Home
cover of episode #531 - Dr Serial Killer - Pleasant Grove, Utah

#531 - Dr Serial Killer - Pleasant Grove, Utah

2024/10/3
logo of podcast Small Town Murder

Small Town Murder

Shownotes Transcript

Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you about one of my favorite things in the world, Audible. Oh, audible.com or that app. Oh, I give that app a workout. Let me tell you something. Listening on Audible helps your imagination soar. You can listen to anything. There's so many genres on there. There's more to imagine when you listen. And let me tell you something that makes my imagination soar in a terrible way. I've been listening to Secrets in the Cellar. Oh, boy.

Which is by John Glatt, and it's about Joseph Fritzl and locking his daughter in the basement for decades. And it is... You want to talk about imagination of who's the devil in a human skin? That's the guy. So check that out, or a whole bunch of them. As an Audible member, you can choose one title a month to keep from the entire catalog, including the latest bestsellers and new releases.

Audible's the best. Let's be honest here. New members can try Audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash smalltownmurder or text smalltownmurder to 500-500. That's audible.com slash smalltownmurder or text smalltownmurder to 500-500. Now back to the show.

Hey, Small Town Murder listeners, have you heard? You can listen to your favorite gripping investigations ad-free. Good news! With Amazon Music, you have access to the largest catalog of ad-free top podcasts included with your Prime membership. To start listening, download the Amazon Music app for free or go to amazon.com slash ad-free true crime. That's amazon.com slash ad-free true crime to catch up on the latest episodes without the ad.

Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you a little more about Philo. We've noticed, and I think everyone on Earth has noticed, TV's really complicated to try to watch now. Yeah.

Thankfully, Philo has changed all of that for us. One service, all the stuff we need. And it's great. Philo's got current seasons of shows that you don't want to miss on live networks like A&E, MTV, Discovery, TLC, classics like The Office, Martin, and Friends that I never got sick of and you won't either. And all of the incredible originals on AMC Plus from Mad Men to Orphan Black.

And don't forget their library of more than 75,000 movies and shows, all of which we can save and rewatch anytime for a whole year. Never miss a minute of shows like Love After Lockup, you know that one, Married to Evil, and Death by Fame, and many, many more. Best of all, with Philo, you get all of this for just $28 a month. No contracts, no hassles, just one subscription and a world of entertainment. Mm-hmm.

Get in there and do it. Philo's amazing. So go to philo.tv slash smalltownmurder and check it out for a free seven-day trial. That's philo.tv slash smalltownmurder to start watching. Now back to the show.

This week, in Pleasant Grove, Utah, what looks like an accident is actually the tip of a twisted iceberg that leads detectives to believe that a Mormon bishop may in fact be a serial killer. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello everybody and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay!

Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrogallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you so much for joining us today on another crazy edition of Small Town Murder. And I'm telling you guys, buckle up today. This is wild stuff. It starts out as one thing, and then by the end of it, you're like, oh my God, is this guy Ted Bundy? What's going on? It's crazy stuff. So we'll get into all of this. But before we do, definitely head over to shutupandgivememurder.com. Oh.

Oh, yeah. Tickets for live shows. Kansas City, you're up next. Kansas City and Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City is sold out. Kansas City, get in there and get this bad boy sold out. It's a big place. We added a bunch more seats to it. Originally, it sold out very quick. They said, do you want to open up the next tier? We said, let's do it. We're there anyway. We're going to be there anyway. Might as well. So do that. Get in there and get tickets. Also get tickets for October 31st.

It is the Halloween virtual live show. Right. You can't wait. We're going to be in costumes just like a regular live show except in your living room. And you can watch it for two weeks afterwards as well. You can watch it 100 times. You can wait a week to watch it. Do whatever you want with it. You bought it. You can do anything you want. Check all of that out. Shut up and give me murder.com. And we do want to say thank you. The past weekend we were in Minneapolis and Milwaukee. Yeah.

3,700 of our closest friends in a two-show weekend. So thank you so much, you guys. Just amazing crowds. We love the Midwest, and you guys are awesome to us. It was great. That was not our fault. But it is our fault. We made a woman, a non-drunk woman, by the way, hadn't had one drink, made her laugh so hard that she projectile vomited all over a couple of rows.

Into a woman's ear? Cause some strife, yeah. Jesus. A pea from her Panda Express fried rice ended up in somebody's ear, so that's disgusting. Unbelievable. But thank you for coming out to the show. It was just amazing times. We appreciate it a lot. Patreon.com slash Crime in Sports is where you get all the bonus material. Anybody $5 a month or above, you can get it.

You're going to get tons of stuff, hundreds of episodes you've never heard before, bonus stuff, new ones every other week, one crime and sports, one small town murder, and you're going to get all of it, baby. That's right. This week for crime and sports, which you definitely don't have to like sports for this, hot air ballooning disasters. We're going to talk about it.

I'll give you a hint. Once power lines became a thing, they increased markedly. Let's just say that. And then for small town murder, we're going to talk about this documentary that has really been messing with both of us since it came out in 2011. For years. For years. It's called There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane. And it is just this mysterious, weird documentary about...

A weird case when we're trying to figure it out. So we'll talk all about that. Patreon.com slash Crime in Sports. By the way, listen to Crime in Sports if you don't. And also listen to Your Stupid Opinions, which is the funniest hour in podcasting. So check all that out. Keep hanging out with us. It's disclaimer time. Here we go. This is a comedy show, everybody. It is. We're comedians. There's going to be horrible murder, but we're also going to make jokes.

That's how we do it. But see, this is the thing. We do it tastefully. That's the difference here. We don't make fun of the victims or the victim's families.

Why, James? Because we're assholes. But? But we're not scumbags. See how that works? Take that to the bank. So that sounds good. You're going to hear one of the craziest stories we've ever covered. If you think true crime and comedy should never, ever, ever go together, first of all, why are you here? Number one, maybe you want to give it a shot. And if you do, hey, I think you've chosen right. Give it a shot. If you don't like it, sorry. I don't know what to tell you. This is what we do. This is who we are and we can't change. There's no refund on free, so we don't know what to tell you.

So there you go. But, you know, you should hang out with us anyway. Give it a shot. Give it a shot. Give it a shot. Because for the rest of you that want to hear a crazy story, I'm telling you, you got one lined up before you. So let's all sit back. What do you say, everybody? Let's clear the lungs and let's all shout. Shut up and give murder. Let's do this, everybody. What do you say? Let's go on a trip. We shall. We're going to Utah.

Okay. You're like, okay, never mind. Let's take that back. I don't want to go on a trip. There are some really fucking amazing places. Utah's gorgeous. It's a pretty place. I mean, the mountains. It's gorgeous, man. This is in north central Utah. Oh, that ain't that. Well, it's outside of Salt Lake City in the mountains. It is nice. Provo and shit. I guess. Yeah, 40 minutes to Salt Lake City. Also, 40 minutes to Price, Utah, which was our last Utah episode. Write it in blood, which was, remember, it was written on. That was crazy stuff.

It's in Utah County because very creative. Yeah. The motto here is Utah's city of trees. Is it? Oh, is there a city? It's a small city, I guess. But now the original name of the city, a little bit of history was Battle Creek.

Oh, but that exists like a motherfucker. They're real loud about that one.

Yes. That's interesting. He's kind of a dick, huh? Well, by the way, the horses were found before the attack happened. So they didn't even steal the horses. But he already said, we're going to go get them. So now we're going to go get them. So the settlers decided later they needed a more uplifting name than Battle Creek, which sounds depressing. Really? I bet every creek in this country that has a city that was established near it should probably be called Battle Creek.

There's a battle somewhere of some kind. Yeah. So then they named it Pleasant Grove after a grove of cottonwood trees located between Battle Creek and Grove Creek and near the current day intersection of Locust Avenue and Battle Creek Drive. Sure. There's that. Sounds a lot nicer. It sounds better. During the Walker Indian War in the 1850s, citizens built a fort with walls two or three feet thick. So and they did this in an area that the size of 16 city blocks.

It's a giant fort. It's feet thick. Like a medieval fort town, like the castle walls, basically. And then the settlers in the area built their homes inside the fort.

So the fort's not there anymore, but they do have cornerstones that tell you where it is and stuff like that. The Southwest Monument would have been located near 300 South 100 West. The area is now occupied by a strip mall. So that's nice. That way you can really keep the history there, you know what I mean? Yeah. With your Joanne's fabrics. You want to make sure to have that. Target, target.

Holy shit. So reviews of this town. We don't know anything about it. Maybe it's great. Let's find out. Five stars. I love it here. Oh, that's a start. The community has a tight bond like I've never seen before. Sure. I'd like to know where else you've lived also. I don't know if this is the only place you've ever lived. Everyone here is so kind and will always be willing to help someone out.

Lots of LDS people here, too. That's an understatement, by the way. Wait till I give you the stats. Holy shit. Wow. This town used to be an orchard town before most of them got pushed over.

Pushed over? Cut down. Yeah, that's a weird way to put it. Just push the trees over. That's how I knock them down. My family is the last standing family that owns an orchard from the pioneers. The only bummer about this place is the roads and maybe the outdoor pool. The roads here are very bumpy and need to be redone, and the pool is all that needs to be redone. I love it here, and I think that it's one of the safest places in the USA.

That's the only bummer? Have you heard the story of Battle Creek? That was a pretty big bummer, too. No, shit. By the way, every review, even the positive ones, mention, I mean, the roads are terrible. So there is like a, maybe they're trying to imitate Battle Creek, Michigan, by getting terrible roads like Michigan has. Three stars, not my ideal place to live, but it works for now. Okay. And two stars, Pleasant Grove is probably my least favorite place I've ever lived. What do you have to do to get one star?

Right. Jeez, those are two stars. Least favorite, two stars. It's not that bad. No, it is extremely religious and can feel very exclusive if you are. I can't imagine living here and not being a Mormon. You would be an outcast. Torture. On top of that, it's cold as hell and the air is trash. Trash air. Trash air up in the mountains. Would not recommend living here. LOL. I don't know why the LOL.

And then finally, two stars. Can't think of anywhere in Pleasant Grove. Have to be out of town for that.

I have no idea what you're talking about at all. I can't think of anything. I can't think of anything. I'd be out of town to think of it. Anywhere in Pleasant Grove, have to be out of town for that. Okay. People in this town, 37,228 at the moment. It's gone up a lot. Gone up, yeah. Gone up a lot. More males than females, which is odd for a well-populated place. Sure, sure. That's not like their whole economy based on logging or something. Median age here is 28.3.

Lowest. 28? Very low. And that is, a lot of that is because everyone has 12 kids. So that lowers. Okay, yeah. If the parents are both 40 but they have nine kids under fucking 11, then it drives the age down. Family here, 61% married. It's usually 50-50. Very few people are single with children as well.

Religion in this town, okay, 50-50 is normal. That's the average. And we've gone to like 75 where we're like, wow, 75. 95.7% of the people here are religious.

95.7, so 96%. And out of this, 93.3% of the people in this town are Mormon. 93.3%. So if you are not a Mormon, you are an out. You're out. You're absolutely out. You're not dating anybody? No. You're not doing anything? There's no one. How are you going to ever find somebody? I guess you just have to go, are you Mormon? No. Oh, fuck. And then you start making out just because you found each other. Who cares? Guy, girl, I don't even care. Just...

You make out just because you can? If we moved there, we'd have to get married. You know what I mean? It wouldn't work because we'd just have to find ourselves. I'll give it to you. Don't worry about it.

So Pleasant Grove here has an unemployment rate of 2.8%, which is way low. The Mormons are an industrious folk. And the median household income here is $81,850 a year, which is about 12,000 more than the national average. So it's not bad. And you need to be because cost of living here is –

Outrageous. Through the roof here. Cost of living we have 100 is regular. Here it's 117. But the high thing is housing. Median home cost here. Yeah. And this is a lot of this is because a lot of these are big houses because they're Mormon family houses. Five hundred seven thousand four hundred dollars is the median home cost. That is unbelievably a million dollars. That's the median. That's not even for like, oh, look at that beautiful home.

Okay. A million dollars has become the, you're broke. Yeah, yeah. You poor fuck. Jesus. Maybe, maybe you want to go here. Maybe you've been looking for a nice place to raise your 12 kids. Well, we have for you the Pleasant Grove, Utah Real Estate Report. ♪

The average two-bedroom rental here, which seems like the way to go, is $1,200. $1,200. $1,270, which is... That's a deal. ...about near the national average. So I think that's the deal. It's only because there's very few people renting two-bedroom rentals. How are you going to fit eight kids in two bedrooms? So...

Here is a four-bedroom, two-bath, 2,406 square feet. This is the least expensive single-family home that they have in the area here. Four-bedroom, family starter home. It is, yeah. That's what it is. After the first couple of years, you'll obviously need to upgrade here. But it looks like an old lady died there and they didn't bother doing it. They just picked her shit up and sent for sale. That's all it is. It's very grandma, this house.

$449,900. That's your basic house. 2,400 square feet. Holy shit. To live in rural Utah. Okay. Here's a four-bedroom, four-bath T-Bowl for all your b-holes here. Okay. 5,235 square feet.

Sure. Bigger. It's a very weird looking house. It looks like an apartment building, an apartment complex building. It's fucking giant. That's exactly what it looks like. But like the design of it looks like, oh, it's building G in that complex is what it looks like. Not great. Honestly, nothing special. Eight hundred fifty thousand dollars for that.

And this is all, none of these have even half an acre, by the way. These are on small plots. Yeah, it's just a lot of square footage. And here, finally, this is your sister-wife special here. Sure, sure. 12-bedroom...

Damn. 12 bedroom. If you ever watched Sister Wives, this was a house they were looking for. Like a 12 bedroom. They're like, are you fucking nuts? They don't know. Damn. That doesn't exist, bro. Usually giant houses are like three bedrooms because rich people live there. It's eight bathrooms too, by the way. 12 bed, eight bath, 5,200 square feet. It looks like a bigger apartment complex building. That's all it looks like. Yeah.

It's really fucking weird. This seems like a house where you have... It seems like a sister-wife's type of thing. And there's even the corrugated steel covered parking, by the way. Really? Yes. They put up apartment complex parking in this. That's how many people are going to live here. Well, it's got fucking...

25 rooms at least. Yeah, that house, $1,295,000 for that house. And it is ugly as shit with no land. Yeah, stupid, but kind of. Jesus. I guess if you, you know, if you were, you'd need it if you had that many kids and you were stuck. You got 12 bedrooms. Everybody better have a fucking job to pay this mortgage. No shit. Because this shit, that's crazy. It's wild. Things to do here. Strawberry Days Festival.

103 years of the longest running celebration in Utah. And the 2024 theme is Strawberry Days, the Heart of Pleasant Grove.

It took them 103 years to come up with the heart of Pleasant Grove. Well, they had the soul of Pleasant Grove a few years ago, probably. The toes of, the feet of. The kidneys of Pleasant Grove. The liver of Pleasant Grove. Events include a car show, a carnival, a Chalk the Block event, which I guess kids using chalk. Color this motherfucker up. A community art show, concerts, which they don't tell you who's going to be there at all. Fireman's Pancake Breakfast.

Free Family Swim. Come on in, everybody. How big is your family, though? There could be three families taking up the whole pool. But the pool needs help, too, we heard. That's what I'm saying. It's hurting. Garden Tour, a Main Street concert, of which they don't tell you who it is. Miss Pleasant Grove.

As well, who's going to be the queen of the Mormons here? That's one thing, you know, that's not going to be like, they're not going to be full of makeup and bikinis. It's going to be neck to feet fucking dress. Whose dress is the nicest? That's all it is. It'll be less pervy probably. Mammoth parade. I don't know what that is. A pie eating contest, of course. Sure. Pioneer tours. Strawberries and cream.

That's just eating strawberries and cream. And then a Tuesday night concert in the park. Lots of concerts with no word about what it is. Nope. I assume it's going to be a lot of church music and country. It's going to be country church music, I would assume. Yeah. Church music that's been country fried up. Yeah, exactly. And there's also the Strawberry Days Rodeo.

It is established in 1921. It is the longest continually running rodeo in Utah. In Utah. In Utah. And continually is another one. One of them might have taken a week, a year off during the Depression, and they're like, oh, we win now.

We won. Fuck those people. We're going to torture these animals one more time. It's held annually during the third week of June. The majestic view of Mount. Oh, my God. What is this? Tip and tip and Nagos and the family friendly rodeo atmosphere. Make this a must. And then there's also the Heritage Jubilee.

Don't like that word. No, it's a founding of Pleasant Grove, family-friendly jubilee featuring live music, which we won't tell you shit about. Goddamn. Storytelling, pioneer games such as... What do you think's a pioneer game? Throw the axe? What is a... You know... Maybe some mining? Tree chopping or something quick. Nope. Marbles. Marbles. Marbles is a pioneer game? Pioneer games such as marbles. That's...

I thought that was just like little Timmy down at the soda fountain. Yeah. Next to a little girl playing jacks. Before he gets a leather jacket and starts singing next to a burning barrel. It's his childhood days. Rolled in his shirt sleeve. No shit. Hopscotch and wood sawing. Sure. A petting zoo and shops for food and handcrafted items. It's run continuously for 22 years, the Jubilee.

And it's run by, I don't know, community people of whatever the hell. Persuasion. Kiwanis Club. Actually, yes. It is local clubs such as Kiwanis, Lions, and Rotary, as well as the Pleasant Grove City and many volunteers. That said, they run everything in this shit. I've never met a person who's like, yeah, I got a Kiwanis thing I got to be at.

I don't know what it is. I just remember Hunter Thompson used to fuck with people all the time when they'd ask him. Yeah? He'd be doing something crazy, and they'd be like, what are you doing this for? Who are you with? And he'd be like, I'm a Kiwanis. And they were like, what? I don't think I've ever heard that. That's what he'd tell them. He'd tell them that shit when they were riding around with the Hells Angels. Yeah. They'd be like, why are you blah, blah, blah, blah? He'd go, don't look at me. I'm Kiwanis. And they'd go, I don't know what that means. It's just a funny fucking line to give somebody. I'm just a member of the Rotary Club. Don't know? Oh, OK. Yeah.

