Return to Transcripts main page
Nancy Grace
Martin MacNeill Facelift Trial
Aired October 24, 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`s face up in the family bathtub, dead.
A red-hot affair with a younger woman emerges after Daddy brings the new girlfriend home as the new live-in nanny to their eight children. Just hours after Mommy`s pronounced dead, Dr. MacNeill already cleans out Mommy`s closet, even getting rid of his wedding band and sporting a brand- new ring instead.
Bombshell tonight. Day seven of the Martin MacNeill facelift murder trial, gut-wrenching testimony on the stand as MacNeill`s favorite daughter, Rachel, takes the stand to testify against her father, Rachel breaking down repeatedly in court, shaking, crying, barely able to stand to even look at her father.
Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us. Day seven of the Martin MacNeill facelift murder trial, gut-wrenching testimony in court as MacNeill`s favorite daughter, Rachel, takes the stand to testify against her own father, Rachel breaking down repeatedly in court. She was shaking. She was visibly crying. And it was obvious she was barely able to stand to even look across the courtroom at her father.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RACHEL MACNEILL, MACNEILLS` DAUGHTER: Growing up, my father was my best friend.
What`s wrong? Is Mom OK? And he said, Rachel, come home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE)
MACNEILL: Ada drew how my Mom was laying in the tub. Water was halfway full. The water was red.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How much water was in the tub?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: About, like, not covering her face, so about right here, by her ear.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Couldn`t lift her out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He could not lift her out, he said?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just went to hug him and comfort him. My mother had just died and -- (INAUDIBLE) showing me and talking about autopsy (INAUDIBLE)
-- bloody mess, everything that was thrown in the garage.
How dare you show me these things? Get rid of it.
(INAUDIBLE) Gypsy Jilian Willis.
I don`t -- I didn`t want to know that my mom was dead. And I was concerned about my -- my family. And I didn`t want -- I didn`t want to hear all -- all the...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Rachel obviously in agony as she is forced to relive the day her mother was murdered. This adult child, always her father`s favorite, now on the stand to testify against him.
We are live in Provo and taking your calls. Jean Casarez at the courthouse. Jean, I thought all of her testimony was incredible. But up to right now, I think the strongest testimony has been where she describes going out into the garage. This is the day her mother dies. And she finds out there the outfit that Ada describes, the outfit that she says her mommy was wearing in the bathtub, a blue workout jacket and blue workout pants. And they were soaking wet and they were bloody, and they were in a bundle with wet bloody towels.
And the whole point of this is the following. Jean Casarez, when Ada came in, Mommy was in those clothes in the bathtub, face up. MacNeill sent her away, sent her down the street to get a neighbor.
When those neighbors got there, there had been a change of clothes. He now had his wife semi-nude, nude from the waist down, only wearing a shirt. He changed her clothes!
JEAN CASAREZ, HLN LEGAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, Nancy, the top was taken out of the plastic bag before the jury by Rachel. She asked if she could take it out, and she just looked at her mother`s top. And the jurors Nancy, they were in a trance. They were fixated on Rachel all day today. They hardly looked from left to right.
And once again, as I saw yesterday, the female jurors are demure. They`re sitting in their seats. The male jurors are like this, leaning forward to every word Rachel said.
GRACE: Everyone, let`s go in the courtroom for testimony from Rachel.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MACNEILL: There was a bed that my mother had after she had gotten her surgery done. And there`s nothing that was in the room. Everything was in the garage, her little stuffed animals that my sisters had given her, towels, a lot of towels, and sheets, stuffed animals (INAUDIBLE) There was a running suit of my mother`s, garments...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
MACNEILL: And it was just...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You mentioned some stuffed animals.
MACNEILL: ... all wet and bloody. It was just a big pile of -- everything was just thrown -- it was a big, bloody mess. It was just all -- all of these things were just thrown in the garage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
MACNEILL: And I found -- I got my mother`s things. I found them. I took them to my father. It was her garments and running -- a dark blue running suit thing that she wore. He told me, How dare you show me those things! Get rid of them. I washed them. I washed my mother`s things, put them in a bag and kept them and then turned them over to...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you ultimately turn them over to investigators?
