MacNeill found guilty in slaying of wife

Provo * It took a jury 11 hours to return a guilty verdict on Friday for Martin MacNeill, accused of killing his wife at their Pleasant Grove home six years ago.

This decision from the five-man, three-woman jury came after 13 days of testimony over four weeks, where prosecutors tried to build their case alleging MacNeill gave his wife, 50-year-old Michele MacNeill, a fatal cocktail of prescription drugs, then drowned her in a bathtub in their Pleasant Grove home. The motive, they argued, was to continue an affair with 37-year-old Gypsy Jyll Willis.

Deputy Utah County Attorney Chad Grunander said during closing arguments Friday morning that the drugs given to Michele MacNeill after she underwent plastic surgery was her husband's cover to hide an almost perfect murder.

However, Grunander said the alleged murder was only 'almost' perfect.

'Along the way, he left a number of clues that all point to him as a murderer,' he told the jury.

For prosecutors, Grunander said the most damning piece of evidence was a government identification application that Martin MacNeill, 57, submitted for Willis, who represented herself in the application as his wife, Jillian MacNeill. On the line asking for their wedding date, Martin MacNeill inked April 14, 2007 - the day of Michele MacNeill's funeral.

'That is not short of an admission of guilt,' Grunander told the jury during closing arguments. 'He might as well have said in that application, 'I murdered Michele.' '

But defense attorney Randall Spencer countered that there was no evidence presented by the state 'that rises to the level of beyond a reasonable doubt.' He accused prosecutors of 'cherry-picking' facts that support their theory that Martin MacNeill killed his wife in order to welcome Willis into his life.

Spencer pointed to wording in the Utah medical examiner's report indicating that drug toxicity 'could potentially' or 'may have had an effect' on the woman's death.

That equals reasonable doubt, Spencer argued.

'I feel like I could sit down right now, because the medical testimony is so clear,' Spencer said about 20 minutes into his 90-minute closing argument.

Spencer says there was no evidence that anyone but Michele MacNeill, herself, gave her any medications on the morning she died, April 11, 2007.

'Even if [Martin MacNeill] did, the medications were low,' Spencer said, adding the drug levels found in the woman's system were at therapeutic levels. 'They were very, very low.'

Michele MacNeill was found unconscious in her bathtub by her 6-year-old daughter, Ada MacNeill. The child was sent by her father to a neighbor's house to get help, and eventually Michele MacNeill was pulled from the bathtub by a neighbor and Martin MacNeill. The two attempted CPR before medical crews arrived.

Those medical crews also attempted to perform CPR and other life-saving efforts before Michele MacNeill was taken to American Fork hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

During the trial, the jury heard from a number of witnesses, including Willis, several of Martin MacNeill's daughters - who believe he killed their mother - and two inmates who claimed the defendant confessed the alleged murder to them.

Prosecutors weaved a narrative that focused on Martin MacNeill's bad or odd behavior - including the growing seriousness of his affair with Willis, his insistence that Michele MacNeill have a face-lift, asking that extra medications be prescribed for the woman and his reaction to his wife's death- all added up to murder.

'There is a mountain of circumstantial evidence here, ladies and gentleman,' Grunander told the jury Friday.

However, the state Medical Examiner's Office has never ruled the woman's death a homicide, a fact that Spencer said showed reasonable doubt that Michele MacNeill was murdered.

After an autopsy in 2007, Michele MacNeill's manner of death was ruled 'natural,' the result of 'chronic hypertension and myocarditis, which are capable of causing acute unexpected arrhythmia and sudden death.'

But investigators say Martin MacNeill called the medical examiner multiple times and gave misleading information. In 2010, in a new investigative report, Chief Medical Examiner Todd Grey changed the cause of death to the combine effects of heart disease and drug toxicity. The manner of death was changed to 'undetermined.'