Crime rate in this town, property crime is less than half the national average. Not a lot of stealing going on here. And then violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and of course assault. The amount Rushmore of crime is about one third of the national average. So two thirds under it. Very low. Sure. So yeah, this is a very safe place.

You know all your neighbors and all their kids and everything else. And it's a sin to do anything bad. Yeah. Especially if a friend sees it. That said, let's talk about some sin here. Let's go. Let's talk about some murder because holy shit is this not what it seems like it is. Man. All right. Let's start out with April 11th, 2007. So not too long ago here. Shut down. All right. Martin McNeil.

He arrives home during the afternoon after picking his then or their then six-year-old daughter up from school. Martin's a 57-year-old. This is a crazy combination. He's a bishop in the Mormon church, but that's not his job. That's just he's like a lay bishop. And he's also a doctor and a lawyer.

Doctor and a lawyer? Remember when your kid parents go, why can't you be a doctor or a lawyer? Yeah, this guy did it twice. He heard and instead of or. And he was like, okay, fine, I'll go to the... Fine, I'll be a doctor and a lawyer. I'll go to school for like 15 years, fine. Now, he never actually... Yeah, usually that's a couple down the block with a big house. Well, that's Heathcliff and Claire Huxtable. That's what they had, doctor and a lawyer. Right, yeah. That's what the Cosby show is that.

He is both. He's both. He doesn't actually practice law, though. He graduated from law school and he can practice law, but he doesn't actually practice law. He just practices medicine, as we'll talk about. I don't know what the hell he was thinking going to law school. So he comes in the house. Now he's got a there's a bunch of kids that they have. We'll get into all that. And he's got a wife named Michelle.

Now, he comes in the house with his six-year-old daughter, who's not his six-year-old daughter. It's actually their adopted daughter. It's actually the daughter of their daughter. It's actually their granddaughter. But they've adopted her because their daughter had some problems that we'll talk about. She's not doing great? The daughter isn't, but this young girl is. Yeah, she's doing fantastic. Yeah, her name's Ada. She's six. She's the six-year-old, like we said, adopted granddaughter. Yeah.

And as Martin and his granddaughter daughter will just say walk into the house, I guess he Martin walks into the bathroom and the girl follows him. And Martin freaks out and says that he oh my God, there's a problem. Michelle's in the tub. Michelle is his wife. And so Martin says that he's found Michelle hunched over the tub like she'd been trying to fill it up and then passed out.

So like she's in the tub, in the water with her upper half in there. Chest and belly touching the side. He calls 911 and he tells Ada to go next door and get a neighbor for help. Go tell the neighbors to come over here. Sends a six-year-old out. Six-year-old, yeah. Do you even believe a six-year-old that knocks on your door? I don't know. What are you imagining? I don't believe a six-year-old knows how to find a neighbor. No.

She goes next door. He makes a call to 911 and will actually multiple calls to 911. And later on, we'll get into the details of these calls. But he basically said his wife, Michelle, she's 50, had fallen in the tub and that he was performing CPR. He's screaming in all these 911 calls and he hangs up on the operator three times in five minutes. He calls them. They call back.

He yells something and hangs up. I'm busy, God damn it, and hangs up. And they want you to stay on the line. He's like, I'm doing CPR. Click. Leave me the fuck alone. So paramedics arrive, and they rush to the upstairs bathroom. And by the time they get there, because a neighbor had helped him get her out of the tub, by the time he gets there, Michelle is lying on her back on the floor next to the tub, and the tub's been drained.

Don't do that. Yeah, not good at all. Now, here's the thing is if you find somebody dead, how dead are they? Because if they're super dead, don't touch it. But if there's a chance of reviving them, you don't go, well, I don't want to look bad, so I'm not going to try to save this person's life. So that's a tough gray area. So the first responders started CPR. They found her to be cold to the touch, but they continued to do CPR and try to, you know, they got the ventilator thing. They're doing all that.

When they get to the hospital, Michelle is pronounced dead on arrival, but they continue to try to help her. Sure. Which, yeah, the emergency room doctor said he saw no injuries consistent with falling into the bathtub. She didn't bash her head on the tub and knock herself out. The doctor could not determine a cause of death at that point, so he called the medical examiner's office.

Medical examiner found no signs of injuries except a lot of healing incisions on her face because a week and a half earlier she had a major facelift, like hugely reconstructive. The eyes, the chin, all this shit. Like she's really had a huge surgery. Just a week and a half ago? A week and a half ago. So the autopsy reveals that Michelle was suffering from myocarditis, which is an infection of the heart.

And she also had chronic hypertension. The toxicology screening of her blood revealed, quote, a cocktail of a number of substances is what they said. Ambien, oxycodone, Phenergan had all been prescribed because of the plastic surgery. So you knew that. The medical examiner determined the cause of death as natural due to myocarditis and chronic hypertension.

So the cops say, well, I mean, the medical examiner says this is what happened. She had a heart infection. She fell in. So I guess that's it for that. So they're about to. Sorry about it, man. Man, that sucks. Yeah. Now their daughter, the couple's daughter, their real daughter here, her name is Alexis. She's 24 years old at this point. Yeah. She was in medical school at this point. Yeah. She immediately said, my dad's involved in this death.

Oh, yes. She told the police that before this is a week before, right after the surgery, Michelle had suspected that her husband, Martin, was having an affair. And so she had told her daughter that now this is what happened. Alexis says a few days before her death, I was helping her wash her hair. And she turned to me and said, Alex, if anything happens to me, make sure it was not your father.

Okay, which is pretty suspicious, you know what I mean? Yeah. So it says rinse and repeat. Should we do that? I mean, how long do you keep the conditioner in? Let's just say. How silky would you like your hair to be? What are we talking about here? Is this a leave-in? So at that point, the investigators find out from Alexis that Martin had urged Michelle to get this facelift right now, not later.

Apparently, as we'll find out, there's some things that she should have probably waited to get the facelift. But he was like, no, no, no. It's now or never. You're getting this facelift. Yeah, I'm tired of looking at your face. Tired of this. Look at us. We look terrible, both of us.

We got pictures coming up. When he turned 50 is when he lost his fucking mind, by the way. Yeah. And he really got like he had a monstrous midlife crisis this fucking year. Really? Yes. So a day after the surgery, Alexis said that she found her mother heavily drugged, which the cops were like, yeah, she just had surgery. So that would make sense. She'd be on painkillers. Michelle's eyes were bandaged. So Michelle never saw the drugs that Martin gave her because Martin is giving her the drugs because he

Cause he's a, he's a doctor. So he's telling her when she, what she needs. Um, when Martin learned that Alexis has been talking shit about this and telling family members and investigators, all this, he bans her from the home.

His own daughter. Don't come over. It was in medical school. Now, the other things that the police find are a little bit of a couple of contradicting facts here. Investigators interviewed the 911 dispatcher, first respondents and neighbors to kind of get a picture. Yeah. While Martin said he found Michelle draped over the tub, a neighbor at the scene says when they got there, she was in the tub.

Oh, and Ada also said that Michelle was on her back in the tub filled with water when they found her.

And Ada and Martin walked into the bathroom at the same time. At the same time. So, I mean, do you believe a six-year-old or, you know, who knows? But that's – but the same place the neighbor said they found her too. It may have been easier to grab her legs, flip her in, and then grab her shoulders and yank her out. Do you know what I mean? I don't know. It may have been the easier way to get her out. If you were hanging over, then you'd have – yeah, you'd just grab her by the waist and pull, I would imagine. That's just gravity. Sometimes you're –

I guess. Waterlogged, it's a little heavy. I guess. Well, putting her in more water and then taking her whole body out of the water seems harder than getting half of her out. I can't think of why to put her in the water. I don't understand it. Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show and tell you a little bit more about SimpliSafe.

Oh, SimpliSafe.com. S-I-M-P-L-I-S-A-F-E.com. That's right. And maybe you felt this. You ever felt a sense of unease when you leave your home? Wondering if everything's going to be okay if you're away. Maybe you'll be out of town for a while. Did I close the garage? Yeah, we have. I do it when we go out of town. Every day. But it wasn't until I had my house broken into and a man destroyed my plumbing that I was able to get out of town.

that I realized security is needed here. Need a security system. Paramount. And SimpliSafe, thankfully, is there to help, and they are amazing. We did, and I'm a research guy, you know that, so I did all the research, and SimpliSafe is the best, and we've loved, both of us, having SimpliSafe protect our homes and our studios for years. We've had it for years now. It's been like six years we've had SimpliSafe, and the security and the service are...

They're great. They're better than you could ever expect for, honestly. Protect your home with 50% off a new SimpliSafe system plus free indoor security camera when you sign up for Fast Protect monitoring. Just visit simplisafe.com slash small. That's simplisafe.com slash small. S-I-M-P-L-I safe.com slash small. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Now back to the show. ♪

This show, Small Town Murder, is sponsored by BetterHelp. It's the season of fear. Maybe you have some fears. Maybe you're not Halloween-based. Maybe you're not scared of Dracula. You're scared of real-life things like us. Like, we're both terrified of flying, and we have to fly all the time. So things like that can help with therapy. Honestly, you need it. You're going to hold yourself back with that stuff. So if you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try.

We recommend it. It's entirely online. It's designed to be, and it is, very convenient, flexible, and especially, this is the important part, suited to your schedule. It's great. You just fill out a brief questionnaire. Couldn't be any easier. They match you up with a licensed therapist, and you can switch therapists at any time. No additional charge. No.

They want you to get help. That's what's the important part here. So you should do it. Overcome your fears with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash SmallTownMurder today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, BetterH-E-L-P dot com slash SmallTownMurder. Now back to the show. So the medical examiner, based on all this, takes another look. Okay. They said they wanted to try to figure out the truth of her body position. That's what they were trying to figure out.

And they said the findings contradict what Martin said. The one guy said it suggested that Martin was trying to stage the scene to make it look like this was an accidental death. So then the investigative team gets an expert toxicologist in there to talk about the drugs found in her system. And they said that they're kind of thinking that maybe Martin gave her a dangerous combination of Valium, Percocet, and Ambien.

How long would you want to sleep? Six months? Yeah, that's a... Holy shit. You're not going to wake up for 12 at least, right? No. The Utah State Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Todd Gray, said the combination of drugs stood out to me. He described the case as funky. He said there was a funky mix of drugs, but it wasn't enough to change the cause of death.

At all, he said. I couldn't change it on that. I don't like a... Medical examiner said funky? Funky. He said it was a funky combination, which is a strange, not a medical term, I believe. No. So then the investigators are like, all right, let's look more into Martin here. Because on the surface, he's a well-respected member of the community, Mormon bishop, doctor, lawyer, you know, whatever, Mr. Fucking Perfect. So they look into...

him and they start finding some shit in his past they found that he had counterfeited documents to get into medical school and gave a false statement about a felony when he applied to law school at brigham young university so they're like okay there's got to he's not as on the level as he seems so let's go deeper and deeper so who the fuck is martin

Who is he? We meet him as an upstanding Mormon bishop, 57-year-old lawyer, doctor, all this shit. Well, he's born on February 1st, 1956, and he is one of six children born to Albert McNeil and Lillian Woody. Now,

He has two older brothers, Alfred Jr. and Rufus Roy. Rufus Roy, they named a kid. Is that right? And one younger brother, Scott. Yeah, well, no, he has a worse fate. And his sisters were Alice and Mary. Now, the father is a naval veteran from World War II. He was 23 years older than Martin's mother.

That's a big difference. The couple married when Lillian was 16 years old and he was in his 40s or late 30s. That tells you a lot about him. When Martin was born, Albert Sr. was 58 years old. His dad was 58 when he was born.

Now, this family comes up in Camden, New Jersey. And if you don't know anything about Camden, New Jersey, it is one of the most dangerous areas in the United States. It's absolutely fucking, it's like West Baltimore, fucking but worse. Was his dad a Mormon? No, no, they're not. McNeil is Irish. Yeah. He's an Irish guy. Just love young gals, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, this is just in the 50s. He just was a big Jerry Lee Lewis fan. And he was like, well, if it's good enough for Jerry. Yeah.

Great balls of fire. I'm marrying a teenager. Woo. 39-year-old marrying a 16-year-old is fucking crazy. It's creepy as shit. It does feel very Mormon, but it's not. So he's an older guy. So like we said, they grow up in a real rough area. I mean, real poor, real shitty. It's in Jersey right across from Philly. That's where Camden is. Martin described his family as, quote, the definition of dysfunctional.

Yeah. When they walked in, they didn't, you know, they, they didn't expect that this is this guy's background. It's a, you know, he's a, from where he is at that point, his parents had violent arguments. Most of the time, alcohol fueled. They're just shit faced. They divorced when Martin was a small child. And following this split here, Albert senior moved to long beach, Southern California, just took off from the family, left her with six kids.

So they lived, all the kids lived in a tiny, tiny, shitty apartment in a terrible neighborhood. Then Martin says, and this we found out is probably 99% true here, Lily and his mom turned to prostitution to support the children. Why not? Why not? Well, the problem is that it's a very small apartment and basically the living spaces are divided by sheets.

What? Wow.

And worse. And worse. So they said they didn't know what went on here, but his family is going to die off, several of them by suicide or drug abuse. There's a lot of mental illness flying around their family as well. Is that right? Yeah, a little bit. Growing up listening to your mom telling you tricks. It's literally a serial killer origin story. Honestly, yeah. That's what it is.

So in but usually that serial killer would go like kill a bunch of women. Whereas what we'll talk about is a totally different thing here. Martin's sister, Alex or Alice, when she was in her early 20s, committed suicide by strangling herself somehow. Didn't hang herself. No, didn't somehow strangled herself. Just garroted herself. So might have done it on a door like they tried to say with fucking D'Angelo Barksdale. Right.

Martin's oldest brother, Albert Jr., was an alcoholic. He suffered a stroke and died in a nursing home in 2005 at the age of 64. Rufus, his other brother, old Rufus Roy, became a heroin addict. Sure he did. He married and had children but didn't work out because he was a drug addict. And on April 3rd, 1986, he was found dead of an apparent drug overdose inside his mother's bathroom in Camden. And we'll tell you more details of actually what happened on that later. Yeah.

Yeah. So his other brother, Scott, went in the Marines and married and had three children. And he was employed as a maintenance worker when he committed suicide in July of 2006 at age 45. A lot of suicide in this family. Suicide, family, mental illness. In the end, Mary McNeil was one of the only...

besides Martin, one of the ones that kind of seemed to be, have a normal life here after her parents divorced, she moved to California where she later married and just kind of had a normal life that wasn't crazy or suicidal or filled with heroin. So Martin wanted to get the fuck out of Camden and away from this mess as any kid would that has any inkling to make a life for yourself. I got to get the fuck out of here. My mom's turning tricks. Everybody's on drugs. Um,

This sucks. So in his teens, he moved to Long Beach to live with his father, who was in his 70s at that point.

Right. To get away from this. Now, Martin, and this is from a book, and I'll give you the title of the book later so it doesn't give away the whole story here. It says, as a young man, Martin was very handsome. He's a tall guy, broad-shouldered, strong jaw, good chin. He's a handsome guy. Very smart as well. Did great in school. He read classic literature and poetry, and he was in the theater department in the drama club. He was doing plays and shit. Right.

So over the years, everybody said he developed, and the book puts it, a flamboyant, almost theatrically dramatic personality. He had a strange, stilted manner of speaking, like Jackie Mason. And then you do this, and then you do that. I don't know if maybe that's what they're talking about. I don't even know. Saying a guy's flamboyant and then commenting on the way he's speaking lends to gay. Yeah, but that's not it at all. That's not what it is. They said he used broad hand gestures in everyday conversation.

They're describing a gay man. No, they're describing someone from the East Coast living. Oh, there's that. That's all it is. He talks like that. And they're like, why is he waving his arms around so much? Yeah, this is Southern California. Calm down and get a tan, man. But he's known as being very eccentric, so much so that his classmates called him Martin the Martian. So because he's just a weird guy. Yeah. He's also very mentally unstable, Martin.

Really? Huge mood fluctuations. He has manic episodes, bouts of paranoia and depression. This will all get diagnosed soon. They said when he became enraged, there was no like turning him off. He was just like in a death stare at people. As a teenager, he's diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

At the time and after his diagnosis, that's when he started really becoming fascinating, fascinated with understanding psychology and the human brain. He had the same fascination with psychology as Ted Bundy did, where he said, I'm fucked up in the head. I'd love to figure that out. And that's what it is. That's exactly what he did. It's the same type of thing. And that can work out really well or really poorly.

In 1973, Martin joins the military at age 17. He lied about his age. He claimed he was 18. Yeah, well, when you got nothing, I mean, that's fine. Well, his commanders and his fellow recruits noticed that he's an odd fucking guy.

He was often insubordinate and got in trouble a lot. And when they sat him down and gave him a psychological workup because they were like, he's just not getting it. Maybe it's maybe his brain doesn't work right. He spoke. Wow. Spoke of hearing voices urging him to kill.

Head on home, young man. You know what? Let's hold on. Why don't you just get loose in the grip on that gun right now? We'll go put that over here. We'll take that. Everybody hide the grenades, please. I feel like we're going to send him on home. Holy shit. Make sure he takes none of that shit with him. We're going to write him a note, too. Nothing more than butter knives for this guy.

Yeah. So about two years into his service, his commander sent him for the psychiatric testing. And after a battery of tests and evaluations, they deemed him to be a, quote, latent schizophrenic with other mental and psychological infirmaries, quote unquote, infirmities, quote unquote. In 1975, at the age of 19, he's discharged from the army due to his mental illness.

Head on off to law school. What do you say? This is like, we were still in fucking Vietnam at that point. And they're like, we don't need this one. He's crazy. Not that body. Not that bad. We'll throw any body at it except for that one. Holy shit. So he was applied for and was granted financial benefits through the Veterans Benefits Administration and also through Social Security. Because he's too fucked up to be in the Army. They're saying you need help. Wow.

