Focus in Dad's Murder Shifts to Stepdaughter

It was a pretty summer day, July 19, 2007, in the Rolando area of San Diego when a 911 call shattered the quiet of a residential neighborhood. Operators fielding the call heard the desperate, shrieking voice of a young woman.

After the death of her mother Doreen, Brae Hansen lived with Timothy MacNeil, her stepfather. Brae and brother Nathan never had a significant relationship with their biological father.

(Courtesy Erin MacNeil Ellison)
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"I think we've been robbed ... my stepfather's been shot ... I think he's dead!"

The caller was 17-year-old Brae Hansen. Amid her panicky screams she told the 911 operator that a masked intruder had shot her 63-year-old stepfather, Timothy MacNeil, during what appeared to be a robbery gone awry.

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Police rushed to the scene. On the way to the house, veteran Det. J.C. Smith was briefed on the situation: a home invasion robbery with a surviving victim.

"We were hoping that the patrol guys were on the trail of the masked gunman that ran out the back door," Smith told ABC News correspondent Mary Fulginiti.

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Inside the house, the responding officers found MacNeil, dead from his wounds, lying in a large pool of his own blood in a downstairs room. Brae Hansen was cowering in the corner, her wrists bound with a zip tie. She told the cops she had managed to dial 911 with her tongue.

Word of the incident spread through the community, and soon MacNeil's brother and sister-in-law, Rick and Bonnie MacNeil, got word that there had been a tragedy. They, too, rushed to the scene, shocked by the death of MacNeil and seriously concerned about Hansen.

"My first reaction when we got there, I just kept screaming, 'Where's Brae, where's Brae, where's Brae?'" said Bonnie MacNeil. "Is Brae OK?"

While Brae received medical attention, police combed the house. They found a .357 magnum revolver on the back porch, and a balled-up shirt tangled in a tree along with what they surmised was the killer's getaway route. They also collected neighbors' eyewitness statements about a man seen running away from the house and climbing into a truck and driving off.

At the police station, a shocked Brae Hansen gave her first videotaped statement to the police.

"The first thing I see is my dad standing sideways and a person all in black," she said. "I turned around and I saw him shooting him in the face, and I saw my dad go down." Breaking down, Brae continued: "And then I saw him shoot him in the back of the head and run out."