by Shanna Hogan
Throughout his workday, he frequently sent Gypsy affectionate text messages: I love you. I miss you. I wish you were here with me at work. When at home, Martin and Gypsy would sneak off together for hours at a time to be intimate. And almost every night, once the children were asleep, Gypsy joined him in his marital bed.
While Gypsy kept up the façade that she was Jillian the nanny, it was clear to even the young children that she cared little for them.
“She didn’t do much. She made spaghetti once,” Sabrina said years later. “That was the only time she really cooked. She didn’t do anything. She lived downstairs.”
It was a difficult and confusing time for Elle, Sabrina, and Ada, who became sullen and standoffish around Jillian. Perhaps because she never felt as if she belonged with the MacNeills, Giselle reached out to the nanny she saw the other girls snubbing. Of all the children, Giselle was the friendliest and spent the most time with Jillian.
For her part, Gypsy said she tried to bond with Martin’s daughters, but felt it was inappropriate when the older children were around. “They were sweet girls. I tried to love them. I wanted to love them. I never really felt like the older children wanted that or approved of that,” Gypsy recalled. “When the adult children were home I deferred to them and went back to studying my nursing.”
* * *
Throughout May, Martin introduced “Jillian” to the neighbors in Pleasant Grove. She also accompanied him and the girls to deliver thank-you gifts to some of the residents who had offered support during the funeral.
One afternoon, Angie Aguilar was in her front yard gardening when Martin pulled up in his car with the nanny in the passenger seat. He rolled down the window.
“This is Jillian. I think I’ve mentioned her,” Martin said. “She’s going to help with the girls.”
By the way she was referenced, Angie assumed the woman was the nurse Martin had wanted to house-sit for the Guthries. Martin told Angie the arrangement was perfect since he had to return to his job.
“I guess it all worked out.” He shrugged.
Angie was relieved to discover that someone would be caring for the children. “I was very concerned about who would watch the girls, especially because in my head Martin was going to be dying soon as well,” Angie later said. “It was relieving to me that he found someone, who he described as a quiet nurse, to help with the girls.”
On another occasion, after babysitting for Martin one afternoon, Angie walked the girls back to the MacNeill home. Standing in his doorway, Martin told Angie that the autopsy had shown his wife’s death was natural.
“It’s good to know.” Martin shook his head sadly.
Angie was sympathetic.
“He mentioned to me that it had been an arrhythmia, and he seemed relieved that they had been able to find out what was wrong with Michele,” Angie remembered. “He was very calm, and smiled.”
On a Sunday afternoon in late April, the girls’ ballet instructor, Jacqueline Colledge, was cleaning the carpets in her home when the doorbell rang unexpectedly. Peering out the peephole, she saw Martin standing on the porch with Elle, Sabrina, Ada, and a mysterious dark-haired stranger.
Having not had a chance to speak with Martin at the funeral, Jacqueline offered her sympathies the moment she opened the door. “I am so very sorry for your loss. I really can’t believe that Michele is gone. I didn’t know she had health issues.”
“She’s had health problems her whole life and refused to take medication,” Martin replied coldly.
Jacqueline flinched—she’d known Michele for twenty years and had never heard of any health concerns.
Martin then introduced the nanny. “This is Jillian.”
Because Jillian was still in nursing school, Martin said, the new nanny would be unable to take the girls to ballet. To assist with the transition, Jacqueline happily volunteered to bring the girls to their dance classes.
“That would be so great, since the nanny won’t be able to,” Martin said.
Neighbors Doug and Kristi Daniels soon became accustomed to seeing Jillian around the neighborhood, and her silver Volkswagen Beetle parked in front of the MacNeill home.
One afternoon, Kristi stumbled upon a cell phone at the Creekside community park. Hours later, one of the MacNeill girls stopped by the house to ask if she had found a phone, and Kristi retrieved it.
“It’s our nanny’s phone,” the girl said as Kristi handed it over.