So he, man, he's not doing well here. And even he's going to receive these benefits even after he becomes a doctor. He never turns them off. They keep paying him. They keep paying him, which is, by the way, also fraud. So in 1977, he tells friends he saw a piece on 60 Minutes, OK, the TV show, a news piece about a group of check forgers.

It was like this big thing and it was basically a how to of check forging. And he went, I never thought of that. So based on what they did, he thought of ways he could do it better and with fewer risks. So catch me if you can. Exactly. He was fascinated by the simplicity of the scam, he said, and told friends that he could execute it with very few risks. He said, I could do it better than those 60 Minutes idiots.

So Martin decided to do this. He said, I'm going to do this check fraud thing. Okay. Yeah. He selected a random name from the county recorder's office records. He hired his friend to go to the office of vital records and obtain a copy of that individual's birth certificate by filling out an affidavit saying he's the person's father.

And he needs they need the birth certificate for something. So using the birth certificate, he then went to the DMV and was able to get a temporary driver's license in this other person's name, which he used to open a checking account. He's stealing identities. He's stealing identities. And then he's going to well, then he's going to do check fraud. He deposited fifty dollars in the account and they gave him a book of checks. Yeah. So on Labor Day weekend, 1977, when he knew the banks were closed, he

He used the checks and the phony license during a three-day massive shopping spree. Massive shopping spree. Three-day shopping weekend. This is what Memorial Day is for. That's what it is for, using other people's money. Yeah. Stealing. Buy shit on sale. They said he was dressed up in designer clothes and all that kind of thing, and he strolled into 14 different stores and

and spent $35,000 in 1977 money. We're talking $150,000 he spent, basically, in today's money on this shit. He spent furniture, appliances, jewelry, watches, fancy clothes, everything.

To spend $35,000 in 1977, you had to work at it, man. So the business owners, they remembered him as an affluent-looking, smooth, confident, not-at-all-nervous guy who just looked like he had a lot of money and felt like spending it. He purchased diamond rings, watches, couches, chairs, a grandfather clock. Yeah, why not? A refrigerator, TVs, multiple bicycles, car tires, 60 pairs of socks, which, okay, Ted Bundy.

Car tires? Car tires. I mean, everything you could think of that he might need. He's like, car tires, I get that. What do you mean? A bunch of Froot Loops, put those in the car. He doesn't care. These tires are going to wear out one day. I should probably be thinking ahead. 60 pairs of socks. Other than Ted Bundy, I've never heard of anybody doing that. That's amazing. Two dozen pairs of shoes.

Two dozen. To 24 pairs of shoes, a full wardrobe of clothes, and a year's supply of chocolate-covered cherries as well. Just everything he could think of. I'll take that, too. Got to get that impulse by the register. Give me a year's supply, though. I'll take these, but like 52 of them. What do you think?

So by the time a store employee started to become suspicious about rich people usually don't shop like this, just looking around, grabbing shit. He had spent thirty five thousand dollars. So they alert the police. The police come realize he isn't who he says he is. And he has fifty dollars in the bank and he's arrested and charged with 14 felonies over this. One for each store he went into. Can't do that.

So after counseling or having some counseling with a lawyer here, a consultation, he pleads not guilty by reason of insanity based on his government schizophrenia diagnosis. And it's very obvious that's not a sane thing to do. No, it's also I don't know if you can plead insanity for something like this.

No, I mean, it's less like it's pretty fucking insane. But like to kill somebody to do it. But I don't know. Everybody needs fucking. It's Utah. There's no tires. I know it's California. So probably not. As a part of his defense, he's evaluated by two court appointed psychiatrists. He tried to explain why he felt like he needed to do this. And he said, I don't know why I did it. I didn't want the stuff. I didn't need the stuff.

He just liked to steal shit. He just wanted to see if he could do it. Who needs a year's supply of chocolate-covered cherries, man? This dude was like, can I get away with that? Can I pull it off? Which is a fucking crazy thought to have. So he also then spoke of homicidal urges and the voices in his head. Again, they're back. The psychiatrist believed that he was deeply damaged, but they deemed him mentally fit to stand trial. If voices in your head isn't enough, what is enough to make you crazy?

Yeah. Like, I think that's the craziest shit you could have is voices urging you to kill. They're not just saying, hey, how you doing? It's a nice day out today. Hearing or seeing your mother, you know, don't exist are bad. That's terrifying. As it gets. Yeah. So they let him stand trial. They said the patient has gotten into trouble with the authorities due to his desire to kill people at the command of voices. A psychiatric report read.

So it was prosecuted by the district attorney here who remembers a young delinquent, but also saying he was very intelligent and full of potential.

He said he was bright and he was a con. He should have been a success. He had all the talent in the world. Who does this sound like so far? Yeah, it's a lot of Bundy. It's like exactly fucking Bundy. Like even down to the socks. Like it's fucking weird. So they said as Martin was fighting the charges, he would go to church and do all that kind of thing because he had just kind of dipped his toe in the Mormon waters out there. Oh.

Oh, in California? And again, Ted did the same thing. Ted Bundy joined the Mormon church to make himself blend more. Fuck yeah. Ted Bundy was a Mormon in Utah. Mormon church? As soon as he moved to Utah, he became a Mormon when he went to college there. And he still drank and did all the things, but he was a Mormon, so he would fit into the community. Yeah. Well, also, he wanted to be in politics and shit. And if you want to be in Utah politics, you better be a Mormon, or else you're not getting any fucking votes. So, yeah, they all drink, by the way.

Way too many. I don't believe any of them. So as he did all of this, he started going in the fall of 77 to church-sponsored activities for young single Mormons.

And that's how that went. Before that, he had enrolled at St. Martin's University, which was in Lacey, Washington, where he studied psychology. Ted Bundy got a psychology degree in fucking Washington. That's what I mean. It's at the same fucking time it's going on, too. This is bizarre. I feel like he idolized Ted or something. And he didn't even know it. At the time, yeah, they knew Ted of the West Coast. Everybody knew who that was. And it feels like he had a connection to this guy.

So he said he was able to transfer 65 educational credits he claimed from the Army's extension program, graduated from St. Martin's in two years with degrees in psychology and sociology, and planned to become a doctor.

He moved to Mission Viejo where his sister was living and he attended the same Mormon church and was a member of the same singles ward as Michelle Somers, who was his future wife. So, yeah, missionaries, basically people knocked on his door and he said, all right, I'll give it a run. That's how he became a Mormon. Sure.

He was the guy who bought it. That's wild at the door. Yeah. He's the reason they still keep showing up. Yeah. He's never been a real religious guy at all either. That's the thing. He's never into it, but he gets himself right into the LDS community. He goes to services. He went on a mission to spread the Mormon message that they do. Uh, but while the missions are two years long, his only lasted two months. Why? Well, the other missionaries became fearful of him because of his mercurial moods and erratic behavior. Uh,

So they called home base and said, you got to take this lunatic the fuck out of here. Yeah. This is crazy. He rides his bike weird. He leaves the top button of his shirt unbuttoned. And we're like, yo, calm down, bro. It's enough with all the sexualizing. Calm down. Jesus Christ. He's basically Travolta in fucking Saturday Night Fever right now. He's like, I can see your belly button and you're gyrating. We got to get this guy out of here.

So he meets Michelle Summers at a singles mixer for young Mormons. That's where he meets her, his future wife. She's born in 1957. She's one of seven children. She is a very Mormon. She's a Mormon growing up to, you know, to the max. She's got three sisters. They grew up in Concord, California. Her mom was a stay at home mom while her dad was a salesman. So nice. But her dad was also an alcoholic and wasn't real involved in the kids lives.

So her sister, Michelle's sister, said he wasn't a good father. I hardly ever remember him being around. My mom pretty much raised us. Sure. And the grandmother was involved, too. Michelle's childhood was good, though. She said she was a everybody said she was a wonderful girl. She's blonde hair, blue eyed. If you picture Mormon lady, it's her. Her younger sister said she was like a princess. She was very outgoing, very kind, very sweet to everybody that she came in contact with.

And they said as she got older, she became like a gorgeous teenager and all the guys wanted to go out with her. She's five foot seven. And I'll read from the book. She was slender with a curvaceous figure. So seems good. Long blonde hair, flawless ivory skin, small feminine features and a perfect smile. She's also a straight A student who plays the violin and speaks French. And she's just the perfect fucking girl here. She enjoyed theater, classical music and the ballet.

Her sister said out of everybody in our family, Michelle had it made. She had everything going for her. She was super smart, happy, beautiful. Everyone liked her.

And that's what she did. She grows up in the Mormon church and she spent a lot of her time at church. She studied. She never used alcohol or drugs ever. She was very much into being a Mormon. And she just liked to take a hot bath and read magazines. That was her big vice. She went to in high school. She's a cheerleader who acted in school plays and was voted homecoming queen for

Yeah. I mean, couldn't be more idyllic here. What else did she do? For the homecoming dance, she wore a long lacy dress, white elbow length gloves, her blonde hair falling loose around her shoulders. Right. Yes. Then a photo in the student newspaper was captioned, Queen Michelle reigned over her court. Hmm.

They said she's soft-spoken, beautiful, not pretentious. She didn't look down on people. Everybody liked her. She went out of her way. The boys really liked her, as we described her. She's a hot blonde. They're all going to like her. And the type of guy she liked, though, wasn't your typical Mormon guy. What did she like? She liked flashy guys with big personalities.

Which is the opposite of what Mormon guys are, which are usually very staid guys with very boring personalities for the most part. So her sister remembers they all used to shake her heads at her choices of boys that she liked. They were like, what the fuck? Her sister Linda said she liked really different types of guys, really dramatic types. I don't know what that means, but okay. Not them. Not being dramatic would be like, oh, darn, when something goes wrong. Like, oh, you're so dramatic.

Fucking to the Mormons? That could mean anything. He likes Taco Bell. Dramatic. Who knows? Jesus, he has dramatic shit. Shit. So she married, or she graduated high school in 1975. She was going to go to BYU. But.

But she spends her late teens and early 20s working as a professional model and competing in beauty pageants. Of course. Yes. She was crowned Miss Concord in 1976 in California. And her mother where the grapes are from. Yeah. No, no. They're not. I think so. I think maybe. But I thought the grapes were from Concord. I thought it was from the East Coast somewhere.

Might be from California. I have no idea. What does that have to do with any of this? I don't know. I'm trying to figure out where the fuck Concord, California is. It's outside of San Francisco, about a half hour. Okay. Yeah, it's got to be over there. So, I mean, grapes would make sense because that's where wine grapes come from. Sure is. In her modeling photos, she looks gorgeous. And her parents got divorced around this time, 1977. And her father kind of took off, didn't have anything more to do with the kids. He remarried, started kind of a new family. Yeah.

So Helen ends up moving in. This is her mom moves in with her daughters and you know, they're trying to make it work here. Yeah. Michelle still lives at home. She's big into the church. That's when she gets into all the single shit. And in late 1977, she was at a singles event when a man approached her and

handsome guy, thick blonde hair. I'm Martin. And she was smitten, boy. Dramatic as fuck. Dramatic. I'm Martin, he said with his hands out like that. And she was like, oh, this fucking guy. I like him. Mormon gal from a broken home, huh? Yeah. Well, at the end, it was a broken home. Sure, sure. Yeah. But yeah, her dad was an alcoholic and

That happens. Mom finally had enough of it. I notice that happens a lot in true crime shit we read and I read all the time in books and stuff that you'll get a lot of Mormon fathers that are fucking severe alcoholics. Yeah. And I'm wondering if a lot of them were alcoholics and that's why they became Mormons, but that didn't... Well, I mean, there's a lot of pressure. The love of God doesn't quell the fucking need for booze, you know what I'm saying? So they were trying to...

Love of God is one thing, but the pressure to be fucking perfect in everyone's eyes has got to be so overwhelming and such a burden. I'd be hammering booze behind everybody's back, too. Probably, yeah. I think a lot of these guys might start out as alcoholics and try to run from that to the church, and then they end up just...

Build a family and... Being a drunk Mormon. Get the holy shit out of it. Yeah, just being a drunk Mormon instead. But yeah, you might be right, too. Maybe it's the pressure that I'm sure can't help. That's crazy. The fucking... The fellow... You know what I mean? Like the... Yeah, yeah, it's all of it. Organizations and like the events that they have and you've got to be like this perfect Mormon... Perfect. You have to look perfect. All your kids have to be dressed perfect. Everything has to be perfect. Yeah, iron your shit. Fuck that. I want a drink. Yeah, I want to have some fun here. So Michelle...

At the time when they're dating, too, she thought he was a little bit odd, Martin. She's like, I don't know about this guy. He was controlling, seemed to scare her. On one of their dates, she said to one of her sisters after one of their dates, I don't know about Martin, and I'm just not sure. And they were like, well, yeah, you should stop going out with him then. On one occasion, they were arguing in his car when she said, why don't we – we should probably just break up. This isn't working. We should break up.

He got real frantic, opened up the center console, and pulled a gun out. He had a gun? Put it to his temple. Oh, no. And said, I can't live without you. If you leave me, I'll kill myself. Okay. This is the opposite of what Richard Kuklinski did when his wife tried to break up with him before they got married. Right. She said, I'm breaking up with you. He took out a knife and stabbed her in the arm. This guy puts a gun to his own head.

So same thing. It's still manipulative, manipulating with violence either way. So after several minutes, she convinced him to put the gun down and said, we'll just keep dating. Never mind. We'll figure it out tomorrow. Wow. Yeah. Let's just get me out of this car. Yeah.

But she they said over the course of their courtship, she lost weight. She seemed worried all the time. And her sister said there were fights and she couldn't take it. You could see the stress in her face. I don't know what happened. Her whole world changed in a few months after meeting him. One of the times before they got married here.

Martin makes plans, quote unquote, to introduce Michelle to his 79-year-old father in Long Beach. I'm going to introduce you to my father. He made a big deal out of this that I'm going to introduce you to him. On Halloween 1977, Michelle and Martin were attending a play when out of nowhere he just stopped and said, I feel like something happened to my dad. I just feel like something happened to him. So the next day, Martin went to his father's house and knocked on the door and no one answered.

He found a key under the door mat or something. A key. Unlocked the door. And as he went in, he discovered his dad was dead. Something did happen. And that's his story. When he later told Michelle of his father's passing, she was convinced that he had experienced this big premonition.

As this goes on, you're going to think that was less of a premonition and more of a prediction of what I'm going to do, which is go kill my father probably. Yeah. Because I think he did it. I think he went over and killed him.

Maybe. I don't think there's any fucking doubt in it whatsoever, unless this guy is psychic, which I don't think he is. I think he's a murderer. So we'll find out about it. His death was ruled natural relating to age and health problems. But we'll find out he's got a way around that, though. Martin seemed very devastated. He collected a few thousand dollars from his father's insurance company.

Which was money he desperately needed because he had legal troubles for check fraud. Oh, is that right? Yeah, he needed that money right fucking now, by the way. So it came at the perfect time for him. What a windfall. Lucky. Michelle's family doesn't like him, as you might imagine. He's nothing like them. He's not what they expected. Yeah.

So her sister, Michelle's sister, said, I thought he was just a big actor. He just gave me the creeps. He was so self-absorbed. It became more and more apparent each time I saw him that he believed he was more superior than anyone else and that he thought very highly of himself. Then a bishop who is the family bishop, Michelle's family bishop, came to the house to warn Michelle's mom about Martin.

I can't tell you why exactly, but there are some things in his background that are concerning. Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you a little bit more about our friends at Quince. Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com. Absolutely.

Absolutely. We're excited. New season coming up. We're going to have fall and winter and trade in these short sleeves. Yeah. Pop on some nice sweater. Get you some flannel. Yeah. That's right. Get me some cashmere maybe. Maybe I'll step it up and upgrade. Maybe a nice leather jacket. Something like that. But I'm going to get it from Quince. That I do know. Because Quince offers...

highly affordable and high quality essentials for any wardrobe, including seasonal must-haves like Mongolian cashmere sweaters from $60. And that's what we found. Jimmy got some nice linen pants, some summer pants. I got some stuff like that. I got some sunglasses. Now I'm looking for

I'm looking in the leather jacket range now. Get some warm stuff. Get some fall stuff. And I'm going to be on Quince and I'm going to hit it up. And I'll tell you that right now. And you can do it too. Upgrade your wardrobe with pieces made to last with Quince. Go to quince.com slash smalltownmurder for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.

That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash smalltownmurder to get free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash smalltownmurder. Now back to the show.

Halloween is just around the corner, but Huluween is here. Hulu is the streaming home to fresh fall releases that'll creep under your skin, like Immaculate starring Sidney Sweeney, FX's American Horror Stories, the new thriller film Hold Your Breath starring Sarah Paulson, and FX's chilling horror thriller Grotesquerie. So snuggle into your couch with a pumpkin spice latte and watch all your scary favorites. Turn your Halloween into Huluween and stream till you scream on Hulu.

Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. At Mint Mobile, we like to do the opposite of what Big Wireless does. They charge you a lot, we charge you a little. So naturally, when they announced they'd be raising their prices due to inflation, we decided to deflate our prices due to not hating you.

That's right. We're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details. Because he's not allowed to tell them what Martin has told him, but he's like, I talked to this guy. You don't want him around your family. Can't tell you why, but trust me. Around that time, Martin told Michelle about his arrest for check fraud.

He told her it's no big deal. It was just a dumb mistake I made in the past. Fourteen times. Fourteen times for 35 grand. In one day. So Michelle told her family about the arrest and they tried to convince her to end it with Martin. But she defended him. She said if you only knew about his childhood, you'd understand because he told her the story. It's a harrowing tale. Yeah.

the prostitutes. Yeah. She slept next to his mom. This is what Mormons are trying to, you know, get people out of allegedly or whatever. So she's like, listen, this is what the whole church tells us to do is to care about these people is what I'm doing here. So yeah, over the course of the relationship, uh,

Everybody said Martin tried to isolate her from family and friends. They said he had a way of twisting situations to paint her family as bad people all the time. During one argument at her family home, Martin turned to Michelle and pointed at Michelle's mom and sisters and says, look at them, Michelle. They're all crazy. Look at them. So Helen, Michelle's mom, heard about the check fraud thing and said, let me look into this deeper.

