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Nancy Grace
Facelift Murder Trial Day Five
Aired October 22, 2013 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Breaking news tonight, live to Utah, a 911 call from doctor/lawyer Martin MacNeill after his 6-year-old girl finds Mommy, just out of a full facelift -- Mommy face up in the family bathtub, dead in red water. A red-hot affair with a younger woman emerges after Daddy has the nerve to bring the new girlfriend home as the new live-in nanny to their eight children.
And just hours after Mommy`s pronounced dead on a gurney in the hospital, Dr. MacNeill already cleans out Mommy`s closet, even getting rid of his wedding band and sporting a brand-new ring instead just days after Michele`s death.
Bombshell tonight. Day five of the Martin MacNeill facelift murder trial, six witnesses on the stand under oath recall MacNeill, decked out in a white lab coat, cursing his wife and God while ordering paramedics to inject his wife with drugs to jolt her alive, his temper awful, even worse at the hospital, where he was kicked out of the trauma bay, at one point even screaming out, I`ve given the church so much time and money, and this is what I get for it?
And tonight, is the Mormon Sunday school teacher, doctor and lawyer Martin MacNeill changing his story about his wife`s manner of death? All the while, the defense insisting Michele died of a heart attack while filling up the tub with water.
yes, that always stresses me out, that filling up the tub with water thing.
Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us.
Bombshell tonight. Day five of the Martin MacNeill facelift murder trial. Six witnesses recall MacNeill, decked out in a white lab coat that day, cursing his wife and God, ordering paramedics to inject his wife with drugs to jolt her back to life, his temper awful, even worsening at the hospital, where he was actually kicked out of the trauma bay. At one point, he`s even screaming out, I`ve given so much money to the church, so much time, and this is what I get for it?
And tonight, the Mormon Sunday school teacher, doctor, lawyer Martin MacNeill changing his story about his wife`s manner of death. All the while, the defense is insisting Michele died of a heart attack while filling the tub up with water.
yes, that really can stress you out, that filling the tub up thing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I arrived, Mr. MacNeill was on the front doorstep, yelling at me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Could you point out who you`re talking about?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The defendant.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) water now! (INAUDIBLE) ambulance!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The way he was acting, his behavior is...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Concerned about my safety, actually.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His behavior continued to the point where the ER staff was required to call security.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just his angry demeanor, loud.
911 OPERATOR: Do you know how to do CPR?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m doing it!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was essentially cursing God.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... the church and the amount of money that he`s donated, this is how God`s repaid him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`ve given the church this much money, so much money and time, and this is what I get for it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He made a comment that she had overdosed on her pain medication.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He said that he found her slumped over into the tub.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Slipping in the tub and hitting her head.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... cursing her for having the surgery. You know, Why did you do the surgery? Why -- why did you have to have the surgery? Why are you on so many medications?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why did you have to have this (EXPLETIVE DELETED) surgery?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was so disruptive to the crew.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you notice anything different about what he was wearing?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He did have a different ring on his finger.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On the wedding finger?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Uh-huh.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Welcome back, everybody. The trial going on as six witnesses take the stand, declaring that Martin MacNeill is now changing his story, describing his demeanor at the time his wife dies, he says, from a heart attack from filling up the bath with water.
Joining me right now is a special guest just off the witness stand. With me is Steven Mickelson, a former co-worker of Martin MacNeill`s. Mr. Mickelson, thank you for being with us.
STEVEN MICKELSON, WITNESS (via telephone): Oh, you`re welcome.
GRACE: Mr. Mickelson, in what capacity did you work with MacNeill?
MICKELSON: Martin was my boss. He was my supervisor.
GRACE: And what do you do for a living?
MICKELSON: I`m a nurse practitioner.
GRACE: OK. Can you tell me what you recall about the day that Michele died?
