Plague of Strength

Part One

Part Two

We left this series on the evening Sally McNeil let V-Day ring with a shotgun blast. The murder occurred on Valentine’s Day, which replaced the pagan holiday Lupercalia.

“So Lupercalia, being an ancient fertility festival, was very much a day when the ancient Romans celebrated sexuality. One particular Lupercalia tradition involved the young priests and noblemen running through the city streets (ahem, naked) with whips. Anyone they saw they would strike. City visitors claim the women welcomed the whipping and some even “bared their skin”. This custom ensured good fertility for the year – procreation and produce – because it supposedly scared off the evil spirits. In addition, on the Pagan Valentine’s Day, there was feasting, love-making, and debauchery of different kinds.” (Siepel).

Lupercalia was also a time of cleansing, however. After the men whipped the women and fucked them senseless, the women performed cleansing rituals to ensure their fertility. While I’m not suggesting that these two were ascribing to some sort of ancient pagan rites, but it is intriguing nonetheless that there was a blood sacrifice resulting in the cleansing of some negative energy, after the male in the relationship had done some fucking (of his side piece) and hung a beating on the woman also involved in their ancient rites.

I’ve already described the grisly details of what resulted, but what happened thereafter was bizarrely one-sided. Perhaps in the modern era we’ve come to expect juries like the one who tried OJ, but in a one-month murder trial, Sally McNeil was made to seem like a cold, calculated psychopath. Using her sporadic violent episodes as evidence of Dexter-like, emotionless calculation and focus on a single murderous goal, Sally McNeil was found guilty of second degree murder and sentenced to 19 years to life.

At trial, the DA painted a picture that Sally’s shotgun jamboree was not one of passion, but one for Ray’s life insurance money. Though Sally denied that supposition, she eventually conceded that the night of the murder she’d berated him for not being shredded enough and that he was going to place like shit, and that she was tired of his affairs. Then, the second to the coup de gras- she admitted, “Yeah, he was going to leave me.”

The final nails in the coffin were far, far worse, however. No DNA evidence was under Ray’s nails at the time of the murder, the fact that she walked out of and back into the room to reload and shoot a second time, and Sally’s apparent emotionless response to the police indicated that the event was proof enough of the fact that the killing did not meet the criteria for self defense or manslaughter. And frankly, Sally did herself no favors when she was asked about the night in question:

“As [Officer Gary] Shults was doing what he could for Ray another officer having spoken to Sally told Shults she had said Ray was beating her.

Upon hearing that Ray looked directly at Shults, shook his head and said “No.”  

Of that incident Sally told Ms. Clive in a jailhouse interview (published in the aforementioned feature),

‘How could Ray talk without a mouth?‘” (McGough).

Now, that is some flint-eyed, half-drunk, stone-cold-killer-with-Clint-Eastwood’s-weathered-features kind of shit, but was it the result of the hate built up over three quarters of a decade of beatings or a chick who was trying to cash in on a life insurance policy? That is a matter for some debate, but her motivation was definitively not jealousy, as some sources reported. “I wasn’t jealous, I was deathly afraid of catching a disease such as HIV, Hep C or some awful STD,” she said, which explains the argument when Ray returned (Penman).

She wasn’t jealous, Sally said, because Ray wouldn’t leave his meal ticket.

“He always came back to me. Once these women realized Ray couldn’t leave me they left him. Some woman (name deleted) had an abortion according to Ray because he couldn’t leave me. I should have left him because one thing I was afraid of was catching HIV, AIDS, Hep C or any kind of STD. I could give you a long list of women Ray had affairs with – one of them even had the nerve to testify against me during my trial” (Ibid).

As for the second shot? Sally explained her motivation obliquely in another interview- she was afraid of retaliation. “I would never provoke a 260lbs professional bodybuilder,” she said. “One time when I hit Ray back after he brutally beat me it made the beating worse. He broke my rib and punctured my lung” (Penman). Thus, it seemed pretty clear that she was worried what Ray would do to her once he recovered and returned home… or at least it would have been a simple argument for a dude who dropped out of law school after a year to make with 25 years of hindsight as an added benefit.

“There was no escape from Ray. He had world class speed. He could run 40 yards in 4.3. He could bench 505lbs. What could I do against that?”

It’s a big ‘ol shit sandwich, but the details get buried under the devil, and people forget that Ray McNeil was quite the hot prospect in bodybuilding at the time, and though Sally’s competitive career had derailed in an effort to support her family, she was carrying a shitload of muscle. Her offseason shape of 5’3″ and 150lbs would put her about the same size as Kim Chizevsky, the ultra-jacked Ms. O who began her reign in 1995. Chizevsky was one of the biggest chicks to ever win the Ms. O, and was 5’8″ and 175 in the offseason, which is Sally’s size scaled up exactly at 5lbs for every inch. As such, Sally was one of the most muscular chicks on the planet in 1995, and no one ever bothered to ask that sultry sexpot of a slaughterbeast how she trained to become one of the most sought-after wrestlers in the business.

