The Stranger She Loved

by Shanna Hogan

  Alone in his dorm room, Damian took a handful of prescription pills, placed a plastic bag over his head, and killed himself.

  * * *

  Following his suicide, Damian’s siblings were haunted with blistering pain. Rachel wrote his obituary. In it she didn’t reference her father or her sister Giselle. Survivors were listed as sisters Rachel, Vanessa, Alexis, Elle, Sabrina, and Ada.

  “Damian returned to his loving Mother’s arms,” the obituary read. “Damian was blessed with a mother who taught him the true meaning of love. The true meaning of life. The truth … Together we will live forever.”

  As she had done for her mother, Rachel created a Web site and video tribute in honor of his memory.

  Damian’s funeral was held on Saturday, January 30—one day before what would have been his twenty-fifth birthday. It was attended by hundreds of heartbroken friends, family, and former classmates. Damian was laid in his final resting place at Highland City Cemetery, beside his mother.

  Losing her only brother nearly broke Alexis. She would come to believe that although Damian chose to end his own life, it was still a result of her father’s influence. “No matter what, my dad was involved, even if it was a suicide,” Alexis later said.

  Linda knew that growing up under Martin’s influence had left Damian troubled. She also considered that Martin’s actions had led Damian toward his own self-destruction.

  “I think he just got so messed up from his dad,” Linda commented. “And he knew things about his dad. I think he really knew that his dad killed Michele and he just couldn’t deal with it. And he was messed up himself.”

  35.

  How Michele died was puzzling—even to the medical examiners.

  While the original autopsy listed her death as natural, the result of “chronic hypertension and myocarditis,” the investigators believed there was more. Yet, in the absence of a finding of homicide, it was difficult to develop a case against Martin. Investigators wanted a second opinion about the effect of the prescriptions in Michele’s system in hopes of finally convincing the Utah medical examiner to change the cause of death. “The reason we have a homicide investigation is that we believe that there is probable cause … there is foul play involved here and we believe we are on the right track,” Witney said in an interview.

  In early 2010, Witney and Robinson contacted two toxicology experts: Dr. Doug Rollins and Dr. Gary Dawson. Both doctors indicated that Michele had taken a potentially lethal dose of medication and were concerned about why she would have taken a sleep aid at 10 A.M.

  Dr. Dawson, a forensic toxicology expert from Boise, Idaho, noted in his report, dated March 31, that the drugs would have created a “potent cocktail” causing sedation. “Such a condition would likely render the victim unable to respond appropriately to her environment including potential threats to her safety,” Dawson noted.

  The heart condition of myocarditis could also have been exacerbated by certain drugs. “This drug/disease interaction cannot be ruled out as a possible contributing factor in the victim’s death,” Dawson added.

  University of Utah professor of pharmacology Dr. Douglas Rollins similarly concluded that the drugs alone could have been lethal.

  Armed with these two expert opinions, the investigators and the prosecutor, Grunander, went directly to the office of Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Todd Grey and asked him to reevaluate the findings of Dr. Frikke.

  “Have you read all the reports?” Witney asked.

  “I’ve scanned them,” the pathologist said.

  “You cannot scan this report,” Witney said, flipping through the pages. “Just read this much while we’re here.”

  After a few minutes of reading, Dr. Grey seemed intrigued. “I think I’m going to look at this deeper.”

  Weeks later, Witney and Robinson gave Grey an extensive and in-depth presentation of the reasons they felt the case was a homicide. For the first time, Grey took notice and amended Michele’s manner of death to include potential drug toxicity. Yet it was only a small change, and Grey refused to call it homicide. In an addendum dated October 6, he certified the manner of death as undetermined.

  “I came to that conclusion because of what I thought about the possible role of drugs in her death. Meaning that if drugs were a factor, this was not a natural death,” he explained years later. “They certainly were another series of pieces of information that raised a question of whether this was a straightforward natural death.”

  * * *

  In early 2010, Alexis completed medical school and moved back to Utah with her adopted sisters. She had since married her longtime boyfriend, Brett Doxie, also a physician. The family purchased a house in South Jordan, just a few miles from the Pleasant Grove property where Michele had died.

  Alexis was now a working doctor, treating patients as a primary care physician at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center. She had achieved her dream of following in her father’s footsteps, although she no longer wanted anything to do with the man who raised her. Because she found the idea of being known as “Dr. MacNeill” repugnant, she changed her last name. But instead of taking her husband’s surname, she became Dr. Alexis Somers to honor her mother.

  Rachel, meanwhile, moved to Los Angeles, where she worked as a waitress. Despite her ongoing anguish, she hoped someday to make peace with the loss of her mother.

  By 2010 Giselle was nineteen. She had dropped out of high school and moved out of Linda’s home into an apartment. The theft of her identity continued to plague her. She had trouble opening a bank account and getting her driver’s permit, and later was evicted from her apartment for bad credit.

  “The nightmare continues for her,” Linda later said. “It’s an ongoing struggle. She is being challenged constantly to prove she is who she is.”

  In her never-ending war against her former brother-in-law, in the fall of 2010 Linda launched the Web site www.martinmacneill.info to generate leads.

