Trial Opens on Doctor Accused of Killing Wife.
BANFIELD: In "Crime and Punishment," out to Provo, Utah. Take a good look at this picture behind me. Day one today of a murder trial six years in the making. They look like a very happy couple. But Martin MacNeill, a wealthy, handsome doctor, he's a Sunday school teacher, too. He's also the father of eight children. And he is a defendant, accused of drugging and drowning that beautiful wife of his, a beauty queen in their bathtub in their home. The medical examiner who performed the autopsy actually concluded that she died of natural causes, all of this following face-lift surgery. But here's where it gets weird. Their daughters said they knew something else was up.</s>UNIDENTIFIED DAUGHTER OF MARTIN MACNEILL: My mother told me -- I was helping her wash her hair, and she said, Alexis, if anything happens to me, make sure it wasn't your father.</s>BANFIELD: Michelle MacNeill died April 11th, back in 2007. The prosecutors say, and it took them a long time to get here, they say it was in fact murder at the hands of her husband. And the motive, a mistress by the name of Gypsy. I'm not kidding. A mistress by the name of Gypsy who ultimately became the brand-new nanny as soon as the wife was out of the way. Perhaps no one better to talk about this case than HLN's Nancy Grace. He she's in the courtroom and live in Provo, Utah. I have seen you making a few comments about this case in the lead up to it. It reads like a Steven Gresham novel, it's remarkable some of the details. But get me up to speed on why you're so certain that this man is guilty of this crime.</s>NANCY GRACE, HOST, NANCY GRACE: Well, let me, first, address what's go on in the courtroom. I just walked out of court, opening statements are going on right behind me, and I'm hearing all sorts of facts that we were not privy to. Facts such as how the doctor, the defendant, Dr. MacNeill forced his wife into having this face-lift. I thought that he just persuaded her to. But now I learned that she was advised not to have the surgery. Her attending physician told her over and over, her blood pressure was too high. Following this consultation, and there were witnesses to this, the defendant turns to his wife and says, I've already paid for the surgery, we're going forward as scheduled. His wife, now dead, went on and on how she wanted to lose a few pounds to get her blood pressure under control. The doctor would not let her. I also heard about the morning that Michelle MacNeill died. I heard about all of the conflicts in testimony. And I heard the way that Dr. MacNeill, according to prosecutors, carry on in front of the EMTs and neighbors that were there, about how he begged his wife not to have the surgery, that she clearly overdosed on medication, medication that he insisted she had. I heard about her older daughter, Alexis, who is a medical student, how she left her dad alone with her mom for just a few hours, came back, and she was over sedated and unconscious for an entire day. At that point, Alexis and her mother became so suspicious of Dr. MacNeill and what medications he was giving his wife, her head was bandaged, it was a face-lift, she couldn't see the pills, she begged her doctor to let her feel the pills so she could understand what her husband was putting in her mouth and saying swallow, swallow. I learned this, in the last hour, that at the time she died, she was only on two percoset pills a day. But when they came and pulled her body out of the tub, she had a cocktail of multiple drugs that she had ingested. I'm very surprised. I was also very surprised that the defense jumped into the opening statement and objected, and the judge asked over and over, what's your legal basis, why are you interrupting the state's opening statement? The defense could never give a legal basis, they were just trying to interrupt. I don't know if the jury caught that but I did.</s>BANFIELD: 10 seconds left. It's critical to note that the daughters, four natural born children of this couple, there are also four adopted kids, but the daughters have actually turned against their father. They've shown up with photographs in court of their mother, and at least one or two of them is going to testify against him, right?</s>GRACE: I've talked to the daughters in depth and I don't know that I would call it turning against their father, the very first day Alexis came home and all of Michelle's clothing, this is within a couple of hours of her being pronounced dead, all of her clothes, her shoes, her hose, perfume, body lotion, hair brushes, all were packed up and moved away. This is within hours of her being pronounced dead, only he knew that he was planning to move his mistress in within days and she needed a closet. Hello!</s>BANFIELD: At the time this was not a mistress, this was the new nanny coming to look after the littler four children --</s>BANFIELD: -- and turned out she was no nanny, she didn't even look after the kids?</s>GRACE: No, that was their testimony. Another thing I also have just learned, I learned that one of the sisters, adult sisters called the other into a closet and shut the door so nobody can hear them, and one says, "I think dad killed mother, I think daddy killed mother." So this was all happening contemporaneously. They didn't just cook this up in the weeks and months following their mother's death.</s>BANFIELD: I've stolen two extra minutes because this is such a fascinating case. We saw a picture on the air of a woman in jailhouse clothing. It's Gypsy Willis, the mistress who became the immediate nanny, literally within days of the death of the wife. And then ultimately she and the doctor were convicted of crimes relating to trying to give her a new identity. Could you explain what happened? Why has this man already spent time in prison?</s>GRACE: You know what? You know what? You're a mom, and this is going to make your stomach clench. They had four children between and adopted four children, some from the Ukraine. After Michelle died, he, Dr. MacNeill -- I'm pointing behind me, in the courtroom back there -- tried to give back the four adopted children. Why? Because he took one of the little girls' identity and gave it to his mistress so she could get credit and falsely apply for loans under someone who didn't have a bad credit history. Can you believe that? Give back, give back your children? I only wish I could have four more children. Give back children? I don't know if the jury's going to hear all of that.</s>BANFIELD: Yes, you said, can I believe it? Yes, because you and I have seen enough go through the courtrooms throughout this United States to make our skin crawl I have heard worse. Keep us posted on the case. It's only day one. Lots more to come. Thank you. Thank you for being on the show today.</s>GRACE: Thank you. I'm headed back in the courtroom.</s>BANFIELD: OK. Good luck to you. Nancy Grace, joining us from Provo, Utah. We'll keep up coverage of the martin MacNeill murder trial at 8:00 p.m. On our sister network, HLN, Nancy Grace will have a full accounting. I'm out of time. I've borrowed two extra minutes from the next show. Thanks for watching. AROUND THE WORLD starts right now.