turns out that martin mcneill is quite a tricky person to know yeah and michelle stopped knowing martin on the morning of the 11th of april 2007. a call was made from pleasant grove utah where the mother of eight children michelle mcneil was found unconscious in the bathtub the caller was dr martin mcneill michelle had been found by her six-year-old adopted daughter aydah okay is i can't understand you okay can you calm down just a little bit okay what if your wife is unconscious she is okay do you know how to do cpr i'm doing it okay [Music] now it's kind of hard to make out what martin is saying and in fact martin hung up three times during their conversation until the dispatcher could finally figure out where to send the ambulance at one point martin sent his young daughter ada off to the neighbors to get somebody to help him lift michelle out of the bathtub as he couldn't do it uh himself then when she was out martin started doing cpr you know uh stay with me stay with me you would alternate between you blowing into her mouth and shaking his fist at the sky not her why when the emts arrived he was losing it shouting at his wife the emts even god he was putting on quite the show eventually having to be removed from the scene he was slowing down the paramedics so much and when the emts started doing cpr that's when water started coming out of her mouth martin mcneil had already been doing that and he was a doctor and water wasn't coming out you think he'd know how to do it by now michelle mcneill was rushed to hospital where she was pronounced dead the next day an autopsy was done it was found she had an enlarged heart as she had high blood pressure for years and some medications mixed with her conditions cause arrhythmia which can be fatal and funnily enough michelle was prescribed a few different medications following her surgery she had a facelift just a few days before and so the pathologist came to the conclusion after receiving the toxicology report that the most likely cause of death was arrhythmia natural causes case closed end of story tragic but it happens even though she was only 50 years old or does it just happen let's go back and begin at the beginning [Music] michelle summers was born in 1957 she came from quite a religious background her family being mormons they were a warm and loving family she was close with her three sisters and other than her dad not being around much due to his alcoholism the family were happy enough she was raised in concord california did some modeling and won the title of miss concourse she was a looker after graduating high school she went to brigham young university in utah where else and at the age of 20 years old she went to a party organized for the single mormons in your area and that was where she met handsome and charming martin mcneill his upbringing was not quite as happy as his wife's he was a year older than michelle and he grew up in camden new jersey with five siblings his family was dirt poor his parents fought a lot and even more when they were drunk after his dad left the picture his man turned to prostitution to feed the family they lived in a one-room apartment so the children got quite the earful in his late teens martin was diagnosed with bipolar disorder he tended to have quite frequent mood swings some anger issues he joined the army at age 17 and after less than two years was placed on disability leave throughout his time in the army he would often mention to people that voices in his head were telling him to kill so it'd be a good idea to not have him around guns now martin was a fantastic manipulator and constant consistent liar something he would do throughout his entire life after leaving the army in 1977 he tried to forge a check in california and he was obviously arrested and charged with forgery theft and fraud thing is he only did it because he saw a bit about it on 60 minutes and thought he could do better it was in the middle of that case that him and michelle met one month after they met they got married in secret because because michelle's family did not like him he was controlling over her manipulative emotionally abusive martin ended up going to medical school in california and received a degree in osteopathic medicine years later it was found out he had falsified his transcripts to get in so that's great he also had a law degree but never practiced himself and michelle would relocate a few times california mexico new york and finally utah where he became medical director at the utah state development center throughout the years him and michelle had four biological children in five years rachel vanessa alexis and damian so while everything was fine and dandy for a while uh see that's when threats came in from martin see porn is is uh it's a that's a big no-no in uh mormonism and one time when michelle came in to see him pop in a chub she was like listen can't handle this now maybe we should talk separation he did the uh hey if you leave me i'm gonna kill myself you'd feel pretty bad then wouldn't you that happened more than once and another time that exact same thing happened to martin trenton to not only kill himself but also kill his wife too he had a knife in his hand and one of his his his son damian who was 15 years old at the time had to jump in between them before something serious happened so he's so he's uh got a few issues we'll see that a lot more so anytime michelle talked about leaving him he would do that sort of thing threatened to kill himself or kill her while in the meantime he was off having a shitload of affairs as he was working in the usdc which