MICKELSON: I just -- you know, it`s somewhat surreal that you get this emergency call from the hallway -- Hurry, rush over to the MacNeill home, there`s something wrong, and to arrive there with all of the emergency vehicles and to see Martin outside with the police officer, having words, and then seeing Michele -- that just breaks your heart because I knew Michele on a personal basis in that we`d gone to ballet benefits before with her and Martin, and just an exceptional person. And to see someone close to you lifeless, that just breaks your heart.
GRACE: Steven, at what time did you arrive at the home? What was happening when you first got there?
MICKELSON: It was somewhere just before 11:00 or around 11:00. And like I said, there were ambulances in the front of the house. The paramedics had patches on her, trying to get a rhythm, to read a rhythm, see what they need to do to resuscitate Michele. But she had -- she looked even quite pale when I arrived. So it -- it appeared it was going to be an uphill battle to bring her back, I knew from the first moment I saw her.
GRACE: Steven, when you first saw her, where was she?
MICKELSON: On the floor in the bedroom, on the carpet.
GRACE: And what did she have on?
MICKELSON: Oh, she was unclothed totally.
GRACE: And where was Martin MacNeill at this time?
MICKELSON: He was in the front of the house, like I said, with the police officer, at the front walkway.
GRACE: Why was he away from his wife? Why was he in the front of the house and she was inside?
MICKELSON: I`m not totally clear on that, whether they had him out front because he was disruptive on the scene or -- or -- you know, it`s speculation, and I don`t like to get into that too much.
GRACE: That`s very wise, very wise Steven. Let`s take a listen to Steven Mickelson. He has just gotten off the witness stand. He is here with me and all of us. We are live in Provo and taking your calls. Take a listen to what he just told the jury.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICKELSON: I asked him what happened. He said, Well, I was -- I picked up Ada, was coming -- who attended a private school close to there...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And if I could stop you real quick, who is Ada?
MICKELSON: His daughter -- took her home. And Ada ran up the steps into the house and into the room, and came back out and said, Something`s wrong with Mom. You know, Mommy -- something`s wrong with Mommy.
He went in -- into the room, and he described it as he saw her face down the wrong way in the tub. And -- and I -- you know, I was -- you know, we were all shocked about this at this point. And he said he pulled her out of the tub and started performing CPR on her. And -- and that`s when -- then he called 911. I don`t recall if he told me he called 911, or I just assumed that, but...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He said she was face down in the tub the wrong way?
MICKELSON: Yes. Clothed. He said there was a lot of blood in the water.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: With me is the witness, straight off the witness stand, a co- worker of Martin MacNeill`s and a very dear friend of Michele`s, as well, Steven Mickelson.
Steven he told you that he got her out of the tub and started performing CPR?
MICKELSON: Yes. Yes.
GRACE: Well, you know -- straight out to you, Michael Christian, investigative reporter. That is not at all what happened. He did not get her out of the tub. He sent the little girl, Ada, to a neighbor to get help. Then not one, but two female neighbors came over. He would not accept their help. He said he needed a man.
And then, finally, a man came and they got her out. And to this day nobody really knows if he performed CPR. In fact, most court watchers believe he did not.
MICHAEL CHRISTIAN, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: Yes, that`s right, Nancy. When Mr. Mickelson got there, that part of this recovery effort was already over. But the people who were the very first ones on the scene, some of the neighbors, have all said that they couldn`t tell whether Martin MacNeill was actually performing CPR or not. He had his mouth down near her mouth, may have been doing it, but her chest was not rising or falling like you`d expect.
GRACE: Yes. And she was wet with mucus all over her face, and he stayed completely pristine, showing his skin around his mouth and nose never touched hers.
Joining me at the courthouse, Jim Kirkwood, talk show host, KTKK. Jim, thank you for being with us. I mean, it`s been fairly established at this point that nobody saw him actually giving her CPR. Nobody saw her chest going up and down, nothing. Mostly, he just walked around ranting.
