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tv   2020  ABC  February 21, 2014 10:01pm-11:01pm PST

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so were you the nanny or the girlfriend? >> when had opportunity i still slept with him. >> so you were both? >> tonight on "20/20" -- the notorious murder case of the doctor with her fekt life and perfect wife, until she was found dead in a bathtub. and what about the nanny named gypsy who entered the picture? >> gypsy jillian. >> the person coming over was gypsy. tonight the whole story. grieving daughters forced to play detective against their own
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father. >> i was just screaming. just screaming. and the question that remains -- was the nanny part of the whole scheme? >> you crashed her funeral sf. >> i realized it looks pretty cold on the outside. >> pretty cold. it looks callous. the perfect nanny, here now, elizabeth vargas and david muir. a doctor and husband sits behind bars sitting there wa waiting. >> david, i have covered this story since it began five years ago. one question kept coming back, how could a picture-perfect marriage crumble so quickly? healthy wife found dead in the bathtub, did it have anything to do with the family's perfect nanny? or was she?
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>> reporter: michele somers was a fresh-faced beauty queen from california. a sometime model with a string of suitors. but it was a handsome, aspiring doctor named martin macneill who made her fall hard and fast. they eloped when michele was 21 and, soon afterward, started a family. >> she had four kids in five years. so we just -- >> mm-hmm. >> boom, boom, boom. >> reporter: alexis and rachel macneill grew up idolizing their father. >> we thought, what an inspiration to become a doctor, to become a lawyer. >> i wanted to, you know, follow in my father's footsteps. i always wanted to be a doctor just like him. >> reporter: a doctor who didn't just help heal his patients but who also taught sunday school at their local mormon church. and who seemed to have a heart big enough to adopt three young ukrainian orphans -- elle, giselle and sabrina. so from the outside looking in, it sounds like the perfect family. >> yeah.
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>> reporter: if you're thinking it seems too good to be true, you're right. take a closer look at the picture-perfect patriarch, and a different image begins to emerge. >> not the typical father. >> he was just very -- >> very haughty. >> stern, haughty. arrogant. >> he thought anyone that was not at his educational stature, was very beneath him. he treated them very poorly. >> reporter: when the family moved to the utah community of pleasant grove, next-door neighbors doug and kristi daniels couldn't help but notice the contrast between martin and michele. >> she was very quiet, was always very pretty and very well-kept. >> all the girls were just dressed perfect, like a tea party. >> reporter: but the daniels say martin was a braggart and a
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boor. >> if martin was ever around, it was him that always dominated every conversation. you could tell that he had a huge ego. >> he just made sure to say that he was downsizing into his home, and that he was a doctor and a lawyer. >> reporter: his daughters found themselves apologizing for their dad. >> i was constantly trying to explain my father. when he would come home, he was a completely different person. so, we thought we knew the real person. >> reporter: it was martin turned 50, the quirks they always defended became stranger. he became obsessed with the way he looked. >> he started tanning a lot. >> reporter: you mean like a tanning salon? >> he'd go to the tanning salons. >> he lost weight. >> he'd start exercising just all the time, just in the middle of a conversation, jumping and doing push ups, things like
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that. >> it was really bizarre. really strange. very out of the ordinary. >> reporter: how did your mom react to all of this behavior all of a sudden? this focus on physicality? >> she was suspicious. >> reporter: and even more suspicious, says alexis, was when their father began disappearing for long stretches. this seemed less like a midlife crisis and more like an affair. when, alexis says, michele confronted him about it, martin made what seemed like the ultimate effort to change the topic. newly fit and supremely tan, martin told michele she should do some improving of her own. your dad decided that your mom should get a facelift. >> out of the blue. and my mom had never talked about that before or anything. she'd never been into plastic surgery. >> reporter: so, how much convincing did it take for your mom to agree to this? >> quite a bit, actually. she saw my dad tanning, getting all in shape, and so i think, you know, my mom was just a little concerned too. oh, maybe i should do a couple things. you know, maybe that will help. >> reporter: wavering, but wanting to keep her husband happy, alexis says michele reluctantly agreed to the
