The Murder of Tim MacNeil
For this case I watched an episode of Blood Relatives, which is narrated by Brenda Strong from Desperate Housewives. It’s season 2 episode 2, titled ‘Saints and Sinners.’
A successful lawyer is murdered in his own home.
Background
Tim MacNeil
Tim MacNeil was a very successful lawyer, living in San Diego, California. He met his second wife Doreen in 1990, after meeting her at his law office. She was going through a divorce, and was a single mom of two. Tim was also a single dad at the time, and the two bonded over that. They eventually fell in love and got married.
Tim welcomed Doreen’s kids Brae and Nathan with opened arms. He was described as being as very attentive dad, and would give his family anything they wanted. He provided them with a comfortable lifestyle, and it seemed like the blended family was happy. However, this family was far from perfect.
The Blended Family
Brae Hansen was 17 years old at the time, and was described as being beautiful and very smart. She was a honors student, and eventually wanted to become a lawyer or a judge.
Nathan Gann was 20 years old, and attended the University of Arizona. He was also described as being smart, but had struggled in his life. He actually moved to Arizona when he was 12, and moved in with his grandma.
Doreen and Tim’s marriage started to deteriorate. Doreen was apparently very depressed, and would drink a lot. In this episode, it was stated that Doreen’s behavior was the talk of the neighborhood. People would say things like she’s off her meds, which is very rude. This woman was clearly struggling, and it was no one’s business what she was going through.
Doreen ended up killing herself in the summer of 2006. A bottle of pills were found near her body when the police arrived. Tim had found her body and called 911. Brae and Nathan were devastated when they learned about their mom’s death.
Tim was upset too, but he moved on to another woman named Kim, just four months after Doreen died.
The Murder
On July 19, 2007, one day after Tim’s 63rd birthday, he came home to have lunch with Brae. Around 12:30pm, Brae called 911, and said they had been robbed. She told the dispatcher that her hands were bound with zip ties, and that the person had run off.
The police arrived shortly after, and found a horrific scene. A hysterical Brae was found just as she described, with her hands tied. In a nearby room, Tim was found dead. He had been shot multiples times, once in the back of the head, once in the front and once in the face. He was also stripped and bound.
The police needed to talk to Brae, who was the only witness. It took awhile for the police to calm her down. The police also found the phone on the pool table, and asked Brae how she called 911 if the phone was on the table. Brae said she was able to get to the phone and dial with her tongue.
Brae said a masked gunman came into the home. He ordered Brae to tie Tim’s hands, and then her hands were tied. She said the intruder knew that their was a safe in the house, and he demanded Tim to give him the code. Tim refused, and he was shot.
Brae said she saw the killer run out the back door, and flee down a path in the backyard.
The Investigation
The police wanted to canvass the now terrified neighborhood. There were a few witnesses who said they saw the gunman flee. One neighbor said they lived in a very hilly area, and that there were several shortcuts. The police searched the paths and shortcuts, and hit the jackpot. They found a black ski mask. The police knew they’d be able to get DNA from it, because it was about 90 degree in California, and they knew the killer would have been sweating.
The police also found the murder weapon. It was a .357 magnum, with the serial number still on it. When they ran the serial number, it came back as being registered to Doreen MacNeil. They learned that Doreen had kept that gun in her nightstand, so the police were convinced that Tim knew his killer.
A Strange Comment
Many people were looked into, some clients of Tim’s and his girlfriend Kim. However, they were ruled out.
After the murder, Brae went to live with Tim’s brother Rick and his wife Bonnie. One day they were watching the news, when a report came on about Tim’s death. A composite sketch had been made of the suspect, and Brae had made a comment about how the man’s face was all wrong. In her original interview, she said she never saw the killer’s face. Rick and Bonnie called 911, and said they believed Brae knew more about what really happened.
When Brae went to the police station, she told the police that the man’s jaw was too square. They asked her again to go through that day, and she slipped up and said Nathan had tied her hands up. She then said her brother was no where near California at the time of the murder.
The police had probable cause to arrested Nathan, and he was arrested at the University of Arizona. Brae was also held in custody.
An Inside Job
When the police questioned Brae again, she told them that Nathan had killed Tim. She said the night before the murder, Nathan had threatened her with the same gun.
At this time, the DNA came back from the ski mask, and it was a match to Nathan. He was confronted with the evidence, and he told them that Brae was the mastermind.
They didn’t actually have any physical evidence against Brae, but when they confronted her with Nathan’s statement, she confessed. She said she was upset when Tim started dating Kim, and said Tim stopped paying attention to her.
Brae and Tim had gotten really close after her mom died, and Brae seemed to love being the center of attention. Nathan was also really upset about Tim’s new relationship, and he and Brae would talk about it all the time. Nathan said that when he came over to kill Tim, he didn’t disguise his voice very well, and Tim knew it was him. Nathan said he started demanding answers, asking questions about whether Tim cheated on their mom and about her death. Nathan said he got really angry and shot Tim three times.
After their confessions, the police called Kim and said how lucky she was to be alive. She was supposed to go over for lunch that day, and got stuck at work. They told her she probably would have been killed as well.
Trial and Convictions
In March 2009, Brae and Nathan were tried together, but with separate juries.
Brae’s defense blamed Nathan, and Nathan’s blamed Brae. The prosecution said Brae was jealous, and she even admitted to this in her interrogation. She said:
“He was basically going to cut me out of his life completely. I knew he’d already chosen his girlfriend over me and it hurt really, really bad because this was the man I thought loved me, and was my dad.”
Despite the siblings having separate juries, they were both found guilty. Nathan was sentenced to 25 years to life. Brae was sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In 2015, her sentence was reduced to 26 years.
Brae Hansen
Nathan Gann in court
FINAL THOUGHTS
I understand feeling like someone had abandoned you, but I don’t understand how killing someone is the answer. I especially don’t understand how two people, two siblings, both agreed to killing their stepdad, who raised them from a very young age. I also think greed has something to do with it, this was a very successful lawyer, who had given them a comfortable lifestyle. I felt bad for them when their mom died in such a terrible way, but I don’t feel bad when they chose to murder someone.
I don’t think either of them deserve to ever walk out of prison. This was obviously pre-meditated, and it was horrific and brutal.
Sources
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/murder-on-marraco-drive/5/
https://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=7960747&page=1