JIM KIRKWOOD, KTKK: That`s exactly what happened, Nancy. And further questions -- some of the medical personnel and police personnel say she was facing the faucet, slumped over. Ada and Christie Daniels (ph) said she was lying on her back. Was the body moved? What`s going on here? There are a lot of real problems with this, Nancy.
GRACE: Back out to Steven Mickelson, a former co-worker of Martin MacNeill`s and a friend of the victim, Michele MacNeill`s. What can you tell me about his wedding ring, Steven.
MICKELSON: Well, it was a gold band and it had kind of an angulated (ph) black pattern going around the band, definitely different from what I`d seen earlier that he`d been wearing, what I assumed to be his wedding ring, for six to seven years.
GRACE: How soon after Michele is pronounced dead did he pop up sporting a new ring?
MICKELSON: Well, the day he came back to work, which was the following Monday. I can`t recall all the days. It seemed like Wednesday was the day of Michele`s death, and this was the following Monday. So yes, for sure, not high on my priority list to don a new wedding ring.
GRACE: Well, you`re actually right. You`ve got a very good memory, Steven. She did pass away on a Wednesday.
Let`s see what Steven Mickelson testified to in front of the jury.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You said that you met with the defendant following Michele`s death, at work.
MICKELSON: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you notice anything different about him when he came back?
MICKELSON: He came back a little earlier than I would have suspected but -- just because he had bereavement days for a close family member. Those weren`t exhausted. He...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you notice anything different about what he was wearing?
MICKELSON: Oh, he -- he did have a different ring on his finger, on his left hand, fourth finger.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So on the wedding finger?
MICKELSON: Uh-huh.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And why do you say it was different?
MICKELSON: Well, as I recall, he just -- he had a wedding band that was somewhat nondescript. It was gold. It was round. It -- previous to that. And the ring he was wearing that day was -- had a distinctive black stripe of -- besides it being a gold band, a black artistry on. It was definitely different than I used to see it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you`d worked with him for six years, and he wore one ring. But after he came back, he was wearing a different ring.
MICKELSON: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: OK. I`m a little overwhelmed. Steven Mickelson, you`re sure he had on a different ring? This is just four days had passed since his wife died, and the wedding band`s gone and he`s got on another ring?
MICKELSON: Yes. Definitely (INAUDIBLE) bravado, the -- the audacity or the uniqueness of wearing a different ring that close, you know, when mourning days hadn`t even expired, if you will. Not even a week had gone by.
GRACE: Unleash the lawyers. Joining me, also at Provo, Greg Skordas with me, Jonna Spilbor, defense attorney, New York, and Parag Shah, defense attorney, Atlanta.
All right, Parag Shah. Let`s see, four times 24, that would be 92 hours since his wife dies, he gets rid of his wedding band and puts on another ring. I got a problem with that. I guess you`re going to say it means nothing, right?
PARAG SHAH, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: You`re absolutely right. It doesn`t mean anything. This is so typical, where people take innocent facts and try to skew them and put them into this conviction...
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: I`m just telling you the facts. I mean, Mickelson just told you. We didn`t pass judgment...
(CROSSTALK)
SHAH: He could have lost the ring. We don`t know what happened. At least he kept a ring on there to show his commitment.
GRACE: OK, and Jonna Spilbor, here`s the deal. He`s now saying -- the defense is now saying that she was filling up her bathtub with water and stressed out and had a heart attack.
JONNA SPILBOR, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: No, I heard you say earlier that drawing a bath isn`t stressful. But she was stressed out about other things, Nancy. She just had an operation. She just had a facelift. She was on a ton of medication, and she had high blood pressure. That`s a heart attack waiting to happen!
GRACE: She`s stressed out because she had a facelift? OK.
SPILBOR: She`s not stressed out because she`s drawing a bath.
GRACE: I will let you try to give that to a jury. Greg Skordas, what do you make of the wedding band thing?
