Jurors speak of experience with MacNeill case


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SALT LAKE CITY — A jury of eight convicted Martin MacNeill of murder in the death of his wife, Michele MacNeill. Six of the jurors talked about their experiences Wednesday in their first interviews after the trial.

The jurors spent eleven hours deliberating. They said they discussed the case for five or six hours before taking a vote to see how far along they were. They said at that point, they were all convinced that MacNeill carried out a "cold, calculated plan to murder his wife."

"It was a tough process at first," said jury foreperson, Steve. "A lot of the information was circumstantial."

Steve said the number of prescription pills MacNeill gave Michele after her facelift was suspicious.

"On April 5, the morning of April 5, and then the morning of Michele's death — that really stood out," Steve said.

"It just seemed like, ‘Oh good, she's gone. I can move on with my mistress now,' " said jury member Jenna.

MacNeill texting Gypsy Willis right after Michele's death and during her funeral — even moving her into his home under the guise of the nanny only days later — was disturbing to jurors. They said it was also disturbing how MacNeill had a plan to make Gypsy look like an answer to prayer.

"And the whole temple thing with Rachel, trying to make it seem like this happenstance event, and it was really just a phony staged thing to get her in their life in ‘a nice way,' Jenna said.

When MacNeill flushed his wife's pills immediately after her death with a witness present, juror Randy said that was "extremely telling."

"He knew there were pills involved because he had something to do with it," Randy said. "Those kind of calculating actions were kind of the best illustration of a calculating personality."

Dateline NBC special outlines timeline of events in MacNeill case
By Sam Penrod

SALT LAKE CITY — For more than two years, Dateline NBC has been following the Martin MacNeill case. The jury convicted MacNeill Nov. 9 of killing his wife, Michele MacNeill. Dateline will air a special on the MacNeill trial and timeline of events Wednesday at 9 p.m.

Keith Morrison is doing the Dateline special , and he said it's a case that at first is hard to believe — a prominent doctor who wouldn't look suspicious to police. Morrison said the case twisted when the details of his mistress, Gypsy Willis, were then added.

"You have a case where it is pretty difficult from a forensic point of view, even impossible, to determine the cause of death of Michele as an accident or whether it was a homicide," Morrison said.

"We felt there were too many circumstances to all have happened coincidentally within such a short time frame that did not have a logical explanation," said jury member Ken.

Jurors want the public to know they have no second thoughts.

"That wasn't an easy process to deliberating, to come to this conclusion," said juror Kitty. "We went through every bit of evidence several times over and made sure we made the right decision that everybody could be at peace with."

The jurors also hope Michele's family can find peace, now that MacNeill is finally facing justice.

"It's heartbreaking what they've had to deal with and the destruction in their family," Stuart said. "So for me, the takeaway is just how heartbreaking it is for the family."

A timeline has been released of the events in the MacNeill case.

Martin MacNeill timeline

• 1973: Martin MacNeill joins military at age 17 after lying about his age

• 1975: Martin placed on disability leave when he is deemed a “latent schizophrenic"; family and judge later question diagnosis but he received V.A. and Social Security benefits for years, even after he became a doctor and lawyer

• 1977: Martin arrested in California for forging checks; he tells friends he saw check forgers on “60 Minutes” and thought he could do it better and with fewer risks

• Feb. 21, 1978: Martin and Michele Somers elope; four months later he begins 6-month jail sentence for forgery, theft, fraud

• Early 1980s: Investigators say Martin falsified transcripts with inflated grades and lied on applications to get into two medical schools and later to BYU law school

• 1984: Martin is licensed as an osteopathic surgeon in California

• 1987: Martin obtains license to practice as an osteopathic physician and surgeon in Utah

• 1990: Martin pleaded no contest to alleged Medicaid fraud in Sandy and is banned from Medicaid billing for 12 years

• 1990: Martin graduates from BYU law school

• 1998: Martin agrees to resign from BYU Health Center; his work there was punctuated by accusations of rape, complaints of unprofessional conduct and misdiagnosis

• 1999: He returns to BYU Health Center for three months and more complaints are made against him

• 2000: Gov. Mike Leavitt appoints Martin medical director of American Fork Training School, later renamed Utah State Developmental Center

• August 2000: Police called to house after Martin threatens to kill wife and himself with knife after she caught him looking at pornography

• 2003: Couple adopts five more children, four from Ukraine; one adoption is later terminated, making a family of eight children: Rachel, Vanessa, Alexis, Damian, Giselle, Sabrina, Elle and Ada