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facelift. >> and my mom said, "you know, martin, let's just wait until this summer. i would be home from medical school for my summer break and so i could be there and help with the recovery. and my dad said, "oh no, alexis, you have spring break coming up in a week. let's do it then." >> reporter: in a week? >> my dad said we have everything set up. you know, the anesthesiologist is reserved. you need to do it. >> reporter: april 3rd, 2007, just two weeks after alexis says her father first suggested it, michele undergoes a full facelift. alexis says that martin insists the surgeon prescribe a powerful combination of painkillers and sedatives, almost never taken to recover from this kind of procedure. and the surgeon agreed? >> he knew my dad was a physician, so he thought, he knew how to dose different medications. it was just bizarre because, yeah, my mom was very sensitive to medication anyway. >> reporter: alexis, away at medical school in nevada, came
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home to care for her mother. but the evening after the surgery she says her father abruptly told her to leave. >> he said, i need you to get some rest, alexis. and i said, "no, i want to stay right here by my mom." he said, "i'll take care of her medicines tonight." >> reporter: you say the next morning, when you saw your mom, she was heavily medicated. >> she was completely sedated and out of it. the next day, i mean, it took, pretty much a 24-hour period until she kind of regained consciousness and was able to talk to me. and she said, "alexis, you know, your dad, he just kept giving me medicines." and i went right to my dad, and he goes, "oh well, maybe i gave her too much. and your mother threw up, so then i gave her more medicine." i said, "dad, don't give her any more medicine. i'm going to take over."
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>> reporter: alexis spends the next four nights taking care of her mother and monitoring her medication. michele seems to be feeling better. but one morning, as alexis was washing her mother's hair, she says michele dropped a bombshell. >> she started to cry. she said, "if anything happens to me, make sure it wasn't your dad." and i said, "mom!" "what do you mean?" and she just said, "you know make sure if anything happens to me, it wasn't your dad." >> reporter: alexis alone knows her mother's terrible secret fear. but, alexis would soon discover her father was keeping some secrets, too. phone records revealed he was making calls at all hours of the day and night to the same number. who was on the other end of the line? see what's next.
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the perfect nanny continues. once again, elizabeth vargas. >> reporter: michele macneill is recovering from a facelift her daughters say she had only to please her husband, martin. daughter alexis gets ready to go back to medical school, still troubled by a strange warning she says her mother gave her about her father.
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but she is happy that michele appears to be on the mend. >> the doctor said she was healing great. she looked great. went out to sizzler, she had a, you know, a steak dinner. she was feeling great. they dropped me off at the airport. you know, i just remember looking back and seeing my mom and waving. >> reporter: but the next morning, less than 24 hours later, there would be a 911 call from the macneill home. >> my wife has fallen in the bathtub! >> okay, is she conscious? >> she's not. i'm a physician. >> reporter: martin macneill, a prominent local doctor, sounds frantic. >> she's unconscious! she's under water! >> okay, did you get her out of the water? >> i can't! i couldn't lift her up! i let the water out! >> reporter: veteran 911 dispatcher heidi johnson was on the line. >> it was really hard to understand him because he was yelling very hysterically at me.
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>> okay, is your she breathing? >> so i tried to calm him down and tried to get the information from him. >> okay, do you know how to do cpr? >> i'm doing it! [ dial tone ] >> reporter: in fact, martin hangs up not once, but three times in less than five minutes. and he fails to give an audible address. as a result, heidi johnson loses precious minutes figuring out where to send the ambulance. meanwhile, martin sends the youngest macneill child, 6-year-old ada, next door to neighbor kristi daniels. >> she said, "um, my dad needs some help." >> reporter: it was ada, just home from school, who first found michele unconscious in the bathtub. >> so, i ran in, and followed his voice into the bathroom and he says, "i've already called 911. i need a male's help." >> reporter: a man's help to lift his dying wife from the tub? crucial time passes as martin sends kristi to call for her husband, doug.