GREG SKORDAS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, the state`s clearly trying to bring it in to show part of their whole plan, their whole motive behind this, and that is the he was ready to get rid of Michele, his wife, and ready to move on to the next person. Their whole first couple days of witnesses have been to establish what now we call motive. And of course, you know, that`s not really relevant to a crime, but that`s what the state`s first couple days have been.
GRACE: Really? You`re a former prosecutor, right, Greg?
SKORDAS: Yes, just like you.
GRACE: And when you tried a murder case, I assume that although the state is not required to show motive, I`m sure every time you could, you showed a motive, right?
SKORDAS: Oh, absolutely. The jury wants to hear it.
GRACE: OK. Thank you.
SKORDAS: They want to know why.
GRACE: So I don`t think calling it irrelevant is exactly appropriate. But we can argue about that in a moment because when we come back, bloody crime scene photos in court.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Welcome back everybody. We are live in Provo and taking your calls. Joining me right now, a special guest, is Steven Mickelson, a former co-worker of Martin MacNeill`s, who was a bishop in the Mormon church, a Sunday school teacher in the Mormon church.
And as his wife lay there -- well, we already know that she was dead. She didn`t have a pulse when the EMTs got there. As his wife is laying there dead, he`s screaming about all the money he has given to the church and this is what he gets back.
You know, out to you, Matt Zarrell. I didn`t know it was a quid pro quo thing, that if I give X amount of money, nothing bad is ever going to happen to me. I don`t think that`s the way it works, Matt.
MATT ZARRELL, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: No, Nancy, it doesn`t. And multiple witnesses today, in fact, almost every single witness today, testified that MacNeill cited God, blamed God, said, This is how God`s repaying me, mentioned, I was a bishop, I`ve given all this money to the church, and this is how he repays me.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Welcome back. We are live at the Provo courthouse, bringing you the latest in the trial of Martin MacNeill, a doctor/lawyer -- I`ve got to add some more slashes -- slash Sunday school teacher, slash bishop, who is accused of murdering his wife.
Back to special guest Steven Mickelson, straight off the witness stand, a co-worker of MacNeill`s. Can you tell me -- You worked with him for six or seven years. He didn`t work really in a hospital setting. He was the director of this -- how would you describe it, Steven?
MICKELSON: It was a residential facility for the mentally handicapped.
GRACE: Did he typically wear a lab coat to work? Because that`s not what I was told.
MICKELSON: Yes, not usually. I don`t remember him wearing a lab coat. I mean, he`d don it to do procedures in the operatory (ph) right there, but not generally day by day in the office.
GRACE: That`s what I was told, Steven Mickelson. I was told that he very rarely wore a lab coat, that he would typically wear a buttoned-down shirt and nice slacks. And I find it very, very interesting that the day his wife dies and he has to put on a performance in front of EMTs and police, he`s suddenly wearing a lab coat.
MICKELSON: Yes, it sure -- there`s circumstantial -- what he wore, his mannerisms on that day definitely seem to paint a picture, maybe the picture he wanted to paint.
GRACE: Let me ask you something. You`re saying painted a picture. I`m going to come back to you, Steven Mickelson, about his actions that day. You mentioned his actions that day.
Out to the lines. Mary in Virginia. Hi, Mary. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy. I have a question because I`m sort of confused with the different witnesses they had on, several. It seems to me that not one is consistent with the other. And this has to do with whether she was wet, totally wet, not wet at all. And the same thing with him. I did get the fact that he was wet in his arms.
And my other question is, could we have put on his lab coat because he was wet in the arms and he didn`t want that to be seen?
GRACE: No, he had on his lab coat the whole day. He wore it to the health fair, I think so people would take notice of him because if everybody is dressed alike, they all blend together. And suddenly, you see a doctor in a white lab coat. Liz, please hold Mary in Virginia. I want to follow up on her question.
