APRIL 11, 2007

A stray drop of water fell from the faucet and trickled across her cold, pallid skin.

Her body lay crumpled inside the drained bathtub, a long-sleeved black shirt clinging to her wet torso. She was tilted on her side, her nude lower half curled against the tub's slick porcelain wall.

The woman's ashen face—beautiful even in death—was marred by sutured incisions across her eyelids and around her scalp. Blood from the ruptured stitches wept into damp blond hair.

Hovering over the bathtub, a slim man with a tanned face and gray hair was wailing. "I need help! Help!"

From the doorway of the master bathroom, Kristi Daniels gaped wide-eyed at her next-door neighbors—Martin and Michele MacNeill. "I'll call nine-one-one," Kristi said, spinning away.

"I've already called nine-one-one!" Martin howled. "I need help getting her out of the tub."

But Kristi had already fled the bathroom, dashing down the hallway and out of the house. On the front porch she brushed past a little girl dressed in a khaki skirt, white-collared blouse, and blue blazer—a school uniform. She was the youngest of the MacNeills' adopted daughters, Ada.

Just moments earlier the doe-eyed six-year-old had knocked on Kristi's front door. "My dad needs some help." Kristi had followed Ada back toward the MacNeills' open front door. By the time she was halfway across the driveway, she had heard Martin's screams and had taken off running, leaving Ada outside.

Following the cries down the hallway and into the bathroom off the master bedroom, Kristi had discovered Martin and his dead wife. Her first thought was that she and Martin would not be able to lift Michele out of the tub by themselves. So Kristi—a petite blond flight attendant—had run to find help.

Crossing the shared driveway separating their properties, Kristi rushed back into her house and found her neighbor Angie Aguilar crouching in the foyer, tying her own daughter's shoes. A half hour earlier—around 11:20 A.M.—Angie and her daughter had stopped by the Danielses' house to drop off Kristi's son, as part of the neighborhood carpool. Following a brief visit, Angie was preparing to leave when Kristi burst back through the front door, her face contorted with panic.

"What's wrong?" Angie asked.

"I need you to come with me!" Kristi gasped. From a table in the front room, Kristi grabbed her cell phone and pressed a button to speed-dial her husband, Doug Daniels, who was just a few houses away, assisting another neighbor with a basement renovation.

"Martin needs help. Martin needs help," she said breathlessly. "Hurry, come fast ..."

"Where are you?" Doug interrupted.

"The MacNeills'!"

Doug emerged from his neighbor's house, catching a glimpse of his wife and Angie slipping through the MacNeills' front door. He chased after them, sprinting through the gated subdivision of Creekside in Pleasant Grove, Utah. The usually peaceful community about thirty-five miles south of Salt Lake City is nestled in the foothills of the snowcapped mountains of the Wasatch Range.

The MacNeills' one-story home with its brick facade sat on a grassy lot dotted with hedges. The MacNeills, with their eight children, had one of the largest families in the neighborhood. Martin was a fifty-one-year-old practicing physician, law school graduate, and a former Mormon bishop. Fifty-year-old Michele was a stay-at-home mom who spent her days carting her youngest daughters to school and ballet practice.

Although Kristi and Doug had lived next door to the MacNeills for more than a year, the families didn't associate beyond exchanging the occasional pleasantries. Up until this day, Kristi hadn't even been inside their house.

Stepping into the master bathroom, Kristi and Angie found Martin kneeling beside the tub, cradling his wife's head in his hands. The sleeves of his lab coat were drenched. He had just reached into the basin to drain the murky brown bathwater in which Michele had been immersed.

The raised Jacuzzi tub in the center of the bathroom was inset in an elevated travertine tile deck. Sunlight streamed through a window next to the shower, illuminating a vase of lavender flowers on the tub's ledge.

Michele was clothed only in a long-sleeved black shirt worn over a white Mormon undergarment and bra, with no pants or underwear. Thick, cloudy mucus glazed her face, oozing from her nose and mouth onto her cheeks and onto the gaping gashes across her hairline.

"Angie and I are here," Kristi told Martin.

Martin craned his neck and shook his head. "I need a man's help to get her out of the tub."

"I called Doug," Kristi said.

Seconds later Doug burst into the bathroom. At a glance he knew the situation was dire. Instinctively he passed to the far end of the tub, near Michele's feet.

"Let's get her out!" Martin shouted.

Doug scooped up Michele's legs under the knees, Martin grabbed his wife under her arms, and together they lifted. As Martin lifted her torso, Michele's shirts and bra were pulled up to her neck, exposing her breasts. The two men gently placed her on the floor beside the tub. Michele's arms splayed at her sides. Beneath her, a puddle of water began to spread across the taupe tile floor.

Martin's eyes darted around the bathroom, horror etched across his face. "Oh my God! Oh my God!" he choked.

Shaken, Angie ran her fingers through her long dark hair, then clapped both her hands over her mouth and backed away from the body, into the bathroom closet.

"I know CPR," Kristi said to Martin. "I'll do the compressions if you do mouth-to-mouth."

Martin nodded in agreement. Doug grabbed a rag and passed it to Martin to wipe the mucus from Michele's face. Because Michele was naked from the waist down, Angie found a pink towel and draped it lengthwise to cover the exposed lower region.

Kneeling and placing one palm on top of the other, Kristi pumped on Michele's bare, damp chest in succinct compressions, silently counting to herself, attempting to keep a pace of one hundred beats per minute. When she paused, Martin sank down, pinched his wife's nose, and placed his lips over hers, blowing twice into her mouth.

After one round of compressions, Doug tapped on Kristi's shoulder. "I can do that. Go outside and wait for the ambulance so they can find us."

Nodding, Kristi stood, stepped over Michele's body, and left the bathroom. Outside she found Ada MacNeill and escorted the girl into the Danielses' house, to be supervised by another friend who had also been visiting. "You can go stay at my house for a while," Kristi told Ada.

In the bathroom, Doug bent his burly frame over Michele and—on Martin's command—resumed pumping on her torso. Mindful that his neighbor was a physician and experienced with life-saving procedures, Doug deferred to him for instructions.

"Stop," Martin told Doug after several beats. Once again he put his lips over Michele's, passing two breaths. Kneeling lower, Martin tilted his head and placed his ear on her chest.

There was no heartbeat. Michele wasn't breathing.

"Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God," Martin mumbled to himself. He sat up and touched his face. "She shouldn't have done this." Sighing heavily, he directed Doug to continue.

As they performed CPR, Martin alternated between moments...