MACNEILL: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Can you imagine? Your mother, the closest person in the world to Rachel MacNeill, finding this, finding your mother`s bloody clothes?
Very quickly, to Dr. Bethany Marshall. Bethany, I remember -- in the murder trial of my fiance, I remember walking past the state`s table and seeing Keith`s bloody shirt on counsel table, and I stopped -- I was walking out of the courtroom, getting off the witness stand. And to this day, I remember that moment. I remember it. I can remember it right now, and it sends a chill down me when I remember seeing the shirt that he died in. And I have to think about why he was murdered!
And can you imagine having to wash the blood out of your mother`s clothes?
BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST: And Rachel MacNeill loves her mother. She loves her mother. You can see it on the witness stand. And when she saw the bloody clothes, just like you saw your fiance`s bloody clothes, it`s the moment of the dawning of consciousness that the victim suffered extreme agony.
GRACE: Everyone, back into the courtroom for Rachel MacNeill on the stand.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MACNEILL: I mean, he was just -- kept repeating that the autopsy needed to be done and things like that. It was just -- I didn`t -- I didn`t want to listen to any of this. My mother had just died, and I -- just even showing me and talking about autopsy (INAUDIBLE) it was -- it was just so -- it was horrible. I don`t -- didn`t want to know that my mother was dead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Emotion with which she testified. The jury`s got to be feeling this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACNEILL: ... my family, and -- so I didn`t want to -- I didn`t want to hear all -- all this!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
MACNEILL: I was standing at the door.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
MACNEILL: (INAUDIBLE) went over. He went like this, and he said that he found her with her leg sticking out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Did he describe -- was she face down?
MACNEILL: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did he describe how much of her body was inside the tub?
MACNEILL: He said that -- that she was inside the tub with her legs sticking out of it (INAUDIBLE) all the way down (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That`s OK. You can retake your seat.
MACNEILL: OK, thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Out to Jim Kirkwood, talk show host, KTKK, also joining us at the courthouse. Jim, I noticed that Rachel could hardly stand to even look at her father.
JIM KIRKWOOD, KTKK: Yes, she couldn`t. And what`s interesting -- the first time I`ve noticed that Martin MacNeill was not sitting there stonefaced. He had his glasses off, his head down. He was being affected by it, Nancy.
GRACE: Oh, please! It`s all for show. He probably couldn`t look her in the face.
KIRKWOOD: Yes.
GRACE: That would be my guess, Jim Kirkwood...
KIRKWOOD: Yes.
GRACE: ... is that he couldn`t even look up and look her in the face.
KIRKWOOD: I agree.
GRACE: I mean, think about it, Jim. Every time that he had to tell an adult daughter that Mom was dead, he kind of pushed it off. Like, he made somebody else, a doctor who was there on the scene, a medical professional there on the scene -- he said, Here, tell Alexis. And then when he called this daughter, Rachel, he just said, Come home -- click. And now he`s confronted in court face to face with Rachel, and she knows what he did.
KIRKWOOD: Yes, she does. Finding those bloody clothes in the garage is really damning, Nancy, very damning.
GRACE: Joining me right now exclusively is a very dear friend of Michele MacNeill. Joining us is Cynthia Crosby Woods. Ms. Woods, thank you for being with us.
CYNTHIA CROSBY WOODS, FRIEND OF VICTIM: You`re welcome.
GRACE: Ms. Woods, what do you know about the relationship that Michele had with Martin MacNeill?
WOODS: It was a whirlwind romance. It was something that her family was very much against, as were her friends, because of prior knowledge to things that he had already done that were illegal. So we were all very concerned for Michele.
She very much loved Martin, but she was very much dominated and very much controlled by Martin. And that was something that I saw firsthand as I would visit with Michele or they would come up to see me.
GRACE: Like what?