Days later, Kristi and Doug encountered Martin in their common driveway. As they spoke, Martin mentioned the cause of his wife’s death, saying, “It was a heart thing.”
He referenced an article in the local newspaper about a basketball player who had dropped dead on the court from an arrhythmia.
“When we spoke to the pathologist he made sure to tell us it was no one’s fault,” Martin said. “It was natural.”
Miraculously, in the weeks and months after Michele’s death, Martin’s own health appeared to improve. He began using a cane less frequently and then stopped altogether. Soon he was no longer limping and seemed as healthy as ever. When asked about his cancer, Martin gave vague updates, telling neighbors, “It’s coming along” or “It will be okay.”
As she witnessed her neighbor’s supposedly deadly disease disappear, Kristi inquired about his terminal diagnosis.
“Martin, how are you doing?” she asked one day in the shared driveway. “Last I heard, you only had six months to live.”
“I’m still here now,” Martin replied with a sly grin. “Don’t write me off yet.”
24.
While Martin and Gypsy’s relationship had started out as an illicit affair, they now seemed to proceed with their romance quite traditionally. Gypsy decided it was time to bring her new boyfriend home to meet her parents.
Shortly after moving into the MacNeill home, Gypsy called her mom, gushing about her boyfriend, explaining that he was a doctor, lawyer, and former Mormon bishop. She admitted he was a recent widower, but claimed his wife had died months prior—in January 2007. Gypsy said she and Martin had only begun dating after Michele’s death. While it had only been a few months, she was in love, Gypsy told her mom. “I’m so excited for you to meet him.”
Although Gypsy was planning a trip to Wyoming specifically to introduce Martin to her parents, she lied and said they were traveling through Wyoming and just wanted to stop by.
To prepare for the visit, Martin fabricated another ploy. Gypsy told the girls she had to go to Wyoming to visit with her sick grandmother. Martin said he had to leave town for a work conference. Alexis and Rachel were to be left in charge of the younger girls while they were away.
In early May, just weeks after Michele’s death, Martin and Gypsy each slipped out of the house separately. Then they reunited and continued to Wyoming.
By 2007, Howard and Vicki were raising Gypsy’s biological daughter Heidi, then twelve years old, in a rural country home on forty acres of open prairie, nine miles north of Cheyenne.
When Gypsy arrived at the house with her new boyfriend, her parents greeted them warmly. To Howard and Vicki, Martin was charming and engaging as he boasted about his schooling and career. As usual, he came across as pretentious—quoting poetry and referencing classic literature in normal conversations. But Martin also spoke fondly of his love for Gypsy.
After observing years of fumbles and false starts, the Willises were thrilled that their eldest daughter had found a proper, moral Mormon man. “Frankly, we were giddy about Martin joining the family,” Vicki recalled. “Martin MacNeill is a very impressive person. He’s tall, he’s got a bright white smile. He holds the title of doctor and also attorney or lawyer, both of which are highly esteemed in American society. We were pleased, of course.”
And unlike his apathetic attitude toward the Somers family, Martin was eager to please Gypsy’s parents. He shoveled hay, helped Vicki run errands, and paid for dinners in town.
Throughout 2007, Martin and Gypsy would travel to Wyoming
half a dozen times to visit the Willises. During each stay, Martin was polite and charismatic. But while it seemed Martin was in love with their daughter, it was also obvious to Vicki that he was the one controlling the relationship.
“It was clear that he was the dominant partner in the relationship. She had a lot of deference to him,” Vicki said years later. “She looked after him. She always seemed to me to be very careful about her behavior in front of him.”
As they got to know him, Howard and Vicki avoided one subject: Martin’s deceased wife.
“We did speak with him about his wife, but we were reticent about asking too much about that,” Vicki remembered. “It was my understanding initially that she had passed away in January. It lent more credibility to the relationship of my daughter and Dr. MacNeill.”