So she obtained all the records related to the prosecution. She just went down to the courthouse public, you know, thing, including two psychological evaluations. Oh, she got those. She got those. Once the case is done. Yeah, I think you can, unless there's a special court order to block it. So, I mean, if it's hip shit in it, no, I get psych evaluations for people all the time for murder. Yeah. It's once it's,

Once your case is done, you can petition a judge to seal it, but unless you do, it's in there. It's submitted to record. It's part of it. It's public domain, yeah. The mother found out that Martin was a diagnosed schizophrenic that heard voices urging him to kill and was like, holy shit. That guy called us crazy, you guys. Fucking A. He screen pointed at us, which either means-

He's crazy or we're really crazy, one or the other. So Helen said, I wouldn't be surprised if he killed her someday, is what she told her other daughters. Helen tried to talk to Michelle about the findings, but...

Didn't quite work out. She didn't listen. Linda, the sister, said, we have no idea how or what he said to explain everything to her. We just know that whatever we said made her draw further from us and closer to him. There was no talking to her. He had a hold on her. There was nothing we could do.

Which happens all the time. Yeah, it's manipulation. February 21st, 1978, they elope, Martin and Michelle. Really? Yeah, the family's not into it, so they elope. Four months later, he began a six-month jail sentence for forgery and theft and fraud. Now, this also, during this whole thing, while he is gone...

Basically, after they get married, they don't tell anybody right away. She's still living with her parents right then. Then at one point, Martin comes over, just starts collecting all her shit. And they're like, you're not taking her. And he said, well, she's my wife, so I am. And then they were like, what the fuck? You got married? So that was that. Now, Martin took a plea on the check fraud thing and was sentenced to 180 days in jail and three years of felony probation.

So he serves his sentence. He used the money he collected from his father's insurance policy and army benefits to pay for expenses while he was incarcerated, which he knew he had to do. Once he is released, he reunited with Michelle and they moved into an apartment in Hollywood, which is where you expect two Mormons to live. Yeah. West Hollywood. Perfect. There you go, guys. Yeah. So Martin seemed intent on changing his life when he got out of prison and

They said that his mental illness, he said, is not an issue now anymore. He's got it all under control. He said the disturbing voices aren't there anymore. Oh, it's great. Everything's fine. Left them in the prison cell. Fucking A. Left them behind. Maybe that's what I needed, like a filter. I needed to go through it like a sieve. Yeah.

They have a daughter. Their oldest daughter's name is Rachel. She's born in 1979, and this is after he gets out of jail. She pretty much gets pregnant right away. A month after his release, she learns she's pregnant. So,

Yeah. Pregnant that night. Yeah, he got out and fucking, he had a lot of backed up jizz there that he. Six months. Here's all my sperm, lady, pow. Take it all. Shot her against the wall. Fuck yeah. So it came out of her ears. So in the early 80s, Martin falsifies transcripts with inflated grades and lies on applications to get into two medical schools and later into BYU Law School.

He was working toward a career as a doctor. Didn't want to be a psychiatrist anymore. Now he wants to be a physician. He pursued his degree through a little-known program launched in 1972 for American medical students attending foreign universities.

You always it's always like a joke. Like, where'd you go? University of Grenada or this or that? It's because there was a fucking program in the Nixon administration that started that for this to happen. That's why people why you see that all the time here. So I guess it was if you went if your course of study requires students to complete four years of schooling in a foreign college, perform clinical work at American schools and complete a residency and you have to pass the same exams and all that.

So he ended up enrolling in a college in Guadalajara, Mexico, and it's the Guadalajara School of Medicine, and then transferred his credits from Mexico to the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific in Pomona, California. That shit translates, huh? Yeah, yeah. That program makes it translate, so you have to. So he studied osteopathic medicine, which is a holistic thing focusing on the musculoskeletal system.

And all of that kind of shit. So meanwhile, they have another kid, a daughter, Vanessa, who was born in 1981. And then in 1982, they have their youngest daughter, Alexis, who's the one who ends up in medical school. Okay. They're also going to have a son named Damien. That's their only son. Very religious people named their kid Damien, which I found hilarious. This is after the omen came out by far. So yeah, really weird. In 1983, Damien's going to have some, oof, he's got a crazy life.

Martin graduates from medical school in 83, licensed as an osteopathic surgeon in California. That's when they have Damien in 1985. He's the last of their natural children here. He gets a residency at a hospital in New York and moves his family to Flushing, Queens. Is that right? Where the Mets play, yes. A lot of Mormons roaming around Flushing, you might imagine. So he completes his residency. That's when they went out to Utah.

He was licensed as an osteopathic physician in Utah in 1987, and he worked as a physician at hospitals and clinics all across the state. So there you go. He's got all his licensing and everything like that.

Now, the family dynamic is fucking weird, to say the least. Sure. Now, Alexis recalls how they had birthday parties and family vacations and everything seemed perfect on the outside. Normal, yeah. She said, I had a wonderful childhood. My mom was always there and just the best person.

So the girls remember an idyllic upbringing. Both parents were warm and loving. And they said Michelle was the heart of the family. Martin was a little bit more brash and egotistical, but he's also a well-respected doctor and a pillar of the Mormon community. Doctors are a little cocky, let's just say. Yeah. A little on the cocky side. Sure. So he taught Sunday school as well. He becomes a bishop of the church.

He acts in the church plays. Once he was cast in the role of Jesus. Really? Imagine if Jesus heard voices urging him to kill. That would have been a very different biblical story. He would have gotten all those guys to dinner. Tell you what, he would have got to them before they got to him, I'll tell you that much. You're going to try to put me on a cross tomorrow, I know it. Guess what? All your shit's poison. Boom! What's up? He gets up and walks out. Don't see me eating, do you? Thought I wasn't hungry, but I am. I'm hungry.

He also served as a bishop in California for a small LDS congregation when they lived there. Bishops provide over the worship services and are called to serve among members of the congregation without pay for a term of four to seven years. Four to seven years, no money. No money. So you want me to— Salvation, baby. So basically you're sentencing me to do some free work for seven years. Four to seven years. Four to seven, great. Yeah.

1988 ish around that time. He's working at different hospitals and clinics across Utah. He treated patients at an emergency room in Blanding, Utah, which is also his place. He took a part time job at BYU as well at their hospital there. He worked as a physician at the college's health center, treating students and faculty for, you know, variety of shit. And at the same time, he enrolls in BYU law school where he pursues a law degree.

That's what he's doing. In addition, he is also the family's primary care physician, which is very weird. Every doctor says you can't be your own kid's doctors. You can't treat your kids? Can't do that. That's like the number one rule of doctoring is you're not supposed to doctor your family unless you're like in the woods or something. But if there's other doctors around, you're supposed to take them to them because you can't.

Really? Yeah. That's the number one rule of doctoring is not. Well, I mean, don't kill people. But yeah, you're not supposed to. I mean, the oath is help. No harm. Right. Yeah. He said, and this is Alexis said, we never went to any other doctor growing up. I don't remember going to any doctor. It was always my dad.

Yeah, I mean, you can doctor me, but don't examine me. Yeah, you're just not supposed to do that at all. So in 1990, there's some scamming going on here. Uh-oh. Martin has to plead no contest to alleged Medicaid fraud and is banned from Medicaid billing for 12 years.

Oh, we can't use them at all anymore. He's not a provider for them. Nope. And Martin also graduates from law school in 1990 as well. Maybe that's why. In 93, they settle in Salem, which is in Utah, south end of Utah County in the Orem area. They got a 4,000 square foot home.

Doing great. Big old house. They became prominent figures at the Mormon church. Michelle's always volunteering and church friends described her as one of the most kind, generous, loving people they've ever met in their lives, of course. In 1998, Martin agrees to resign from BYU Health Center because you'd think, why? Why is he resigning? Well, if you agree to resign, it's because you did some shit.

And we found out what shit he allegedly did. What he allegedly did. Well, there's complaints and accusations of unprofessional conduct, misdiagnosis, and, oh yes, rape. What? Yes, which is way beyond unprofessional conduct as a doctor. Not good. 1999, he returns to the BYU Health Center for three months and more complaints are made against him for the same things. What is going on?

In 2000, Governor Mike Leavitt appoints Martin medical director of American Fork Training School. You know, post-rape. Post-rapes. But he agreed to leave, so they dropped it all is the basic deal. They didn't want a fucking scandal at BYU of doctors raping people. So for them, they're like, let's brush it all under the rug. You go your way and go rape people somewhere else.

So this is later renamed Utah's State Developmental Center. This place, it's a prestigious position, apparently, as the medical director of this place. It's located 15 minutes from Orem. The center provides 24-hour supervised care for 265 mentally disabled individuals. Jesus Christ.

It was established in 1932. As the director, Martin's in charge of health care for the residents. He had a private office at the center's medical services building, oversaw a team of doctors and nurses. He also worked in administration also. So he's doing the math too. Martin often arrived early, stayed late, worked the weekends, and also played on the company's softball team.

Oh, sure. Not bad. Now, Linda, this is Michelle's sister, said about them, quote, it wasn't a normal family. They were so used to portraying what they wanted people to believe. Their house was crazy. There would be these great big fights, but then they'd all walk out the door and they'd be all like perfect.

Head off to Chili's. And then it's now we got to church first. And once you walk out that door, God damn it, you don't. That's a lie. I feel bad for Mormon people in terms of like a lot of times they can't realistically assess what's going on because they're so busy making a good appearance for everybody. Yeah. Because it's everybody's so concerned about their, you know, everybody knows everybody in the community and.

gossip and all that shit. To a point, it's like that with almost every religion, but that one specifically. Yeah, most people don't give a fuck. You know what I mean? It's not as close, tight-knit as these fucking Mormons are a totally different thing. And church isn't the center of everybody else's life. At a Catholic church, it's not the center of these people's life. They don't give a shit about this.

They don't care. I mean, there's there. They don't live their lives by the tenet of the church or anything like that. People show up. They sure to do their penance and listen to the shit. They don't know what there is being said. They don't go home. That's it. Nobody understands that shit. These people are taking this shit seriously. Yeah. They would you say again? Can you repeat that? Like, it's a different thing. So when Martin turns 50, everybody said he became obsessed with his looks.

And started to tan and exercise and midlife crisis like a motherfucker. Like he was like, oh, I got to look good here. So they said that also Michelle started to suspect that he might have been having an affair around this time. Now, he's been having affairs for years, but this is the first time she suspects it. He also started focusing on his wife's looks and insisting that she get a facelift someday to look better. Hey, look, let's look good here.

So in August 2000, police are called to the house after Martin threatens to kill both Michelle and himself with a knife. Oh, he's blading it. What started this was she caught him looking at porn and it blew up. She freaked out because she's a fucking Mormon. She doesn't understand that he's just trying to get a fucking nut out. And then he, I guess it escalated into this whole thing of him having a knife and everything.

You know, it's crazy. And this is the way it is. I mean, his whole career, he's been leaving jobs often abruptly. Like, he's very erratic. And his explanations would be inconsistent of why he left. And the big thing that Michelle was upset about is that he was always viewing pornography. Always. Always. She would catch him looking at porn from time to time over the years. And she would freak out.

And this guy really needs a private space to look at his porn so she can't keep... Honest to God. Jesus Christ, bro. Your house isn't big enough, bro. You know what I mean? Fucking go in the car. Go, I don't know, somewhere. I guess back then... Turn the volume off. In 2000, you need a TV. A computer, yeah. You need a fucking computer. It's a TV and a VCR probably. This is pre-high-speed internet, 2000? Yeah.

Yeah. This is a fucking DVD at best. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. You don't have a phone. No, there's no streaming. No, there's no streaming. Your phone doesn't have anything. So she would catch him looking. They had a bunch of fights, but every time this would happen, he would threaten to commit suicide. Okay. Maybe it was a magazine. That's possible, too. Because they call that pornography. It could be anything with a tit on it. Something with a tit he's looking at.

Their worst fight took place in August of 2000 when Michelle caught Martin looking at porn. They got in a big argument. Martin losing it. That's when he picked up the knife, threatened to kill his wife and himself as he waved the knife around saying, I'll fucking kill us both.

His son, Damien, their son, who's like 16 at the time, tackled Martin, wrestled him to the fucking ground and was wrestling the knife out of his hands. This is a scene, man. This is crazy. A neighbor hears the screams across the street and calls police. Okay. So the cops arrive. Michelle says she doesn't want to press any charges. This is the symbol for the Mormon church should be a giant broom and a big rug because that's just all it is. Just sweep that shit under.

Appearances are everything, babe. I don't need anybody to find out about this hustler in my house. Nope. Because that's probably what she thought, too. That's more embarrassing than even the cops coming. But a police report is filed. Martin is placed on a temporary psychiatric hold because he threatened to kill himself and had a weapon in his hand and spent the night at a mental health facility in Provo. And over the years, though, these fights happen very frequently. This is normal. Yeah.

And he would always apologize and promise to promise to change. And that'll just not. And he she would believe him. And that was that she wanted to believe him. Right. Yeah. And it's also. Hey, faithful man. Faith is nice. But at some point, it's just fucking banging your head into the wall. You know, you got to get your shit together at some point here.

So Martin, by the way, she doesn't know that she's upset that he looked at tits in a magazine. Yeah. She has no idea that he's also been fucking all sorts of people for years on the side. Oh, my God. She thinks she's married to this nice Dr. Bishop guy, and it is not true. He would use his position as a doctor to fuck his female patients, which is extremely illegal and not okay. Incredibly. I knew it was a rule. I didn't know it was a law. Yeah.

It is. You can't do that. That's not good at all. He also had liaisons with women he met at church that they both knew, online people that he just hooked up with, people from his job. His main, the way he would...

do this basically was people who just got divorced and single mothers those were his targets vulnerable people yeah yeah but there's also the like why do you need to why do you need to jerk off if you got all these ladies around he's a horny guy no kidding my god he has a

He doesn't have a Mormon sex drive. He's a horny guy. He's wanting to fucking not just for reproducing. Right. So after Michelle's death later on, several women would come forward with quite disturbing allegations about Martin. One woman from church claimed Martin propositioned her over the Internet saying,

A man said that in the 80s he witnessed Martin raping a girl. Where the fuck were you then? Why do you say anything? You witnessed him raping a girl and you don't say anything for 25 years? What the fuck is wrong with you? Just hang on to that?

Dude, what the hell? In 96, the end of that story should be as I was braining blows down upon him, the police came in. That should be the end of that story. Like, not just I saw him doing it. I saw him. You witnessed. Yeah. As the blood flowed from his mouth, eyes and nose as I punched him repeatedly for this and the girl kicked him in the crotch. This is what happened. So in 1996, while he was working at the BYU Health Center, Martin had an affair with one of his patients.

Again, can't do that. This is a 42-year-old recently divorced mother of eight. He fucking does this too. When this woman first met Martin, she said he was seductive and charming. He'd brag about his dual degrees and his luxury cars and how he's doing so well. She said he made her feel beautiful and wanted and, you know, just what she needed at that time. And he explained that he him and his wife just didn't have a good sex life.

And you're hot. You're hot. She doesn't do all that freaky shit. So they had an affair once even having sex in his office. What? And Karen said, this is the woman's name, Karen. She said the affairs left her just overcome with guilt because he was married and there's church stuff. She said he manipulated me, but he managed to do it in a seductive way. I didn't tell anyone because I thought it was my fault. I think he knew I wouldn't report it. That's why he made me think I was so attractive.

Yeah, a doctor is not in a... It's a different position. It's not... Can't do that, man. He was then accused of having sex with one of his patients at BYU. And around that time, the children remember a violent altercation between their parents where Martin again threatened to kill himself. In 1998 is when he abruptly resigned from the BYU Health Center following a long list of complaints. And we told you about that. So...

Rachel, their one daughter, has some of what Martin has here. The oldest, yeah. The oldest. They said she grew up slender and statuesque with dark brown hair that contrasted with her alabaster complexion. I love the description of people in books. They crack me up. Is alabaster white? White is what that is, yeah. She also inherited her father's mental illness and was diagnosed as bipolar as well. At times, she's very energetic. And other times, she's in deep depressions, bipolar. Mm-hmm.

After her second marriage ended in divorce, Rachel, yeah, she got married, got divorced, got married, got divorced. She returned to Utah, rented an apartment in Salt Lake City, and she ended up going back to school to be a dental hygienist, and that's what she became. Okay. Vanessa didn't do so well here. She is what she looks like her mother the most. She was troubled as a teen, had anxiety, abused drugs and alcohol as a teen.

Yeah. Also got knocked up when she was 18. Yeah. And she gave birth to Ada, young Ada, who's the one who found Michelle. She said she knew she wasn't ready to be a mom. So shortly after that, Ada was born. Martin and Michelle adopted Ada and raised her as their own.

Michelle loved Ada because this is a new little girl. So she, you know, new little princess. She gave her dolls and toys and got her a princess bed and all that kind of shit. And, you know, they did all of that. After they had custody, Vanessa's drug abuse escalated after she gave up her kid. By 2005, she was a heroin addict.

Full-blown. Full-blown. Junkie. Michelle loved Vanessa but spent years trying to get her into drug treatment programs. Vanessa would detox and be sober for a little while but then relapse. She couldn't hold a job. There was months would go by where she's homeless, couch surfing basically. And yeah, Martin was...

completely horrified by this, excluded Vanessa from the family and called her an embarrassment to anybody that would listen. That's how you get her back in the fold. Yeah. Yeah.

And then Alexis went to BYU for her undergrad and then moved to London, England to study medicine at the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. Sounds like the best one they got. Fuck, where she received her master's. Then she enrolled in medical school at Toro University, Nevada College of Osteopathic Medicine. And that's what she's doing. So same thing. Now, Damien is the most fucked up of the kids.

He's also he's also bipolar. Yeah. Fucking heroin addict. Well, he's got a lot of depression, but his depression is more severe. At times he would disappear for a long time just going into depression. Wouldn't talk to anybody or you couldn't find him.