provided care for people with disabilities most of them being mental disabilities he took advantage of the disadvantage and had sexual relations with some what a guy now the way martin was shitty that had an impact on their four children which would become five when they adopted ada most of the children had anxiety depression vanessa the second oldest battled drugs for years aydah by the way the adopted daughter was actually vanessa's who had her when she was a teen by 2003 the kids were all grown up with the exception of ada of course and so martin and michelle decided to adopt tree children from ukraine of all places ideally providing a better home for them than the impoverishment back home in ukraine [Music] they would have been better off saying they adopted 12 year old gisele 10 year old l and 13 year old noel these girls faced difficulties due to language barriers cultural differences so much to the point they were actually bullied in school noel had problems also in general um with her new caregivers martin and michelle something called reactive attachment disorder so she was sent away to an institution in michigan by which point uh martin and michelle decided to do the old switcheroo and uh you know we still have the receipt noelle was taken into the care of the state of michigan and soon after they adopted another child from ukraine sabrina in 2005 martin's behavior changed his daughters thought it was about to be a midlife crisis if it was a midlife crisis it was a hell of a midlife crisis should have bought a ferrari it seemed that the life he had built which was a good one was not good enough for him anymore he started you know working out pumped the guns getting a tan on and just banging every woman he could one of his lovers anna said he told her he had thoughts about killing since a young age and that the thoughts sometimes became reality including mercy killings while he was a doctor apparently at the age of eight while he was still living in new jersey with his mother he gathered all the drugs he could mix it with alcohol and gave it to his mom who was probably drunk on the couch she started dying until his sister arrived home and called 9-1-1 another time his brother rufus called martin said that he had done something stupid martin arrived then rufus in the bathtub wrists could open water in the tub at which point martin thinking this would look bad in the family the deal uh pushed rufus's head down until the bubbles stopped by the way you might think you know uh one of his many lovers anna who he was telling all this to she might be you know disturbed by all this maybe tell the police nope turns out she was into that [ __ ] she had sent letters to the killer known as the son of sam david berkowitz so pretty crazy but what what happened which will really hurt hurtless towards the end was when his new mistress gypsy willis entered the picture who martin had met online and his interest towards her turned into an obsession with them getting really serious in 2007 around this time michelle told her friends she thought her marriage was close to the end she had multiple arguments with martin questioned him about the cheating he never admitted it to her though even when the family found gypsy's luggage in his trunk and phone records showing martin constantly calling her martin not this time he also did yell i thought the hip i need a cane to walk around i'm afraid he would walk around with a cane a lot um he was grand he didn't need one might come in handy though you know for people to think you're a frail old man if you you know had to try and get somebody out of a bathtub well that time he had to get someone out of a bathtub came in 2007. one morning in march 2007 martin told michelle she needed a full facelift he was really pushy about it come on it'll help our marriage if you looked completely different and had a new face even when michelle got checked by her doctor saying that the surgery should be postponed until her existing high blood pressure got under control martin said nope she's getting it done and she's getting it done now michelle never had any plastic surgery before but wanting to save her marriage well it's a long procedure lasts for hours and it's painful as you can imagine getting your face cut up after it was done michelle wanted to stay in hospital at least overnight martin poo-pooed that idea but their daughter alexis who was in medical school agreed with michelle so she stayed in hospital with her for the night martin in the meantime got a lot of medication prescribed for michelle see he was yapping away with the surgeon you know give me all this stuff doctor the doctor talk you know like the surgeon would never prescribe what he's prescribing prescribing but he's like you know we're doctors drugs that were way unnecessary especially as michelle had a low tolerance with drugs she was the kind he would never take the amount prescribed always less so the next day michelle was taken back home alexis who was on spring break from medical school she began taking care of her mother much to martin's chagrin at the end of the first day at home that night martin came into the bedroom and told alexis go sleep somewhere else you know i'll look after your mother then the next morning when alexis went in to check on her mother michelle was way out of it barely responsive alexis then went to speak to her dad saying what the hell did you give arma she's not good to which martin would say must have given her a bit too much whoops my bad should be ground you know don't worry about it alexis thought that was maybe not good so she