Next, we go back inside the courtroom at the Martin MacNeill facelift murder trial.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Welcome back, everybody. We are live at the Provo courthouse bringing you the latest in the facelift murder trial. Dr. Martin MacNeill, a doctor, lawyer, and a Sunday school teacher at the local Mormon tabernacle is charged with murdering his wife, the mother of his eight children.
We are live and taking your calls. I want to go back to Steven Mickelson. He`s a witness that has just come off the witness stand under oath in front of this Provo jury.
I wanted to ask you about Martin MacNeill handing you the phone to tell his daughter, Alexis, she -- the sun rose and set for her in her mother. And he gives you the phone to tell Alexis about Michele, her mother?
MICKELSON: Yes. He just -- as I`m coming out of the room and out of the house, he shoves the handset into my hand and just says, tell Alexis. And just leaves it at that. What are you going to do? At that point, I just got on the phone and said, Alexis, you`ve got to get here, you`ve got to get here now. I didn`t have the heart to tell Alexis that her mother was dead, or at least was not looking like she was going to be revived.
And you know that -- surely, I don`t know all the reasons why Martin couldn`t say the same thing himself. He seemed to be plenty talkative that day.
GRACE: Well, I`ve got a pretty good idea. Unleash the lawyers. Greg Skordas at Provo. Jonna Spilbor and Parag Shah. Out to you, Spilbor, I`ll tell you why. Because Alexis would not leave her mother`s side. She`s a medical student. She knows what`s going on. Her mother told her, if anything happens to me, make sure your father didn`t kill me. She had left her mother just fine, gone to her bedroom, come back a couple of hours later, her mother was comatose, and her father, Martin MacNeill said, I guess I gave her too many pills, silly me.
At that point, Alexis started keeping a journal of every pill that her mother ingested. So when her father insists her mom is fine, for her to go back to medical school, she just gets there, calls home and finds out her mother is dead. so I`m pretty sure that`s why MacNeill didn`t want to tell her, because he figured she would call the police that minute.
SPILBOR: And that`s what started the suspicion in that particular daughter. But Nancy, Michele MacNeill was a big girl and Michele MacNeill could have self-medicated as much or as little as she wanted. Even though this daughter Alexis is the one who thinks daddy did it, there`s still no forensic evidence that daddy did it.
GRACE: Actually, that`s not true.
SPILBOR: It is true.
GRACE: It`s not true.
SPILBOR: Three medical examiners.
GRACE: It`s not true. Let`s go to someone that`s been in the courtroom and has heard the testimony. Isn`t it true, Michael Christian, that Michele had her eyes bandaged because of the facelift that her husband insisted she get, she didn`t want it, and that she had Alexis, this came out in opening statements, that she had Alexis help her feel the medicine her husband was giving her because she was afraid?
CHRISTIAN: We`ve heard several times, Nancy, that she was someone who was reluctant to take medication. That all of this medication she had was there on his behalf and not necessarily on her behalf. She seemed to be someone who was very hesitant to take a lot of medication and would certainly want to know what everything she was taking was.
GRACE: To Dr. Michael Arnall, board certified forensic pathologist, joining me tonight out of Denver. Dr. Arnall, in an autopsy, isn`t it SOP, standard operating procedure, that you look at the heart?
DR. MICHAEL ARNALL, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: Yes. Detailed examination of the heart is routine.
GRACE: Wouldn`t they be able to determine if she had a heart attack?
ARNALL: In this case, they`ve determined -- the first pathologist determined that there was an inflammation of the heart called myocardatis, and has suggested that she probably had an irregular heartbeat related to the inflammation of the heart muscle.
GRACE: So an irregular heart beat is not a heart attack?
ARNALL: A physician would probably distinguish between the two terms. But sometimes individuals in the -- in the community may not distinguish between those two terms.
GRACE: Well, let me ask you. You`re a physician. Is an irregular heart beat, which many, many people have, is that a heart attack?
