Gypsy. Was she a motive for murder . In court, an epic showdown. Father against daughter. And daughter why were you seeking information as to your mothers death . Because i believed my father killed her. But was the evidence on his side . The medical examiners report listed it as a natural cause of death. Who will you believe . Im lester holt, and this is dateline. Heres Keith Morrison with secrets in Pleasant Grove. The story youre about to witness is all too human. Oh, what people will do to each other. And yet, puzzling. There were these three women. Wouldnt have a story to tell without them. Two sisters and their aunt. And what they discovered, of course, might make you wonder, can you ever really see the truth in the face in the mirror or the face beside you in bed at night . The story begins with a beauty queen. All right, a former beauty queen named Michele Macneill and she was look at this. She was truly lovely. But this is about what happened to michele the year she turned 50, the very last year of her life. Though she couldnt possibly have known it. As she contemplated a question a lot of people do as youth fades, plastic surgery. Should she or shouldnt she . She answered, for one reason or another, yes, yes, i will. And before long everything that we thought in our life was just all shattered. What happened to Michele Macneill . What was behind the breathless playbyplay in a utah courtroom, the raw family drama played out in full public view, the hidden sins of well, youll see. Here. This is a picture of their magical beginning. Both beautiful, michele and Martin Macneill. Everybody liked smart, charismatic michele from childhood on said her sister linda cluff. She entered different pageants. She won homecoming queen. And she did modeling. She was an Exchange Student in switzerland. She excelled at everything. Martin did, too, in his own way. Took a little while but eventually he became a doctor and then a lawyer and then a leader in his local ward of the church of the jesus christ of latter day saints. The mormons. But before he did any of that, back when this picture was taken, it was just unstoppable love. Did they like elope or something . Uhhuh. Did they just run off together . They got married by a justice of the peace. They had four children. Eventually set up house in a place called Pleasant Grove in utah and loved their family life so much they adopted four more little kids, three of them from ukraine. Alexis from the first set of four, followed her father everywhere, was his little shadow. You kind of idolized him, huh . I did. I wanted to follow in his footsteps in some way. I became a doctor because of him. So for people from the outside looking in, what would they see . A very happy family. A wonderful mother who doted on her children and a father who was a physician and an attorney and present a lot in their childrens lives. Rachel, the eldest, shared her fathers love of books. I remember when i was little just holding on to my fathers hand and just to walk with him and i was daddys little girl. And their mother, michele she was an amazing and beautiful person on the inside and out. And so it went for nearly 30 years. As he built a career and they together raised their big family. And then heres how martin reacted to middle age. Around the time he turned 50, he lost a lot of weight, started tanning hello . Yeah. It was very out of the ordinary. Right. Very abnormal for him. And thats when her mother michele confronted that question, the one about looking younger, getting something of the past back, the facelift question. Shes like, i dont really want it but if your dads getting all fixed up and looking good, then maybe i should. What did you say to her . I said, mom, you dont need that. Youre beautiful. I mean, she was incredibly beautiful. But decision made on april 3rd, 2007, michele checked into the hospital in bountiful, utah. The doctors worked on her for almost nine hours. A long time for a facelift. Still, they proclaimed to be complete success and the very next day she went home again. Her face covered in bandages. But otherwise, apparently in perfect health. Alexis had been with her mother for the surgery, stayed for a week to nurse her through her recovery and now relieved, alexis returned to her medical studies in nevada. My mom and my father dropped me off at the airport and i looked back, my mom was doing well, i smiled, and i said, ill call you soon. Which she did. I asked her how she was doing. She was fine. She was getting up. She told me that, alexis, your dad is being so sweet to me. Hes just being so sweet to me. And that was the last time i talked to her. That was april 11th, eight days after the surgery. When i came home from work, i i checked my cell phone and saw that i had missed i believe it was 20 something calls, and i called my father. I said, dad, whats happened . And he said, rachel, come home. And i said, dad, tell me. Tell me whats happened. Its mom. Is she okay . And my father said, rachel, come home. And then he just hung up. When we come back, what had happened to Michelle Macneill . The events of that day would launch a longrunning mystery. Whos in the bathtub . My wife one that would rip this closeknit family apart. It was horrifying. T was horr. This is a vanilla bean. I see vanilla specks. A little crushed vanilla bean. Twenty hundred vanilla specks. Breyers has fresh cream, sugar and milk. Breyers natural vanilla. Milk and fresh cream. And only sustainably farmed vanilla. Heres my ice cream dance. Ever spin on your head . Yeah. Once. Breyers. The good vanilla. Were proud to announce that our milk and cream come from cows not treated with artificial growth hormones. 