Emotional testimony from an estranged wife in the trial of a police officer accused of abuse

MANCHESTER, N.H – The estranged wife of a Manchester police officer broke down in tears Friday as a defense attorney stood about eight feet away from her with a water jug ​​in his hand to demonstrate the distance from which she said her husband threw a drink container at her and had hit her in the face.

“I’m not going to throw it at you,” defense attorney Eric Wilson assured her. Still, Shannon MacNeilly's reaction left her in tears, prompting an immediate pause.

It was the second day Ms MacNeilly took the stand in Year 9^Th District Court – District Division – Manchester is to testify about alleged abuse by her husband, officer Michael MacNeilly. She testified under direct examination for two and a half hours about six weeks ago. On Friday, she sat on the witness stand for another 4½ hours, most of which was cross-examined by Wilson.

Before she burst into tears, Wilson had shown her a photo of herself taken around the time she said her husband threw a 64-ounce Yeti bottle at her, hitting her in the mouth.

Ms MacNeilly, who claimed the incident had left her with a swollen lip, agreed the black and white photo – and the same photo but in color shown to her later – did not show her with an injury or mark her lip. She told Wilson that the swelling was on the inside of her mouth.

During questioning, Wilson tried to portray her as a jealous woman who used the abuse allegations to gain advantage in the divorce proceedings, gain sole custody of their young daughter and ruin her husband's career.

Wilson said MacNeilly insists the allegations are fabricated.

She previously testified that her husband slapped her “on or about August 7, 2023” after she confronted him about a woman and an Instagram post; he pushed her onto a couch sometime between August 27 and September 9, 2023; MacNeilly grabs her chin and pushes her head against a door on September 27, 2023; hit her in the mouth with a metal soda bottle, causing her lip to bleed; and he pushed her to the ground on October 2, 2023. He is also charged with criminal mischief for damaging her cell phone when he threw it against a wall and obstructing the reporting of a crime for blocking her cell phone to prevent her from reporting something Report a crime to law enforcement or request emergency medical assistance.

When questioned by Wilson, Shannon MacNeilly said that before she got married, her husband had been insincere with her, cheated on her, and as a result she had trust issues with him. She said she was worried that he was still getting messages from a woman even though he had “a pregnant wife.”

The day he slapped her, she went through his phone and found he still had messages from that woman on it. She said he wasn't receiving any messages from her, but he still had them on his phone and was checking them.

When she testified last month, she said MacNeilly was in the shower when she confronted him about the messages. She said he hit her with his right hand, which resulted in him hitting her on the left side of her face. However, she touched the right side of her face as she testified. Wilson asked her Friday which side of the face was hit.

“It happened so quickly,” she said. “If I mixed up my left and right sides, that doesn’t mean he didn’t.”

He also asked when the events took place. He said in August she testified that the slap was the first incident, the push on the couch – which Ms MacNeilly said irritated her caesarean section – the second and the discarded water bottle the third. But on Friday she said that first it was the slap, then the thrown bottle and third the shove.

Detective Sgt. Andrew Sheffer of the NH State Police Major Crimes Unit was the lead investigator on the case.

Under direct questioning from New Hampshire Department of Safety Attorney John Gasaway, Sheffer cleared the matter. Ms MacNeilly said she did not know the exact date on which the incidents occurred. Sheffer said the investigation ultimately determined that the couch incident occurred sometime between August 27 and September 9, 2023, while the Yeti bottle incident occurred sometime between August 27 and September 11 occurred. He said that nothing else had changed in Mrs MacNeilly's version. The two incidents overlapped.

MacNeilly also videotaped several of their arguments, which Wilson played on a laptop for Mrs. MacNeilly to view. She could be heard calling her husband a faggot and a loser, saying she would fight “by any means possible” for custody of their daughter, and making other harsh, profanity-laced comments.

She said she was ashamed of those comments and said they did not reflect who she was.

The state dropped its case after Sheffer's testimony. Wilson first called his client to the stand, but then, since it was late in the day, he decided to call his mother as a witness.

In August, Ms. MacNeilly testified that her mother-in-law, Joy MacNeilly of Goffstown, came to their home 20 minutes after her son pushed her onto the couch. She said she told her what happened and her mother-in-law told her, “My son would never do something like that.”

Joy MacNeilly, the final witness on Friday, denied that her daughter-in-law ever told her that.

MacNeilly is charged with six counts of simple assault at her Ward Street home. Ms. MacNeilly now lives there with her daughter, she said

MacNeilly was arrested in April after turning himself in to authorities and was placed on paid administrative leave. While New Hampshire State Police conducted their investigation, MacNeilly worked in the dispatch center.

His wife filed a domestic violence complaint in family court, which resulted in a restraining order prohibiting him from owning firearms. The police took away his service weapon and 16 guns that were kept in a safe at his home.

The MacNeillys met in October 2022, married on March 31, 2023, and separated on October 17, 2023.

At the time of the alleged abuse, Shannon MacNeilly did not make a police report. On October 17, 2023, she and her husband had an argument and she screamed when he came towards her. MacNeilly allegedly called the police station and spoke to a colleague to find out if anyone had reported an incident at her home.

Twenty minutes later, two police officers arrived on scene to find out what was going on. MacNeilly testified that she told supervisors that her husband had not attacked her that day but had hit her in the past. This led to a police investigation that Manchester police later turned over to state police, who filed criminal charges.

She applied for a temporary restraining order in family court and filed a domestic violence petition there. In it, on August 10, 2023, MacNeilly said she was 37 weeks pregnant when MacNeilly punched her in the face. On August 30, 2023, she said that while MacNeilly was holding her then 7-day-old infant daughter, he threw an aluminum YETI water container from across the room and it hit her in the face. On September 7, 2023, she said he pushed her so hard that she fell on the couch: “My C-section was painful and I asked to go to the hospital and he said no, he took my keys, my phone and my Laptop with me. “I couldn’t call for help.”

On September 27, 2023, she alleged that while holding the baby in one hand, he grabbed her chin with his other hand and pushed her head hard against the front door.

On Oct. 2, 2023, she said he pushed her to the kitchen floor and threw her phone over the crib “where our baby was sleeping, it hit the wall and broke.”

In court documents, MacNeilly said it was his wife's extreme cruelty that led to the breakdown of the marriage.

He said she threatened to falsify domestic violence allegations against him “as her own mother had done out of vindictiveness against her father” to gain advantage in their divorce case and “to ruin his police career and his relationship.” to harm his child”.

MacNeilly also said his wife told him she hoped he would be shot while on police duty.

He claimed she woke him up in the middle of the night, sometimes by pouring water on him, to threaten and emotionally abuse him. He said she would agitate him and denounce him with baseless accusations of infidelity and threaten to deny him access to his daughter, citing his alleged infidelity and justification for it.

MacNeilly said his wife would threaten to take their daughter and leave him while he slept. He said she would tell him he “didn’t deserve to sleep” because she believed he was cheating on her. According to MacNeilly, she vengefully threatened to have sex with his friends and colleagues.

He also claimed she isolated him from his family and friends and refused to attend family and social events.

He said her verbal harassment, physical abuse and emotional manipulation caused him extreme psychological distress and physical impact.

“Shannon's behavior during their seven-month marriage led Michael to the highest levels of stress of his life, surpassing his experiences fighting in Afghanistan and patrolling the streets of Manchester,” his then-lawyer James P. O'Rourke Jr. wrote.

The trial continued until the afternoon of October 1, 2024.