ARNALL: No. I use the term heart attack to indicate a blockage in the coronary artery which has caused low blood flow to a part of the heart. I would not use that term to describe an irregular heart beat due to inflammation. That`s correct. I agree with you.
GRACE: Liz, let`s go back into the courtroom. Let`s hear some testimony.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you recall that you gave her 30 pills of Valium on December 31st, 2002?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, as kind of a professional courtesy to Martin.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And you also prescribed 30 pills of Lortab, which is also hydrocodone, to Michele MacNeill on that same date?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. That was the only time that I prescribed for her. But yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And you stated earlier that you didn`t feel that Martin abused your position by asking you to fill that for his wife, right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. It`s a professional courtesy. I think I was maybe uncomfortable with the quantities. But as a one-time kind of understanding, I did that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right. And that`s the only time you prescribed for Michele, correct?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: OK. No offense, but she`s got to move that hair out of her face.
Let me see Spilbor. Do you have long hair? Let me see her. I can`t see her.
SPILBOR: Yes, I do.
GRACE: No, it`s not. But when you`re in front of the jury, No. 1, the hair hanging down. I`m sure she`s a fine lawyer, but that`s got to go. That`s bothering me. And I`m just, you know, watching, much less the jury. And the other thing, have you noticed -- give me that shot, Liz. She practically gets up and sits in MacNeill`s lap. She`s all up under him. That`s not a good look for a guy that`s like running around on his wife with one woman after the next. I mean, within hours he cleans out his closet so he can make room for his girlfriend`s clothes? Sure enough she moves in to be the live-in nanny. Ooh. Could they possibly get any closer? OK. That`s a whole another can of worms. Now I want to hear from the fire chief on the stand.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you -- you asked the defendant to come with you away from the patient?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I did.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was he saying then?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My intentions, like I explained was to try to understand what had taken place. He made a couple of comments in my history gathering -- in pulling him away, typically we would handle this right there where the scene is taking place. Based on just his behavior, I took him away from that so the other crew members didn`t have the same luxury as I did hearing what took place. But a couple of comments specifically in me gathering what possibly could have happened was that he made a comment that she had overdosed on her pain medication, and also a comment about slipping in the tub and hitting her head. He also indicated that he was only gone for a short period of time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did he say where he had gone?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t -- I don`t recall specifically where he was -- where he had gone. Maybe -- it seems like it was a like a 10 or 15 minute. It was a very short period of time. Which, in -- it gave us hope that there was a short down time that we would be able to have some luck in resuscitating Michele.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Welcome back, everybody. We are live in Provo. Out to you, Matt Zarrell. That was pretty powerful testimony by the fire chief. Capsulize.
ZARRELL: Yes. MacNeill apparently told the fire chief, made a number of comments including that Michele overdosed on the pain medication, and made a comment about Michele slipping in the tub and hitting her head.
GRACE: Andrew J. Scott, former chief of police, Boca Raton, president, AJS Consulting. Don`t you always love it when the suspect starts changing the story? Now you know that heart attack thing? Forget the heart attack thing. Now she slipped and fell getting into the tub, I might add, fully dressed. Because that`s what her daughter saw her in. She was fully dressed when Ada first found her. Now after Ada was sent down the street by foot to bring neighbors, when Ada came back, her mom was almost naked. I don`t know what he did with those clothes. But she`s not getting in the tub fully dressed, slips, and hits her head and dies. Okay? That`s what happens in the movies. That hardly ever happens in real life.
ANDREW J. SCOTT, FORMER CHIEF OF POLICE, BOCA RATON: Absolutely. And there are a variety of inconsistencies, Nancy, from his behavior patterns to the physical evidence of him not jumping in the tub trying to get her out. And then additionally, you have the medical examiner`s office, I`m not sure if they determined that she did have contusions to her head, to solidify the statement that he had mentioned that she may have slipped and fell into the tub. There`s too many inconsistencies. And the bottom line on this is, the medical examiner`s office is going to be the key relative to what the evidence is going to present as to how she died coupled with the fact that you`ve got so many witnesses describing his behavior as being aberrant.