WOODS: Well, the first time that I met Martin, they came up to visit me at BYU. I was attending Brigham Young University. And Michele had always wanted to go there, and Martin came with Michele. And they had just gotten married, and he kind of tended to take over the conversation, and how they had met.
And that`s when he told me the story, which I think very much convinced Michele, kind of played into her heart -- she had a big heart about, you know, marrying him -- and that was, he told me that he had a childhood where he had been raised by a mother who was a prostitute. And they had all lived in one room, and the only thing that divided he and his siblings from his mother was just a sheet as she prostituted.
GRACE: OK, I find that...
WOODS: And that (INAUDIBLE) shocking.
GRACE: ... very, very hard to believe. Cynthia Crosby Woods is joining us and taking your calls. Did you speak to MacNeill after Michele`s death? What happened?
WOODS: I did. After Michele`s death, I was actually -- had lunch with Linda (ph) and her mother, Helen Somers (ph), and they asked me -- it was a two-hour lunch. And they asked me at that time if I would help them because they had been trying to get help from the police without any success. In fact, Linda had been treated very rudely.
And so they said, Cynthia, we are a shy people. You are not. We drove to Martin`s house because I wanted to get ahold of Martin. And I knocked on the door, rang the doorbell, walked around the house. No one answered. Michele`s mother was hiding in the car. That`s how afraid she was of Martin.
And without -- I did notice that there was a brand-new pool going in. The earth had been dug down for the pool, no concrete yet. And I thought that was interesting.
And so then I went next door to the neighbor who had helped to get Michele out of the pool and knocked on their door. And the wife of the man who eventually helped lift Michele out answered the door, invited me in. I introduced myself. And I could tell she was very uncomfortable, in such that I could tell that she wasn`t comfortable with what had taken place.
And after that, I -- after visiting with her, I began calling Martin at home and at work.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: With me is a very dear friend of Michele MacNeill`s, Cynthia Crosby Woods. So Ms. Woods, you continued to call MacNeill. Did you finally get him? And if so, what happened?
WOODS: He finally returned my call. And he spoke very slowly, very deliberately. He talked about how highly Michele had thought of me, what close friends we were. And I asked him if I could meet with him and with the children. I wanted to get into the house to talk to him, and I wanted to see the children because I wanted to share memories that I had of their mother.
And he said it would be very difficult as they were in different areas, but he would do the best that he could, and possibly this coming Sunday. And I never heard from him again.
GRACE: So he never arranged that. You never got to speak to him or the children.
WOODS: No. He never followed through.
GRACE: Everyone, let`s go straight back into the courtroom. On the stand, his favorite daughter, Rachel, testifying against her father.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did he say anything about water being inside the tub?
MACNEILL: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did he say about that?
MACNEILL: He said that my mother was under the water.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What -- what was that?
MACNEILL: He said that her head -- that she was under the water.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
MACNEILL: Her feet sticking out, her legs -- oh, God!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did he describe what he did upon finding your mom like that?
MACNEILL: He said that he couldn`t lift her out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He could not lift her out, he said?
MACNEILL: Yes, so he had -- said he had Ada get the neighbors.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MACNEILL: I expected her to be focused on the children.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
MACNEILL: I expected her to do things related to that, to cook or clean or take care of the children.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what did you see her doing?
MACNEILL: My dad was cooking. She was sitting there, staring at my dad, things like that. I mean, she -- the children were taking care of themselves, or Ada was left alone. She`s running down the sidewalk. I mean, there was nobody looking after the children. It was a -- it was very, very different than it was when my mother was there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: On the stand, you are seeing MacNeill`s favorite daughter, Rachel, who is visibly distraught as she testifies against her father.
Joining me at the courthouse, Jean Casarez, CNN correspondent, and Jim Kirkwood, talk show host, KTKK.
Jean, the significance of Rachel turning against her father is huge. What are the main points the state wants to make with her?