So he was intelligent and funny and all that kind of thing. But he went on a mission again, another mission here to spread things. And it didn't work out. And I think he got sent home, too. So there's some common things now by 2003. Their kids are getting grown now. Their youngest kid is 20 years old, 19 years old at this point. 22. They're going to end up youngest. Yeah. Adopting a bunch more kids.

Oh my. They adopt four kids from Ukraine. What? From a Ukraine orphanage. Yeah. Four kids at once. They go, give me, we got four. We got four of them. We'll take all four. How many you got? You got 12. Shit. We can't take all those. Give me four. Give me four. Yeah. I'll take a third. Let's do it. Um, so yes, they're going to have that. They're going to, these kids, we'll talk about them. Um,

She had just undergone a hysterectomy, Michelle, and was having early menopause from that. Martin and Michelle are in their 40s when they decide they're going to adopt these girls. Michelle, they said, you know, everybody knew she liked kids, but they were like, what the fuck? She never heard that. No one ever heard her express an interest in adoption or anything like that. Want of another kid out of the blue. Yeah.

So the sister, this is Michelle's sister, said that she thinks Martin wanted her to do this so she would be occupied so he could go fuck around. Yeah, that way she's got shit to do. Otherwise, she's going to be up his ass. One family friend said she loved kids, but her kids were grown up and out of the house. I think he wanted her to be monopolized with kids, keeping busy taking them places, because if everybody was out of the house, it was just him and her. He couldn't live his separate life.

So in 2003, they adopt Noel, Giselle, and Elle. Okay? That's the first three. The eldest, Noel, was 13 years old, and Giselle was 12, and Elle was 10. Elle had the best transition here because she's the youngest, so she picked up the language the quickest. She fit in a little more, whereas the 13-year-old...

Had a lot of problems. Yeah. So they end up sending Noel away. Oh. Yes. They get rid of her. Oh, my God. They said without warning, the rest of the family, Linda, the sister, said without warning, Noel just disappeared. God damn. The sister recalled visiting with Noel at family gatherings. Then one day she was at the house and she noticed, where's that other little Ukrainian girl there? Oh, didn't work. Well.

Linda was told, quote, we couldn't deal with her. We had to send her away. Well, it's a small person. Did fucking wind up at the end of your bed with a knife? Yeah. Linda said everything was going fine. No one says we're have no one ever said we're having trouble. And all of a sudden she sort of disappears. Wow. So Noel had been sent to a treatment facility in Michigan for children who suffer from reactive attachment disorder.

This is a condition in which a child lacks any attachment with caregivers, probably because they've been through so much shit. They don't trust anybody who's caring for them because they're just going to get rid of them and send them to some fucking shithole in Michigan. Right. I would assume. So eventually, Michelle and Martin unravel that adoption and Noel will become ward of the state of Michigan.

That's fucked up. To walk back an adoption? You can't do that. You can't walk back an adoption or an abortion. Either of them you can't walk back. You had it right. You can't have second thoughts. You fucking nailed the idea. It didn't fit where it was, but you nailed the idea. Both of them. You can't just be like, nah, I don't want to do that anymore. Nah, fuck that.

So in 2004, this is after Noel left, they adopted another girl from the Ukraine to replace her. Yeah. An adorable brunette Sabrina, who was only seven. Would have been great if they named her Noel too. Noel too. That's what she, Noel, I, I. These kids already had names. So this kid grew up where L, one of their adopted daughters, same orphanage, so she knew L. So they knew each other. So that was good.

So that's nice. Around this time, another American woman adopted Sabrina. They were trying to adopt her and somebody else adopted her. But once Sabrina had settled with this family in New York, her new mother only wanted the five-year-old sister, didn't want Sabrina anymore. Sabrina has a five-year-old sister. So in the summer of 2004, Sabrina traveled to Utah to visit Elle because they knew each other from the orphanage. During the stay, Sabrina bonded with McNeil's and

So Sabrina told them about her life in New York, saying, my mother doesn't like me. She only likes my sisters. So they said, we'll fucking adopt you. They called up the parents. They said, you keep the little one. We'll take this one. And they said, OK. And somehow there's no like, I don't know what the paperwork is. You can't just hand seven-year-olds off from other countries to people. Isn't there like a manager or something to talk to about this? Especially a foreign kid. Like, what the fuck, man? Jesus Christ.

what is happening here? So at that point, Martin, Michelle, Rachel, Vanessa, Alexis, Damien, Giselle, L Sabrina and Ada. That's all the kids we got. I got eight kids at this point. Now we find out that this is, this is interesting here. This is gross. While Sabrina and L are,

Said their life with the McNeils was happy. Giselle didn't quite. She didn't like it? No. Well, she remembered Martin as a cruel, malicious person. Claimed all the girls feared him. She also said that he molested her once while they were together in the living room. Oh, Jesus Christ.

She said he was touching me in weird places. I don't know what it was about me. He was always touching me. I felt weird. Yeah, he's molesting you. That's why you're supposed to like that. You know, you're supposed that's good. That means you're healthy. If that feels weird to you, you're supposed to hate that a lot. Yeah. So following the incident, Giselle just retreated to her bedroom in the basement. She told Michelle about it. She told Michelle about it, but her mother told her not to talk about it ever again.

This is how...

Big broom. Sweet, sweet. She said, quote, Michelle told Giselle, you can't actually have this conversation with him right now. He's under a lot of stress. With him? No. We don't need to talk to him. We can't talk to him because he's under a lot of stress. So it's okay because he's under stress. Cool. Let's talk to the cops instead. Yeah, I was going to say. How does stress make you want to touch seven-year-olds? I don't understand the connection between 10 or 12 or whatever the fuck they are. How does stress make you want to touch children? Yeah.

I have a lot. I have a ton of stress. I'm never like, where's a kid I can do? It never fucking happens once. Farthest thing from my mind.

That's what it is. I don't ever want to be stressed again. Fuck no. If that makes, that's the cause or that's the result. Yeah. 2005 comes around. I like to call this the year of many affairs. Okay. He got in some involved in some affairs here. Uh, first one is where all of his, basically all of his horrible Ted Bundy secrets come to the light here. Anna Osborne Walthall. He goes out with, okay. Anna, uh,

They have about a six-month affair here. She runs a laser hair removal clinic, and he is the consulting doctor because all of them have to have a consulting doctor by law. So he's the consulting doctor is how that works. She is in her early 40s, Anna. She's raising two kids.

She's embroiled in a huge divorce when she first met Martin. They describe her in this book as, quote, voluptuous with a round face framed with shoulder length brown hair.

So voluptuous again. She was outspoken, educated. She's got degrees in both business and music. She was living in Park City, Utah, running a laser hair removal franchise in Salt Lake City called Sona Med Spa. So that's when Anna hired Martin as her medical director, which by law you have to have.

Now, Anna opened up to Martin about her marriage. It's falling apart. They got to be friends as they were working, as you do with coworkers. Look, man, you go through a divorce. We don't need to be friends. I'll tell you all about it. So many Uber drivers have heard it. Yeah. How's your date? Not so great. That's great. And also, he's also a lawyer is the main thing. She's in the middle of a divorce. It's more about being a lawyer. Very helpful. No one comes to me for legal advice, but they will tell me their shit. Yeah.

So he volunteered to assist as a liaison between her and her husband. Look, I'll talk to him for you, which is. Oh, a mediator. No, that's going to work. Of course, they end up having a sexual affair, Anna and Martin. As they would lie in bed after sex, they'd have deep, intimate conversations. They discuss everything about their histories and families and lives. But most of the time, they would talk about weird shit that

that Martin liked to talk about. They said that Martin's mind was more morbid than most people's, but most people didn't get to see it, but she did. And he told her all sorts of shit. He told Anna of his lifelong struggle with homicidal urges. Oh my God. And he told her at times he had surrendered to those demons.

You were just inside me, and now you're professing that you murdered? I'm still leaking on the sheet, and you're fucking... Yeah. I haven't even gotten the warm towel yet. Wow. He said the first time he tried to kill someone was when he was eight years old. Okay. Okay.

It was 1964 and his mother, Lillian, had drunkenly passed out on the couch. Shit faced. Yeah. So he went through all the cabinets. He's fucking eight. He went through all the cabinets and found all the medication he could find.

Okay. He popped a beer open and put all the pills he could find into the beer and let them dissolve. And then he woke his mom up and said, mom, mom, mom. And she's all half shit faced out here, here, here, drink it. And so he like put it up to her lips and she drank it. He said, I helped her sit up and drink it. Then I watched as she stopped breathing. This is an eight year old. Yeah. Even if you hate your mother, this is fucking diabolical as an eight year old.

His mother's heart stopped beating. His sister's Mary came home and found her unconscious, called 911. Ambulances came and they revived her. So later, everyone, including the mom herself, thought that she tried to commit suicide. She said, I must have. I didn't. I was blacked out drunk. I must have tried to kill myself. I tried to end it all. And they all thought, oh, God, the suicide attempt. And it was this big deal.

As Anna was listening to this, she said she asked him, did you regret trying to kill her? His answer is, quote, I regret there wasn't more medication in the house. Golly. That's his mom. That's an eight-year-old. That, she said, freaked her out. Then he said, also, I murdered my older brother.

Yep, he said Rufus Roy McNeil, the drug addict, wasn't suicidal, but he would cut his wrists for attention sometimes because nobody gave a shit about him. While Martin was visiting New Jersey, Rufus called to say he had hurt himself and he wanted to die.

So Martin said, sure thing. He went over to his mother's apartment, found Rufus lying unconscious in the bathtub with superficial cuts on his wrists. He stooped next to the tub, he told Anna, and dunked his brother's head underwater and held him there till he stopped struggling. Drowned him in the tub? Drowned him in the fucking tub. Drowned him, his fucking brother, rather than helping. He's a fucking doctor. You could try to help the man. Instead, you should kill him.

Anna said, were you ever worried you'd get caught? And he said, no, no one would ask me about it. It's not unusual for a cutter to drown because they lose enough blood that they don't have the strength to stay above water. So they didn't even look into it. Wow. He also mentioned his desire to murder his daughter, Vanessa, told her that her drug use has become a family embarrassment and he wants to kill her.

He also, during a one particular episode, during a violent sexual episode, Martin proposed killing Anna to put her out of her misery because she was upset about her divorce. I could just kill you. He offered it to her? He offered, I'll kill you if you want. And she was like, no, no, no, I'm good. I'm good, really. I'm fine. So don't, here's the thing. Don't go to him with your fucking plight anymore. No kidding. He'll just offer to murder you. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go pee so I don't get a UTI. I don't want to die. Jesus.

Next time I'm telling you something that's bothering me and stuff and you're just like, I could kill you. That'd be the craziest thing in the world. Do you want me to drown you? I could drown you. Is that why you're telling me this? What do you want here?

Then he said that throughout, and this is the sickest of all, I guess sicker than killing your daughter and your mother and your brother. Yeah. He said that throughout his medical career, he had murdered several patients. What? He's one of those two. He's a fucking serial killer. No kidding. He's a fucking serial murdering monster. Real life.

He claimed to have published an anonymous article on mercy killings. This was a real article, and he claims he's the one who wrote it because it's anonymous. The 1988 article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. So they published it? Oh, yeah. It's entitled It's Over, Debbie.

The piece is written by an, quote, unknown medical student, which it was written by him. And it recounted the treatment of a 20-year-old woman dying of ovarian cancer, which is horrible. That's horrible. It's the worst. Because the patient was in pain and not responding to chemotherapy, he gave her an overdose of morphine with the intent of ending her life. Right.

He said, I injected the morphine intravenously and watched to see if my calculations on its effect would be correct. Within seconds, her breathing slowed to a normal rate. Her eyes closed and her features softened as she seemed restful at last. This is what he's writing in the article. This is quotes from the article. With clock-like certainty, within four minutes, the breathing rate slowed even more, then became irregular, then ceased. Good Christ. Killed. And that's just one of the people he did this to.

Um, as Anna's moving, she spends her last few weeks in Utah. She's moving to Oklahoma, I think. And while they're in bed together in these last few weeks, he continued telling her tales of killing and murder. He told her his favorite method of murder favorite. Now we've heard of how many that that's like three that he's are two killed, two tried to kill so far in different ways. Um,

Now he's saying a totally other method of murder that he does, which is injecting a person with potassium to induce a heart attack. This is a big one, by the way. Anybody that knows shit or has access to stuff, this is considered the cleanest way to kill somebody because an injection of potassium is lethal and would cause heart failure. But the thing is,

when someone has a heart attack, your body produces more potassium. Is that awesome? It's like... When they check you to see... You can't even tell. No, when they check to see how you died, the first thing they look at if they think it might be a heart attack is your potassium level to see if it's shot up. That means that's why. So this just looks like rather than you getting potassium to get a heart attack, you had a heart attack which produced potassium. It's almost impossible. Unless you can find an injection site, it's impossible. That's what Kuklinski would give them, right? Because he'd say that

What was in his case? A heart attack. I don't think it was potassium. I think it was other shit that he was given. I think it was cyanide. Something like that. Potassium cyanide. Yeah, this is just potassium, not cyanide. So the chemical also occurs naturally in the body when a person dies from a heart attack. So they said that the high potassium levels don't seem abnormal in an autopsy. He told her he would never get caught killing.

But he said if he ever does get arrested, he'll just he said he won't ever plead insanity. And she said, why not? And he said, because I always know exactly what I'm doing. Make sure to say this isn't just some shit that happens. Yeah.

He told her there's something that you can give someone that's natural, that's a heart attack that's not detectable after they have a heart attack. And she said this was their pillow talk. This is what they would do. Made her real hot. That is fucking ridiculous. So he's killed countless people. We have no idea how many people he's killed. He's counted a few, but we don't know how many. Fuckin' A, man. So...

During all this, Martin also confides to the bishop of his church that he no longer loves his wife and adopted children anymore. He's got a big mouth, man. That's why the bishop went to Michelle and was like, listen, let me tell you. I can't tell you why, but you don't want to be with her with him. Then he meets a woman named Gypsy Willis.

Gypsy Willis. Well, he meets her online. And the two begin an affair in November 2005. She lives a couple counties away. And so they would see each other a couple times a month, which is wild. Now, Gypsy said, I thought this is a really awesome person.

But he's also married and he was candid about it. He told her right away he's married. He even told Gypsy that he's dating a few other women. And during one of their first dates, he talked about his wife and said she's very beautiful, a former beauty queen. She's great, very capable mom. Gypsy said he said he had the perfect life and the perfect wife. And I said, so if your life is so perfect, what are you doing here? Yeah, why are you in my mouth? And Martin said, boredom.

You're a play thing is what he just told her. Yeah.

I'm in your mouth. That's why I'm here. Yeah. I'm going to slap you across the face with my dick a few times and then move on to something else. Don't care. He said, everything is so consistent and perfect and boring, he said. Yeah. He's one of these guys. He can't live that life. He needs that excitement. Yep. He no longer seemed interested in Anna at that point, though. He moved on from Anna once he found Gypsy. And he told Anna, basically, that their affair is over and, quote, I would never leave Michelle and I'm done with you. Goodbye. Goodbye.

This guy's got to be a smoke show, right? He is. I mean, he's a handsome guy. Yeah. Even in his 50s. He's a fucking doctor. Yeah. There's so much to a good-looking doctor. What does every girl's mother tell him? Why don't you go find a good-looking doctor? Like, it's...

pounded into their fucking heads back in the day. And doctor makes up for a lot of looks. So like a good looking doctor can be like a mediocre looking dude. That's what I mean. People wanted to fuck Dr. Drew for 30 fucking years. He's just a normal looking guy, but he was a doctor. So, you know, it's crazy. So when Anna realized it was over, she said, she scribbled in a journal, I hate him. I hate him. I want to hurt him.

They never talked again after that. But she said that she was basically traumatized by their discussions of murder. And she told a psychiatrist in 2006, I had an affair with a serial killer, quote unquote.

Worried about letting someone else pick out the perfect avocado for your perfect impress-them-on-the-third-date guacamole? Well, good thing Instacart shoppers are as picky as you are. They find ripe avocados like it's their guac on the line. They are milk expiration date detectives. They bag eggs like the 12 precious pieces of cargo they are. So let Instacart shoppers overthink your groceries so that you can overthink...

What you'll wear on that third date. Download the Instacart app today to get free delivery on your first three orders while supplies last. Minimum $10 per order. Additional terms apply.

Credit Karma makes building your credit straightforward and stress-free with help from our credit builder. Sign up today at creditkarma.com and start enhancing your financial health. Credit Karma, your partner in building a brighter financial future. Credit Builder Plan is serviced by Credit Karma Credit Builder and requires a line of credit and savings account provided by Cross River Bank member FDIC. Okay, now February 2007, Michelle's suspicions that her husband's having an affair has increased.

Because he's been having an affair for years. Because he is. He's still having an affair with Gypsy, like almost two years later. Yeah.

Because he definitely is. And she confronts him repeatedly. He denies it. They have a big fight. It goes away. Sweep, sweep. Goodbye. March 2007, Michelle tells her adult daughter, Alexis, that she thinks dad's having an affair. I think your father's having an affair. After reading through his phone records, Michelle discovered the identity of the girlfriend and gypsy. And when she confronted Martin, he claimed she was being ridiculous and

Of course she is. There's no guys that you call 35 times a week. Come on. What are you thinking about? Then after all this, a short while later, I mean within a month, Martin surprises Michelle with a facelift as a present. I got you a facelift as a present. That's kind. Coupon for one facelift, you droopy bitch. That's what he said.

Listen, you need to look better so I don't have to fucking talk to these women. Meanwhile, she's beautiful. It's ridiculous. So he also indicated he wanted to take her on a two-week cruise after the surgery. Okay. Let's redo this. During this time, this is weird. I don't know why he did this. He is doing a thing at church. He's speaking at church. He announces at church that he has cancer.

And he has less than a year to live. Uh-oh. Yeah. He tells all the church people that. Then his health starts to deteriorate in front of their eyes. He starts limping. Then he starts walking with a cane. And then eventually wears a surgical boot when he walks. Oh. Is that what happens? I guess. That's why you're just deteriorating. He told his neighbors that he had some procedures done and was having some complications. That's what he told the neighbors. He told the church.

