Focus in Dad's Murder Shifts to Stepdaughter
17-year-old blames shooting death on intruder. But then she lets a name slip.
June 29, 2009 -- 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.
"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.
Watch the full story on "Primetime Crime" WEDNESDAY at 10 p.m. ET
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.
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."