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>> and i just immediately went straight to her legs, and i grabbed her legs, and we lifted her out of the tub and onto the floor. >> reporter: doug says it is chaos in the bathroom, with martin veering from frantic attempts at cpr to fury. >> he would calmly be doing puffs of air, and then -- and then he would suddenly have an outburst of yelling you know, "why? why? all for a stupid surgery?" >> reporter: in the midst of it all, the phone rings. it is alexis calling from medical school in nevada. she is surprised when her father answers. >> he said, "your mom, she's in the tub. she's not breathing. i've called an ambulance." and then he hung up. >> reporter: for alexis, in that moment, her mother's terrible secret fears begin to crystallize. >> and i just dropped all my books and just started driving to the airport and i was just screaming. just screaming. he killed her. that was my first instinct. he killed her.
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>> reporter: before you left, your mom said, "if anything happens to me, make sure it wasn't your dad who killed me." >> my dad had no idea that my mom had confided in me. and i knew i was the only one that knew this. so i needed to start figuring out what had happened and protect the rest of my family because my dad is a killer. >> reporter: alexis's older sister, rachel, has also been trying to call home, and finally gets through to her father. >> i said, "dad, what's going on? is it something with mom?" he said, "rachel, come home." and so i called alexis and i said, "alexis, i know that mom's dead, isn't she? she's dead." and alexis said, "yes, yes." >> reporter: stunned and grief-stricken, the two sisters return to their parents' home. alexis takes rachel aside.
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>> she walked with me into the closet and said, "rachel, dad murdered mom. i know, i know he did." i said, "what are you talking about?" i thought alexis might have just been -- >> reporter: overly emotional or -- >> overly. just devastated. >> reporter: but soon, rachel starts wondering. her father's story of what happened doesn't seem to add up. >> okay, do not hang up -- >> reporter: why would this experienced doctor hang up repeatedly on the 911 operator? and why would a seemingly fit man need another man's help to rescue his dying wife? >> it was very strange to me that he couldn't lift my mother out of the tub. because he was finishing the downstair's basement a few days prior and i had helped him lift sheetrock in. >> reporter: and alexis had her own questions about michele's pills. she asks her father where those powerful painkillers and
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sedatives are and how many did her mother had taken on a morning when she had been recovering well from her facelift. >> i said, "where's the medicine?" and he said, "i don't know. i don't know where it is. check in the garage." >> reporter: but she finds no medications. when she asks her father again, he says they'd been thrown out. and why? >> it was making him too sad to look at, to see this medication. >> reporter: the medicine? >> as soon as i heard that, things were just starting to add up. everything was adding up. >> reporter: now, both sisters begin to suspect the inconceivable. because alexis tells her sister about something else that happened just weeks before michele died. when her father had started to disappear for long stretches, alexis says her mother asked her to do some late-night investigating. >> while he was sleeping, i went online and printed out all of his phone records. and we found this number that he'd been calling a lot. >> reporter: a number being dialed day and night. alexis did an online search.
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>> and it popped out the name of the person. >> reporter: and it was? >> gypsy jillian willis. and my mom was like, "who's this?" i mean, we thought it was maybe some stripper or something. who's named gypsy? >> reporter: who is gypsy? well, meet gypsy jillian willis, a 30-year-old nursing student when she met martin macneill in an internet chat room. her screen name was "phoenixsheeba." he told her his name was "joe." >> he sent me a message. he asked me what i knew about quantum physics. >> reporter: you bonded over quantum physics? >> there was just instant chemistry. he was tall. he was handsome. he was very well-spoken. >> reporter: did you know he was married? >> i did. >> reporter: and that didn't ring any alarm bells for you on the ethics front? >> not at that point. i wasn't looking for a serious relationship. he told me that he had a perfect life, that he had a perfect wife. >> reporter: a perfect wife and
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a suspicious death. three days after michele was found dead in the bathtub, her grieving family attends her funeral. and standing in the crowd that day? martin's lover, gypsy. why would you go to her funeral? who invited you? >> no one invited me. i just found out where it was. >> reporter: you crashed her funeral? >> i had felt sorry that i had been involved with martin inappropriately. i felt sorry. >> reporter: and that was the way to show that sorrow was to go to her funeral? >> no one knew who i was. >> reporter: martin knew who you were. >> martin knew who i was and that's why i was there. i knew it would be a hard time for him. >> reporter: gypsy isn't about to let martin's mourning distract him. she sends martin text messages in the middle of michele's funeral. she had even sent him semi-nude photos, the day after michele died. you did send him two suggestive pictures of your naked back. why did you do that? >> i wanted to keep his attention. it's cold. it sounds heartless, i'm sorry.