They just got cancer. Neighbors, some procedures done, quote unquote, which is, I don't know. So then he told a colleague that he had, this is another doctor, peripheral neuropathy in his toe that wouldn't get better. Now he's got a toe injury rather than a cancer. Another colleague said that he had, he told another colleague that he had cancer in his big toe.

Then he told another colleague that he had a neurological problem similar to MS. Okay. So there's like five different explanations of what the fuck's going on. Peripheral neuropathy shit is crazy though. Isn't that the shit that they don't even know how it starts? Yes, exactly. I think that's what's going on. Yeah. Nerve issues and yeah.

So he's saying he's all totally ill, but then he remodeled his own basement around this time. Oh, wow. To have no difficulty carrying, quote, giant slabs of sheetrock down the steps. With his cancer toe? With his cancer foot and toe, yeah. So McNeil here, this is Michelle and Martin. They schedule a consultation with a plastic surgeon in March 2007. Okay.

When they go in, the doctor said that Martin was the dominant personality at the appointment and did more of the talking than Michelle, which is weird. But then it also makes sense because he's a doctor. So he might be asking more technical questions is more than just can you make my chin look better? You know?

So Michelle was nervous about the surgery and concerned about the risks and the recovery and the downtime and all that kind of thing. So she agreed to schedule this very comprehensive facial surgery for the following month and get it over with. Now, she was scheduled. Martin scheduled an examination for Michelle with a primary care physician to determine if it was safe for her to get surgery.

based on her health. You have to do that. Michelle was wanted to get the, or he wanted to do this. So Michelle could get the surgery without delay at the appointment, Michelle Martin and the doctor discussed Michelle's high blood pressure. The primary care physician said it would be ideal to control the blood pressure before surgery and suggested she postponed the operation.

Martin said, get the fuck out of here. She's fine. Hey, hey. They said other than Michelle's elevated blood pressure, the physician said that she was in excellent health. And EKG revealed that her heart was normal without any arrhythmias or evidence of heart disease.

Now, although the primary care physician recommended Michelle delay the procedure, they kept the appointment for the preoperative evaluation with the surgeon. Move it on up. Let's do it. Alexis came home from graduate school to go to the appointment with them because she was going to take care of her mom.

Before the appointment, Alexis saw Martin in his room writing down medications that he wanted the doctor to prescribe. She said using a, quote, dusty reference book that she hadn't seen him use in maybe 10 or 15 years. Yeah.

So on the way to the appointment, Michelle said she wanted to push the appointment back until summer so she could make sure her blood pressure would be under control. Martin became angry, raised his voice and told Michelle she could not do that and said, if you don't have the surgery right now, you're not getting it. I didn't read that old dusty book for nothing. Sorry. Yeah, I got you a present and it fucking expires on the first day of summer.

It's a spring coupon. I read through medieval medicine. I want them to prescribe you nook tail. I was going to say, I want them to give you leeches is what they're going to get out after this. So the surgery appointment here, neither Michelle nor Martin disclosed the primary care physician's recommendations to the surgeon.

Although Martin did mention she had some high blood pressure and had been prescribed some medication for it, Martin directed the discussion about Michelle's post-operative medication regimen. After performing the facelift, the surgeon would prescribe a pain reliever, Lortab, an antibiotic, Siflaxin, Siflaxin,

cephalolexin, cephaloxin, there we go, a sleeping medication, Ambien, anti-inflammatory, medril dose pack, and an eye ointment, I guess to keep your eyes from whatever the fuck. Sure, sad. Erythrorhizine or whatever the fuck it is. So he prescribed also an anti-nausea medication to patients that complain of nausea during anesthesia also.

Now, Martin requested deviations from the usual protocol. He said, listen, first of all, we need a stronger pain reliever, oxycodone, which is Percocet is the brand name there. Second, he said the Lortab, make it in liquid form.

Oh, hell yeah. We're doing shots. We're going to party. Shots, shots, shots, shots, shots. Shit's going to be crazy. So he requested more than the typical amount of Phener, what is this? Phenergan, Phenergen, whatever that is. That's the anti-nausea medication. And he requested it in suppository form. I'd like to put it up her ass. None of this in the mouth bullshit.

Is that a way to keep from throwing up? Plug your ass? Liquid lure tab. And then let me shove something up her ass. There we go. I need a booty bullet of anti-nausea. Fucking A. Okay. Finally, he requested Valium as well, which is for anti-anxiety. Now, Martin said that he was just concerned that Michelle wouldn't do well without having these other options available and that he wanted to have all of the options available to him, even though Michelle told him that she didn't like taking a lot of medicine.

The surgeon said, okay, I'll give her whatever you want. Is that right? We're both doctors, you know. So he gave Michelle instructions to take one pill at a time and certainly avoid taking all of these things at the same time because you will never wake up. So Michelle assured the surgeon that she was going to try to minimize the amount of medication that she took. I'll take whatever...

The minimum is if you take all this, it's going to make you want to throw up. But then you'll jam that thing up your ass and you won't be able to throw up. You'll feel terrific after that. April 3rd, 2007 is the surgery. And this is two days after that. And Alexis is there as well, along with Martin for the surgery. The surgery lasted all day. But the surgeon told Alexis that he was happy with the results. They said Michelle was in a little bit of pain and groggy and wanted to stay the night at the hospital.

Right. So Martin returned to drive Michelle and Alexis home. When Michelle said she wanted to stay the night, he became angry and told Michelle that they needed to go home. You don't need to fucking stay here. Yeah. I'm a doctor. But then the surgeon explained, I really prefer to keep people overnight. So he said, all right, fine, fine.

So she comes home the next morning. Alexis acts as her caregiver, giving her medications, dressing her wounds, helping her to the bathroom because basically she's blind. She has things over her eyes. Alexis kept a log of Michelle's medications on a pad of paper and included the time she took each pill and the dose. Alexis also kept a log of Michelle's vital signs and food intake and what she called her little black book.

Which has dick hookups and mom's eating schedule in it. That's what I keep. Yeah. She later put the two logs together in the pad of paper in a drawer next to Michelle's bed. And that evening, Martin insisted that Alexis leave the room because he's going to take over Michelle's care. Yeah.

So Alexis left, slept in her sister's room. The next morning, she entered her mother's room, Alexis does, and noticed that she appeared to be very sedated. Sedated, just passed out. So when Alexis tried to wake Michelle, she stirred a bit but didn't wake up. Alexis asked Martin what happened, and he responded, I must have given her too much medicine. I must have. Must have, which is definitely not the response you're looking for. She said, can you be a little more specific? And he said, well, I gave her Lortab, Valium, and Ambien.

And then she threw up. So then I gave her the anti-nausea thing. Percocet and more Lortab. Wow. Just subbed that up her ass and then poured the rest down her fucking throat. You're not going to throw up now. So Alexis told her father that he is not to give her any more medicine because Alexis, I'm taking over this shit. Yeah.

So later that evening, Michelle told Alexis that Martin kept giving her medication and telling her to swallow. And when she started to throw up, he gave her more medication. And then he stuffed something on my ass, too. I don't know what that's about. Michelle stated she did not want Martin to give her any more medication. She felt each pill. She felt each different pill so that if Martin tried to give her anything, she would know what he was giving her. She, like, felt them to figure it.

Alexis keeps taking care of her. Once her bandages come off, that's when she's recovering much better. By April 10th, she's able to walk around and take care of herself and do things. Didn't take any Valium, any of the anti-nausea or the Ambien. Michelle was very sensitive to medication, so she tried to take less than the prescribed dosage anyway.

So McNeil called the surgeon, even though she's tapering off her meds. Martin called the surgeon to ask him to refill Michelle's prescription for Percocet and the anti-nausea, which he did. Alexis attended the appointment and then she went to school. So Alexis just goes back to school. She said, when I left for school, Michelle was taking one pill a day. That's it. The next day is April 11th is the day that Michelle is found in the tub and

Martin took the couple's younger daughters to school. Before leaving for school, one of the girls entered Michelle's room and found her mother sitting on the couch in front of her TV. The girl noticed nothing odd about Michelle's behavior. She said they had a perfectly normal conversation. The girl said goodbye and went to school. Alexis called at 8.45 a.m., and Michelle said she was doing great and planned to pick the girls up from school herself. Oh. Yeah. She didn't sound confused. Her speech didn't sound slurred. She sounded good.

At 915, Martin called Alexis and left a voicemail urging her to call her mother and tell her to stay in bed. Alexis found this strange in light of her earlier phone conversation saying her mother felt better.

So Alexis called her mother, but Michelle didn't answer. No answer. No answer. Now, while this is going on, Martin is receiving an award at work that morning. Is that right? Oh, yeah. And before the event, Martin adamantly told the event coordinator that he needed his picture taken at the event. Listen, I need an alibi. Yeah. Bad. Here's your trophy and your plaque and your gift card to Starbucks. Where's this photographer? Yeah.

After he got the reward, he turned to the photographer and said, did you get me in that picture? Make sure you get me in a picture. So the photographer assured Martin that he was in the picture, and Martin pressed him again saying, maybe you better take a second one and make sure you got me in the picture. Let's take a few more. I'm really photogenic, though. That's the thing. I'm good from this side.

So Martin picked up the daughter from kindergarten at 1130, morning kindergarten, 1130 a.m. That's Ada. When they got home, she called mom home. Michelle didn't answer. They went into the bathtub. And that's when she said she found her mother all the way in the bathtub, lying in the water, still in her clothes. Wow. And that's when she said, go run next door for help. Now, Martin calls 911.

First call, he calls up, gives the dispatcher a not their address, a bad address and hangs up on them. Come here and hangs up. So then he called again and said, my wife has fallen in the bathtub. She's unconscious. She's underwater. He said, I can't lift her. So I let the water out of the tub.

Okay. Yeah. The dispatcher said, okay, just stay on the phone. And he said, no problem. And hung up on her immediately. Gotta go. Gotta go. The dispatcher called back and he told her, Jesus, will you leave me alone? I got CPR in progress. Quote unquote. Okay. Leave me the fuck alone. So they said, we'll stay on the line. And he said, no, click. Get the fuck out of here. He then called a colleague at work. Yeah. While he's doing this and told his colleague that he was quote, doing a code on his wife.

which sounds like some scat shit that we don't know about. I'm doing a code right now. Thanks for calling. Thanks for calling. And then Martin's phone rang again. This time it was Alexis, and he told her, your mother's in the tub and she's not breathing.

And she said, when I talked to my father, I knew he'd killed her. I just started screaming he killed her. I knew it. My father planned and orchestrated my mother's death and he thought he could get away with it. That's what she says. She immediately went to the airport to fly back here now. Back in the bathroom, Ada returns to the bathroom with a neighbor.

They have a couple, a neighbor and the wife and husband and wife. They find Martin hunched over Michelle's face. Michelle was face up or head under the faucet, her legs and feet inside the bathtub. So the neighbors came in and observed her body in the same position and head under the faucet, all that. The raised jacuzzi tub in the center of the bathroom was inset in an elevated travertine tile deck. So you're saying there's steps that go up to it.

They said, so there she is. Michelle was clothed only in a long-sleeved black shirt worn over the Mormon garments and a bra. No pants or underwear on, though, but full upper body. Full Mormon regalia. And then her ass hanging out. So they said thick, cloudy mucus glazed her face, oozing from her nose and mouth onto her cheeks and onto the gaping gashes across her hairline. She's got all the surgery things. Yeah.

Martin said, because they said, oh, I'll call 911. One of the neighbors said, he said, I've already called 911. I need help getting her out of the tub. So that's what they do. They end up trying to pull her out of the tub. He said, I need a man's help to get her out of the tub. So they called another neighbor. He came in.

And instinctively he, uh, went to the near Michelle's feet and he said, let's, and Martin said, let's get her out. So the guy scooped her up under the knees and he grabbed her under the arms and together they lifted her out. Um, so her shirt and bra were pulled up to her neck, exposing her breasts and they gently placed her on the floor beside the tub. Michelle's arms are at her side and there's a puddle of water, obviously. Um,

Martin's saying, oh, my God, oh, my God. And now, yeah, it's crazy. So then the neighbor said, I know CPR. I'll do the compressions if you do mouth-to-mouth. So we'll do it together. So Martin said, sure, yeah, you should probably get in her mouth there and take the suppository out of her ass. Shit all over her face is for you.

So they said they found a pink towel and draped it lengthwise to cover her exposed regions there. They place, even then they're thinking of modesty. Save her life. Who cares if her pussy's out? Save her life. Then worry about fucking A. That's a sin to look at that. She won't care if she's dead and her fucking exposed. Yeah, but I'll be alive and I'll know that I saw that. Fucking Lord Mormon will take me down, man.

So they're pumping on all of this. After one round of compressions, the neighbor tapped on his wife's shoulder and said, I can do that. Go outside and wait for the ambulance so they can find us. So they do that. In the bathroom...

The neighbor's doing the pumping, doing the chest compressions. Sure, sure. And he said that he knew his neighbor was a doctor, so he figured he knew, and he deferred to him for instructions because he's a doctor, Martin. Doing pretty good. Martin told him stop after several beats. Once again, he put his lips over Michelle's mouth and was doing the breath.

They said that you couldn't see her chest going up and down while he was doing the compression, while he was doing the breathing, though. Really? So they were like, is he actually breathing into her fucking mouth or what? Is he blowing or not? Yeah. Yeah, or is he sucking? Like, what's going on here? So that's how that goes. And they said there was no heartbeat. She wasn't breathing. Martin's mumbling, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God. Then he sits up and touched his face and says, she shouldn't have done this.

So they're doing CPR. He's alternating between what they said, fear and fury, and then calmly breathing into his wife's mouth. And out of nowhere, he said, why? Why? All for a stupid surgery. Why? The neighbor said his demeanor would change, which we thought was a little bit different. He was a very analytical sometimes telling us what to do. Then he would tell us to stop and then he would have a bit of an outburst over the situation. And then he would start back at calm again.

So they said CPR wasn't being done properly, the neighbor said, but he didn't seem to even notice that he wasn't doing it. He said that Martin gave breaths and then paused to check her heartbeat and found none and said, why, why, why would you do this?

And then out of nowhere, he slammed his fist on Michelle's chest and said, all because of a stupid surgery. Live, damn you. Live. So they're doing this. The two men continue to try to revive her, quote unquote. He at some point said, why? Why did you have the surgery? I told you not to do it. She gave it to her as a present. Yeah.

At this point, cops arrive, and as they enter the bathroom, you know, this is all going on. They notice that she is, you know, he's freaking out. He said, I'm her husband. I found her in the bathtub. She just had surgery. She had a facelift. She's on a lot of medication. So the cops said, okay, well, we'll do CPR from here. We got this.

And so they leave, Doug and the neighbor and his wife leave, and Martin stayed hanging over the body going, why, God, why? I mean, as dramatic as you can be, why, God, why?

paramedics come in, they're doing CPR. They got the bag thing, so they're actually doing it. They said her color instantly changed from bluish to a pink fleshy color. Oh, that's good. Because there's actually oxygen going in her now. After several rounds of CPR, that's going on. Then blood gushed from the incisions on her face, a result of the CPR manually stimulating her circulatory system. That means the heart's going, yeah.

Meanwhile, well, it's not going, but they're moving it. So Martin paced nervously around shouting, why, why? I told her not to do it, back and forth. Right, right. Gurgling sounds come from her chest as she gets a lot of fluid out of her mouth more than once. They said at least three to four cups came out the first time and a substantial amount came out the second time. Mm-hmm.

The noises are growing louder. They take a mask from her face and tipped her on her side. Her head fell kind of over, and Michelle suddenly spewed several cups of clear liquid, and the water dribbled off the guy, off the paramedic. The officers resumed CPR. She's regurgitating more fluid and all of that. They said the vomit then spilled onto one of the paramedics. It's a frothy, thick, and tinged with blood.

So dripping onto the carpet, they're working on her. I guess while they're performing CPR, Martin told them that he'd only been away from the home for a short period of time during which she must have overdosed on her pain meds, slipped in the tub and hit her head. That's the only thing that could happen. He said he found her face down, slumped over the tub with her upper body inside the tub and her lower body out of the tub.

And then he started yelling and yelling more. He started screaming. He said, why did you do it? Why did you have the surgery? And he stormed out of the room, walked down the hallway. Then he came back and he looks up toward the ceiling at God and says, after all I've done for you. He said, after all the time I've spent in church, why have you done this to me? I've been a bishop. I paid tithing and this is the way you repay me. This is what I get for it.

And he said, yeah, it's all fake, bro. That's the point. That was a... Bro. Bad shit happens to everyone. Bro, when they told you 10%, you weren't like, what the fuck, man? That should have been your first clue. So...

Desperation comes here and he says, then he starts screaming, why did you take all those medications? Look what it did to you. Right. I mean, just absolute like his high school theatric drama shit here.

They said that the increasingly aggressive outbursts drew the attention of the medics who were like, can we get him the fuck out of this? Like, he's distracting. This is crazy. They said this is beyond a typical reaction of an anguished spouse. This is bonkers shit. One of the paramedics said he was very angry. It was uncomfortable, honestly, to have him come back and forth into the room yelling at us. Constantly. So the fire chief pulls him aside and said, can you come with me so we can gather more information? Yeah.

and they stood out on the front porch. As they spoke, Martin offered various explanations for what might have happened, saying he believed she might have slipped, tripped, or fallen into the tub and hit her head. He claimed he was gone 10 or 15 minutes, and when he returned...

Body bent over. That's it. So shortly thereafter, ambulance arrives. They take her to the hospital. Obviously, that's the place you go with this type of shit at the hospital for 38 minutes. They tried to resuscitate her. She hasn't been breathing or heart beating for a long time. She's taking a breath on her own in a while. As the nurses slowly, you know, kind of calm down and ceased working on her as it looked not good. They said Martin became hysterical.

He approached one of the doctors and said, I'll give you $10,000 not to stop. I'll give you all that I have if you just save her. Oh, yeah. And the doctor said it was the oddest request that I've ever had doing emergency resuscitative efforts. I've never been offered cash to save people's lives. He's like, I'm here. This is my job. I am doing it. I'm doing it, man. He offered me $10,000 if I would not cease resuscitation efforts. He offered me $10,000. It put me in a tough spot.

