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

Valentine’s Day Killing of Bodybuilder Ray McNeil: Inside Sally McNeil’s Case and Where She Is Now

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

The two, both former Marines and competitive bodybuilders, met in June 1987 and married just two months later. With that, Ray became stepfather to Sally’s two children from her first marriage, daughter Shantina and son John.

Behind the scenes, their relationship was turbulent. Sally has alleged in interviews with RXMuscle that Ray beat her repeatedly during their marriage. Their children sometimes witnessed the violence, and John later claimed in the 2022 Netflix docuseries Killer Sally that Ray abused him as well.

“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 Ray on Valentine’s Day 1995, firing once into his abdomen and then into his head. She was arrested the next day and, in 1996, was convicted of second-degree murder. Sally has consistently maintained that she acted in self-defense.

She ultimately spent 25 years behind bars before being granted parole in May 2020.

Here’s a closer look at Sally McNeil’s life, the killing of Ray McNeil and where she is now.

Who is Sally McNeil?

Sally was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in 1960. According to Killer Sally, her father, Richard Dale Dempsey, was allegedly an alcoholic and abusive toward her mother, and the couple divorced when Sally was young. Her mother later remarried, and Sally’s stepfather and mother had two daughters, Judy and Jill. In the docuseries, Sally says she never felt accepted by her stepfather and claimed he was abusive as well.

After high school, Sally attended East Stroudsburg State College but left one semester short of graduation when she could no longer afford tuition. Following her brother and uncle’s example, she joined the United States Marine Corps and rose to the rank of Sergeant.

She first married fellow Marine Anthony “Tony” Lowden, with whom she had two children, Shantina and John. When she received orders transferring her to Camp Pendleton in California, she filed for divorce. The marriage officially ended on May 25, 1987.

While stationed at Camp Pendleton, Sally began bodybuilding. In Killer Sally, she explains that she wanted to “get bigger so I was stronger to protect myself.” She entered her first bodybuilding contest on Valentine’s Day 1987, placing fourth in the U.S. Armed Service Physique Championships, and later went on to win two titles.

After leaving the Marines in 1993, Sally shifted her focus to bodybuilding full-time and began making wrestling videos, eventually creating her own production company.

The docuseries also notes that during the 1990s, Sally was involved in several violent incidents, including attacking a woman who allegedly flirted with Ray and fighting with five police officers.

Who was Ray McNeil?

Ray was born in North Carolina in 1965 and was raised by his aunt. In the documentary, Sally says Ray “grew up in poverty” and alleges he was s*xually abused as a child by another boy living in his aunt’s home.

Ray, like Sally, served as a Sergeant in the Marines and began bodybuilding in 1983. In 1990, he and Sally became the first husband-and-wife team to win the Armed Forces Bodybuilding Championships. That same year, Ray left the Marines to pursue a professional bodybuilding career. He went on to win the IFBB North American Championships and earned the title of Mr. California in 1991.

Money problems strained the household. According to Killer Sally and reporting cited from The Guardian, Sally participated in what was described as “muscle prostitution,” earning up to $300 an hour by wrestling men in hotel rooms or appearing in mail-order videos. The docuseries states that in 1993 she spent $24,000 on Ray’s bodybuilding efforts, which included anabolic steroid use.

In Killer Sally, Ray’s best friend, DJ Jeffers, remembers him as kind but quick-tempered. Shantina describes her father as “totally Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — his personality, it always did flip.”

What was Sally and Ray’s relationship like?

In Killer Sally, Sally recalls that her attraction to Ray was instant, describing it as “lust at first sight.”

“He looked like the statue of David. He was beautiful,” she says in the series, adding that he initially seemed “polite and kind.”

They married two months after meeting and settled into an off-base apartment in Oceanside, California.

But according to Sally, the violence started almost immediately. She claims that three days after the wedding, Ray punched her in the face, splitting her lip. Over the years, she alleges he beat and choked her repeatedly. At one point, Ray broke her nose in front of their children, she says in the docuseries. Sally reported him to her commanding officer, but she claims Ray later assaulted her until she agreed to drop the charges.

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

Her son John also describes his relationship with Ray in Killer Sally as “very violent,” saying that Ray “used to abuse and beat me a lot, especially when my mother was gone.”

On top of the alleged abuse, Sally said in her RXMuscle interview that Ray repeatedly cheated on her.

What happened the night Ray McNeil was killed?

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

That night, Ray was late coming home for Valentine’s Day celebrations, according to Sally and her children in Killer Sally. Sally went to a local bar to look for him, and when he eventually returned, she was in the bathroom putting on makeup. In archival police footage shown in the docuseries, she says she believed Ray had a girlfriend.

An argument broke out. In Killer Sally, Sally claims Ray hit her and then choked her. Shantina, who had gone to her bedroom when Ray came home, says she could hear her mother gasping for breath.

Fearing she wouldn’t “make it through this night,” Sally says she managed to pull away, went to her bedroom, grabbed a shotgun and loaded it in the hallway. She told Ray to leave. When he refused, she fired twice — once into his abdomen and then a second time into his head, as she recounts in the documentary.

“I just shot my husband because he just beat me up,” she says in a 911 call played in Killer Sally.

Ray was still alive when officers arrived. He was airlifted to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, California, where he died a few hours later.

The docuseries also shows footage from the police interrogation room that night. John, then a fourth grader, tells his mother, “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 tells detectives in the footage. “I just wanted him to stop hitting me.”

Sally was later arrested and charged with murder. “I was in shock,” she says in Killer Sally. “I killed the man that I loved the most in the world.”

Did Sally McNeil go to prison?

Sally describes her trial in Killer Sally as a “nightmare.”

Prosecutors leaned heavily on her Marine background, her bodybuilding career and her history of violent outbursts, arguing that she was “too strong to be battered.” They claimed Ray’s killing was premeditated, pointing to the fact that she fired two shots and suggesting that jealousy over Ray’s affair motivated the attack.

In November 2022, Killer Sally director Nanette Burstein told Newsweek that Sally’s wrestling persona name, “Killer Sally,” was repeatedly used against her.

Burstein noted that the prosecution argued that because Sally was “violent” and physically strong, she could not be a victim of violence — a characterization she called absurd, especially given Ray’s alleged history of abuse and the fact that he outweighed Sally by about 100 pounds of muscle.

On March 19, 1996, Sally was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 19 years to life.

She entered Valley State Prison (formerly Valley State Prison for Women) in Chowchilla, California, on May 1, 1996, according to Killer Sally. After her arrest, Shantina and John went to live with Sally’s parents in Allentown and stayed with their grandparents after her sentencing.

Sally appealed her conviction, and in 2003 the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned it, according to A&E. However, the state of California took the matter to the Supreme Court, which reversed that decision. In 2005, Sally’s original conviction was reinstated.

She ultimately spent 25 years in prison before she was granted parole on May 29, 2020. Throughout, she has insisted that she shot Ray in self-defense.

Where is Sally McNeil now?

Following her release on parole in 2020, Sally moved into housing provided by the Veterans Transition Center in Northern California and took a job working in a warehouse.

During her time in the program, she met her current husband, Norfleet Stewart, in a Veterans Transition Center support group. A GoFundMe page set up after Hurricane Helene notes that Sally later relocated to Hephzibah, Georgia. Her son, John, died on Feb. 28, 2024, according to 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 says in Killer Sally.