  “This site is dedicated to providing the public domain with information concerning Martin MacNeill,” Linda wrote on the Web site’s homepage. “The site is also a method to obtain new information from people who know Martin and have been affected by him or have information that could be useful in legal pursuit.”

  * * *

  By 2010, the national and local media had gravitated to the strange case of the Mormon doctor who allegedly murdered his wife using plastic surgery and a bathtub.

  The investigators, along with Alexis, Rachel, and Linda, were interviewed on programs including 20/20 and Dateline. People magazine also wrote lengthy articles. And the Deseret News covered every development.

  The Willis family, now completely estranged from Gypsy, also spoke to media. “She belongs in a controlled facility where she can’t hurt anybody,” Julie Willis told reporters. “I’m sorry to say, but she does hurt people, and she will continue to hurt people to get what she wants.”

  The well-known crime-show host Nancy Grace frequently aired segments on the case, calling for Martin to be brought to justice. In an episode that aired on December 7, Grace featured a prominent medical examiner who gave a unique opinion on Michele’s death.

  “I want to go out to special guest Dr. Joshua Perper, the chief medical examiner out of Broward County,” Grace introduced the doctor. “Thank you for being with us.”

  On-screen appeared a bald eighty-year-old pathologist with sunken eyes and an angular head—the result of a blood clot when he was a child that had thickened his skull. A noted forensic pathologist and toxicologist, he has conducted autopsies on a number of celebrities, including Anna Nicole Smith. Dr. Perper is a Romanian immigrant who escaped the Nazis during World War II, and he speaks with a heavy accent.

  “I need to understand something,” Grace continued. “Apparently water came out of not only her lungs, but her stomach when the EMTs got there. What does that say to you?”

  “She ingested the water when she was under the water, because when people are asphyxiated or drowned, they
try to breathe, and then in their attempts, water enters both in the airway and in the stomach,” Perper said. “And that’s one of the signs in the syndrome or the process of drowning. So this would be consistent with ingesting water from the—from the tub.”

  “Why would all that have still been in her if he had performed CPR? Doctor?” Grace asked.

  “Well, the CPR would be performed, most of the water which would come out, but on the second attempt, so-called second attempt, there would not be any more water to be expelled from the stomach because whatever could have been expelled was expelled, assuming that over several minutes he tried to resuscitate her.”

  That evening, viewers around the country tuned to Grace to hear the “stunning twists” and “bombshell developments,” in the “Utah Face-Lift Murder,” with Grace asking viewers, “Will a prominent doctor and lawyer get away with murder?”

  One of those viewers was Chad Grunander, who later recommended investigators contact Dr. Perper. Other viewers that night included a horde of inmates gathered in the TV room of the Texarkana federal prison—including Martin’s workout buddy Frank Davis.

  Davis saw Martin’s face flash on-screen, along with pictures of his wife and girlfriend, and was stunned. He had been under the assumption that Martin’s wife was in prison, not dead.

  Another inmate, recognizing Martin, darted down the hallways to grab Michael Buchanan, who was in the housing unit studying his textbooks on his bed. “Hey. Come look at the TV real quick,” the inmate told Buchanan.

  Once he reached the television room, the inmate asked, “Do you recognize the guy right there?”

  “Yeah! That’s Doc!” Buchanan said.

  By the next morning, word had spread through the prison, and all the inmates seemed to be talking about the newly notorious doctor.

  At first Martin was unaware he was the subject of the prison gossip. In the cafeteria, Buchanan had just finished eating and was getting ready for his computer class when he saw Martin coming through the breakfast line.

  Buchanan approached him. “Hey, Doc. Did you see the TV last night?”

  “No,” said Martin.

  “Well, they had you on TV last night.”

  “About what? I had no idea,” Martin said.

  “It was something about you may have killed your wife,” he said.

  Martin’s voice became hushed. “Don’t say anything about it. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Hours later they met in the prison rec yard, where Martin scoffed at the reports. “They’re just running that because my girlfriend is about to get out soon,” he said.

  But the coverage continued. The next day another program on the case aired, and Buchanan again approached Martin. “Doc, did you catch it this time?”

  “No,” Martin said, adding that he’d heard it was on. “They can’t prove anything so I don’t know why they keep running it on TV.”

  But over time Martin began opening up to Buchanan. And what he had to say about the death of his wife was so cold-blooded it caused the inmate to cringe.

  * * *

  A year after being separated by their crimes, Gypsy and Martin continued to communicate through secret jailhouse correspondence.

  In one letter, Gypsy quoted the deceased British politician Charles James Fox, who had written to his mistress, Elizabeth Armistead, “I have examined myself and know that I can better abandon friends, country and everything than live without you. I could change my name and live with you in the remotest part of Europe in poverty and obscurity. I could bear that very well, but to be parted I can not bear.”

  In Martin’s messages, he mentioned their intention to live together and marry once they were both released. “Do you think you want to settle here? I don’t mind settling in Texas or anywhere you might want. If Texas, what city?” he wrote.