CASAREZ: I think number one has to be what you were just talking about, taking her into the bathroom hours after Michele was pronounced dead and showing exactly how he found Michele, which is contra to what everybody else is saying, especially Ada. I think that is probably the most important of all. And I think and also just his demeanor, actions to denote consciousness of guilt, actions to denote non-caring that his wife was dead.
GRACE: And Matt Zarrell, also on the story, I`m pretty sure Rachel can describe what MacNeill says about when he came in and saw Michele MacNeill, which is a completely different scenario than Ada described, the 6-year- old.
MATT ZARRELL, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER (via telephone): Yes, Nancy. The witness actually got off the stand and demonstrated that MacNeill claims that Michele was face down in the water and her legs were up out over the tub.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your mother was -- had a funeral on the Saturday following her death.
MACNEILL: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Following the funeral, was there a gathering with family for a lunch?
MACNEILL: Yes?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was your father present?
MACNEILL: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you observe his demeanor at that luncheon?
MACNEILL: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was he doing?
MACNEILL: He was commenting on how he`s a single man now and being social and just -- very casual and...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you recall any joking?
MACNEILL: Yes. He was -- he was making jokes about being single and just laughing. And it made me sick. I left.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Unleash the lawyers. Joining us also at the courthouse, Greg Skordas, defense attorney, former prosecutor in Salt Lake. Also with me, Mike Gottlieb from Miami, Florida, defense attorney, and Sean Park (ph), former prosecutor, now criminal defense attorney in the Atlanta jurisdiction.
First to you, Skordas. Right now we are waiting to hear the judge`s ruling on the 6-year-old little girl Ada. And all of us on the panel right now are veteran trial lawyers, and we all know that witnesses are always branded liars by the other side. The defense is fighting to keep the 6- year-old girl`s testimony, she`s now 12, away from the jury, claiming that she`s been brainwashed by her sister.
But I would like to point out that the critical nature of her testimony is how she found her mother that day. She`s the one that found the body. She gave that statement before she moved in with her sisters, and if you kept every witness that may lie off the stand, there would be no witnesses. The law says that credibility is the sole province of the jury. Not the judge.
GREG SKORDAS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: That`s true. But with respect to a child witness, Nancy, who`s had six years of potential prodding, potential coaching, potential learning about the case from her siblings, the judge is correct in at least standing back and putting those two siblings on the stand, Rachel and Alexis, and saying, what have you told Ada about this, what have you guys talked about in the intervening years that may or may not sway her testimony. Because really, who does remember anything about what happened when they were six years old?
GRACE: A lot of people, especially if it`s something as traumatic as finding your mother dead face up, eyes staring at the ceiling in the family bathtub. So bottom line, I appreciate what you have said, and maybe she has been swayed, but that is an issue that goes to the weight of her testimony, not its admissibility. What I`m saying is, the law is very clear. The judge can`t just rule out a witness because there`s a chance they could lie or because they`ve been coached. That witness takes the stand, and that witness is cross-examined, and these two sisters are cross- examined on what they may or may not have told her. The law is very, very clear, is it not, Sean Park?
SEAN PARK, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Nancy, it`s very clear. However, this is a prime opportunity for the defense lawyers to go after this little girl in a very delicate manner, because this woman, these two mothers have -- excuse me, these two sisters have been involved in this 6-year-old, now 12-year- old`s life for the past six years. And they`ve been the ones that have been spearheading this investigation for the past five and a half years of this murder investigation to bring the charges against their father.
GRACE: May I ask you a question?
PARK: Yes, Nancy.
GRACE: Whose fault is that? Martin MacNeill`s for killing his wife. That`s why they had to take her in.
PARK: Nancy, if I could finish for one moment. Martin MacNeill is guilty of a lot of things. He`s guilty of being a cad, he`s guilty of being a liar, he`s guilty of being a sociopath. He`s guilty of moving in his nanny/girlfriend into the house shortly after the mother died.
But, however, the fact that he is now moved on, that`s caused suspicion with the daughters to bring this case against him.