began keeping you a little booklet of her mother's vitals all the amount of medication she was taking keeping track of everything she was in medical school and then when michelle gets back to normal kind of later on she kind of recovers she told her daughter that martin kept feeding her medication to the point where she puked and he kept giving it to her michelle would even say to alexis this is how serious it was getting if something happens to me make sure it's not your dad alexis then kept looking after her mother until spring break was over and she had to go back to college and on the 11th of april 2007 michelle she was feeling a lot better the young children adopted ones you know they head off to school martin goes off to work uh around mid-morning martin picks up aydah she was still the youngest from school they drive back home aida goes into the house first starts looking for her mother searches everywhere until she goes into the bathtub and that's that the funeral was held four days later during the service martin gave a speech she was like you know ah lads here you know she's she's out of here so enough about that let's talk about me and how hard this guy's life is so the grown children had all rushed home alexis had questions obviously her mother was fine when she was there as soon as she leaves she's dead they were looking around suddenly the little booklet alexis was keeping tracking everything was gone all the medications were gone so they couldn't tell how many had been used the bedroom emptied and packed more or less everything boom so not just the lexus had questions at this point another one of the daughters rachel her gears were grinding too about what was going on shortly before michelle's dead and who was giving her medication but the autopsy said arrhythmia you know natural causes undetermined but natural causes case closed end of story officially the same day michelle died martin was like you know we uh we need a nanny for the young ones look after him when alexis offered to do it she would you know leave college quit a job stay here to look after her sisters you know martin he wasn't having any of that he was going to get a he's going to get a nanny and he knew a good one he interviewed and hired jillian and who's jillian i hear you asking gypsy he's his mistress when alexis realized this martin kicked her out a month after michelle's death he proposed to gypsy didn't waste much time then in july 2007 gisele mcneil traveled back to ukraine to meet her biological sister she was going to stay there just for a short while this was martin's idea martin you know he he was hoping her stay however would be permanent because martin while giselle was in ukraine he took her social security number and gave it to his mistress gypsy gypsy gisele yeah that'll work identity theft see he filled out an application an id application giselle giselle became gypsy gypsy became giselle the reason for this was that gypsy owed about 50 to 60 thousand dollars in back taxes this identity theft scheme didn't work although giselle was trapped in the ukraine for almost a year and both martin and gypsy were arrested just in time it turned out because the pair were about to sell the mcneal family home and move essentially to disappear they had already found a family in california to adopt their adopted children they were charged and found guilty of aggravated identity theft and fraud gypsy was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison martin got four years so while they were in prison the investigation continued looking into michelle's death led by alexis and rachel and the police finally started to listen now they saw martin for what he really was a con artist and that's when the police started getting calls about him being an inappropriate doctor taking advantage of patience which also explained why they moved around so much in their earlier years but the problem was that pleasant grove police did not treat the house as a crime scene collect evidence or interview anyone but martin the medical examiner ruled the manner of michelle's death was natural it was just assumed to be a tragic accident the investigators also wanted to confirm what prescription drugs were in michelle's system the day she died they asked the toxicologist to review the original toxicology report which showed an unusual combination of powerful sedatives and painkillers including percocet valium lortab and ambien things which should not be mixed you know not a good cocktail during the investigation the utah county attorney's office also sent a letter to the law school in new york where damien mcneil the son was studying advising them that damien could be potentially dangerous to students staff and others and also that he had been in the home when michelle had died damian mcneil committed suicide in january 2010 [Music] so we don't really know the extent of damien's involvement in what happened to michelle the utah medical examiner's office revised that michelle's manner of death from natural to undetermined with suspicious circumstances the net was closing in and when in 2011 gypsy was released from prison she entered a plea deal in which she agreed to plead guilty to all charges and to testify honestly in court if any murder charges were filed against martin mcneill in the future they didn't have to wait too long martin was released from prison in 2012 and a few weeks later he was arrested and charged with the murder of his wife he went on trial in october 2013. he pled not guilty on april 11th of 2007 the defendant picked up his daughter aydah from school ada was six years