  In 2010, the letters were uncovered by guards during a search of Martin’s jail cell and were provided to Witney and Robinson. Martin refused to speak with investigators, but in October, Witney and Robinson traveled to the women’s correctional institute to interview Gypsy. In the interview Gypsy was guarded, not admitting her contact with Martin until she was confronted with the letters.

  “Have you been in contact with Martin since your arrest?” Witney asked.

  “No,” Gypsy lied. “The last time we spoke was in January 2009.”

  “You haven’t been writing him letters?”

  “Nope,” she said. “I haven’t heard from him.”

  The investigators pressed her on her plans following release.

  “I can’t see myself being with this guy anymore,” she said. “The idea of it terrifies me.”

  Once they showed her the letters, Gypsy smiled nervously, knowing she had been caught. She admitted the lie, saying she didn’t want to get in trouble for violating prison policy, and claimed she was only communicating with him because she was lonely.

  “I’ve learned my lesson,” Gypsy said. “He’s out of my life.”

  It became apparent to investigators that Gypsy knew more than she was saying.

  In the interview she admitted that her affair with Martin began in 2005 and that he paid for her to live in the duplex in Lehi. But she denied that her relationship with Martin had intensified in the months prior to Michele’s death.

  Gypsy also confirmed that the seemingly chance meeting with Martin outside the temple had actually been a ruse to get her into the house after Michele died.

  “So you staged and scripted that meeting?” Witney asked. “When did you script it? Was it at the funeral? Was it before the death?”

  Although Martin hadn’t mentioned plastic surgery to Michele until March 11, 2007, Gypsy said she had been told of the surgery in February, suggesting to investigators that Martin had planned the killing for months.

  During the investigation, Witney had watched a home video filmed by the MacNeills during Ada’s sixth birthday. In one scene they noticed a silver Volkswagen Beetle parked in front of the Pleasant Grove home. When they showed Gypsy a picture of the vehicle, she told the investigators it looked like her car. She said she didn’t remember if she was at the house that day, but if she was, it was at Martin’s behest.

  Throughout the interview, Gypsy repeatedly denied having any knowledge about the murder and said she didn’t believe Martin killed his wife to be with her. Still, the information she provided helped prove Martin’s motives.

  While Martin had been sentenced concurrently on state and federal charges, Gypsy still potentially faced several more years in jail. After consulting with her attorney, John Easton, Gypsy said she would be willing to testify truthfully against Martin in exchange for a plea on the state charges of identity theft.

  After the interrogation, Gypsy returned to her prison dormitory. Seven days later she mailed Martin another letter. Despite having claimed to be done with Martin, she continued to discuss their plans for the future.

  * * *

  As Gypsy’s release date on the federal charges approached, the news coverage swelled. In prison, Martin was asked frequently about his dead wife by other inmates.

  In April 2011, People magazine ran a lengthy article on Martin MacNeill entitled “Utah Scandal: A Family’s Web of Lies,” featuring photographs of Martin, Michele, and Gypsy.

  “As he counts down the days to his scheduled release in July 2012, the three women are hoping that an ongoing investigation will soon result in charges of a far more nefarious crime: the murder of his wife,” the article read.

  That spring, while working in the prison’s leisure library, Von Harper came across the magazine article. Flipping the pages, he found that most of the article had been ripped out, although there was still enough remaining to understand Martin was being investigated for his wife’s death.

  Harper mentioned the piece to Martin.

  “Hey Doc,” he said. “They said you murdered your wife.”

  Martin’s eyes narrowed. “No. I didn’t murder my wife. I’m fixing to go home. And even
if I did they don’t have any evidence.” Martin turned and walked away.

  Weeks later Martin was talking with inmate Frank Davis at the lunch table.

  “Do you get any visitors?” Davis asked.

  “No,” Martin said. “My wife is also in prison.”

  “Man, they told me you killed your wife.”

  “If they could prove that do you think I’d be sitting here talking to you?” Martin shrugged.

  “Did you do it?” Davis asked.

  “The bitch drowned,” Martin said coldly.

  “The talk in the room was that Doc killed his wife,” Davis said years later. “When he told me his wife was in prison, I was relieved. I was thinking, Hey man, this is a decent fella.”

  As the publicity continued, Martin grew irritated. After another episode of Nancy Grace aired, Martin stormed out of the TV room and back into his cell.

  His cellmate, George Martinez, was sitting in his bunk when he saw the nervous, scared look on Martin’s face. Martinez, who had also heard the rumors, sat up in his bunk and curiously asked, “Is it true? What they’re saying on TV, that you killed your wife?”

  “They can’t prove it.” Martin flicked his hand dismissively. “That medication was prescribed.”

  Later Martin told Martinez that his wife had surgery, suffered a heart attack, and passed away.

  * * *

  In January 2011, Doug Witney resigned from the Utah County Attorney’s Office after being elected the new Utah County commissioner. Jeff Robinson took over as the case officer in the murder of Michele MacNeill.

  By March, Robinson was beginning to close in on Martin. A search warrant was served to obtain all of Martin’s and Gypsy’s e-mails since 2005. Robinson spent the next few weeks poring through a slog of e-mail.

  While Robinson was able to find proof of the couple’s relationship, there was no mention of Gypsy having any knowledge of Michele’s death.