GRACE: The fact that he has now moved on. Correction, Sean Park. He hasn`t just now moved on. As a matter of fact, Mike Gottlieb, the reason he was so happy at Michelle`s funeral, is because his lover was on the back row texting him. All right? He couldn`t act too broken up about Michelle`s death, with her back there looking at him, adjusting her push-up bra. There you have it, he hasn`t just moved on, and that`s not what made them suspicious. What made them suspicious is him hiding her bloody clothes. Him forcing her to have a facelift. Her dying with her body pumped full of drugs, when we know she was down to just two Percocet a day at that time. And then his story ever changing. And as soon as the daughters would question him, he began to disown them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nancy, it was Michelle MacNeill`s --
MIKE GOTTLIEB, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I`m not sure he began to disown anybody, and having a girlfriend or even a second wife in Utah, where there`s polygamy, doesn`t equate to being a murderer. There`s no direct evidence that he committed a murder, there is no direct evidence he did anything to harm his wife. The fact that there were bloody clothes, the medical examiner hasn`t said this is a homicide. They determined it to be natural death. There`s no evidence whatsoever that Dr. MacNeill has done anything to murder his wife.
GRACE: Jean Casarez, the evidence is mounting against Dr. MacNeill. Let`s refresh the recollections of the defense attorneys on the panel tonight. What would you assert is some of the strongest evidence against MacNeill?
JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It starts with getting a plastic surgeon out of a newspaper ad, going there, and specifically asking for medications that are not normally prescribed for a facelift, and having those medications then found in her system once a toxicology report is analyzed.
GRACE: And what about changing the story? What about misdirecting 911 by speaking in a manner that not one but two dispatchers couldn`t figure out where he was? What about lying through his teeth at every turn? Hiding evidence, cleaning out his wife`s closet, just an hour after she`s pronounced dead. I mean, you know, you defense attorneys pretend that circumstantial evidence is not the same as direct, is not as strong as direct, but we all know that the law is that it is to be considered as powerful as direct evidence. That`s the black and white letter of the law.
Out to the lines, Lisa in Illinois. Hi, Lisa, what`s your question?
CALLER: Hi, Nancy, thank you for taking my call. I just have a question I wasn`t clear on.
GRACE: Okay.
CALLER: Was any of the two daughters that testified today, did any of them suffer sexual abuse?
GRACE: Good question. What do we know, Jean Casarez? I don`t think that that monster has reared its ugly head?
CASAREZ: There was an allegation, I believe, by Alexis, not founded, allegedly, will not come into the trial at all.
GRACE: Out to the lines, Paula. Hi, Paula, what`s your question?
CALLER: Hi, Nancy. Privilege and honor. Investigative reporter, freelance writer, published in "Mother Jones," covered murdered and missing and kidnapped children.
This is deceptive versus credibility, the demeanor and the countenance of MacNeill is not consistent. The prescriptions and overriding of the daughter`s authority to intervene is inconsistent. And I just want to say something really fast. Any idiot, jackass can write a check or a money order, cashier`s check. This defense attorney`s producing that, and that`s showing date of cashing, who signed for the check.
This is deception at its height. I can`t believe this guy can pull off this fraud. But the point is this, there`s no proof this daughter cashed those moneys.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Welcome back, everybody. We are live at the Provo courthouse, bringing you the latest. And right now, we`re taking you into the courtroom. On the stand is Rachel MacNeill. This is MacNeill`s favorite daughter. She`s visibly distraught as she testifies against her father.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did he ever make any comments to you about a police investigation?
RACHEL MACNEILL, WITNESS: Yes. My father was very concerned about getting an autopsy done right away. He said -- he just kept repeating that he was -- needed to get the autopsy done. We need to get it done right away. I said, why do we need to get it done right away? I mean, this isn`t -- it didn`t make sense to me. He said that there was -- there were several neighbors that had come, there were knocks at the door, and he was jumpy. He specifically said to me that he was concerned that there would be a police investigation, that he didn`t want it to -- anyone to think that he murdered my mother.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: You know, out to Dr. Bill Manion, medical examiner joining us out of Philadelphia tonight. Dr. Manion, that`s extremely odd. Usually loved ones do not want their family members cut up in an autopsy. They`re gutted. There`s really no other way to put it. The medical examiner has to cut the body open, take out all the body parts, weigh them, look at them, examine them. Nobody really wants to think of their loved one cut up in that manner. But here you have MacNeill insisting that he clear the air and have an autopsy to determine cause of death. I find that very unusual.