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but i knew that he would be having a hard time, not thinking of me, and that was selfish. >> reporter: you understand that from the outside looking in, you're having an affair with this man, the wife inexplicably dies, you show up to her funeral, send him text messages during the funeral, it looks like you've come in to claim your prize. >> i did not look at it like that. >> reporter: but that's what it looked like to martin's daughters when they made another starling discovery. >> we'd come to find out that my dad had been dating gypsy for several years before my mom's death. >> reporter:less than a month after his wife dies, martin macneill moves gypsy into the house to care for his children. what do you think of gypsy? what questions would you ask?
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tweet me, using hashtag abc"20/20." still to come, how did martin macneill's fairy-tale marriage end up in a bathtub with a 911 call and his wife lying face down. or was she? the perfect nanny continues. next. mom! [ male announcer ] except permission to use the garage. thousands of products added online every day... even safety cones. now save big for your business with a $25 staples gift card when you buy a tablet. staples. make more happen.
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"20/20" continues with the perfect nanny. >> reporter: in the hours after michele macneill's death, pleasant grove police detectives see no reason to treat the bathroom where she died like a crime scene. they collect no evidence from the macneill house and the only person they interview is her husband, martin, who they know as a well-established local doctor. he tells them he believes his wife "passed out while preparing the tub." >> i thought that, if this is a healthy woman that died that there would be some sort of big police investigation. their police report into my mother's death is about 2 1/2 paragraphs. >> reporter: the medical examiner determines that "hypertension" and an existing heart infection called
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"myocarditis" caused michele's heart to fail. in other words -- death by "natural" causes. natural causes, she's not an old woman. >> she just turned 50 years old. i mean, she, she had a few issues. she had a little bit of high cholesterol, some high blood pressure. >> reporter: police close the case. alexis and rachel are stunned. but their father is moving on, and quickly. he arranges a funeral within three days. two days after, he's back at work. alexis and rachel say they offered to come home to care for the four younger macneill children. their father announces he will hire a nanny. and he already seems to have one in mind. >> and he said "oh, i found the perfect nanny." and i said, "what's her name?" and he said, "oh, i think it's, jillian?" and i said "dad? gypsy jillian willis?" i said, "i know that woman. i know mom was worried you were having an affair with her and you are not to bring her in the home." >> reporter: but martin would
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not be deterred. he calls a family meeting. >> and he said, "there is going to be, uh, an interview for a nanny. and there was only one candidate and that was gypsy. >> gypsy. >> reporter: imagine that. >> yeah. >> and she got the job. >> she didn't cook, she didn't clean, she didn't take care of the children in any way. >> reporter: why did you move into the home? >> martin told me that he needed help with his younger children. >> reporter: were you still sleeping with him? >> i was. >> reporter: so, were you the nanny or were you the girlfriend? >> i moved in to help with the kids. when we had opportunity, i still slept with him. >> reporter: so you were both? >> if you want to look at it like that. >> reporter: but martin's daughters didn't like the look of that one bit. >> she walked into the house like she owned the place. and then when i questioned my dad and said, what's going on? he said, "oh, she's a guest in our home and how dare you question me." he said, "if you fight me, i'm going to get you thrown out of
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medical school." and he started threatening me. "i'm going to take you down." >> i was told that i needed to leave the home because i, i wasn't nice to gypsy. he wanted to make it known that it was either gypsy or his children and he chose the "nanny." >> reporter: three months after moving into the macneill home, gypsy took martin back to wyoming to meet her parents -- harold and vicky willis. >> he said, "i never loved michele, but i love gypsy." and i said, "but you had a family with michele." he says, "actually, i loved her as a friend, i loved her as a sister, but i never loved her like i love gypsy." >> reporter: during that trip martin proposed to gypsy in front of her family. gypsy's sister, julie, was there. >> he gives this grand speech about how he loved her, and how he loved her from the moment he saw her and he knelt and proposed to her, and gypsy cried. it was very fairy tale. >> reporter: this was the man who had been telling you just a couple months earlier that he had the perfect life and the perfect wife. >> yeah. >> reporter: so you must have been shocked when three months after she died he proposed