GRACE: Andrew J. Scott, joining me, AJS Consulting. Back to Dr. Martin Arnall, board certified forensic pathologist. Dr. Arnall joining me out of Denver. Dr. Arnall, you have reviewed the case. Nobody, not one medical examiner has said that she died of injuries to the head.
ARNALL: That`s correct.
GRACE: What do you make of his statement?
ARNALL: Well, you know, if you look at the fact that she has wet hair by one description and he found her with her head slumped over into the tub, you have to wonder whether she slipped and fell or whether someone`s hand was pushing her head into the bottom of the tub. Whether she fell or whether someone`s hand was pushing her into the bottom of tub, she could have bumped her nose and started to bleed, and that would explain some of the red coloration in the water.
GRACE: Because you bleed so freely when there`s an injury around your face. Back to Mary in Virginia. Mary, what was the second part of your question?
CALLER: I had asked about the inconsistencies of what the different people seem to remember. One said she was wet. The other one said she was dry. You know.
GRACE: Let`s talk about that. Out to Jim Kirkwood, talk show host, KTKK, she`s right. Mary is right. Most of the witnesses, all but one say she was dry. All of the witnesses I think say that he was dry. But she was coming up out of the bathtub, she couldn`t possibly have been dry. The witness that matters the most to me, and we`ve yet to hear from Ada, then 6 now 12, who says her mom -- and she drew a picture of it -- was fully dressed on her back, looking up, hair going down the faucet. That`s what she saw. Her dad sends her down the street, she comes back, mom is not dressed anymore.
KIRKWOOD: That`s exactly the point, Nancy. What happened between Ada`s drawing. In other words when Ada went in and saw her dressed and then when everybody else arrives, Michele is pantsless. She`s naked from the waist down. And her position in the tub is moved. There`s a lot of real problems here that the prosecution can exploit, and I think that`s what they`re trying to do.
GRACE: To Matt Zarrell, tell me a quick summary about the inconsistencies regarding whether she was wet or not.
ZARRELL: Nancy, numerous witnesses testified today that while her body was wet, the clothing was dry. However, one of the final witnesses today, a police officer who took photographs of the scene, including the clothing in question, say that the clothing was extremely wet.
GRACE: Everyone, we are expecting the little girl Ada to testify on Thursday. Out to the lines, Lisa, Ohio. What`s your question?
CALLER: Hi, Nancy. No one but this guy said the wife was slumped over the tub. Did anyone else witness this story?
GRACE: About her being slumped over the tub naked?
CALLER: Right.
GRACE: Yes. That has concerned me. He`s the only one that has said that. What about it? Michael Christian, investigative reporter joining me out of Manhattan. Michael, he`s the only one that said she was in this position.
CHRISTIAN: Yes, I believe that`s correct. Nancy, everybody else has her in the tub, in the water. That`s a big inconsistently. And not only did he tell some of the first responders that, but he apparently told other people on the phone that as well. So that is a story that he originally had.
GRACE: To clinical psychologist Seth Meyers, joining me out of L.A., that`s the problem when you talk too much, you start mixing your stories and you get everything confused. You can`t keep the story straight if it`s not true.
SETH MEYERS, PSYCHOLOGIST: Yes. That`s true. And you know, diagnostically, I think that this guy is a sociopath. I think he`s a particular kind of sociopath, one that is reputation-defending and really status seeking. One of the things that is most interesting about a sociopath, I just want to note, is the absence of anxiety. So when people see behavior like why would he wear the wedding ring so soon after the wife`s death? He would do it because he doesn`t have the usual anxiety most other people would.
