May 16, 2009
48 Hours: Daddy's Girl
Did A Brother And Sister Conspire To Murder Their Stepfather?
-
Play CBS Video Video Brae's 911 Call On July 19, 2007, San Diego 911 dispatchers received a call from Brae Hansen, saying a masked intruder shot and killed her father. Listen to an excerpt of the call.
-
Video Nathan's Interrogation Nathan Gann re-enacts the moments before Tim MacNeil's death and suggests a motive. Jurors never got to see his initial statement to police, which a judge ruled inadmissible at trial.
-
Video Erin's Wedding For Erin MacNeil Ellison, July 19, the date of her father's murder, will always be significant for another reason.
-
Photo Essay Murder On Marraco Drive The crime scene, evidence and family photos.
Tim MacNeil had come home at noon to have lunch with his stepdaughter, Brae.
"Dispatchers received a phone call, from Brae Hansen…she and her father had been tied up and she described witnessing this masked intruder shoot and kill her father right in front of her," says Detective J.C. Smith. "…the victim was face down in a pool of blood. He was wearing a dress shirt and no pants. There was a zip tie near one of his hands."
The 911 Call
Listen to excerpts of Brae Hansen's call to police following the murder of Tim MacNeil.
“The stepdaughter, Brae Hansen, had been zip tied, was crying," says Investigator Burkett. "She was upset, she saw what happened," adds J.C. Smith.
Based on the information they had, investigators thought a masked intruder was still on the loose. They believed Brae, 17, the only surviving victim of the crime, was now their best eyewitness.
"A lot of times we don't have witnesses in murder cases, so she was our number one key to getting who did this," Burkett tells 48 Hours contributing correspondent Tracy Smith.
If they were going to solve the case, police needed her help.
Brae told investigators the shooter fled out the back door, where the gun had been found. Next, police canvassed the neighborhood on foot and with search dogs hoping to find more evidence and witnesses.
"I heard, pop, pop, pop, pop," neighbor Ernest Torgeson says. "I didn't think anything of it and then 20 minutes later, something like that, the place was just crawling with police and helicopters."
People in the neighborhood say they heard the shots and then they saw a young man jump out of hedges and take off in broad daylight down the street and up a flight of stairs.
"You could see he was definitely putting a lot of effort into it and he was definitely trying to run away from a situation," eyewitness Christopher Miles explains. "He immediately started to run directly down [the] path and all the way up the stairs… at that point that’s where I lost track of him."
Investigators soon discovered two key pieces of evidence near the stairs.
"About halfway or three quarters of the way up the stairway, where witnesses saw this person running from house, up in a tree, they found a wad of black clothing that got caught in a branch. That was a black shirt and the mask," says J.C. Smith.
Neighbors, like Torgeson, were stunned by the murder of Tim MacNeil.
"We didn’t go out and have dinner or anything like that," he says, "but it’s someone you see on a regular basis - you say 'hi' and, you know, to see them gone, it’s like wow - it hits you hard."
Police were also surprised. "He doesn’t fit the stereotype of the typical homicide victim," J.C. Smith explains. "He didn’t live a high-risk lifestyle, his behavior - his activities weren’t something that you would expect someone to kill him.
Tim MacNeil, 63, was a well-respected defense attorney.
"He was a great guy, the best possible big brother I could ever have," says Rick MacNeil. Younger brother Rick says Tim also had a wicked sense of humor. "He was a very big joker. He could find humor in just about anything."
College fraternity brothers Dr. Jim Wilson and John Keifer say Tim MacNeil had skills on the court and in the courtroom.
"We played basketball together. He was called 'The Spider," says Wilson.
"He was a master in the courtroom and he won all the time," adds Keifer. "I never saw him lose a case."
Erin MacNeil Ellison, Tim's daughter from his first marriage, describes her father as, "the funniest, most easy going, nicest guy. He just could walk into a room and work it. He could talk to anybody."
After divorcing Ellison's mother, Tim MacNeil met and married Doreen Hansen and quickly took on the role of stepfather to her young daughter, Brae.
"Brae always called me her sister," says Ellison, "and since I didn’t have any other siblings, and she was younger than me, I always let her kind of do that… She was super happy. She was always smiling. She was smart. She learned French, she could speak French fluently."
