The Stranger She Loved

by Shanna Hogan

  Spencer tried to show that Martin hung up because he was attempting to revive his wife.

  “In both of the calls you understand that Mr. MacNeill was attempting to do CPR, right?”

  “Yeah. He said he was,” Peterson said.

  “And you continued to ask him lots of different questions?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I assume that that’s pursuant to your training?” Spencer asked. “To keep a nine-one-one caller on the line?”

  “Absolutely.”

  39.

  A white ceramic bathtub—an exact replica of the one in which Michele had died—was eerily on display at the center of the courtroom on the second day of the trial.

  The prosecution had been granted permission to bring the tub to court so witnesses could demonstrate for the jury the position in which Michele’s body had been discovered.

  Peering down at the tub, the trial’s next witness, Kristi Daniels, described how she found Michele inside the basin, knees bent. Kristi pointed to a blue piece of tape, meant to represent the faucet, to explain where Michele’s head rested.

  Stepping up to the witness stand, Kristi detailed how her ordinary afternoon became chaotic, beginning with a knock on her front door and ending in the MacNeills’ bathroom.

  “When I first went in I saw that Michele was in the tub and Martin was over the tub. So I saw that something obviously needed to happen,” she said. “I went back to get my phone from my house to call Doug.”

  After Doug took over chest compressions, Kristi waited outside for the ambulance. “It seemed like it took a long time for the ambulance to come,” she stated. “In my mind there was a hospital close to our neighborhood and it shouldn’t have taken as long as it did.”

  Kristi also told jurors of her encounter with Martin in their shared driveway days later, and how he explained to her and Doug that Michele had died of heart problems.

  “Did Martin ever offer any other explanation for what caused Michele’s death?” Perkins asked.

  “No,” she said.

  On cross, Spencer tried to get Kristi to admit that Martin was trying to save Michele.

  “When you first ran into the bathroom, it appeared to you that Martin was trying to give Michele CPR?” Spencer asked.

  “Yes. I assumed that.” Kristi nodded.

  Following Kristi’s testimony, neighbor Angie Aguilar recounted her own recollections from the tragic day. “I could see stitches in her face that were bleeding just a little bit and she had mucus under her nose,” she said. “She was gray.”

  As Martin performed CPR, Angie said, she never saw any mucus on his face.

  After so many years, several of the neighbors and first responders gave conflicting accounts of what Michele wore on the day of her death. Some of the paramedics would recall her in pink sweat pants. Others disagreed about the color of the shirt she was wearing.

  On cross, Susanne Gustin questioned Angie about discrepancies she had identified in the preliminary hearing.

  “You stated that Michele was wearing a white T-shirt and that T-shirt was wet,” Gustin said. “And you’re positive she was wearing a T-shirt?”

  “I am,” she said.

  “She was not wearing garments?” Gustin asked.

  “The T-shirt was transparent,” Angie said. “She was not wearing a bra.”

  * * *

  Doug Daniels next told the jury he knew something was wrong with Michele the moment he entered the bathroom that afternoon.

  “She just looked lifeless and collapsed, kind of slumped down in the bottom of the tub,” Doug said. “The perception was we needed to get her out of the tub.”

  Perkins asked about the mucus on Michele’s face.

  “There was quite a bit of mucus around her nose and mouth, running down and mixing with the blood running down her face,” Doug said.

  “Did you see any transfer of mucus to Martin’s face?”

  “No,” Doug said.

  “Were you able to observe Martin’s part of the CPR process?” Perkins asked.

  “It appeared he was doing CPR,” Doug said. “He would go toward her mouth then he would stop and listen and instruct us on when to do her chest compressions.”

  “Did you ever see Michele’s chest rise as he was doing mouth-to-mouth?” the attorney asked.

  “I did not,” he said.

  “How was his demeanor while he was doing this?”

  “At times he was very analytical and very in control and very calm, and other times it was a little bit frustrated when he would holler out.”