DR. BILL MANION, MEDICAL EXAMINER: Well, Mr. -- or Dr. MacNeill thinks he`s a very smart guy. And remember, medical examiners are guided by the police and the investigators. And the sooner he has this autopsy done, the sooner you`re going to get a lousy autopsy that misses a homicide. So he`s very anxious to have this done quickly. Because he doesn`t want to have the investigators probe witnesses, probe neighbors, probe his mistress, and come to the medical examiner a few days later and say, this could be a homicide, you better be very careful with this case.
GRACE: Well, for those of you who have combed the preliminary transcripts, as have I -- unleash the lawyers. Skordas, Gottlieb, Park. Out to you, Gottlieb, speaking of the medical examiner and MacNeill demanding that his wife`s body be butchered in autopsy. He gets on the phone with the medical examiner and goes, hey, did you find anything unusual? And the medical examiner says, yes, she doesn`t have a uterus. And MacNeill burst into laughter, he was so relieved that the medical examiner hadn`t found out what happened. He started giggling like a schoolboy. You don`t think that`s odd?
GOTTLIEB: No, I think that after the death of a loved one, you go into acute traumatic stress. His demeanor after the fact doesn`t prove anything. We all act differently.
GRACE: Acute traumatic stress? Did you just say that?
GOTTLIEB: Yes.
GRACE: You mean, like you move your girlfriend in and move your wife`s clothes into a plastic bag in the garage, with her bloody clothes?
GOTTLIEB: Infidelity, Nancy, does not mean that he committed a murder.
GRACE: You`re the one who said (inaudible) behavior.
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: First of all, this is not polygamy, and polygamy is outlawed in the state of Utah. I don`t know why you keep going on about it. There may be some fringe sects that do it, but don`t throw all the Mormons in the same pot. Let`s go back into the courtroom, everyone.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: do you recognize what that is?
MACNEILL: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what is that?
MACNEILL: It`s Gypsy, Jillian Willis.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. You say Gypsy Jillian Willis? What is Gypsy`s relationship to the temple incident you described?
MACNEILL: That`s the woman that came up to me at the temple and spoke with me and my father.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was that the first time you had ever seen this woman? At the temple?
MACNEILL: At the temple?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that the first time you remember seeing her?
MACNEILL: I thought I had seen her at the funeral.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Whoa! You saw your dad`s lover at your mom`s funeral. Out to Jim Kirkwood at the courthouse, KTTK. Jim, she`s describing a meeting that she had with her dad`s lover at the temple. What is significant about that, Jim Kirkwood?
JIM KIRKWOOD, KTKK HOST: The temples in this community are really sacred places. And only for the highest ordinances of the LDS church, and to meet there was putting kind of a religious stamp on this whole meeting. I mean, he was playing his daughter Rachel really well, with her belief system. Which showed that he didn`t have the same belief system, even though he pretended to.
GRACE: So, bottom line, Jean Casarez, he devises a chance meeting with his children. He brings them over there for everybody to pray, then he leaves. And then suddenly, they meet Gypsy, the girlfriend, as she`s coming into temple. Then they meet, and then amazingly, she never does go into temple. She turns around and goes to her car, after the coincidental meeting. And then suddenly, he hires the lady he met at temple as the nanny, and moves her in.
CASAREZ: And that came into evidence before the jury today. That story we`ve heard before, now the jury has heard it, and after that, there was an e-mail that Rachel sent saying, I have just so many questions about all of this, and she diagrammed each and every aspect of that meeting.
