Sally and Ray McNeill seemed indestructible. Former Marines, professional bodybuilders, the perfect couple to the outside world.
Inside that California home, there was another story. Ray abused steroids and suffered from episodes of uncontrollable rage that he took out on Sally by beating her, again and again, while jealousy and infidelities poisoned everything else. On Valentine’s night in 1995, after she accused him of having another woman, Ray began choking her. Sally ran to the bedroom, grabbed the family shotgun, and shot him in the abdomen.
That wasn’t the end. She went back for another shell, reloaded the gun, and shot him again, this time in the face. “I just shot my husband because he was beating me up”, she said through tears to 911. The prosecution argued that the second shot, with Ray already on the floor, ruled out any claim of self-defense. Sally was convicted of second-degree murder. She spent 25 years in prison and was released in 2020, when no one could give her back any of what she had lost.