  Doug also explained that he thought Martin should have been able to lift Michele from the tub by himself and was surprised that he waited for assistance.

  After the ambulance had taken Michele away, Doug told the jury, he returned to the MacNeill home to clean up but found no towels or the pants Michele must have been wearing.

  “After Michele’s death, did Martin ever talk about his failing health?” the prosecutor asked Doug.

  “Yes. We had discussions about his health,” Doug said. “I had seen him with a cane or limping a little bit … He stopped using the cane … Sometimes he would use it and sometimes he wouldn’t. It was kind of an off and on thing.”

  On cross, Spencer attempted to confuse Doug, leaving the witness irritated.

  “Michele was kind of large to get out of the tub,” Spencer stated. “How would you have done that?”

  “I would have gotten ahold of her and lifted her out of the tub,” Doug exclaimed.

  “You think you could have gotten ahold of her from the top and lifted up one hundred and eighty pounds?” Spencer said smugly.

  “Absolutely.” Doug nodded his head.

  At the defense table, Martin removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and shook his head.

  Spencer asked how closely Doug was watching Martin during the CPR.

  “He could have easily been doing nothing, that’s how little attention I was paying to that,” Doug said, adding that he was focused on pumping on Michele’s chest.

  “Did you see the chest rise?” the attorney asked.

  “No, I did not,” he said.

  “At all?” Spencer’s tone was inquisitive.

  “Never.”

  * * *

  Following Doug Daniels, the prosecution called a parade of police, firefighters, and first responders who had encountered Martin on the afternoon of April 11.

  Pleasant Grove police officer Ray Ormond told Sam Pead how once he and his partner began performing compressions and stimulating her circulatory system, Michele’s appearance seemed to improve.

  “I also noticed that her color was going from the bluish condition, pale blue, to more of a pink fleshy color, and a weeping of blood from the incisions around her hairline and eyes.”

  Meanwhile, the gurgling in Michele’s lungs grew louder. “Fluid actually came out of Michele’s mouth,” he said. “There was quite a lot of fluid that came out … If I had to estimate I would say about three cups.”

  A few minutes later it happened again, Ormond said. “We turned her head to the side, so that it wouldn’t go back into her. At that point more fluid came out,” he testified. “That fluid was more frothy, cloudy, and it had a little tint of blood.”

  Ormond also detailed how Martin scolded his unconscious wife as she lay dying. “He was moving back and forth in the bedroom and the bathroom. He appeared to be agitated. He would sporadically yell,” Ormond said. “It was distracting because of the volume at which it was yelled at us, and yelled at Michele.”

  Standing at the defense table, Gustin questioned Ormond about his perceptions of Martin’s conduct.

  “You didn’t know Martin MacNeill before this day?” Gustin asked.

  “No,” Ormond said.

  “You don’t know what his normal personality was like?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t know if he was an over-the-top personality, or pushy or animated?”

  �
��No,” Ormond said. “That was my first time seeing him, to my knowledge.”

  Ormond’s former partner, Pleasant Grove patrol officer Joshua Motsinger, was next to take the stand.

  Pead asked about the CPR Martin claimed he had performed on his wife prior to the neighbor’s arrival to help lift her from the tub.

  “He said he found her slumped over into the tub,” Pead said. “Can CPR be done while someone is slumped over in a tub?”

  “No,” Motsinger said.

  On cross, Spencer criticized the method Utah County Attorney’s Office investigators used to interview, implying that Motsinger was parroting what others had reported.

  “Do you believe that your testimony about what he said is what you heard or what you had been told by other people who responded with you?” Spencer asked.

  “It’s what I heard,” Motsinger said.

  * * *

  Fire Chief Marc Sanderson next detailed Martin’s erratic behavior on the afternoon of Michele’s death.

  “He was very excited, very loud,” said Sanderson. “He was moving about quickly. Up and down the hall, into the living room, out onto the front porch. It was very hard to keep him in one place.”