GRACE: What I don`t understand is the moment that Seth Meyers said sociopath, Parag Shah started grinning and smiling? Can you explain the connection? What`s so funny about that?
SHAH: I think it`s absolutely ridiculous, because he was showing anxiety, he was anxious. The 911 call, the way he was reacting in the bathroom and the hospital. There`s no way to kind of pin this down to some kind of --
GRACE: The way he was reacting?
SHAH: That he`s some kind of sociopath and that`s why he was acting, everything is calculated. No, he was horrified at what happened, and he was reacting emotionally.
GRACE: Wait. Matt Zarrell, as a matter of fact, acting emotionally or acting appropriately, as Parag Shah is trying to convince us, that`s not true. Because he became so belligerent and angry that EMTs had to make him leave. They actually said in all of their years, they never thought they would be attacked until they met him. Then he continued his belligerence at the hospital and he was thrown out of the trauma bay because of the way he was acting. That is not normal.
ZARRELL: Yes, Nancy, multiple witnesses say they were concerned for their own safety on the scene. MacNeill (inaudible) not only from the scene, but (inaudible), he had to be calmed (ph) down in the trauma bay. (inaudible), but yet, Nancy, when Michele was pronounced dead, he cried.
GRACE: Oh, yes, he cried. I wonder how hard he had to pinch himself.
When we come back, is a Mormon Sunday school teacher, doctor and lawyer, Martin MacNeill, changing his story about his wife`s manner of death?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Welcome back, everyone. We are live at the Provo courthouse. Out to the lines, Kimberly in Texas. What`s your question?
CALLER: Hi, Nancy. Well, I was just thinking about Dr. MacNeill`s 911 call. Doesn`t he say she`s under water and I`ve got CPR in progress? If so, wouldn`t he be pushing her more under the water? And also--
GRACE: Absolutely.
CALLER: -- wouldn`t that account for if he drowned her and held her down right there, knowing that that`s where you do CPR because he`s a doctor, that would account for any bruising that might be on her body later?
GRACE: Kimberly in Texas, you should be a crime sleuth, because Dr. Joshua Perper, the former chief medical examiner of Broward County, handled the Anna Nicole Smith case, reviewed the evidence and has decided that she did die of drowning.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Your wife is unconscious?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She is unconscious. She`s under water.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Can you get her out of the water?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can`t. I let the water out. I have CPR in progress.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She`s under the water?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: So Kimberly in Texas is absolutely right. She`s under water. To Dr. Michael Arnall, board certified forensic pathologist, how can you perform CPR when the victim is in a deep-dish tub, bathtub, you have to crawl over. You`re on the outside. And you don`t get in, and you don`t get her out? So how can you perform CPR in that manner?
ARNALL: You know, it probably makes no sense for a physician to do something like that. It would have made more sense if he had removed her body to the bathroom floor out of the tub.
GRACE: Everyone, you are taking a look at Martin and Michele MacNeill in happier times. We anticipate on Thursday, their six-year-old daughter, now 12, will be taking the stand. Jim Kirkwood joining me at the courthouse, KTKK. What do we expect to hear from Ada when she takes the stand?
KIRKWOOD: Well, she wrote -- I mean, she drew a really fine representation of her mother laying on her back, head toward the faucet, fully clothed. And I think she`ll be testifying to those facts, Nancy.
GRACE: Everyone, let`s stop. We remember American hero, Army Staff Sergeant, Kenneth McAnench. 28, Locusboro (ph), Indiana. Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Joint Service Commendation Medal. Loved coffee in the mornings, video games, and drawing. Parents Sheryl and Marvin, step parents Richard and Regina, eight siblings, widow Shawna, five children.
Kenneth McAnench, American hero.
And tonight a special good night from Nebraska and Georgia friends, Eva and Bonnie. Aren`t they beautiful?
Everyone, court is done for the day. But Dr. Drew`s up next. I`ll see you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. Until then, good night, friend.
END