I needed the money. And at the same time, I'm like, she's fucking dead. You know, what are we doing here? Country club dudes coming up. Yeah. Jesus Christ. I do have, you know, the golf tournaments come. He said that he knew Martin was a doctor and must've realized his wife was dead.

He said he'd never heard such an unusual outburst in 15 years of working in an ER and especially wouldn't expect one from a doctor. He said he didn't respond to Martin. He just said, I'm calling time of death. And then he called the time of death and walked away. That was it. Somebody said Martin collapsed, sobbing. Later on that night, Damien came home.

his new girlfriend. Yeah. And Martin asked him and his girlfriend to accompany him to the bathroom where Martin had found Michelle that morning. Let's go look at where your mom died. Come on.

Bring your girlfriend, too. Nice to meet you, by the way. Have you seen my mom, bud? Let me show you. Want to see where his mom died today? Come on, I'll show you. This morning. So the son's girlfriend noticed that the bathroom was clean, no trace of blood, although when Martin said that he found Michelle, there was blood everywhere. So Martin asked the girlfriend to retrieve the pills.

Go get Michelle's pills. Why would you tell the girlfriend to do that? She had various drugs, but some of the bottles had very few pills in them. Martin and his son counted the pills, and he kept repeating, Michelle was not taking her pills. So Martin became frustrated and said, I don't want to do this anymore. And then he had his son's girlfriend flush all the pills down the toilet. Just get rid of them all. Put them in the toilet?

Throw them out. Yeah. Evidence? Get rid of it. We don't need that. I don't want that in the house. I don't want any murder evidence anymore. Alexis returns home that evening. She went straight to the bedroom to look for the medications, but they were gone. It was already flushed, yeah. So items had been there the day before. The hospital bed, stuffed animals, blankets. It's all gone. Everything. The whole, any sign of Michelle being there is gone. Rolled her up and got her out. The bathroom rug was gone. Oh, okay.

While looking for her mother's medication around the house, Alexis found the bathroom rug, a pile of wet towels and clothing, and other of Michelle's belongings in the garage.

Also gone was the little black book in which she tracked the medication intake. Alexis asked Martin where her mother's medication was, and he told her, I don't know. I think the police might have taken it. Oh, why did you say that? Because he's a fucking liar and a murderer. So Alexis found the pad of paper she had tracked Michelle's medication on for the first few days in the drawer where she left it. But the book he took. Alexis also asked Martin what happened. He took her into the bathroom to show her how he found Michelle.

Martin gave Alexis the same description he gave the paramedics, face down, slumped over the tub. We get it by now. He told Alexis that the bath was full and the water was off. Now, Rachel, the other daughter, the oldest daughter, arrived later that evening, and Martin said that they needed to get the autopsy done right away because he was concerned that there would be a police investigation, and he didn't want anyone to think he murdered Michelle. Huh? Huh?

That's what now, motherfucker. That's elite. So he he said that, yeah, he cleaned up. He did all this type of shit. He also had plenty of time that day to talk a bunch to Gypsy. He talked on the phone with her twice and they texted each other 30 times. Seems like a lot. Seems like a lot for my wife is dead. I got other shit going on today.

Several days later, Martin spoke with the medical examiner. He gave the same account to the emergency responders where he found her and all that kind of thing. She determined that the manner of death was natural and her cause of death was cardiovascular disease with hypertension and myocarditis. So at the funeral, Martin helped set it up. He'd run back and forth from the church with his car without a cane. Now he's fine all of a sudden.

As people started arriving, though, he started limping and got his cane out and started using it. Because he's told these people he's dying of cancer. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. At the actual service, his behavior became super fucking weird. He made it all about... He barely mentioned Michelle. He mentioned her twice in passing. It was...

It was fucked up. It was crazy. It felt like in the Netflix Menendez Brothers American Story movie when he insists on playing Milli Vanilli at his mother's funeral. That's what it feels like. It's all for him. That was wild. Blended on the rain, baby. No, he played Girl, I'm Gonna Miss You. What? About his mom. He said, I'm gonna miss my mom. And he played the song and everyone's like, what the fuck is going on? Girl, I'm gonna miss you. No, it's weird. Wow.

So his behavior came into question during that. Obviously at a luncheon that followed, he was overheard commenting that now we'd have more time for golf. You're going to see me around here more often. I'll tell you what, because I got more time to practice my short game.

Why didn't he have time before? What the fuck? Yeah. What are you talking about? You're fucking everybody in town. Now I got mad time. A gypsy attended the funeral. Ballsy. What? Yeah. Come to my wife's funeral. Fucking chick. I'm screwing on the side. Perhaps we can fuck after. And the two texted throughout the service. So you didn't even pay attention. Unreal.

After the funeral, a family friend approached Martin to offer, offered help to care for the daughters. You know, if you need help, you can send them to my house and, you know, we can watch them. Or he said, I already hired a nanny. Don't worry about it. I hired a nanny for the little Ukrainian girls that she loved so much. In three days, I hired a nanny. It's all taken care of. Then later on, this is a separate incident. Martin's adult daughters also offered to care for the younger sisters. Yeah.

But Martin asked Rachel to go with him to a church. You know what? You guys don't do it. I want a nanny. So come with me to church to pray about getting a nanny. Meet me at church. So when Rachel arrived, Martin didn't want to go outside, but he remained on a bench outside the church. Soon, a woman approached Rachel and Martin from the parking lot and said, I'm so sorry for your loss. I was at the funeral. She told them her name was Jillian and that she had been attending nursing school.

Martin asked for her phone number and Jillian gave it to her, gave it to them and left. So he hired this woman as the family nanny and said it happened at church. Prayers answered. Yeah. Jillian is gypsy. His girlfriend. That's fuck. This guy is fucking twisted, bro.

When this started, a Mormon bishop finds his way. You expected this. Oh, he poisoned her. Maybe he's having an affair. This shit's twisted. This is way beyond any of that shit. This gypsy I'm worried about, she seems bad. She moved into the family home. Moved right in. Yep. This is like nine days after the death. She moves into the house. This is crazy. So...

She said that she didn't want to at first, but he kept insisting. So she said, OK. Gypsy said, I thought that it would be better if things had – if everyone had time to regroup and that sort of thing. He was rather insistent that he needed help and that I would be a great support to him in his life. OK.

So now a little bit about Gypsy. She's born in 1976, so about 20 years younger than him. She's a young gal. And yeah, she moves in nine days after to be the nanny. But weird thing is, most nannies in this situation, they watch the kids, they feed them, they do everything. One of the relatives said she didn't cook clean or do household duties. No? No, she wasn't a nanny at all. She just licks his ass? Never did anything. It was stuff suppositories up there.

She said the children were left alone and took care of themselves most of the time. Great nanny. Sabrina testified later that Gypsy didn't do anything a nanny would be expected to do. She said, quote, she made spaghetti once and that was the only time she cooked. She didn't do anything. She made the easiest thing possible. She boiled noodles and poured sauce on it. Fucking threw noodles in there. Yeah, that's all she did. Threw macaroni on top. God damn it.

June 2007, the police are called for a big fracas here at the house because Martin kicks Rachel and Alexis out of the home after they asked why Willis doesn't cook clean or take care of the children. Why is your nanny not nanny? Why does your nanny have all her clothes in your closet? Get out of my house! And he said, the fuck out the both of you. Neither of you are going to blow me. Take a hike. So...

Summer 2007, Gypsy and Martin travel to Wyoming where Gypsy introduces him to her family as her fiancé. This is my fiancé. Yeah. By the end of the summer, she just told everybody in public that her name was Jillian McNeil. Really? So they also applied for an identification card that listed the date of their marriage as April 14th, 2007, which is the day of Michelle's funeral. God damn.

Now, they do get a marriage license, but they don't actually marry Martin and Gypsy. Okay. Now, July 2007, Giselle, the daughter, returns to Ukraine to visit biological sisters of hers for a summer. And family and investigators, you know, believe that, you know, this is just sending the kid over there. But we'll find out there's something way more sinister to this shit.

September 2nd, 2007, a police report is filed alleging Martin twice fondled a sleeping daughter. Right. And said, quote, oh, I thought you were your mother. Ew. Ugh. What? Yes. Criminal charge is...

That's his excuse when they wake up. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were your mother. God damn it. No, you didn't, motherfucker. How about the part where I'm an adolescent child? Yeah. How about where I'm in my own room and I don't have mom's tits either. Right. She was...

No. So she said, I thought you were your mother and criminal trials charges were filed, dismissed and then refiled. OK. The same month, Linda, who is Michelle's sister, writes a letter to Governor John Huntsman and the Utah County Attorney's Office asking them to launch an investigation into the death. And Martin is fired from his Department of Health and Human Services job as well.

November 2007, Gypsy Willis brings a domestic violence complaint against Martin, but later recants it and it gets dismissed. The notary said that Martin dominated the conversation during recanting and investigators believe he prepared a document that led to the dismissal because he spelled Willis's name wrong. He wrote a thing out and said, sign this. Yeah. And he didn't even spell her fucking name right. Spelled her name wrong.

I gypsy Williams. Well, yeah, I jizzy Williams. Oh, that's not my name. So the investigation six months after Michelle's dead, the case is reopened.

They then discover that Martin lied about his age to get into the military, had a long history of forging checks leading to theft and fraud, and also all the other shit that they're starting to find out. He's been lying his entire fucking life. Yep. So they're like, what are the odds he's telling us the truth? Right. Spring 2008, this is where it gets real fucked up. Giselle, one of the adopted kids, now she's missing, they said. What? Everybody, no one says, where the hell is Giselle? He says, well, I sent her to Ukraine to visit family.

But he sent her there forever, never expecting her to return. It was determined that Giselle's birth date on her birth certificate had changed by 20 years, they found. Now she's 20 years older, it says. Oh, my God. Like Natalia Groh situation, but for a totally different reason. Martin, quote, this is wild from the court. Martin McNeil essentially sent his adopted Ukrainian daughter back to Ukraine so that he could pass along this identity to his mistress, Gypsy Willis.

He was going to make her. He did make he did make her that identity. This would enable Willis to get out of tax debt that she owed. Good Christ. He's a diabolical man. He's a fucking wow. That's the worst person ever. He's making Ted Bundy look like a simple man who just kind of got lost out there and didn't know what to do with himself. That's what he sounded like. He's making Ted Bundy be a guy with just some penchant for kinky sex that doesn't want anybody to know about it.

Well, at least Ted Bundy wasn't in like a position of trust. He was just some dude with a cast on. This guy's like. Well, the penchant for kinky sex that has to murder people so nobody finds out about his kinky sex. Yeah, because he's got. Yeah, he's embarrassed about it.

Then he changes his will. He changes his will to give just $1 each to each of his children with everything else going to Willis under her false identity. So she doesn't have to pay. Yes. No taxes. Summer of 2008, his daughter here, Vanessa, is struggling with addiction and asks Martin for help. I am addicted to drugs and I need help. Please help me. Please fix this.

Any father who's got a daughter with a history of substance abuse is going to go, oh, thank God she came to me for help. Now I can help her and I'm not forcing it on her. He says, hmm, I have an idea. I can help you. What about mutual suicide? You will kill you, kill me. I kill you type of thing. What do you say? What about that? She said, no, I want to stop doing drugs, not kill my father than myself. What the fuck are you talking about? Yeah, but that's his thought about mutual suicide.

Whoa. January 2009, federal investigators suspect that Martin and Gypsy are preparing to flee the U.S., so they're arrested. They're arrested, indicted. Martin's indicted in federal court on nine counts of identity theft and other charges after they used the ID to create fake IDs, open up bank accounts under the false name, and also deeded his house to himself while acting as an attorney for his dead wife. Wow. He made her half his half. Yeah, yeah.

Wow. So Willis is indicted on 11 similar charges. He's going to plead guilty to aggravated identity theft and giving a false statement because there's no way around that. It's paperwork. He's sentenced to, you sir, may fuck off, four years in federal prison. Okay. Well, that's a good start. Now we can investigate. It's a good start. Yeah. Gypsy sentenced to two years. Okay. Okay.

So he pleads guilty to that. And he's sent in state charges of forgery and fraud. Those are federal charges. Yeah. State charges. He pleads guilty to those. And he's sentenced to three years in jail to run concurrent with the federal case. Four years. Gypsy sentenced to 21 months in federal prison, but begins a sentence a month earlier than scheduled because the prosecutors said she planned to flee to Mexico. So let's get her in there now. December 2009, Gypsy is charged in state court for

With other charges, including fraud, and she's sentenced to three years probation and agrees to testify against Martin. That's good. Good for them, yeah. So they use the whole four years he's in prison to build a case against him. Hell yeah. January 16, 2010, Martin's only son, Damien, commits suicide by overdosing on prescription drugs. He actually did it. He did it. That's the only person maybe in this guy's life that ever... He's in prison. Yeah. He couldn't have done it. So...

Michelle's plastic surgeon reveals to investigators that Martin dictated the drugs he wanted prescribed for his wife. And because he was a doctor, he said, sure, I did it. They witnessed Martin's behavior after Michelle's death, obviously. All the daughters, all the adult daughters ask that they reexamine the manner of death here. So that's when they...

Figure out the toxicology. And the report states at the time of death, Michelle's blood contained Valium, Percocet, Phenergan, Phenergan and Ambien in concentrations likely to render her severe, severely obtunded. I don't know what's immobile. Wow.

Difficult to difficult to arouse and potentially asleep and unable to respond constructively to her environment. So then they ask another doctor. That's when the other guy changes the manner of death from natural to undetermined and changed her cause of death from heart disease to combined effects of heart disease and drug toxicity. Okay.

December 2nd, 2010, the Deseret News publishes an extensive report about all the circumstantial evidence against Martin and his wife's death. This is the first time anybody outside the family or the police know that he's a suspect. He's been going to church and going to, you know, all this shit. They re-interview the kids also, and they re-interview Ada. And Ada said on the day of the death, he picked her up from school. They went home. She explained that he asked her to go next door for help.

And when she came back, the neighbor was there. And now Michelle was in the tub. So you're sure that she was out of the tub at first? She said, absolutely. Then she was in the tub. March 2011, Gypsy's released from prison. July 6, 2012, Martin is released from Texas federal prison and returned to his home in Pleasant Grove. He's at home now. Oh, boy. August 24, 2012, he's arrested for murder, though. That's, yeah. Yeah.

Martin's attorney said that Martin continues to adamantly deny that he killed his wife and is confident that the truth will set him free. Sure. Family's reaction to the arrest here, Alexi or Alexis, the daughter who had been begging them to arrest her father. She said, we know he's guilty. We know he'll harm again. If he's let out, he'll come after us.

That's a great point. Yeah. She said that Alexis said that she was so happy and had waited so long for her father to be held accountable. She said, it's horrible to be happy about the arrest of your father, but finally he's being held accountable for murdering my mother and other people. Yeah. Yeah. Pre-trial, they want to exclude the youngest daughter from testifying, Ada. Ada, yeah. Because they said that all the interviews that she's done could result in false memories, which...

Actually, it's true for a six year old who's now 11. You could. Yeah, that's actually true. So the court granted the motion in part and denied it in part. They ruled the girl was not competent to testify at trial because after the interviews, she was subjected to suggestive and repeated questioning about material facts. But the trial court admitted her interview then. So they said, well, before they did all that, her first interview, we'll call that her story. Yeah.

And she appeared in court at trial for cross-examination. Also, they're trying to exclude jailhouse informants.

Who he's talked to. Oh, fuck. Yeah. You think this guy shuts the fuck up for two minutes? He's a motor mouth motherfucker. And he's a braggart too. Yeah. So they said the trial court ordered that the state in writing disclosed to the defense with respect to each inmate who will testify and all the benefits promised that. So are they getting off of shit and stuff like that? In response to that, the state filed a notice of benefits offered, but they didn't disclose everything.

No. And we'll find that out. During the trial, the court ordered that all witnesses be excluded from the courtroom while not testifying and that fact witnesses shall not watch or listen to television, radio, or Internet news coverage of the trial while under subpoena. Fair enough. Okay. Medical testimony.

At trial, a cardiologist testifies the inflammation in Michelle's heart was benign and not severe enough to present a significant risk of cardiac death. They also testify the inflammation was not very severe. Another doctor also says that. The state called an expert in forensic pathology who testified that he found no evidence of myocarditis. The expert also presented a new theory on her cause of death, drowning.

Bunch of drugs and you put her in the water and she fucking drowns. They said on five facts they based that. First, she regurgitated large amounts of water while emergency responders performed CPR. So she must have swallowed and inhaled water.

Second, she had water in her airway. Exactly. Third, her lungs were twice as heavy as typical lungs, meaning they were soaked. Waterlogged. The fluid was found in the chambers of her lungs, and her blood was significantly diluted, which occurs when someone inhales water, and it streams into the blood vessels and into the general circulation. Sure.

Uh, his girlfriend, Anna testifies the one he told about killing all these people. She can only testify to relevant shit, but, um, yeah, she, they challenged her by getting her to acknowledge that she'd been diagnosed with multiple personality disorder. But she said, that doesn't mean I'm not telling the truth. What I said is true. And I have that, which I believe her.

Then they get jailhouse informants. Okay. Inmate one. He knew Marty Martin from a prison computer class. He saw a picture of Marty or Martin on television news show. And while he could not hear the audio, he could tell the show claim that McNeil murdered his wife. So this inmate told Martin about the television show and Martin replied, yeah, they're just running the show because my girlfriend's about to get out.

But he said McNeil later opened up about it, and he said that he, quote, gave his wife some Oxy and some sleeping pills, then got her in the bathtub. Then Martin said he had to help her out and that he held her head under the water for a little while. Sound familiar? Same exact way his brother died. When inmate one asked Martin why he killed his wife, Martin responded that she was in the way and she wanted the house and kids, but that the authorities can't prove that he did shit.

I mean, they can. Fuck, man. So, inmate two we'll talk about here.