Brae shared a close relationship with Tim McNeil. "Oh, he was 'daddy.' It was 'daddy,'" says Ellison. "I never even called him 'daddy.'"
"Brae was just cute, Tim really liked her," says Bonnie MacNeil, Tim's sister-in-law. "She called him 'daddy.' Everything a father does, he did."
With a deep sigh, Ellison says her dad treated Brae "really, really well. Even in the will, you know, it was this 'I raised her as my daughter' I mean it was a split 50/50, so I think that pretty much says how important she was to him."
When Ellison learned the terrible news about her father’s murder, she immediately thought of her stepsister. "Where is Brae? How is Brae? Is she OK?"
Ellison got a call from her Aunt Bonnie telling her Brae was safe. "And when I heard that I just went, 'Oh my God, what is she going to do now?'"
As investigators continued to interview Brae that afternoon, they came back to one part of her story that puzzled them: Brae had told the 911 operator the masked gunman had disguised his voice.
"I think we asked a second time, 'What was the suspect’s voice disguised like?' And we heard 'a cartoon character,'" J.C. Smith says. "People who do home invasion robberies, they want to come across as very intimidating. It was just unusual. I haven’t heard in my entire police career that a home invasion robber used a cartoon character voice. And think we both thought it was a little strange."
Several hours after the shooting, police took Brae to her Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Rick's house.
"They had asked Brae if there was a place that she wanted to go where she would feel safe, and she wanted to come to our house," says Bonnie MacNeil.
As police continued to question her there, the 17-year-old said another strange thing: she called the masked gunman by the name "Nathan."
J.C. Smith says, "Brae said 'Nathan.' Detective Rivera wrote it down, let Brae continue to talk, and she switched back to the masked intruder and Detective Rivera let Brae finish her statement and then said, 'You said the name Nathan a few minutes ago.' It wasn’t so much that she said the name Nathan, it was when she denied saying it."
Investigators were growing suspicious. Brae Hansen, the surviving victim of a brutal crime, was beginning to look like she knew more than she had at first let on. And sure enough, after police left for the night, Brae said yet another strange thing.
As her cousin, Shelly, showed Brae a sketch of an unmasked man neighbors described running in the neighborhood shortly after the shooting, Rick MacNeil says, "…she said something to the effect of, 'Oh, no. His chin wasn’t that square.'"
"Shelly looked at her and said, 'Oh, really? I thought you said he was wearing a mask?' says Bonnie MacNeil. "Brae just kind of backed up and Shelly came out and called Rick. Rick said, 'Call the detectives.'"
When investigators heard that Brae had described the gunman’s face, they knew she had been lying to them all along. They rushed back to Rick and Bonnie MacNeil's house. Their victim was now a suspect.
"We thought we had enough at that point to arrest her," says Burkett. Around 11 p.m. that night, less than 12 hours after the crime, Brae Hansen was arrested for the murder of her stepfather, Tim MacNeil.
"She stood right up, turned around and put her hands behind her back," says J.C. Smith. When asked if that's typical behavior, he says, “it’s typical of someone who knows they’ve been caught."
"If you’re not guilty, you’re gonna protest," adds Burkett.
Investigators were now sure that Brae was somehow involved in her stepfather's murder. They began to interrogate her to find out exactly what she had done and why.
"I was initially surprised at how small she was," J.C. Smith says. "She was tiny, she was a little, tiny girl."
Brae Hansen knew she was caught. She began to give investigators details about a complicated and diabolical plot to kill her stepfather.
"At first I thought my dad had won and that Nathan had gotten shot," she tells them. "But then I looked back and I saw my dad saying, 'You shot me, you killed me.'"
Brae's Interrogation
Watch excerpts of Brae Hansen's interview with San Diego police.
It was a plot she said was executed by Nathan, her older brother and Tim’s stepson. It was a plot that got out of hand. Brae says she couldn’t stop it.
"You did everything you could to stop it?" asks Tracy Smith.
"[I did] everything in my mind that I could think of at the time to stop it," Brae says in an exclusive interview with 48 Hours Mystery. "I did think about calling the police once or twice and I had it dialed. I just couldn’t push the send button. I was too afraid."