• 2005: Martin has affair with Anna Osborne Walthall, who told psychiatrist she was dating a “serial killer” because she said Martin told her that he’d killed his brother in a bathtub and tried to kill his mother when he was young; she said he also offered to kill her husband and described writing an anonymous article about “mercy killing” in which a patient was euthanized with pain killers but was never held accountable, court documents state

• November 2005: Martin meets Gypsy Willis online and begins relationship with her

• February 2007: Michele’s suspicions that her husband is having an affair increase and she confronts him repeatedly

• April 3, 2007: Michele receives facelift at husband’s encouragement; plastic surgeon prescribes stronger drugs than he normally would at Martin’s request

• April 4, 2007: Michele is lethargic and unresponsive when daughter Alexis tries to wake her; Alexis takes over care after father tells her he “probably over-medicated” the woman

• April 6, 2007: Michele tells Alexis: "If anything happens to me, make sure it was not your dad"

• April 10, 2007: Alexis returns to school in Las Vegas

• April 11, 2007: Michele dies in bathtub of her Pleasant Grove home with four drugs in her system; Martin orders son to dispose of all her medication; Pleasant Grove police conclude death was accidental

• April 2007: Autopsy concludes she died of natural causes

• April 14, 2007: Martin speaks at wife’s funeral but only mentions Michele in passing

• April 17, 2007: Martin asks daughter Rachel to go to Mount Timpanogos Temple with him to pray about a nanny; mistress Gypsy Willis approaches them in what Rachel called a “scripted” encounter

• May 2007: Willis moves into family’s Pleasant Grove home as nanny

• June 2007: Police are called as Martin kicks out daughters Rachel and Alexis from home after they said they asked why Willis didn’t cook, clean or take care of the children

• Sometime in 2007: Martin changes his will to give just $1 to each of his children with everything else to go to Willis under her false identity, according to investigators

• July 20, 2007: Martin and Willis obtain marriage license but never marry

• July 2007: Daughter Giselle MacNeill returns to Ukraine to visit biological sister for summer; family and investigators believe Martin planned for trip to be permanent and a ploy to steal her identity

• Sept. 2, 2007: Police report filed alleging Martin twice fondled sleeping daughter and said, "I thought you were your mother"; criminal charge filed, dismissed, then later refiled

• September 2007: Linda Cluff writes letters to Gov. Jon Huntsman and Utah County Attorney's Office asking them to launch investigation into her sister's death

• September 2007: Martin is fired from Department of Health and Human Services

• November 2007: Willis brings domestic violence complaint against Martin but later recants and it is dismissed; notary says Martin dominated conversation during recanting and investigators believe he prepared document that led to the dismissal because he spelled Willis' name wrong

• Summer 2008: Daughter struggling with addiction asks for help from Martin but says he offered mutual suicide as solution

• January 2009: Martin indicted in federal court on nine counts of identity theft and other charges after he and Willis used his daughter Giselle’s identity to alter Willis’ identity to create fake IDs and open up bank accounts under the false name; he also deeded house to himself while acting as attorney for his dead wife

• January 2009: Willis indicted on 11 similar charges

• August 2009: Martin sentenced to four years in prison

• September 2009: Martin pleads guilty to state forgery and fraud charges and is sentenced to three years in jail; sentence to run concurrent with federal case

• September 2009: Willis sentenced to 21 months in federal prison but begins sentence a month earlier than scheduled after prosecutors said she planned to flee to Mexico

• December 2009: Willis is charged in state court with fraud and other charges; she is later sentenced to three years’ probation and agrees to testify against Martin in deal with prosecutors

• Jan. 16, 2010: Martin’s only son, Damian, commits suicide by overdosing on prescription drugs

• October 2010: Autopsy changed Michele's cause of death to include "drug toxicity" and says Michele could not have administered medication to herself

• Dec. 4, 2010: Deseret News publishes extensive report about circumstantial evidence against Martin in his wife’s death

• March 2011: Willis is released from federal prison and returns to Utah

• July 6, 2012: Martin is released from Texas federal prison and returns to his Pleasant Grove home

• Aug. 24, 2012: Utah County Attorney’s Office charges Martin with murdering his wife in 2007

• Oct. 17, 2013: Testimony begins in Martin’s murder trial in Provo

• Nov. 9, 2013: After 11 hours of deliberation, jurors announce at 1 a.m. that Martin is guilty of murder and obstruction of justice for making the death appear to be accidental

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Sam Penrod and Brian West

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