GRACE: Let`s go back into the courtroom, Rachel on the stand.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you know when your father talked about going to the temple and praying about it?
MACNEILL: It was right away. Very soon after my mother`s death.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay. Did you in fact go to the temple?
MACNEILL: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you remember when that was?
MACNEILL: I believe that it was on Tuesday. My mother`s funeral was three days after her death.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Welcome back, everybody. We are live in Provo bringing you the Martin MacNeill facelift murder trial. Let`s go back in the courtroom.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MACNEILL: Right away I went looking for my mother -- I mean, my father. Sorry. I wanted to see -- make sure he was okay.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you find him?
MACNEILL: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you remember where he was?
MACNEILL: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where was that?
MACNEILL: He was in my parents` room, sitting on the couch. He was there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Do you recall, was there any other family members at the house when you went home?
MACNEILL: Alexis was there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you remember anyone else from the family that was there?
MACNEILL: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You mentioned you went to find your dad.
MACNEILL: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you found him in his room.
MACNEILL: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you speak to him?
MACNEILL: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did you speak to him about?
MACNEILL: I just went to -- I can`t even comprehend --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: There you see Rachel MacNeill on the stand, barely able to contain herself, as she testifies against her father, who she now believes is guilty of murdering her mother. Jean Casarez, the big questions on everybody`s minds tonight is, is the judge actually going to keep Ada, the 6-year-old, now 12, from testifying? The sole reason because she`s been living with the sisters, and there`s a fear the sisters may have tainted her testimony. That is not a legal reason for keeping her out. I can`t believe the judge would do that.
CASAREZ: Well, the issue they say is competence. It has to do with her memory, and that she has no memory because of that taint.
GRACE: Well, has she been questioned? Has she been asked the questions and those questions have revealed she has no memory?
CASAREZ: Here`s the chronology. The chronology is from 2007 to 2008 in September, almost a year and a half, she was never asked any questions until the child development here in Utah asked her questions. And Alexis said on the stand today she doesn`t think she ever asked her a question about it in that year and a half, and that begins the issue, at least for the defense.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Welcome back, everybody. Following up on the judge`s ruling that we`re waiting on, as to whether Ada, who discovered her mother dead in the bathtub, has any recollection.
Correct me if I`m wrong, Jean Casarez, but Ada testified at the preliminary hearing, and at that time she described in full detail about how she found her mother fully dressed in the tub, in that blue jogging suit, eyes open, looking up, hair going down the faucet. That`s what she said at preliminary.
So we know she has the memory. This is extremely significant, because this is how MacNeill says he found his wife, naked, hanging over the tub. That`s not how the girl found her.
He sends the girl away. And when she comes back with neighbors, mommy is almost completely nude in the tub. So he took her clothes off and hid them out in the garage, where Rachel found her bloody, wet clothing. He didn`t do CPR. He took her clothes off for her to be found that way by the neighbors.
CASAREZ: This is critical, Nancy, for the prosecution, and Doug Whitney today, who was the investigator that originally got this case, said that when Ada first told that to the Utah Child Justice Center, that it turned this investigation 360 degrees, because it was completely opposite with what they had been relying on, which was Dr. MacNeill.
GRACE: Jean, take a listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you remember if your mom was dressed or not?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what was she wearing?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kind of like a blue jogging suit?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A blue jogging suit. Okay. Did she have a top on?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What about bottoms?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: That`s her testimony, but now will the judge allow the jury to hear it?
Let`s stop and remember American hero, Marine Lance Corporal Kevin Artousky (ph), 23, Wheaten (ph), Illinois. Purple Heart, Combat Action Ribbon, National Defense Service Medal, loved basketball and video games, parents Steven and Mary, sister Carrie, brother Michael. Kevin Artousky, American hero.
And tonight, a sad farewell and good luck to our VJ (ph), our floor manager Brandon. His last day with us. He`s moving up with CNN. Brandon, walk slow and hurry back.
Everyone, court is done for the day. Dr. Drew is up next. I`ll see you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.
END