Produced by Marcie Spencer, Gayane Keshishyan and Ira Sutow
© MMIX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Recent Segments
Scroll Left Scroll Right
- 1
- 2
- 3
- next
See all 41 CommentsI personally don't think Nathan is guilty. Why would he leave his life in Arizona to murder someone he had no connection to? He was an honor student, could speak different languages, had a girlfriend that loved him,it just doesn't make sense.
On the other hand,he did not have gun powder residue on his hands.Many neighbors that saw a man run out of the house, could not identify him or his truck at the crime scene. A long hair was found on the gun that belonged to Brae, the gun was found placed in a way,that would have been a natural way for a right handed person to drop-but Nathan is left handed, whereas Brae is right handed. There is no physical evidence that shows that he was in Tim's house.
He may have well confessed in that video that we saw, because the cops are telling him that his sister is going to fry, his poor little sister. Maybe he felt he had to stand up for her, and thus say what he said on that video. The video doesn't clearly show that he actually knew what had happened.
When the sister slipped and said his name, it was when one of the detectives was asking her again, to state what had happened in the murder house.(The Macneil's brother said, that at gun point Tim would not have refused to give the combination of the safe, he thought there had to be more to the story and asked the detective to interrogate brae one more time) She said, she was zip tied, and then "since her dad wanted to go to the bathroom" Nathan unzipped her hands so she could take off her dad's pants, and then zip tied her again.
¬¬...I think she took down his pants to humiliate him,it makes no sense that someone at gun point would ask to go to the bathroom. It also makes no sense that nathan would take the time, to unzip her, then zip her up again, just so she could take off her dad's pants. she had to explain why her fingerprints were on her dad's belt, and she may have panicked and started making that part up, and since she usually blamed her brother for everything she said his name...
I don't care if that girl was 17 at the time. She had sense to plot a murder like an adult. She spoke so eloquently and calm. Her brother was just a plain Liar. A rapist, murderous Liar.
What's wrong with our kids today? We try to give them all that we can out of love and caring. I guess it just isn't enough, ever. To the stepfather Tim MacNeil. Rest In Peace.
I hate it when people are so stupid as to accept DNA evbidence and never think beyond the DNA on the item.
Of course by the whole of what as shown they did it as a team, nonetheless, to claim the DNA on the mask proves anything by claiming Nathan's DNA should not be on it is ridiculous. With Brae in the house she could have grabbed it after Nathan left it then handed it off to the real shooter. Simple. Not saying it happened that way at all - I'm just saying people ought to THINK before they declare a piece of evidence something that proves guilt, then make a false statement trying to back that up.
I'll tell you it's scary how easily people are fooled nowadays.
This Brae character seems very spoiled, even though she is from a broken home. Her step father opened his heart, home, & wallet for her; this murder was the ultimate betrayal.
I hope she rots in jail.
The pants-down issue is a red-herring. I don't doubt that Tim MacNeil was a wonderful man and father-- he raised Erin MacNeil Ellison, a young woman with the strength and grace to feel true compassion for the step-siblings who murdered her own father.
I am shocked by those comments which indicate an evident desire to blame the victim. Not only was the victim attacked in the intimacy of his home, but he is being blamed for being undressed because he was attacked while preparing for an evening out. Was he supposed to just zap his clothing onto his body?
It looks as though this man made a big mistake when he got involved with this troubled woman and her children. Maybe he enjoyed coming to their rescue, and helping out. But the girl seems unusually uneducated and desperate to be the daughter of an accomplished, educated attorney. I am sure that the dynamics of this dysfunctional family is the cause behind all this. Her stepfather had made her and her mother dependent on him. Her complete financial and emotional helplessness and dependency made her feel angry, enraged. Somehow, someone had fostered a sense of desperation and anxiety in her. Had she beene encouraged to develop as a person on her own? Had she been overly spoiled? I am sure that the step-son was dealing with similarly powerful feelings of incompetency, dependency, rage and betrayl accompagnied by additonal feelings of rejection. All these tumultous feelings are akin to a bomb waiting to explode. If they had not had easy access to a gun, maybe the man would alive to this day. Then again, they were such diabolical people, maybe they would have shot chemicals into his bloodstream as the needles seem to indicate. Horrible story.
Posted by stickdog3
=====================
I think you are overlooking the inheritance money and a new wife would certianly leave her less than 50/50.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- next
See all 41 Comments