DSOTG #3: Sally McNeil, "Killer Sally"
Uncovering the grisly murder of Ray McNeil by his wife, Sally McNeil.
Valentine’s Day is supposed to be a day full of love, not murder. For Sally McNeil, roses turned to blood as she would take a shotgun and shoot her husband, Ray McNeil, two times, killing him in what she claimed to be self-defense.
Netflix came out with a documentary in 2022 called “Killer Sally”, that revisits the 1995 murder of her husband, Ray McNeil on Valentine’s Day.
The story of Sally and Ray’s relationship is toxic as all hell, if I’m being honest. From day 1, it just seemed like things weren’t going to end great. Sally repeats time and time again in the Netflix docu-series that she was abused by her bodybuilding husband and that she was this poor, battered wife who was left with no choice but to shoot her husband in self defense.
Court documents, police statements, and DNA evidence really say different.
There’s not a lot on Sally’s early life. From Sally’s words, she grew up in a violent household; Her father was an abusive alcoholic, and her mother wasn’t much better.
She was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania and joined the Marine Corps where she met Ray McNeil. The two shared a love for bodybuilding among other things, and were married just three months after one another.
When you look at Sally McNeil, she doesn’t fit any definition of “battered woman.” She was a Marine, she was a heavily muscled and physically strong woman, and a bodybuilder. She was the primary breadwinner for her family, making money by wrestling men, and selling her body to men who had a fetish for her strength.
Sally participated in what she dubbed as “muscle prostitution.” Per Marie Clare.com, “muscle prostitution is examined as a seemingly kink-filled activity which involved Sally dominating and wrestling men in hotel-rooms and, shrouded in shame, secrecy, and stigma, Sally claims that the money obtained from this line of work went to Ray’s steroid use.”
She was also a rather violent person herself. In 1990, -pnot only was she demoted within the Army and was refused re-enlistment, but McNeil was suspended for a year from the National Physique Committee after she attacked a woman who was allegedly having an affair with Ray. Then in 1993, when at a bar in her hometown of Allentown, she was dancing on a table in a bar and when a bouncer told her to get down, she kicked him in the face.
Other events that happened:
Hit her ex-husband, John Anthony Lowden in the head with a lead pipe and he needed eight stitches.
Assaulted numerous officers in two different police departments.
Assaulted two female babysitters and two unrelated adults
Arrested for willful cruelty to a child in 1990.
Sally & Ray
On the outside, this relationship looked great, the couple was thriving in the bodybuilding sport and taking the world by storm. Behind closed doors however — told an entirely different story.
According to Sally, Ray was an abusive man from the start of their relationship, recounting on how he beat her over 52 times in the year they were stationed in Okinawa, Japan.
“Ray beat me over 52 times in that year over there because he was having roid rages. One of those times was because I would not write a list of all the men I had dated…Ray choked me three times, on the third time, I had spasms.”
She also talked about how Ray broke her nose, partially tore her rotator cuff, among other things. But when she got an x-ray done, she didn’t want to tell the doctors what actually happened, because she was afraid of losing Ray; Another fault in this toxic relationship.
“I was in denial that Ray was abusive to me. My self esteem was so low. I didn’t think I could attract another man like Ray. I felt I was lucky to have him.”
The two of them were using steroids, but Ray was using multiple types of steroids in his bodybuilding journey.
“Anabolic steroid use was the root of Ray’s violence towards me,” Sally said. “When Ray and I got married in 1987, I had no idea that he was on steroids. So I did not know that he was suffering from ‘roid rage’ when he’d fly off the handle and beat the holy hell out of me.”
The couple were very back and forth when it came to their relationship status. The two were constantly leaving and then coming back, even when Ray called Sally “used goods.”
“I left him about three times and he followed me to my new address,” said Sally. “I was preparing to move back east where I was brought up and to the home I grew up in but I didn’t make it.”
Sally accused Ray of being unfaithful in their relationship, having multiple affairs throughout. Allegedly, Ray got another woman pregnant, and the woman had an abortion because he couldn’t leave Sally.
Some people went as far as calling Sally the ‘bully’ in the marriage, but she says she never was provoking.
“I was not the bully or provoker in my marriage. If a guy is beating you up because he mistrusts you, wouldn’t you be angry when you discover he is fooling around on you?”
Sally also suspected that Ray was not only seeing women, but was seeing men as well, saying he had several boyfriends, one that lived with them for nearly two years. These ‘boyfriends’ testified at Sally’s trial, denying all accusations that they encouraged abusive behavior from Ray.
With the two constantly fighting, people were starting to worry about the two children that were in the house, Shantina and John. A report from a neighbor once said that the kids were “never dressed properly for the weather and always appeared dirty, primarily because of dirty clothing.”
A neighbor also recounted a fight between Ray and Sally, which resulted in Sally throwing a weight from their second-floor balcony onto Ray’s friend’s car as he tried to get away.