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marriage to you? >> i wasn't shocked. it just, like i said, it seemed very natural. it seemed like a natural progression. i believed he loved his wife. i didn't -- i didn't suspect anything unusual. >> reporter: he never told you, i wish i was never married to michele. >> he never said that. >> reporter: "i wish michele was dead"? >> no, he never said that. >> reporter: "i'd rather be with you and not michele"? >> he didn't say that. >> reporter: martin didn't say he'd rather be with gypsy, but was he thinking it? and what was she thinking? so don't you think it's a little funny that he goes from saying, "i love michele," to, "oops, she died, move in, let's continue sleeping together while you take care of my kinds, and will you marry me?" >> i realize that looks pretty cold on the outside. >> reporter: cold -- gypsy's own sister julie goes even further. >> i would consider gypsy to be a deceptive, malevolent,
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malicious, calculating person. >> reporter: calculating and violent. julie says gypsy had feuded with her and other family members for years. and even gypsy admits to having a fistfight with her mother over ownership of a dog -- the last time she ever saw her family. >> i was bruised from head to toe. i had a sprained knee, i had choke marks around my neck. >> she lunged forward and she bit me on my upper left bicep. a bad bite. you could count every single tooth mark. she doesn't care who gets hurt. she doesn't care what circumstances are ruined. >> reporter: fist-fighting is one thing, but could gypsy have gone so far as to help martin kill michele? >> if she sees something she wants, she will rationalize to herself to the point that she will get that no matter what stands in her way. >> reporter: those are your family. >> i know. >> reporter: they think that you're capable of murder. >> they are horrible and they
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are hateful. it is appalling that my family would say such things, and i think it is completely unfounded and unjust. >> reporter: julie willis said that gypsy found the perfect match in martin macneill. >> in a bad way, they were perfect for each other. together, i believe that they are perfectly capable of killing michele. they're like a pack of dogs, one dog alone might be malicious, might take a nip out of things, but two dogs together hunting are, are lethal. >> reporter: stay with us. ♪ ♪ ♪
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once again, elizabeth vargas. four years ago, two desperate sisters took their story to "20/20." after a small-town police department closes the case on their mother's death and let their father off scot-free. >> not only would they not listen, they were mocking us, as well. they were saying, "you're ridiculous, you guys are just upset that, you know, your dad has had an affair. lots of people have affairs." >> reporter: but they found a sympathetic ear in investigator
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doug witney at the utah county attorney's office. two years after michele's death they convince him to re-open the case. and when he does, he finds something surprising. martin was not the man he claimed to be. this prominent doctor and lawyer, actually had a life based on three decades of lies. stretching all of the way back to his days in college and his school transcript. >> his entire career is based on falsified transcripts from different colleges. >> reporter: so how did he go about practicing medicine if he hadn't really gone to these colleges? >> well, the guy is brilliant. i am not saying that he is not smart, he just -- >> reporter: and that was only the beginning of his lies. the summer after michele's death,
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they apply for a new social security card using her personal information and gypsy's name. >> they went into court and changed the birth date 20 years. that's called perjury. now there is two people with that social security number, two people with that name. >> reporter: that was only the beginning. how did this idea come up to take giselle's identity, her social security number, her passport, and adopt it as yours? >> when i got together with martin, i had a lot of tax debt. probably in the range of $50,000 or $60,000. this was martin. this was martin's idea, this was martin's activity. >> reporter: so why did you do it? >> i said i didn't want to. he said that this is the best way to do it, it's temporary, >> reporter: but someone did namely, witney, when he started looking closely at michele's death. they discover that martin and
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gypsy are amassing fake ids all over utah. >> you are talking about a state i.d. card. you are talking about bank accounts that were opened up under false names, false social security numbers. >> martin did a lot of things that were, um, not very sensible. >> reporter: so you're saying martin did all of this without your knowledge? >> he would tell me he was doing thi things. >> reporter: you got two fake military i.d. cards, three joint banking accounts using a fake name, you got a fake birth certificate, a fake utah state i.d. card, and a fake social security card. how could you be a passive participant in that? >> because martin was very powerful. he was very influential. i just assumed that he knew what he was doing. he'd been successful all of his life. >> reporter: gypsy, you're an educated person. you bonded over quantum physics. and now you want me and us the authorities to believe that you just checked your brain at the door and agreed to all this? >> when you love someone you do things that don't make a lot of sense. he had everyone confused. he was this pillar of the
