Bodybuilder Sally McNeil Shot and Killed Her Husband on Valentine's Day. Here's Why She Still Claims Self-Defense By Emily Krauser

Sally McNeil shot her husband, Ray McNeil, on Valentine’s Day in 1995.

The pair, who were both former Marines and bodybuilders, met in June 1987 and married two months later. In doing so, Ray became a stepfather to Sally’s two children from her first marriage, daughter Shantina and son John.

But Sally and Ray’s relationship was tumultuous — Ray allegedly beat Sally, with Sally claiming to RXMuscle that she was hit numerous times during their marriage. Her kids sometimes witnessed the abuse or were abused themselves by Ray, as John alleged in the 2022 Netflix docuseries, Killer Sally.

“I was a good wife to Ray. I loved him,” Sally said in Killer Sally. “Valentine’s Day, that night, I wasn’t the best wife I could be. I was the worst wife there ever was. I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t want to die.”

After years of alleged abuse, Sally shot and killed her husband on Valentine’s Day 1995, hitting him once in the abdomen and then in the head. She was arrested the next day and, in 1996, she was convicted of second-degree murder. Sally has maintained that she shot Ray in self-defense.

Sally served 25 years in prison before being granted parole in May 2020.

Here’s everything to know about Sally McNeil’s crime and what happened to her.

Who is Sally McNeil?

Sally was born in Allentown, Penn., in 1960. Her father, Richard Dale Dempsey, was allegedly an alcoholic and abusive toward her mother, and the two divorced when Sally was little, per Killer Sally. Her mom remarried when Sally was 3, and she and Sally’s stepfather had two daughters together, Judy and Jill. In Killer Sally, Sally shared that she didn’t feel accepted by her stepfather, whom she claimed was abusive towards her.

After high school, Sally studied at East Stroudsburg State College, but dropped out of school with one semester left after running out of tuition money. Following in the footsteps of her brother and uncle, Sally joined the United States Marine Corps, working her way up to the title of Sergeant.

She first married fellow Marine Anthony “Tony” Lowden, with whom she welcomed two children, daughter Shantina and son John. However, she filed for divorce after getting transfer orders to Camp Pendleton in California. Their divorce was finalized on May 25, 1987.

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Sally began bodybuilding while serving at California’s Camp Pendleton, sharing in the docuseries that she was trying to “get bigger so I was stronger to protect myself.” She competed in her first bodybuilding competition on Valentine’s Day 1987, earning fourth place in the U.S. Armed Service Physique Championships, and would go on to win two championships.

After leaving the Marines in 1993, her focus turned to bodybuilding, and she later made wrestling videos, forming her own production company.

In the 1990s, Sally had several violent public outbursts, per Killer Sally. Those included attacking a woman who allegedly flirted with Ray and getting into a fight with five police officers, according to the docuseries.

Who was Ray McNeil?

Ray was born in North Carolina in 1965 and raised by his aunt. In the documentary, Sally said Ray “grew up in poverty” and that he was allegedly sexually abused as a child by another boy who was living at his aunt’s house.

Ray was a Sergeant in the Marines and began bodybuilding in 1983. In 1990, he and Sally became the first husband-and-wife duo to win the Armed Forces Bodybuilding Championships. That year, Ray left the Marines with ambitions to go pro in bodybuilding, per Killer Sally. He won the IFBB North American Championships and was named Mr. California in 1991.

Sally and Ray dealt with money issues, which weighed heavily on the family. Sally was involved in so-called “muscle prostitution,” in which she made up to $300 per hour by wrestling with men in hotel rooms or on mail-order videos, according to The Guardian and videos shown in Killer Sally. In 1993, she spent $24,000 on Ray’s bodybuilding endeavors, which included anabolic steroid use, per the docuseries.

In Killer Sally, Ray’s best friend, DJ Jeffers, described Ray as kind but noted that he had a short fuse. Meanwhile, Shantina described her dad as “totally Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — his personality, it always did flip.”

What was Sally and Ray McNeil’s relationship like?

In Killer Sally, Sally describes her and Ray’s attraction to each other as “lust at first sight.”

​​”He looked like the statue of David. He was beautiful,” she said, adding that he seemed “polite and kind.”

The couple married two months after meeting and moved into an off-base apartment in nearby Oceanside, Calif.