old and in kindergarten and the two of them went back home to the mcneil family home in pleasant grove utah like many young children aydah went to look for her mom young neil who is also the defendant's wife aydah found her mom unresponsive in the bathtub and ran to get the defendant the defendant came in and saw michelle in the tub ada ran to the neighbor's house to get help and the defendant called 9-1-1 this case starts a year and a half before april 11th of 2007 when the defendant met this person gypsy willis ladies and gentlemen of the jury what you've just heard from the prosecution reminds me of one of aesop's fables that i first learned about when i was in high school and that fable goes like this a farmer who had gone into his field to mend a gap in one of his fences found in his return the cradle in which he had left his only child asleep turned upside down a clothes all torn and bloody and his dog lying near it was smeared with blood thinking that the animal had destroyed his child he instantly dashed out his brains with the hatchet in his hand when turning up the cradle he found his child unhurt and an enormous serpent lying dead on the floor killed by that faithful dog whose courage and fidelity in preserving the life of his son deserved another kind of reward now what are the morals of this story number one is that we shouldn't jump to conclusions and the other is that we probably shouldn't let emotions cloud our judgment and i'm not here to tell you ladies and gentlemen that martin mcneil deserves a reward like the faithful dog in aesop's fable martin has made poor choices in his life you've heard that he's had affairs during his marriage you've heard that he was having an affair with someone named gypsy willis at the time that he was married to the show and that shortly after his wife passed away he moved gypsy willis into the family home and what are our reactions when we hear that ladies and gentlemen we may think he is a total jerk that's absolutely disgusting and that's natural but it's very critical that during this trial you set aside your emotion and you evaluate this case based upon the facts of the case rather than emotion the prosecution like the farmer in the fable jumped to conclusions about martin's guilt but unlike the farmer who was willing to surrender his faulty perception in the facts in the face of the facts of the case the prosecution has continued to cling to its faulty belief despite evidence in the case including the medical evidence in this case which shows that michelle mcneill died of natural causes the prosecution's perception is not supported by proof beyond a reasonable doubt martin mcneill is innocent ladies and gentlemen and after you hear the evidence in this case we will ask that you return thank you for your time the tree week trial included testimony from mcneil's daughters will you please state your name for the record and spell your last name rachel renee mcneil good morning good morning will you please give the court your name um sabrina michelle mcneill will you please give us your name alexis michelle summers my mom was hesitant to get the surgery um she was talking to my dad um saying that maybe we should delay the surgery and tell this well yeah a few things she wanted to maybe push it back until the summertime because i would be home for you know almost a three month period and then she also had been recently diagnosed with some mild hypertension and wanted to make sure her blood pressure and things would be under control and then also she wanted to lose some weight before having the surgery and your dad was present he was listening to this yeah did he have a reaction yeah he had a very strong reaction what was that reaction he got really angry at my mom and said no you cannot do that if you don't have the surgery now you're not getting it he was raising his voice and very animated and also said that he had already paid for the anesthesiologist and the operating suite my father had a list of medications that he had prepared previously that he wanted uh dr thompson to prescribe when you say he prepared that previously how do you know that i had seen him writing them down a couple days before i don't know if it was couple days or the day before but i had seen him in his room writing medications down that he wanted the doctor to prescribe and what did you do upon waking up i went right into my mom's room okay and what did you see um i saw my mom and she appeared to be very sedated um yeah i went to my father and i said what happened uh obviously mom is over medicated and did he respond he said yeah and he did respond yes he said yeah i think i gave her too much medicine yesterday 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 me more medication and kept giving me medication she was upset she was upset how could you tell she was upset because i knew my mom um i could hear it in her voice um she said she said that she didn't want my dad to give her any more medicine and that um 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 that if my dad tried to give her anything she'd know what he was giving her i mentioned you went looking for the uh the medications what did you find or not find i didn't find the medications jailhouse informants she was in way that she wanted the house and the kids we thought and he i get he just pretty much opened up about it okay and he said that he uh gave her some oxy and he gave her some sleeping pills some kind of sleeping pills and then um got her to get in the bathtub did he say what he did next later on he just said he had to help her out and i asked