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community. he'd been bishop twice. i mean, he had all of the accoutrements to be convincing. >> reporter: his gigantic con job was stopped short by doug witney's investigation. he had both martin and gypsy arrested for identity theft and they were convicted in federal court and sent to prisons in texas. and while they are behind bars, investigators go for broke, and ask to pin michele's death on martin. >> i will simply say that i believe that martin macneill is a sociopath. >> reporter: they ask some tough questions. why couldn't a fitness addict like martin lift his wife out of the bathtub? could martin's relationship with gypsy be a motive for murder? the questions raise suspicion. then, prosecutors catch a break
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and weeks after his release on fraud charges, he's arrested again, this time for murder. >> a big trial getting under way in utah. >> no doubt in my mind that one day this case was going to be re-opened. >> reporter: 5 1/2 years after michele died, martin macneill sat once again before a judge, this time, fighting for his life. >> this case is a puzzle with many pieces. >> reporter: martin's defense attorneys. >> what is very important in this case is that none of the medical examiners believe that michele's death was due to a homicide. >> reporter: the jury of five men and three women was about to hear martin's sordid secrets, when witnesses reveal how he really felt about michele. >> and he was, "em i'm glad the
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"20/20's" "the perfect nanny" continues. once more, elizabeth vargas. >> taking center stage. >> reporter: it was called "the murder in the bathtub" case, gripping the country for weeks. >> she finds her mom dead in the tub. >> martin macneill on trial for the death of his wife. >> reporter: martin macneill sat in a utah courtroom charged with the pre-meditated murder of his wife and mother of their eight children. his chief accusers, his own grown daughters, who believe
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their dad was a killer. but martin's defense team that stuck michelle's death was from natural causes. >> martin macneill is innocent, ladies and gentlemen. >> reporter: the trial begins with michele's plastic surgeon, dr. scott thompson. he recalls the laundry list of drugs he prescribed for michele following her six-hour facelift surgery. >> cephalexin, the cephalexin is the antibiotic. the ambien for the sleeping the azithromycin eye ointment and then the medrol dose pack for the swelling. >> reporter: thompson admits that he wouldn't normally prescribe so many drugs, but that martin, a fellow physician, assured him he wouldn't let michele take too many pills. >> why did you prescribe it here? >> because martin was a physician and he asked me for these things. >> was it your intention that michele take all these drugs together? >> no. >> would you have prescribed
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this combination to her if martin was not a physician? >> no. >> reporter: on the stand, martin's daughter alexis testified that martin forced michele to take more drugs than she wanted. >> she said, "lexi, i don't know why, but your dad kept giving me things and telling me to swallow." she said, "i even started to throw up and then he kept giving me medication." >> did she have requests? >> she made me take out every skinle pill from the pill bottle and she wanted to know what the pill felt like in her fingers. so she knew what my dad was giving her. because at that time she couldn't see. >> reporter: but the jury won't hear a crucial piece of evidence, something that alexis revealed to "20/20" about michele's fears just days before her death. >> she says, "if anything
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happens to me, make sure it wasn't your dad." >> reporter: those words are ruled too prejudicial by the judge, and the jury never hears them. so the prosecution instead hones in on martin's movements the morning michele died. >> there's about an hour and a half period of time where no one really knows where martin is. >> reporter: a timeline showed a 90-minute gap between the time martin left work and when he picked up 6-year-old ada from school. >> plenty of time. rush home, take care of your business, give michele the drugs, fix her up a bath, get her in the tub, hold her head down for a little while and help her out. >> reporter: witnesses say martin was frantic that day. >> i could hear martin yelling that he needed help. >> i asked him what happened. >> what did he tell you? >> he said, he went into the room and he described it as he
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saw her faced down the wrong way in the tub. >> reporter: as a crucial center piece of their case, prosecutors haul in a replica of the bathtub where michele was found. >> this bathtub, ladies and gentlemen has an important story to tell. okay? >> reporter: witnesses re-enact what they saw. neighbor kristi daniels testifies that she found michele facing up and lying inside the bathtub and partially dressed, that contradicts the scene. >> was michelle dressed or not? >> what i remember is michelle had a long black-sleeved shirt and nothing else. >> okay, no bottoms? >> no bottoms. >> reporter: prosecutors contend that martin attempted to make it to look as though michele had been taking a bath and slipped under the water. but he had been interrupted when the neighbors arrived much sooner than he had expected. >> it's a very small bathtub. it'd be almost impossible in this bath to slip under the water.
