The Controversial Story Of Bodybuilder ‘Killer Sally’ McNeil And Her ‘Roid Rage Murder’ Of Her Husband

In February 1995, Sally McNeil murdered her husband Ray, a fellow bodybuilder — then alleged that he’d been physically abusing her in a in good shape of rage introduced on by his steroid use.

Sally and Ray McNeil ended up much from a typical couple. For starters, they had been equally ex-Marines and entire world-course bodybuilders. Ray, 256 lbs . of muscle, was named Mr. California in 1991. Sally had received the U.S. Armed Products and services Physique Championship 2 times in the late 1980s.

They experienced been married for seven years, but their relationship was anything but pleasurable. They experienced frequent arguments spurred on by clashing egos and jealous machismo — arguments that generally turned violent when Ray’s anger was fueled by the many steroids he was having.

Then, on Valentine’s Working day in 1995, a single combat turned out to be their last. Sally grabbed a 12-gauge shotgun and fired it at Ray, blasting open his abdomen. As he lay on the floor, she fired a 2nd shot into his jaw. Two hrs later on, he was dead.

As news of Ray McNeil’s demise swept by means of the bodybuilding local community, several were fast to position to Sally McNeil’s power as proof that she could not have been abused. She was named a assassin and sentenced to 19 yrs to life in a court docket circumstance that is now the subject of the Netflix documentary Killer Sally.

Ray And Sally McNeil’s Early Partnership

In 1987, two Marine Corps officers achieved while stationed at Camp Pendleton in close proximity to San Diego. Their names have been Sally and Ray.

Ray was a 23-calendar year-aged wannabe bodybuilder. Sally was 27, currently a mother of two and divorced immediately after a tumultuous young relationship.

Sally and Ray immediately hit it off and married quickly immediately after, in accordance to Muscular Improvement.

Sally’s armed service career, even so, arrived to an stop in 1990 when she was demoted because of to inadequate general performance. Unable to re-enlist, she created her cash through “muscle worship,” or charging guys to wrestle with her. She marketed herself under the identify “Killer Sally” or “Killer McNeil.”

Sally finally built ample money via these novice wrestling matches that Ray was able to leave the Marines and pursue bodybuilding entire-time, and in 1991 he was named Mr. California.

But the couple’s obsession with bodybuilding produced them desperate, and they started out working with steroids to place on the muscle mass they sought after. And irrespective of Ray’s hulking frame, he was incessantly jealous and apprehensive that Sally would leave him. In mix with the steroids, this made him inclined to anger-fueled outbursts, a.k.a. “roid rage.”

Tragically, Sally claimed, Ray usually took this anger out on her.

How The McNeils’ Marriage Turned Violent

“Ray was incredibly insecure and this made him really jealous,” Sally described in an job interview with Leigh Penman in 2009.

“I should have left him following the 3rd working day of our marriage. He defeat me up due to the fact the Warrant Officer who was in cost of me told Ray he must not have married me mainly because I was ‘used goods’. Ray received mad mainly because I had dated two other men before I met him. I was crushed up unmercifully,” Sally explained.

Sally claimed that when she satisfied Ray, she had no clue he was on steroids. It immediately grew to become apparent, however, as a lot of incidents remaining Sally crushed and bruised as a end result of his outbursts.

When, he broke her toe throwing her across the space. A different time, he wrenched her shoulders so badly that she tore a rotator cuff.

At the exact same time, Ray was on a regular basis obtaining affairs with other females and adult males. For a time period, Sally mentioned, just one of Ray’s boyfriends had even been living with the pair.

“I asked Ray to make sure you convey to him to move out,” she stated. “He was suggest to my young children. He would lock them out of the house when I was not home. He and Ray need to have been in the apartment acquiring intercourse and did not want to get walked in on by my little ones or caught in the gay act.”

She claimed that this incident led Ray’s boyfriend to lie when he testified during her trial, a trial that painted Sally not as a target, but as an equivalent to Ray in terms of physicality — and susceptible to intense outbursts herself.

Sally McNeil’s Arrest And Demo For The Murder Of Her Partner

Ray McNeil arrived house from the gymnasium late on Feb. 14, 1995, and as he was planning hen in the kitchen area, he and Sally began arguing, as described by New York Every day Information. The disagreement turned bodily, and Ray allegedly experimented with to choke Sally — so she shot him 2 times with a shotgun.

At least, which is the version of situations that Sally’s legal professional laid out at her trial.

“On that night time Ray attacked me, I did not provoke the incident,” Sally recalled. “He commenced yelling at me for the reason that I was in the rest room putting on make-up… He did not want me to go out to a club because I could possibly fulfill somebody and go away him. That is what initiated the incident. In some way the DA improved the story close to.”

A toxicology report observed five different types of steroids in Ray McNeil’s technique. Sally claimed to have stopped getting steroids by the time of the incident, nevertheless one particular type was found in her bloodstream as properly.

The prosecuting lawyer, Dan Goldstein, didn’t see the muscular Sally McNeil as the victim she claimed to be, having said that.

Her testimony painted Ray as a dishonest steroid addict, inclined to “roid rage” when he turned jealous, but Goldstein explained Sally as “anything but a battered spouse. She is 1 of the most violent individuals I have ever prosecuted.”

Her ex-husband, Anthony Lowden, supported the presentation of this variation of Sally McNeil. After she took up bodybuilding, he claimed, she grew to become “unhinged.”

“As sure as Ray McNeil lies useless, it could’ve been me,” he said.

In reality, in 1990, Sally experienced been arrested for pulling a gun on Lowden and smashing his vehicle windows with a crowbar. A number of days afterwards, she dropped a 70-pound body weight onto Ray McNeil’s vehicle from a balcony. Later on that yr, she attacked police officers who were being identified as to test on her children’s wellbeing.

And in 1993, she reportedly went “berserk” following a bouncer explained to her to cease dancing on a desk at a bar. When police have been called in, she assaulted them, way too.

Yet it was Sally McNeil herself who known as the law enforcement to report that she had shot her partner.

“Running is a signal of guilt,” she said. “I faced the audio. I believed in the justice program at that issue, even so the DA did not want to listen to the truth… I could possibly as effectively have let Ray get rid of me that night time. My young children shed their mom anyway.”

Clearly, there had been two dramatically various sides to this tragic tale — and the jury seemed to obtain some truth in Goldstein’s. Sally was located guilty of next-diploma murder and sentenced to at least 19 yrs in jail.

Now, more than 20 many years afterwards, Sally McNeil has been paroled and was able to share her side of the tale with documentarian Nanette Burstein.

Potentially general public opinion toward her will modify. Or perhaps not.

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Sally McNeil’s story isn’t above, but whilst waiting around for the summary, read about Betty Broderick, yet another scorned girl who shot her ex-spouse and his new spouse in their bed. Or, learn the tale of Pupetta Maresca, the elegance queen and mob wife who shot her husband’s killer.