Assuming Martin was uncomfortable with the subject, Howard and Vicki never pried. But every so often Martin or Gypsy would make a comment that seemed to contradict the Willises’ understanding of the relationship. A few times they would reference time spent together from 2005 or 2006, while he was still married to his wife. Gypsy’s parents were hesitant to ask many questions for fear of evoking further pain.
“It was very confusing. Because we don’t like to pry into these things,” Vicki later said. “They are personal, they’re private, and they’re painful.”
* * *
Mother’s Day 2007 fell on May 13. It was barely a month after Michele’s death and the first of such holidays the MacNeill children would spend without their mom.
That morning Martin attended church with his children. During the services, he addressed the congregation. Because of the occasion, they all expected he would speak of his dead wife. Instead, he launched into a speech concerning single mothers—like Gypsy.
Jacqueline Colledge, who was in attendance for the christening of her new grandson, couldn’t conceal her bewilderment. “Most of his talk was about single mothers and how important it was for single mothers to be recognized on Mother’s Day because of all the work they do even though they may not be married,” Jacqueline recalled.
In celebration of the holiday, Martin sent an original oil painting to Vicki Willis. Attached to the gift was a letter thanking Howard and Vicki for their hospitality during his recent visit and further expounding on his love for their daughter.
“Physical beauty is prized by many but with time it is illusory,” Martin wrote. “However, I want you to know that I have seen the beauty of Gypsy’s heart and tell you that that is a beauty that will not fade or age or wrinkle.”
In the letter, Martin suggested that he knew Gypsy’s relationship with her parents had been troubled and fraught with tension, turmoil, and outright antagonism. However, he hoped they could move beyond the past, he wrote. To illustrate his points, Martin included a poem, a Chinese proverb, and quotes from French playwrights and avant-garde writers.
“I am not privy to all of the issues in your relationship with Gypsy, but I see her as a loving, kind, compassionate woman and I will be eternally grateful that she has become such an important part of my life,” Martin wrote. “Your relationship with her played such a significant role in the person she has become that I am compelled to give you thanks for raising and nurturing someone such as she.”
* * *
Throughout May, Alexis stayed at the house in Pleasant Grove. Because the rooms were all occupied, Alexis slept in her parents’ bed while Martin slept on the couch in the master bedroom’s sitting area. This sleeping arrangement gave Martin and Gypsy no privacy for trysts.
For Alexis, sleeping so close to her mother’s killer was excruciating. Leaving her sisters alone with Martin, however, was incomprehensible.
“I was feeling panic, horror, fear that my sisters were not safe and that they were in the home of someone who had just murdered my mom,” Alexis later said.
On the night of May 23—six weeks after Michele’s death—Alexis was cleaning out her mother’s closet and drawers, sorting through her possessions. Emotionally exhausted, she lay down in her parents’ bed around 11 P.M. and crawled between the sheets, still wearing jeans and a T-shirt.
A few hours later she awoke to the sensation of fingertips sliding down the back of her jeans, fondling her buttock. A man’s lips glided against her left hand, a hot tongue wetting her palm.
Alexis’s eyes shot open. She slapped the hand away. Peering up, she saw her own father looming over her.
“I could feel my father’s hand rubbing my buttocks,” Alexis later testified. “He had one of my hands, my left hand, he was licking and kissing it.”
Springing from the bed, Alexis shrieked, “What are you doing?”
Alexis said Martin recoiled and apologized. “Oh. Oh. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I thought you were your mother.”
Repulsed, Alexis bolted from the bedroom and spent the rest of the night in another room, trying to erase the sickening thoughts from her mind.
The next morning she confronted her father. Once again he apologized. “I was asleep. I thought you were Michele.”
Later that day, Alexis told Rachel what had happened, and they discussed reporting Martin to the police. But Alexis was hesitant—if she pressed charges, Martin might permanently bar her from seeing her siblings. Alexis decided being tactical was more important, knowing that she now had leverage against her father.
“Please don’t say anything to anyone,” Alexis pleaded. Reluctantly, Rachel agreed.