“Sally attacked Ray as he tried to move out. She ran out of the apartment and jumped on a guy’s truck that Ray was in. The guy was helping him move. Sally ran back up to the second floor apartment and threw an entire weight set over the balcony. She displayed no regard to safety of any individuals below her. Thank god no one was hurt.”
Valentine’s Day 1995
A day that’s supposed to be full of love, was rather a night filled with rage and eventual death in the McNeil household.
Off the bat, it’s worth mentioning that Sally herself said in her “Killer Sally” interviews that her memory wasn’t the greatest and may not be the most trustworthy, so there’s likely some holes in what actually happened on this tragic night. There are in fact, several different retellings of this night, all involving different scenarios that occurred.
On the night of the murder, Ray returned home around 10:30PM with chicken for dinner. Sally got upset with Ray because the chicken came from a more expensive grocery store that they normally don’t shop at because they were already tight on money, so she didn’t understand why her husband didn’t just get the cheaper option. Sally also asked him what took him so long and if he had been with a girlfriend that she suspected Ray was seeing.
“On that night Ray attacked me, I did not provoke the incident. He started yelling at me because I was in the bathroom putting on make-up. I am allowed to put on make-up if I want to go out to a night club. He did not want me to go out to a club because I might meet somebody and leave him. That is what initiated the incident. Somehow the DA changed the story around…”
She told police that Ray slapped her and pushed her down to the floor where he then began to choke her. When she was able, she got up and ran into the bedroom where a shotgun was stored in the close. She then walked back to the kitchen where Ray was, blocking the entrance and shot him in the abdomen. Ray doubled over and started coming towards her, where she loaded the second round and shot him a second time.
The first shot ripped through his abdomen, exposing some of his liver and shattering ribs, and the second shot took off half of his jaw. In the 911 call, moaning can be heard in the background, as well as Ray saying, “Why did you shoot me?”
When paramedics arrived, Ray was surprisingly still alive, but was in rough shape. He was taken to the hospital, but would die just hours later. It would be the shotgun wound in his abdomen that would cause his death.
The Trial
Sally McNeil was arrested on murder charges, and ironically, the trial would start on February 14, 1996, a year to the day that the crime took place.
Prosecution would start off their arguments that Sally killed her husband for insurance money, as McNeil was actually looking at insurance policies on Ray. They also said that this murder was premeditated because she went back to the bedroom to reload the gun.
Sally would deny this and say that the killing happened in an act of self-defense as she thought that Ray was going to kill her if she didn’t stop him. However, DNA evidence would show that Ray didn’t scratch up Sally’s neck the night of the murder; His body was exhumed and examined for any trace in his fingernails, and his fingernails were too short to leave the type of marks that were on her neck.
She denied this, citing in an interview with RXMuscle that he did attack her.
“Do you think I would just lie there and let Ray choke me to death? If the finger nail marks were mine they were from me trying to get Ray’s hands from around my neck. Did you know that there were circular scratches on the back of my neck? I have no idea why this was never mentioned. It shows that a scuffle occurred and Ray had me down on the floor.”
A defense expert would testify that McNeil qualified to be a battered woman. The state agreed in that she was a battered woman, but not what the typical definition of battered woman would be.
Psychologist Lenore Walker coined the term “battered woman” in her 1979 book, The Battered Woman.
“Battered woman’s syndrome is the psychological effects of living with intimate partner violence,” Walker said. She also mentions how BWS is not a mental illness, but what can happen if you’re living day in and day out with trauma. Battered woman’s syndrome is also looked at another form of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Despite all of this evidence brought forth by the experts, the jury found Sally guilty of second-degree murder and was sentenced to 19 years to life.
In 2003, Sally would appeal her conviction to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, who at first, agreed with Sally and overturned the ruling. However, the State of California then appealed that decision to the US Supreme Court, where the appeal was overturned and Sally’s original conviction was reinstated.
Updates
Sally McNeil served 25 years in prison before being paroled in 2020. She has since re-married. She married Norfleet Stewart, a man she met at a support group.
Sally’s two children, Shantina and John were taken under care in a shelter but were then raised by their maternal grandmother when Sally was sentenced.
John Lowden Jr. was a special forces weapons sergeant in the Army where he did six tours in Afghanistan. He held the rank of sergeant first class when he was discharged.
Tragically, in February of this year, John was gunned down in Augusta, GA by 32-year-old Robert Ward. Ward was charged with murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime. John is buried at Fort Jackson National Cemetery in South Carolina.
Shantina obtained a degree in electrical and electronic engineering. She also worked in the Army for 16 years and completed two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. When she left the Army, she joined an aerospace and defense technology company.
All research done by me.
Sources:
Legacy.com
RXMuscle
“Killer Sally”, Netflix documentary
Histories and Mysteries (Blog)
Podcasts: Once Upon a Crime, True Crime Psychology and Personality, Murderish, Moms and Mysteries: A True Crime Podcast, Crime in Sports
Court Transcripts