  Sanderson also explained that Martin refused to speak to the emergency room doctor. “He wanted to talk to another doctor he’d previously worked with. He asked to talk with someone different.”

  “How were the resuscitation efforts working on Michele?” Pead asked.

  “They weren’t working at all,” Sanderson said somberly. “We did everything that we could possibly have done … with no positive effects.”

  Sanderson testified that although Martin had told officials at the scene that he had last seen Michele approximately ten to fifteen minutes before, he later told the emergency room doctors and medical examiner that it had been one or two hours since he had last seen his wife alive.

  “I specifically recall that it was a short enough time that I felt like we had an opportunity to resuscitate Michele,” Sanderson testified.

  In a seemingly misguided series of questions, on cross Spencer attempted to diminish the importance of the length of time Michele was left alone.

  “Whether he had been away for two hours or fifteen minutes, that wouldn’t tell you how long Michele would have been down, correct?” the attorney said.

  “Oh yeah.” Sanderson seemed incredulous. “Ten to fifteen minutes, he returns home and finds her that way, that’s a significant difference than if he had been gone from the residence for two hours.”

  “If he had been gone from the residence for two hours, Michele could have gone down right before he got back as well, correct?” Spencer huffed.

  “Yes,” Sanderson said.

  “So whether he’s been gone for two hours or fifteen minutes, it doesn’t really tell you how long Michele has been down, correct?”

  “Well, it does. It tells us that it’s only been ten to fifteen minutes. If that’s all he’s been gone.”

  “Okay,” Spencer seemed to acknowledge. In what seemed like an attempt to discredit Sanderson’s memory, he then reminded the witness of a previous interview with investigator Jeff Robinson in which Sanderson had incorrectly stated that Michele was wearing pink sweat pants, when she actually had a pink towel draped over her lower half.

  “You just remember it being a short time period … You also said you recall Martin being emotionally upset and frantic,” Spencer stated.

  “Yes,” Sanderson said.

  “Is it fair to say that perhaps all of your observations aren’t correct?”

  “No, I don’t think that’s fair to say.” Sanderson smirked.

  * * *

  The following three witnesses were fire and police officials, who further detailed Martin’s erratic behavior on the scene the day of Michele’s death.

  “He was kind of darting in and out of the room. He would be there for a minute or so then he’d be gone again and then he’d be back again,” said Pleasant Grove fire captain Steven Brande. “He was very agitated, very angry.”

  Deputy fire chief David Thomas recalled how Martin directed the first responders about which medications to give Michele.

  “It was disruptive because he was loud and moving about,” Thomas said. “He didn’t physically come and impede the resuscitation. He would come in and look over the resuscitation and leave again.”

  Patrol officer Dan Beckstrom described Martin as in “complete random hysteria.”

  “He was hysterical. He was blurting out things,” he said. “And he was pacing about, in and out of the home and just hysterical.”

  * * *

  Since conducting the original investigation, former detective Marc Wright had left the Pleasant Grove Police Department and was working as a patrol officer for another city in Utah.

  When Wright took the stand, the photos he had taken at the crime scene were displayed for the jury—the puddle of water on the tile floor, close-ups of blood on the tub’s ledge, and the wet shirts piled on the carpet.

  On cross, Spencer pried into the lack of investigation. “After you took the pictures and left the home, you never came back to the house for a follow-up investigation?” Spencer asked.

  “Not in that case, no,” Wright said.

  “And at the time, while you thought Mr. MacNeill’s behavior was strange, you didn’t find it suspicious?” he said.

  “Not at the time, no.”

  “No further questions.” Spencer turned away from the podium.

  Before Spencer could take his seat, Pead rose from the prosecutor’s table for redirect.

  “At the time you left, you were not suspicious of any foul play, that’s what defense council just asked you?” Pead said.

  “That’s correct,” Wright acknowledged. “I was not.”