him what that was and he said he held her head under the water for a little while medical examiners did you hear the defendant saying anything while you were there yeah he was uh he was kind of yelling some things do you remember what um cursing her for having the surgery you know why did you do this surgery um i told her not to do it things like that i proceeded down the hallway to where they were initiating care on michelle and what happened when you when you went there i had just a brief moment uh interaction with the crew to see how things were going but it was obvious within just a few seconds mr mcneil's behavior made it so that i was drawn away from the patient care in an attempt to remove him from the that exact location what was he doing he was just loud he was telling us to he was he was giving us orders as far as treatment care treatment things that we needed to do for michelle former mistresses he said about inducing a heart attack what did he tell you there's something you can give someone that's natural that's there after they have a heart attack so that it's not detectable after they have a heart attack okay so you can give someone some sort of substance that's naturally occurring in the body and it would be there after the heart attack but it would also start a heart attack yes and so you could cause someone to have a heart attack and the drug would supposed to be there anyway so you wouldn't be able to tell that's correct on gypsy willis herself i agreed to what he was saying i mean so the two of you had talked about what was going to happen before it took place briefly yeah and you had talked about part of this was to to bring you into the home as the nanny my recollection at this point is that it was to meet the family on better you know to to have an introduction soon after this you attended a nanny interview correct yes who conducted that interview it was at the mcneil house um i guess martin conducted it the the children were there i think everyone was there except alexis perhaps who prosecutors alleged was the motive for the murder plot a trial like this is about the truth it's not about games it's not about gotcha moments among the attorneys or the witnesses it's about getting to the bottom of what happened to michelle mcneill and that is that she was murdered by her husband martin mcneill it's about the truth and the administration of justice the trial really made it clear you know how um how insane and crazy and weird he was acting in the morning his wife died after he'd given her just a crazy cocktail of drugs and set up a nice bath for her so first thing he did was send in his young daughter aydah to find her so she would be the first he'd be slow to get there he had been pretending he had you know a cane he was he was very slow he didn't need a cane just pretended he had one so that he'd be very slow to get to her couldn't lift her at himself because he was too weak had to call a neighbor to help him do it therefore she was under the water for longer hung up three times during the 911 call thereby slowing the [ __ ] out of an ambulance getting to the house performed cpr so it looked like he was saving her when he wasn't doing it because when the paramedics started doing cpr that's when the water started coming out and then when they were trying to take her out of the house he was making a huge scene thereby slowing them to get her to hospital [Music] after 11 hours of deliberations ending shortly after 1am on the 9th of november 2013 the jury convicted martin of the murder of his wife michelle and for obstruction of justice leave a jury having reviewed the evidence in the case by the defendant as to count one murder guilty count two obstruction of justice guilty of november thank you please be seated after he was convicted he was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison 15 years for obstruction of justice and martin was also found guilty of forcible sexual abuse of alexis also he did this after his wife died and was sentenced to 15 years for that his first appeal was scheduled for 2052 when he would be 96 years old but martin he he couldn't wait that long couldn't wait that long i wasn't having it so after two and a half years in prison he killed himself officials with the utah department of corrections say mcneil was discovered in one of the prison yards unresponsive mcneil was recently denied an appeal to retry his case just last month and the six-year-old wasn't up for parole until 20-52 officials do not suspect foul play at this point but unified police are heading the investigation to determine an official cause he was found unresponsive in the outdoor yard near the greenhouse at the prison he used a hose and a natural gas line that was intended for a heater inside the greenhouse to kill himself what a way to end it all thankfully the younger daughters they were adopted by alexis they have a home now for martin he truly was a con man from start to finish lying throughout every stage of his life and doing a whole lot of crazy [ __ ] because you know martin he always got what he wanted you know including getting out of prison i mean it was in a coffin but still thank you so much for watching i really appreciate it i will see you as always real soon in the next video take care of [Music] yourselves [Music] you

Channel: That Chapter

Views: 2,288,142

Keywords: that chapter, martin macneill, michele macneill, gypsy willis, dr martin macneill, dr martin macneill gypsy willis, michele macneill case

Id: -aze6Fie7pg

Length: 35min 10sec (2110 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 18 2020