The 2013 Dateline episode “Secrets in Pleasant Grove” investigates the murder of Mormon mother of eight Michele MacNeill. The 50-year-old former beauty queen was found dead in her bathtub in 2007. Her husband, physician Martin MacNeill, was convicted of her murder. He was also convicted of fraud — for stealing the identity of his 16-year-old daughter to erase the debt of his mistress Gypsy Willis. MacNeill was also accused of sexually abusing his adult daughter Alexis one month after his wife’s death.
[Related: Dateline: Martin MacNeill Mistress Gypsy Willis Off Probation]
Three years after Michele’s death, in January 2010, Michele and Martin’s only son Damian MacNeill, 24, committed suicide (overdosing on prescription drugs). Seven years after Damian’s death, in April 2017, Martin MacNeill committed suicide in the Utah State Prison where he was serving a life sentence. He used a hose and a natural gas line inside the prison greenhouse which he had authorized access to. MacNeill was approved to take care of the plants. He was 60. It wasn’t Martin MacNeill’s first suicide attempt in prison. In 2013, he tried to commit suicide in his cell by cutting himself with a disposable razor. Dateline NBC airs Fridays at 10pm.