Or on cross-examination, they set a phone call with his mother in which he admitted to the state he was planning. This is the inmate admitted to his mother that he was planning the state was going to cut him a deal for testifying and all of that shit. A statement to his mother that he was planning to, quote, talk with his niece and have her crack down to see what Robinson was going to do and make sure to do the right thing. Because if he ain't, then I ain't. In other words, if he won't let me out, then I'm not going to testify. Right.

Yeah. So there's that. Inmate two testified he was McNeil's cellmate for two years. Two years. He said that he heard rumors that supposedly Martin had murdered his wife and asked Martin whether it was true. And he said that Martin told him that they couldn't prove it and that the medication she was taking was prescribed.

Inmate three, he is in prison for felony resulting to drugs and was 14 years into a 27-year sentence. And during his testimony, they talked about Martin's physical health, in particular that he regularly exercised, running four to five miles a day, lifting weights, running sprints. And all the inmates called him Doc, by the way. Yeah.

Because he could look at people. He's probably very valuable. He's like a guy who knows legal shit in there. Very valuable. He's helpful. Seeing a doctor in prison is hard. So an inmate further, this inmate further testified he had seen television coverage of the case and approached a law enforcement contact to discuss his conversations with Doc. And he said these discussions include asking Martin if he killed his wife, to which Martin had purportedly responded that only that police did not have any evidence.

And he said that he saw a newspaper article. He asked if he had murdered his wife, to which Martin responded, no, I didn't murder my wife. If I did, they don't have any evidence of it. Why does he keep saying that? Because he's so arrogant. He can't help it. He's just that guy. He has to be cool. Inmate four testified that he heard that McNeil had killed his wife. When he asked Martin about it, Martin responded, quote, the bitch drowned.

That's very kind and loving. That is terrific. He said that at one point he asked Martin why he didn't wear the same required jail-issued shoes as the other inmates. How come your shoes are different? And Martin responded that he could, quote, get away with a lot of things. For instance, I'm getting away with murder, he said. I got cancer toes. So this guy asked him, what do you mean? And he said, I'm getting away with murdering my wife. Just to be more specific. Wow.

And so the inmate said that he offered condolences like, oh, I'm sorry, your wife's dead. And Martin replied, oh, no, I'm glad the bitch is dead. Oh, no. He said that shit was going downhill. She was trying to get his money and she was not going to let him keep cheating, which he wanted to do very much so, he said, which is fucking amazing. Now, November 9th.

2012 the verdict comes in 11 hours of deliberation by the way on this somehow um at 1 a.m the jurors come back wow they told him you're not going home just come up with a verdict i don't give a fuck if it's 1 a.m go shit i mean they said okay he is found guilty of obstruction of justice and murder wow guilty of both murder and obstruction of justice

The thing is, right after the verdict, they file to put the whole thing aside and get a new trial because inmate one lied about his deal. He filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act seeking information from the federal prison where he was incarcerated, inmate one. And Martin obtained the email and telephone correspondence for the months of September and October 2013. They revealed that inmate one planned on being released from prison in December 2013 in exchange for his testimony.

And so that's how that went. They said the incontroverted evidence demonstrates that inmate one had falsely testified that he received no promises of leniency and that they actually did give him promises of leniency. Testimony of convict three is the good one. Yeah, let's get that.

So the state, the trial court concluded the state suppressed exculpatory evidence relating to inmate one, specifically evidence showing that he had asked for a recommendation in a letter and that the prosecutor had agreed to provide one. The court further concluded that this information remained unknown to defense counsel before and throughout the trial. And the court observed that the state's attempt to downplay the importance of inmate one's testimony rings hollow.

And that if Martin McNeil had only to show the state committed serious errors in this case, the motion for a new trial would be granted. But as the court explains, the law requires more.

Okay. So they said that's not the court denies his petition for a new trial. Really? Okay. That's not enough. They said a jury possessed of this additional information would not have rendered a different verdict, which I believe. Wow. Yeah. Those are all just shoring up what they already have. Inmate three's testimony is crazy. I'm getting away with murder. The bitch drowned. I'm glad. I'm happy the bitch is dead. She wanted my money. Wouldn't let me fuck anymore.

So during sentencing, the judge says, oh, this is a good one. Mr. McNeil, as you deprive Michelle McNeil of her life, the state of Utah exacts from you today the liberty that you otherwise might have enjoyed in your remaining years. You, sir. Uh-huh. Hey, fuck off.

15 years to life for murder as well as 15 years for obstruction of justice run together. He's never getting out. He's not. He's 57 years old when they give him that. Yeah, he's he's he's not going to get paroled the first time. Right. Fuck no. No way. Fuck no. They think he killed how many more people. Yeah, he's in so much trouble. Oh, so reactions here. Gypsy says I was shocked.

Really? It took me a little while to pull myself together, she said. Oh, gypsy. You knew everything, you dumb bitch. She told this to Dan Abrams, by the way, the live PD guy. Yeah, of course she did. She said, I never believed that he was capable of such a thing. The Barton I knew and loved was not the person he was portrayed on the stand. Well, are you this dumb? Everyone else around him knows it. You had him in your mouth. You should have known. Yeah, and he told...

He told Anna right after he fucking got done with her. He told her what he did. I'm sure he told you the same shit. No shit. He said, I knew him before the death of Michelle and I knew him afterward. I saw the conflict in the family and I never believed that there was any possibility he killed Michelle. She also said she was absolutely horrified when she heard that prosecutors were alleging that she was the motive for killing Michelle.

She said, I never, ever thought that it would. It would come to such a thing. Martin had me any time he wanted. I do not believe that it was any kind of incentive. Wow. What? And then they said, well, why'd you move in after the death? And she said, I only wanted to come and support the man I cared for in whatever way I could. And it was a bad choice. She is not making great arguments for not being a part of this. She's not real bright. She's the dumbest person in this whole story.

December 6th, 2013, Martin attempts suicide while in prison. Is that right? He doesn't like it, huh? It's about a month after he's convicted. He attempted suicide by cutting himself with a disposable razor. Okay. Deputies at the time said he was unhappy he was interrupted and was uncooperative with treatment attempts. He's like, fuck, leave me alone. I'm trying to kill myself.

Then more charges come up. This is why he tried to off himself, I think. In addition to the murder trial, he is found guilty of forcible sexual abuse of his daughter, Alexis. There's a reason why she hates him so much. The oldest. And was sentenced to one to 15 years for that crime. He wouldn't have been eligible for parole till at least for 17 years, which is 2031 at the time. Yeah.

2017, he's going to appeal. We'll go through this extremely quickly. Sufficiency of the evidence, as he's saying. He's saying the circumstantial evidence in this case were far from sufficient to support a conviction, which there's not a ton of evidence, but it's just obvious. It's common sense. It's one of those things. There was no eyewitnesses in the case to any event that would have explained the cause of death, and the investigation failed to reveal any physical evidence that would demonstrate that anyone intentionally contributed to Michelle's death.

Okay, that's terrific. But they say that the informants, they go on. They also suggest that the trial court erred in admitting the CJC interview of the child from back then. Okay.

saying that the interview was erroneous because the trial court found that Alexis improperly influenced the girl's testimony on the events. The older sister told her what to say is what they're saying. A trial court has broad discretion to admit or exclude evidence at its determination and typically will only be disturbed if it constitutes an abuse of discretion.

So that's what they say. They said that everything that she said in the interview as expressed or largely consistent with prior statements to Alexis and are corroborated by the statements of other witnesses, including Martin. So get the fuck out of here. His parole or his appeal is denied. Fuck off. They said the court has a broad discretion to admit or exclude evidence. So sorry, that's not going to cut it. April 9th, 2017. Yeah.

Uh, Martin uses a hose and a natural gas line intended for a heater inside the greenhouse of the prison to kill himself. What did he do? He did it in an area where no cameras could see what he was doing.

Holy shit. Natural gas, man. He just fucking said, fuck it. Sucked it. Sucked it down. Or let it go into the room. Went into a small room. He was found unresponsive by two inmates who attempted to help him.

He did have authorization to be in the greenhouse, which is why he was in there. Nobody was watching him or looking for him. He was approved to care for plants, they said. They said they asked whether the prison had taken any steps since his death to restrict access to the natural gas line. And they said, we review all major incidents and look for ways to prevent future occurrences.

Other inmates are like, what a great idea. Yeah. We like to give all murdering pieces of shit an opportunity of their own way out. I mean, you just give them a little tab. You know, make a little thread they could pull on and unravel the whole thing. Small garden hose and a natural gas line. Just in case. We don't say natural gas line, please don't inhale. If you figure it out yourself, then it's not on us. If you're a doctor, you might know that.

They said McNeil had been suicidal since being sent to prison. According to everybody, two inmates who found him believed that he killed himself because of the appeal that he lost because they had talked to him. They said both. And this is the investigator. Both told me that McNeil had tried to kill himself before and that McNeil felt he was tortured the last time he attempted suicide. And McNeil had told him he was going to attempt a suicide again. He wouldn't tell anybody. Yeah.

He's going to keep that shit quiet as fuck, which I guess that's the best way to go about it here. That's pretty funny. Be fucking quiet as hell. So that, and we'll give you the book here, the book title. I have to give you that. It's called The Stranger She Loved.

And it's very detailed by Shanna Hogan. The audio book's like 11 and a half hours long. So it's got a lot of detail. It's very interesting. If you want to find out more about Martin, a lot of it's in there. It's fucking crazy. So there you go, everybody. There is Pleasant Grove, Utah. And that's one of the craziest, most unexpected stories we've ever covered ever. I didn't expect...

He fucked up so many people, man. Seeing doctor in Utah murders his wife. I'm like, oh, all right, whatever. But then I looked in, I'm like, oh my God, he's a fucking serial killer. Holy shit. If you like that show, tell everyone about it. Get on whatever app you're listening on. Give a nice review. Five stars helps a ton. Say something nice. It really, really helps. Also, you, when you, while you're doing that, tell your friends, follow on social media. We are at small town murder on Instagram at small town pot on Facebook.

at Murder Small on Twitter. So get on all of those. Find us. Shutupandgivememurder.com. Tickets to live shows, baby. Kansas City, you are up next in October. What is it, the 19th or the 18th? The Friday, whatever that Friday is there. That is Kansas City. Next night is sold out in Oklahoma City. Very sorry. Anybody who wants to go for that had to get those much, much earlier. So get in there. Also, October 31st, virtual live show.

Halloween edition. We're wearing costumes just like a regular live show, except you can watch it from any goddamn place with an internet connection that you want. And you can watch it for two weeks afterwards, too. You can wait to watch it. You can watch it a thousand times. Do whatever you want with it. Shut up and give me murder. Dot com is where you get all that. Patreon dot com slash crime in sports is where you get all unbiased.

the bonus material. It's the best deal there is, really. Anybody $5 a month or above, you get hundreds of back episodes you've never heard immediately of bonus stuff. Then new ones every other week. One crime in sports, one small town murder, and you get what, Jimmy? All of it! Every goddamn sentence of it. Here we go. This week for crime in sports, we're going to talk about hot air balloon disasters, which you don't have to like sports to find out about

that. And then for Small Town Murder, the documentary, There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane, which has tripped us both out for 13 years now. So wild story. We're going to talk about it, see if we can figure it out and see if maybe you guys have some suggestions. We'll try.

Probably not. So do that. And that is Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports. And you get a shout out. You sure do. When does that shout out happen? Right fucking now. Jimmy, hit me with the names of the people who would never, ever, ever pretend to be Mormon bishops and instead be serial killers. Hit me with them right fucking now. This week's executive producer, Gary Howard, Kylie Magnuso, Jacob Williams. We both wear a large and the PO box is on the website.

Why, thank you, sir. Julie Bergaki. Bergaki? Bergakey? Bergake. Bergakey. It's two Ks, man. Happy birthday, Julie. Well, happy birthday, Julie, with a crazy last name. Yeah. Happy birthday, Leanne Corbett, also. Leslie Dodd. Carla Bergman. Happy birthday. Aidan Bourgeois. Ooh. And Brandon, the escape room manager in Minneapolis. He came to the Minneapolis show. Yeah.

And he also has been in New Jersey, Orlando. Wow. He travels all over this country. He came to the show by himself. Wow, awesome. And I didn't meet him. Somebody told me that he was just a really nice guy. So I wanted to say something nice about him. Well, fucking A. Thank you for coming. Other producers this week are Kristen Piper, Peyton Meadows, Liz Vasquez, Janice Hill, Dale Reed, Rick Fisher, Kendra with no last name, Julie Brooks, Teenie923, Patty McCovey, Nicole T, Megan Daly, Christine with no last name, Erica Benno, Patrick Hedgecoth,

Alex Soler, Barrett Bradshaw II, Frank with no last name, Alicia Sigmund, Mark Lipinski. You had two patrons, and I don't know if that was an accident. So if not, check that. Either way, thanks. If you're just going to leave that, you're a sweetheart of a man. He's a nice person. Yeah. Nathan Close, Breanne with no last name, Patty Nowick, Luis Jimenez, and

Lee with no last name. Carson Housechild. Katie Williams. Rachel Patton. Melissa Warhalla. Janaris Batista. Janaris? That's a fascinating name. I want to know everything about you. John Wan. Trevor Fredrickson. Amy Poop. That is pop. I am so sorry. Amy Poop.

All your friends are going to call you Amy Poop now. Oh, boy. I'm a real... I'm sorry, Amy. Fuck. Sorry, Amy. She's gotten it her whole life. I'm sure. People drawing it in if she's got it on her name tag. Weston Voss, Lisa Mikulczyk. Uh...

M.L. Krull. Krull? Krull. Thomas Fry. Mike Oxlong. Alanna would know the last name. Queen Pease. Sean Wilson. Katie Smith. Cheyenne Meyer. Seth would know the last name. Amanda Coleman. Jeffrey Elgin. Same thing. You have two patrons. Please make sure that that's true. Make sure you're doing that on purpose. If that is accurate. Jeffrey, you're just as much of an angel.

Jason Connor, Samantha Yu, Kevin Nash, probably not that one. Maybe, and if it is, you're a giant angel. Nice power bomb angel. We love you. Kirstie Allen, not obviously. Can't be. That's good. That's really breaking somebody down, isn't it? You mean the dead Scientologist? Sure. Sure.

Hassani Shakur, probably related, I imagine. I'm sure. Kevin Nash, Tupac, they're all on our show. Tupac's grandchild in here. Shannon Kennedy. Denise with no last name. Linda Kika, maybe? RJ with no last name. Mr. or Mrs. Combs. Ashley Faday. Not Puffy. Fucking better not be.

You don't want your money, Bobby. I don't want a dime of it. You need it for your fucking lube. Actually, give it to us. You're going to do terrible things with it. So, yes, we do want it. We'll do nice things with it. Ashley Faday. Fetty Faday. Brian Ball. Sean Holman Green. LaKesha Press. L-E-J. Yep. Nope. That's L. L-J. Josh with no last name. Chris Conley. Maria Stavronides. Jake Hoogmoed. Hoogmoed? Hoogmoed. Hoogmoed.

Hoogmood. I think I've seen that on social media before. Is that right? Yeah, I think that, yeah. My fuck, that's crazy. You know, groups or something? Yeah, that makes sense. All right, Jay Dimock. R. Murr. Gavin Caverly. Randy Devlin II. Hunter Coates. Austin 74. Margaret Bordalone. Megan with no last name. Marsha Thomas. Andy A.J. Morgan.

Bree would know the last name. Pistachio would know the last name. Ash would know the last name. Amy McCarthy. Kieran Carthy. Alice Kaufman. Carol would know the last name. Debbie Bailey. Jess Chaney. Lisa Burke. Tyler Lewis. Cameron Ride. Copper Top. Charlotte St. Germain. Kyle Frazier. Joanne Langkow. Justin would know the last name. Phillip Duncan. Joe Welsh. Joe Canfield. Les would know the last name. TJ Jenke. Derek...

Carlino. It's been so long. Darren Parson. Jennifer Bussard. Sherilyn. Sherilyn Chapin. Jamie Holt. Beth with no last name. Michelle Burns. Darla Chaffee. Shefay. St. Sethirey.

That's the name. Came up there. That's why. What do you want? What are you going to do? L. Gordon, 29. Kenley Smith. Monica Fadley. Jennifer Magus. Mojus. Cameron W. Jory Larson. Bitter Bunny. Crystal Hayden. Sharna Murphy. Sarah Pierre Pereira. Debra Phillips. Debbie Phillips.

Elijah Chavis. She's been called that when she was drunk. Someone's drunk. Debrie. Debrie. Debrie. Debrie. Let me in, Debrie. I swear. Come on. Elijah Chavis. Pablo Franco. Willa Gulfstrand and the Griswolds. Graham Cooper. Adam with no last name. Tanya. No, that's Tony. Tanya. Tanya.

Greviza Grezovich Jr. Julie Fizz Fitz. Brad with no last name. Margaret Lohr Loberger. Derek Gennarone. Megan Broomhall. B. Chowell. Chowell. Dongus with no last name. Sandra Patterson. Xander Burden. Maggie Spahn. Kaylee from the Mooch. Where's the Mooch, James? I don't know. Beats the shit out of me. Or maybe Winnemucca. I'll bet it's from the Muck. Oh, maybe, yeah, yeah. It's probably the Muck. Nevada. And Poop. And Poop.

Poop, every week, we've got to thank Poop and all of our patrons. You guys are amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much, everybody. Thank you so much for what you do for us on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, fucking decadely basis. A thousand stars, I would.

I would. So thank you. Thank you all. For doing that. Speaking of that, listen to your stupid opinions. You bet. Because I fucking love it. There's no way to not like it. So check that out. Keep coming back. You want to follow us on social media, there's a drop-down menu on shutupandgivememurder.com. You'll find it and keep coming and hanging out with us. Tell your friends. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

If you like small town murder, you can listen early and ad free now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen early and ad free on Amazon music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harbored a deep,

There wouldn't be a girl on pit count once they reached the age of 10 that was still a virgin. It just happens to all of them.

I'm journalist Luke Jones and for almost two years I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn Trials I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction.

Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.