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Amope. Love every step. She was just 50 years old. She had lived a clean, healthy, mormon life. All she wanted was to look a little younger, a little prettier for her husband and now police department. I need an ambulance. Okay. Whats the problem, sir . Medical. Sir, whats wrong . My wifes fallen in the bathtub. Whos in the bathtub . Whos in the bathtub . My wife dr. Martin macneill, panic in his voice, struggled to make the 911 operator understand. I need help they are on their way. Is your wife breathing . She is not. I am a physician. I have cpr in progress. Youre doing cpr . Yes sir, how old is your wife . My wife is 50 years old. She just had surgery a couple days, a week ago. What kind of surgery did she have . A facelift. She had a facelift . Yes. Do you know how to do cpr . I am doing it okay, do not hang martin performed cpr on his wife until the First Responders arrived, but it was too late. I called alexis. I said, alexis, whats happened . Somethings happened with mom. And i said, moms dead, isnt she . And alexis said, yes, she is. Martin said he left the house early in the morning for work. Later in the morning, he accepted an award at a safety fair. And then about 11 30, he left the office to pick up 6yearold daughter ada from school. When they got home, ada rushed up the stairs to see her mother and found her in the bathtub, unresponsive. It was horrifying. I mean, this was my mom, a vibrant, Healthy Woman who was just ripped out of the world. What happened . Michele was a young 50, didnt drink, didnt smoke. She was carrying more weight than she wanted to, but the only thing really out of e ordinary was the surgery she had just had. I wasnt concerned about the health aspect of her doing the facelift. I just didnt think she needed it. So, if a complication from the surgery seemed unlikely, perhaps this theory from martin made more sense. Maybe michele had taken too much pain medication, and while running a bath, fell headfirst into the tub. He said she was slumped over the tub, her head down into the water and her legs out of the water. But something about that didnt sound right to alexis. For one thing, 6yearold ada, who also saw her mother in the tub, had a slightly different memory. She said that she found her laying back, her head by the faucet. Facing up . Facing up, fully clothed and in her jogging suit. A strange discrepancy but not hard to explain given the turmoil of that day. But then alexis also remembered how after the facelift, micheles doctor prescribed hydrocodone, promethazine and ambien but that her father also requested ambien and percoset. To alexis, that seemed like too much medication. He told the Plastic Surgeon exactly what medication he wanted him to prescribe to her. Isnt it the surgeon that usually prescribes the medication . Oh, yeah. That was strange. Stranger still was what happened after michele died, when alexis went looking for those pills, asked her dad about them. Where were they . He told me, oh, the police must have taken them. But i later found out that he had my brother and his girlfriend flush them down the toilet and throw the bottles away and his reasoning for that, he told them that it made him too sad looking at having her medication there. Very unpleasant thoughts rattled around in alexis head and then there was the business of the funeral. My father was very adamant to have the funeral right away. And at the funeral, said his daughters, martin talked less about his wife of nearly 30 years than he did about himself. Lord, i thought i was your boy. Lord, i thought i was doing a good job. As the hours passed last night, the answer came to me. Ive had such a good life. Alexis and rachel were appalled by that and angry. But even as they pondered what to do with their blossoming suspicion, the autopsy results were released. And the police chief Michael Smith the results seemed crystal clear. The medical examiners report indicated that michele had died of myocarditis and hypertension and it listed it as a natural cause of death. In other words, it was classic Heart Disease, a cause of death all too common among women micheles age, especially someone with high blood pressure. The daughters suspicions, it turns out, were not based on any palpable facts. The drugs in micheles system were therapeutic levels said the toxicology report. As far as the state of utah was concerned, the matter was closed. The medical examiner in the state of utah is the ultimate say when it comes to the cause and the manner of death. But the tension in the macneill family worsened. Martin and alexis disagreed over how to care for the younger children now that michele was gone. He had started saying, im going to get a nanny. We need a nanny. I cant take care of these kids by myself. Coming up, Martin Macneill hires help. Nanny or not . Oh, i found the perfect nanny and i said, dad, whats her name . He said, oh, its jillian. And i said, dad, i know that woman. Yes, she did. And so will you. When dateline continues. Datel. Discover all the naturally moisturizing flavors of burts bees lip balm. Sfx ambient office sounds, a phone rings, laughter life makes you deal with things far outside your job description. Life needs ziploc sfx containers stacking sc johnson at baas hard as the family everthat earned it. Work thats why were putting more food in our salisbury steak dinners and adding real cream to our mashed potatoes. So now. Theres more to love with banquet. Now serving. A better banquet. Are you powered by protein . Milk has 8 grams to help give you energy to unleash your potential. Start every day with milks protein and milk life. Dont let dust and allergies get and lifes beautiful moments. With flonase allergy relief, they wont. Most allergy pills