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>> reporter: so, why would martin try to stage a drowning accident? prosecutors argues it all comes back to gypsy. >> he was at a crossroads. he had to choose between michele and gypsy. he chose gypsy. he chose gypsy over michele. >> reporter: and although it's martin on trial for murder, it seems as though everyone has something to say about gypsy. >> it's gypsy jillian willis. >> her name is -- >> gypsy jillian willis. >> gypsy jillian willis. >> the jury hears how martin lied to his younger children, telling them gypsy was just the nanny. >> because she was nothing like my mom. >> did you ever see your dad and jillian interact? >> yes. >> what did you see? >> i remember her going up to my dad's room at night, and have the door closed, and i remember
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staying up at night and thinking, what in the world is -- why is she up in dad's room? she's the nanny. >> reporter: the testimony of his children may have been devastating to martin macneill, but what may have sealed his fate was his former cellmates, while serving in prison sense for identity fraud. >> did martin talk about the relationship he had with his wife before she died? >> a little, yes. that she was not going to let him keep cheating on her. >> did he say he was cheating on her? >> yeah, he told me about his girlfriend. i don't remember. i don't recall. i don't recall the name. >> her name was gypsy or dipsy or something. >> doc, they said you murder your wife. i can get a way with a lot of things. >> did he say anything else?
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>> got away with murder of his wife. i just went up to him and said, i apologize about your wife. he said, i'm glad the [ bleep ] is dead. >>. >> reporter: there's no proof that michele is a murder victim. >> they continue to cling to the original autopsy report, citing a natural death. >> they don't raise to the level of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. >> reporter: the jury doesn't buy it. >> has a jury reached a verdict? >> reporter: the jury returns a verdict. martin is stone-faced. guilty of first degree murder. >> it was such a relief. i've been fighting for this so
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long, and i never thought we'd come to this day. i never thought that it would even come to trial, and then to be in that courtroom and hear, "guilty," it was just a flood of emotions. >> reporter: her father will likely be in prison for the rest of his life. and if woman at the center of the story, she has an alibi and she was never charged with anything related to her death. but alexis is not convinced. >> i do believe that gypsy was involved with my mother's death. she was the motive and i know she knows more than she portrayed in court. >> reporter: so many people think you must have known or in on it? >> that's incorrect. >> reporter: they choose not to dwell on that question. >> finally having justice for my mother who means everything to
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me and she was taken away from me from all of us, we're finally getting justice for her. tonight, martin macneill is still behind bars, waiting to be sentenced, he faces 15 years to life. as for gypsy, she's now hired a
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when we track down that mom. next friday, a furious worldwide man hunt to find this stunning woman and her two young boys, they vanished, taken, when she abducted them, taken from the country. >> everything i thought she was, was false. >> now follow the heartbreaking stories. find out what happens when david muir tracks her down. >> on 14r50*eu breaking news, commuters are still being delayed by a bart derailment.
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