“Killer Sally” McNeil’s Training Methods

While Sally was in the Marines she competed for both the track team and the powerlifting team, and in doing so developed a training style that certainly wasn’t CrossFit, but it had the same ethos. Even when bulking she’d still run daily, and when she was cutting she’d still train heavy as hell. What’s interesting is that she didn’t even begin training until after her third kid, when she was 26 or 27. Clearly, she had some aptitude for this shit, as she progressed quickly both in muscularity and size. That, in turn, led itself to her packing on a bunch of mass in the five years after she’d competed all while wrestling and boxing men and women (in serious throwdowns rather than a pro-wrestling vibe) on a regular basis for videos.

Her routine was three on / one off, which is a three day routine repeated twice in seven days for anyone who’s never used a bodybuilding split. As a powerlifter, most of her lifting was done using 5 x 3 on the main lifts, working up to a three rep max on the last set. Put in modern terms, they’re essentially beginning with a five rep max and then adding weight every or every other set until a set of three to failure. Thus, when she squatted 400 in competition, she’d never gone over 365lbs (91%1RM) in training (McNeil).

Day One– Chest and Arms

Day Two– Back and Shoulders

Day Three– Legs

Day Four– Off

When she shifted to bodybuilding she generally kept her reps high- she’d do 5 x 15 x 135lbs on the bench, for instance, 20 x 10 x 225lbs on the squat, but on the rest of her exercises she would generally keep it to four sets of three to four exercises per bodypart. In the 90s we’d generally switch back and forth calling exercises, so your training partner would pick the first exercise, you’d pick the second, and so on. With my lifting partners the entire thing was a competition from start to end, with everyone picking their pet exercises on which they could dominate. It worked well, because you’d end up getting good at exercises you occasionally fucking hated at first. Most bodybuilders I knew at the time trained that way, or in a similar way, rather than having every exercise, set, rep, and weight preordained like it was a fucking message from the gods themselves.

If she didn’t run on any given day, or needed extra cardio to lean out more, she would use an exercise bike while she watched TV. She also had a dip and pullup bar in her bedroom, so if she didn’t get in enough time at the gym or wanted extra work, she’d bang out a bunch of reps at home (there was a competition she entered called the Strong Woman Extravaganze in which she’d competed and needed her reps up for that).

An aside: though this article hasn’t painted Sally McNeil or Ray McNeil in a particularly favorable light, Sally mentioned them a few times in her letter. They’re all serving in the Army at the moment, and she mentioned they had been ready for their PT tests since they were kids. They used her pullup and dip bars and rocked six packs in adolescence, and Sally credited having fed them a lot of whole milk rather than skim, and the exercising they did just watching their parents. That helped build the base from which her son John Jr became a Green Beret who served in Afghanistan three times, then her son Maurice who’s served in Iraq on three deployments and her daughter Shontina who’s been to both on deployments (McNeil).

Killer Sally’s Prison Training Methods

In 2009, Sally wrote:

“They took the weights away in 1997 because the men were getting too big for the C.O.’s to handle. They have pull-up bars, dip bars, ab wheel roller and a push up bar. There is also a track where we can run. ‘I weigh 145lbs right now. I am still a lean mean fighting machine!!! I have made my own weights with 1 and 2 ½ gallon jugs filled with water and pebbles’” (Penman).

Currently, she’s got a small weight set that she works out with daily built from creamer jars and coffee cans (“Folgers are best”) that she reps out with regularly, and she runs daily, which as she mentioned, “keeps my sanity” (McNeil).

Killer Sally’s Dieting and Gear Use

As to dieting, she wasn’t much bothered with it until she was twelve weeks out for a show. Her husband ate clean year round, but Sally basically ate whatever she wanted between their shared meals. Their diet was the typical early 1990s deal- small meals of chicken, rice, and broccoli all fucking day long.

In re gear, Sally once remarked that Ray took all of the good gear for himself, so she was left with whatever was leftover. She’d read the steroid bible of the 90s, Dan Duchaine’s Underground Steroid Handbook and decided she wasn’t going to run a ton of gear to get bigger, because she wanted to avoid the masculinizing effects described in Duchaine’s book, which is why she only popped hot for deca at the time of the murder. She also claimed she’d not used deca in over a year, but as with any jacked chick, steroid accusations are going to be leveled regardless of what the drug test said.

The Postscript

As I mentioned, Sally McNeil was convicted of second degree murder and a month later was sentenced to 19 years-to-life in prison. She’s going to be a guest of the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla for some time- her appeals for parole thus far have failed, and she’s currently 59 after doing 25 years.