  “Were you aware at the time of any evidence that the defendant was having an affair?”

  “No, I was not,” Wright replied.

  “Not aware that the defendant told someone there was blood everywhere?”

  “I was not.”

  “Not aware that she was only taking one or two Percocet a day?”

  “No.”

  “Were you aware the defendant was the one pushing the surgery and not Michele?”

  “Just based on the statement that the defendant had made that Michele had to have the surgery led me to believe that she was the one who wanted the surgery.”

  After making his point, Pead took a seat.

  American Fork Hospital emergency room doctor Leo Van Wagoner, as well as one of the hospital’s nurses, also spoke about Martin’s demeanor that afternoon. When Michele arrived at the hospital, Van Wagoner said, she already had mottled skin, a sign that her heart stopped about an hour prior.

  “She didn’t have a pulse, she didn’t have a blood pressure,” Van Wagoner said. “I think she was dead by the time she arrived at our door.”

  After working on Michele for thirty-eight minutes with no signs of life, Van Wagoner said, he officially announced the time of death. Afterward, he contacted the medical examiner to conduct an investigation because he felt the case was unusual.

  “Michele was young—age fifty—relatively healthy, and she presents in cardiac arrest with no known heart history.” Van Wagoner crossed his arms and leaned back in the witness seat. “For her to die that way without a certain cause, it became a medical examiner’s case.”

  Van Wagoner also told the jury about the statement Martin made after he declared time of death. “He made an odd request from me, which I still find in fifteen years of practice to be completely unusual and really kind of off the wall.”

  “What was that request?” Grunander asked.

  “He offered me ten thousand dollars to continue my resuscitation and not quit. I’m not sure where that came from.” Van Wagoner shifted in his chair. “I think as a physician he probably knew that his wife was already dead, considering we had no signs of life, no blood pressure, no pulse, no breathing on her own. I�
�m not sure why he made that comment. It struck me as very odd and still remains odd when I think about it.”

  To explain away Martin’s strange behavior, Randall Spencer asked the doctor about his previous encounters with Martin.

  “You described him as odd and eccentric?” Spencer asked.

  “I always thought he was a little odd, a little eccentric, yes,” Van Wagoner said.

  “That was before you had any association with him on April 11?” Spencer asked.

  “Correct.”

  * * *

  A string of Martin’s former colleagues from the Developmental Center next testified about the former doctor’s hurried manner on April 11, his attitude following his wife’s death, and his varied explanations concerning his failing health.

  Nurse practitioner Steven Nickelson described his arrival at the MacNeill home and Martin’s insistence he tell Alexis that Michele was “coding.”

  Defense attorneys then questioned Nickelson about Martin’s toe pain.

  “At first when his foot bothered him it wasn’t bad,” Nickelson said. “By the time he left he needed a cane.”

  Martin seemed to have trouble getting a proper diagnosis, and one doctor even recommended amputation. Still, no one at the Developmental Center was under the impression the condition was fatal.

  Human resources manager John David Laycock told jurors he saw Martin’s swollen toe, and it appeared he had a real condition. “He actually came into my office and showed me his toe,” Laycock said. “He actually took his sock off and his shoe and put it up on my desk and showed it to me.”

  Laycock recalled that Martin seemed peculiar when arriving at the safety fair and insisting he be photographed. “He was adamant,” Laycock said. “It was different. He seemed determined.”

  Administrator Roma Henrie said that she was so put off by Martin’s repeated demands to be photographed, she later filed a complaint with human resources. The next time she saw the doctor was after the funeral. “Within a week he was wearing a different wedding band,” Henrie said.

  The Developmental Center’s liability prevention specialist, Melissa Frost, spoke about how Martin’s involvement in that year’s safety fair was atypical. “Usually he would attend for a brief time, very shortly, and he would create a list of people from the department who would be manning his booth,” she said. That year, however, Frost’s entire award ceremony was disrupted by Martin’s rescheduling.