However, their relationship was violent and tumultuous from the beginning. In Killer Sally, Sally claimed that three days after they were married, Ray punched her in the face and split her lip. Throughout their marriage, he allegedly beat her and choked her. Ray once broke Sally’s nose in front of their children and she filed a report with her commanding officer, but Ray beat her until she promised to drop the charges, she claimed in the docuseries.

“Looking back I realize I was a classic case of Battered Wife Syndrome,” Sally told RXMuscle. “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.”

John also alleged in Killer Sally that his relationship with Ray “was a very violent one — he used to abuse and beat me a lot, especially when my mother was gone.”

In addition to the violence, Ray allegedly cheated on Sally multiple times, Sally told RXMuscle.

What happened on the night Ray McNeil was killed?

On Valentine’s Day 1995, Sally killed Ray with a shotgun.

That evening, Ray was late home for a Valentine’s Day celebration, Sally and her children said in Killer Sally. Sally decided to go to a local bar to look for Ray, and when he returned, she was putting on makeup in the bathroom. She later told police she believed Ray had a girlfriend, as shown in archival footage in Killer Sally.

The two got in a fight, with Sally saying in the docuseries that Ray hit her and then choked her. Shantina, who had retreated to her room after Ray got home, said she could hear her mom gasping for air.

Sally became afraid she wouldn’t “make it through this night.” After scrambling away, she got the gun from her bedroom and loaded it in the hallway. Sally told Ray to get out, and when he said no, she shot him twice — once in the abdomen, then again in the head, she said in Killer Sally.

“I just shot my husband because he just beat me up,” Sally can be heard saying in a 911 call played in Killer Sally.

Ray was on the ground and still breathing when Sally made the 911 call. He was air-lifted to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, Calif., where he died hours later.

In the Netflix docuseries, footage is shown from the police interrogation room during the night Ray was killed. There, John — who was in fourth grade at the time of Ray’s death — told his mom, “Remember that police officer [said] if you thought that he was gonna kill you, that was self-defense, because of the marks on you. Just tell them that.”

“I didn’t want it to be that way,” Sally told the detectives in the interrogation room. “I just wanted him to stop hitting me.”

Sally was later arrested for murder. “I was in shock,” she said in Killer Sally. “I killed the man that I loved the most in the world.”

Did Sally McNeil go to prison?

In Killer Sally, Sally called her trial a “nightmare.”

Sally’s Marine past and bodybuilding career were used against her, as was her violent past. The prosecution argued that Sally was “too strong to be battered,” saying Ray’s killing was premeditated because she shot Ray twice and that Sally had been jealous of Ray’s affair.

In November 2022, Killer Sally director Nanette Burstein told Newsweek that Sally’s wrestling video character name, Killer Sally, “came back to haunt her.”

“The most blatant [example of sexism] is the prosecutor arguing during the trial that Sally could not possibly be a victim of violence, because she is a ‘violent’ person, and a violent person cannot be a victim of violence, which is absurd and in the fact that she was also strong, she couldn’t have been a [so-called] victim of violence,” she continued. “I mean her husband, Ray McNeil, had a history of abusing her, and weighed 100 pounds more than her in pure muscle.”

Sally was convicted of second-degree murder on March 19, 1996, and ultimately received a sentence of 19 years to life.

She entered Valley State Prison (VSP, formerly Valley State Prison for Women) in Chowchilla, Calif., on May 1, 1996, per Killer Sally. After Sally’s arrest, her children were sent to live with Sally’s parents in Allentown, and they continued to live with their grandparents after Sally’s sentencing.

Sally appealed her sentence, and in 2003, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned her conviction, per A&E. However, the state of California took the case to the Supreme Court, which reversed the appeal. In 2005, they reinstated Sally’s original conviction.

Sally served 25 years in prison before being granted parole on May 29, 2020. She has maintained that she shot her husband in self-defense.

Where is Sally McNeil now?

After being let out on parole in 2020, Sally lived in a Veterans Transition Center home in Northern California and worked at a warehouse.

She met her now-husband, Norfleet Stewart, at a Veterans Transition Center support group. According to a GoFundMe page started after Hurricane Helene, Sally now lives in Hephzibah, Ga. Her son, John, died on Feb. 28, 2024, per his obituary.

“I didn’t deserve this sentence of 19 years to life. I want to do an appeal on what happened, but I’m just so happy I’m free,” Sally shared in Killer Sally.