“In the state of California, lifers do not get half time. Once we have done 85% of our time we go in front of a Parole Board to see if they will grant Parole. I knew a woman named Lori Sue who did 31 years on a 7 to life…a woman named Karen did 24 years on a 15 to life sentence. I have been incarcerated now for 13 years.

In California it is very very hard to be granted a parole date. The politicians use us as political pawns to show the public that they are tough on crime, so that they can get re-elected. There is no self defense law in California, not like in other states. If I was living in Texas or Pennsylvania I would not have received a murder sentence. I took Ray’s life and know I deserve to do prison time” (Penman). 

You can’t fault her at the end- she fell on her sword there. Everyone can make their own decisions and opinions on this one- there are a shitload of differing perspectives to consider. In the end, maybe we should all just avoid living with anyone who makes us feel compelled to beat the shit out of them. I’m not here to hand down life lessons, though- I just tell interesting stories. So now you know all about the physique behind the shotgun, which for some reason is the ever-forgotten feature of any article about a jacked killer.

If you’re curious about her future plans,

“My goals in life for now are focused on gaining my freedom and being re-united with my family. I will be too old to compete when I get out. I am not too old to stay in shape though.

I can train people. I have my mind, so I can teach people how to wrestle and make good wrestling videos.”  

So there you have it- the story of wrestler and bodybuilder Sally McNeil- a heap of unrealized potential at the center of a bloodsoaked tale of murder. I hinestly couldn’t tell you what the next article will be, but it will likely be in a week or more as I try to crank out an Issuance of Insanity to cover 2012-2016 in an effort to generate some cash so I can take advantage of the fact the director of the Arnold Weekend hooked Tara and I up with VIP passes. It’ll be compendium of all of the training shit spanning those four years, and if there is time I’ll do another for 2016-2019. They’ll be inexpensive and there’ll be bundles of them available in case you want a reference for the over 600 articles I’ve written over the last 10 years.

Till then, here’s one more poem penned by Killer Sally McNeil, the burly, buxom, beast of scandalriffic murderer.

FOREVER

I’ll be gone forever
And you won’t miss me.
It will be as if I never existed.
My name will be wiped
From your lips forever.
As time goes by, it will be as though I were
Just a ship passing through the Equator.
How brief that moment lasts.
It happens and maybe will only
Happen once in a lifetime.
I am your comet that shot through the sky
and lit up the sky for a brief moment
In your brief life.
You saw me shine, saw the dark side of me,
Now experience the cold side as the comet fades away
To nothingness, as I fade away in your mind.
For a brief moment remember the sparks I created
As I drifted helplessly through your space and time.
I am a spark of happiness
In your lonely life of dreams.
I was a dream that you could not escape
Or wanted to.
You chased me away
Before my light faded away
And now live without me forever.

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Sources (for the series):

Krajicek, David J.  The tale of Killer Sally: Her 12-gauge & her husband.  NY Daily News.  28 Dec 2009.  Web.  13 Feb 2020.  https://www.nydailynews.com/news/tale-killer-sally-12-gauge-husband-article-1.435829

McGough, Peter.  The Sally-Ray McNeil murder.  Muscular Development.  12 Feb 2015.  Web.  20 Jan 2020.  https://www.musculardevelopment.com/news/the-mcgough-report/13954-the-sally-ray-mcneil-murder.html

McNeil, Sally.  Mail interview.  29 Dec 2019.

McNeil v. Middleton.  No. 01-56565.  United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.  2003.  https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1330589.html

Middleton v. McNeil. 541 U.S. 433. Supreme Court of the United States. 2004. Supreme Court Collection. 3 May 2004.  Web.  14 Feb 2020.  https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/134740/middleton-v-mcneil/

Nack, William.  The muscle murders.  Sports Illustrated.  18 May 1998.  Web.  13 Feb 2020.    https://www.si.com/vault/1998/05/18/8098022/the-muscle-murders-when-bertil-fox-a-former-mr-universe-was-arrested-for-double-homicide-last-year-he-became-only-the-latest-accused-murderer-among-hard-core-bodybuilders-whose-subculture-is-a-volatile-mix-of-fragile-egos-econo

Penman, Leigh.  Sally McNeil… this is my story: part 1.  RX Muscle.  4 Nov 2009.  Web.  20 Jan 2020.  https://www.rxmuscle.com/articles/latest-news/869-sally-mcneil-this-is-my-story-part-1.html

Penman, Leigh.  Sally McNeil… this is my story: part 2.  RX Muscle.  4 Nov 2009.  Web.  20 Jan 2020. https://www.rxmuscle.com/rx-girl-articles/female-bodybuilding/914-sally-mcneil—this-is-my-story-part-2.html

T Nation.  The Craziest thing you’ve seen in the gym.  T-Nation,  22 Nov 2016.  Web.  8 Nov 2019.  https://www.t-nation.com/opinion/the-craziest-thing-youve-seen-in-the-gym

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