Jury decision finds Utah Doctor Martin MacNeill found guilty of murdering wife
Martin MacNeill and his wife Michele on their honeymoon in 1978 after eloping. (Photo: Rachel MacNeill)
Utah Doctor Martin MacNeill found guilty
Utah Doctor Martin MacNeil was found guilty of murdering his wife in a verdict reached Saturday morning.
Michelle MacNeill, a mother of eight children, was found dead in a bathtub in her Pleasant Grove home on April 11, 2007, just eight days after undergoing the plastic surgery that her husband urged her to have.
From the onset, her children suspected that their father, prominent Utah Doctor Martin MacNeill, was responsible for her death.
It is alleged that McNeill over medicated his wife with drugs after her surgery and drowned her in the bathtub, knowing that it would be hard to determine a cause of death due to the large amounts of drugs in her system.
And it almost worked.
Michele MacNeill’s death was initially ruled a natural death due to cardiovascular disease.
After three years, at the urging of her children, the case was reopened and the cause of MacNeils’ death was changed to “undetermined” causes.
During the trial, a number of MacNeil’s mistresses testified about their relationship with him and a jailhouse snitch came forward saying that the doctor confessed to him.
One of the mistresses, Gypsy Willis, was moved into the home as a caretaker weeks after MacNeill’s death to care for the younger children.
The older children knew the name Gypsy Willis because MacNeill suspected that the husband was having an affair with Willis.
The jury began deliberations at 2 p.m. on Friday and deliberated for just 11 hours before returning a guilty verdict.
MacNeill is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 7, and faces a 15 years to life prison term.
MacNeill was also was found guilty of obstruction of justice, which could add 1-15 years to his sentence.
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