only control one inflammatory substance. Flonase controls six. And six is greater than one. Flonase changes everything. Every Auto Insurance policy has a number. But not every Insurance Company understands the life behind it. Those who have served our nation have earned the very best service in return. Usaa. We know what it means to serve. Get an Auto Insurance quote and see why 92 of our members plan to stay for life. There are many kinds of grief. Alexis and rachel were struggling with the angry kind. Not angry with their mother for dying. No. It was what grew from the suspicion they felt that their father was hiding something very bad. But still, there were practical matters to deal with, such as who should care for the four younger macneill children . Alexis returned to medical school so rachel volunteered. Their father, martin, insisted they find a nanny instead right away. He asked me he demanded that we go to the temple to pray about having a nanny, which was very strange, because my father was not a very spiritual person at all. And there outside the temple, they were approached by a mysterious brunette. She said, oh, i was at the funeral, and i am so sorry for your loss and my father said, oh, im sorry, i know i know whats your name . And she said, my names jillian. And my father said, oh, okay. About a week after that encounter, martin hired that friendly, sympathetic woman and told his daughters oh, i found the perfect nanny. I found someone thats going to be great. And i said, dad, whats her name . And he said, oh, its jillian i think its jillian. The name, jillian, didnt mean anything to rachel. But alexis i said, dad, i know that woman. I know mom was concerned you were having an affair with her. An affair . Well, yes. Or at least before michele died, that is certainly what she suspected. So worried about it, she asked alexis to help her find out for sure. My mom confided in me about everything, all of her feelings, her concerns. And so i took his cell phone and was able to download his password, and we did see a number that my dad had been calling quite a few times. You hacked into his phone . Uhhuh. Yeah. We called the number. And a woman answered and then hung up right away. So i paid for an Online Search and it came up with a name. And it was gypsy Jillian Willis. Gypsy Jillian Willis . Yeah. I mean, at first, we had no idea like gypsy, what kind of name is gypsy . I mean, we thought maybe it was a stripper. I dont know what. But anyway, my mom with that information, with the ladys name, went to my dad and confronted him. Martin denied everything, said alexis. And then the very next day, he made a curious suggestion. My father came to my mom and told her that she needs a facelift. That is i mean, lots of women decide they want facelifts. Yeah. But when their husband comes and says, you need one yeah. I mean, it was really out of the blue. The facelift that preceded micheles death. And now, here was gypsy jillian, martins choice for a livein nanny, someone he just happened to find. So, she got the job. She moved into the house, and this was just a couple of weeks after my mothers death. Martins daughter were furious. They wanted to know what other secrets their father had been keeping. They expanded their investigation. My sister put a blog up and was asking anyone with any information about my father to contact her. I mean, we discovered that he had had so many different affairs. There was a lot of Different Things that came out. With their aunt linda, they took all of the information they had gathered on martin and brought it to the authorities. Pushing and pushing to get them to investigate. The local police had never investigated micheles death as a crime, not from the very first day. And remember that coroners report . Micheles death was caused by Heart Disease. For us to be able to overcome Something Like a medical Examiners Office that says she died of Natural Causes is a huge task. But the women were relentless. They met with Jeff Robinson and doug witney who worked for the county attorney. You took them seriously right off the top, the daughters . Not really. But then they started to look at some of the evidence the amateur sleuths had gathered. Not added to murder, but still. They started to challenge a lot of things that their father, who he was, what he was, what he was doing. And so we thought, you know what, id like to find out if he really is a doctor. Yes. They learned martin did have a medical degree, but he fraudulently got into medical school. Absolutely. By faking the results of he obviously took somebody elses. Because there was a different date of entrance. There was a different date of graduation and all of them were straight as. Then they dug deeper and found that before he faked his college transcripts, martin was convicted of forging checks. Now to investigators, the respected doctor was looking anything but respectable. This tells me that this is not the guy that goes to church every sunday with his family. So there are two Martin Macneills . There are two Martin Macneills. Still doesnt mean he murdered his wife, does it . No, no. But to martins daughters, they looked at their fathers list of offenses, the fraud, the infidelity, how he encouraged their mother to have surgery and take so many drugs afterwards. And they were certain their father killed their mother. He betrayed us to our very core. I mean, everything that we thought in our life was all shattered. Its all a sham. It really is. Its been a whole sham. But not everyone in the family felt that way. Damian, martins only son, stuck by his father. He had a hard time after my mom died. I had talked to him about my concerns, and he didnt want to believe that my father was capable