Later, Martin called a family meeting, where he admitted he had reached out and touched Alexis inappropriately. He declared that Giselle, Elle, Sabrina, and Ada would no longer be allowed in his bedroom, for fear he might accidently touch them in the middle of the night.
“What if it had been one of the young girls?” Martin said, sounding concerned. “I could have gotten in trouble.”
Alexis was now left with the disturbing fear that Martin would sexually abuse his own children. “I was very concerned for my younger sisters,” Alexis recalled. “There were a lot of things I was concerned about going on in the home. That was just another horrible thing to worry about.”
For the next few days Alexis remained at the house, watching over her sisters. She no longer slept in her parents’ bedroom. Gypsy was now able to resume secretly sneaking back into Martin’s bed.
* * *
By June, the true sordid nature of Martin’s relationship with the nanny was becoming obvious to all the MacNeill children. On several occasions, Sabrina caught the two cavorting around the house before slipping into his bedroom.
“I remember her going up into my dad’s room at night. And then … the door closed,” Sabrina recalled. “I remember staying up at night wondering, What in the world? I thought she was the nanny. Why is she up in Dad’s room?”
Even Damian’s girlfriend, Eileen, developed suspicions. On one occasion, Damian, Eileen, Martin, and Jillian went to lunch at a casual, sit-down restaurant.
“I saw Jillian reach over and eat food off of Martin’s plate, and I thought that was strange given their employee-employer relationship,” Eileen later said. “I told Damian I thought that was weird.”
By this point, Rachel could no longer ignore her father’s lewd conduct with the nanny.
“Something is very wrong,” Rachel wrote in an e-mail to Alexis on June 3. “I know you shouldn’t bring it up with Dad. But something is very wrong with the nanny.”
Rachel had been monitoring Jillian with increasing concern. What kind of nanny was this woman? She seemed more like her father’s girlfriend, Rachel wrote.
“I know Dad is suffering from Mom’s death like we all are. But that doesn’t mean that something weird isn’t going on. Please tell me this lady’s full name? Gypsy? Or Jillian? Or what? What is her last name? Where in Wyoming is her family? I know something isn’t right and I want it to be taken care of.”
Looking back at the bizarre introduction with Jillian at the temple, Rachel also questioned whether it was planned.
“Wh
y was Jillian at the temple that day? She didn’t work in that area or live in that area. Why did Dad pretend not to know her name in the temple? And why did she just happen to be outside the temple that day?”
If her father was capable of orchestrating a phony introduction between his daughter and his mistress outside the temple, Rachel could no longer deny he likely had something to do with Michele’s death.
The animosity between Martin and his daughters festered throughout the summer of 2007, as Jillian shirked her nanny responsibilities.
One day in June, Rachel had had enough. She confronted her father about the new nanny. Tempers flared, and the argument grew heated. “This nanny doesn’t cook. She doesn’t clean,” Rachel yelled. “She doesn’t seem to pay any attention to the girls.”
Martin’s jaw tightened, and his fists balled at his side. He reprimanded his daughter. “She is a guest in our home,” he snarled. “How dare you question me!”
Alexis stepped in, and both sisters accused Martin of having an affair with Jillian.
He told his daughters they were no longer welcome in his home. Martin grabbed his cell phone and called the police, reporting Alexis and Rachel for trespassing.
“I was told I needed to leave the home because I wasn’t nice to Gypsy,” Rachel recalled. “He wanted to make it known that it was either Gypsy or his children, and he chose ‘the nanny.’”
25.
Linda Cluff’s investigation of Martin soon collided with that of her nieces. In June, after being thrown out of the house, Alexis and Rachel had hired a private investigator to dig up details of their father’s relationship with Jillian, because they believed she was really his mistress, Gypsy.
Alexis and Rachel confided in their aunt their now-shared belief that their father had killed their mother. Linda revealed her own thirty-year suspicions of Martin and her resolute conviction he had murdered Michele.
“I didn’t know they thought their dad did it for a while,” Linda later explained. “For a while, I was on my own until a few months into it.”