Muscles, Marriage, and Murder: The Sally McNeil Story

Growing Up in a War Zone: Sally McNeil’s Early Years in Allentown

The Allentown, Pennsylvania that young Sally Dempsey grew up in wasn’t exactly the stuff of Norman Rockwell paintings. In the 1960s, her childhood home was more like a live-action stress test. Her father was an abusive alcoholic, and violence lingered so heavily in the air it might as well have had its own recliner in the living room.

Sally and her mother took turns being the target. And when it wasn’t her mother flinching from the next blow, it was Sally. The idea that other families didn’t live like this? That was completely foreign to her. She didn’t know this wasn’t normal. It just was.

Those first few years wired her to expect pain and chaos as a daily part of life. Even after her mom finally left her dad and remarried, something that took real guts, those early lessons stuck. That kind of trauma doesn’t politely excuse itself just because you change addresses.

Sally’s only real escape was school. Not the classrooms, those were just the warm-up act. What mattered was physical activity. Swimming. Diving. Track and field. That’s where she felt strong. In control. She wasn’t being chased, she was winning.

And for a while, it looked like she might outrun all of it. She put herself through college, paid her own way, and set her sights on becoming a gym teacher. Totally doable.

Then the money ran out.

After nearly four years of grinding through school, she had to stop short of the finish line. Her dreams didn’t end, they just needed a detour. Luckily, she had a Plan B. Her brother and uncle were both in the Army. Sally figured, hey, she’s tough, disciplined, built like an Olympian. Why not give the military a shot?

She wasn’t wrong. It made sense. The Army offered structure, purpose, and a steady paycheck. Plus, she already knew how to survive chaos. Now she’d just be doing it in camo.

Discipline, Demotion, and a New Direction: Sally’s Military Years and Bodybuilding Pivot

Sally dropped everything and joined the Army. For someone like her, who craved structure and thrived under pressure, it felt like the right call. Physical training? She crushed it. Rank and routine? She adapted fast. Before long, Sally was promoted to sergeant.

But structure can only hold back so much. The lessons she picked up in her chaotic childhood didn’t just vanish when she put on a uniform. Her anger, always simmering, started boiling over. She had command now, and unfortunately, that meant when her temper flared, it was often the people beneath her who felt it.

Eventually, it caught up with her. Sally lost her stripes and got demoted. Instead of cooling things off, that just added more fuel to her already unstable emotional fire. By the end of her service, the military had made their decision. They weren’t bringing her back.

With no clear path forward, she leaned into what had always come naturally: physical strength. While still in the Army, she had discovered bodybuilding. On Valentine’s Day 1987, she entered her first competition and placed fourth. It wasn’t a win, but it was enough to light a fire. Bodybuilding gave her focus, control, and a place to channel everything she carried inside.

After the military, she went all in. Training became her new mission. Somewhere in the mix, she married a man named Anthony Lowden. They had two kids together, but according to Sally, the relationship turned violent. She left him, took the kids, and won full custody in court.

Her personal life may have been a mess, but professionally, she kept pushing forward in the bodybuilding world. That’s how she met her second husband, Ray McNeil. The two didn’t waste time. They were married just two months after meeting. At first glance, they looked like a power couple. Both ripped. Both competitive. Both chasing the same dream.

But looks can be deceiving.

Wrestling for Survival: The Rise of Killer Sally and a Violent Home Life

Ray was deep into the bodybuilding world, just like Sally. But bodybuilding isn’t exactly a financial goldmine unless you’re one of the rare few at the top. Money was tight. And when it came to who got to keep chasing the dream, it was Ray who stayed in the gym, while Sally found another way to bring in cash.

She started filming herself wrestling men. Three hundred dollars an hour. That’s what the sessions paid. The videos, which helped her earn the nickname “Killer Sally,” definitely played up the sexual tension. Some were even sexually explicit. But according to Sally, there was a hard line. She didn’t sleep with clients. She wrestled them, got paid, and went home to her husband.

It wasn’t her dream job, but it kept the lights on. More importantly, it allowed Ray to quit his own job and focus full time on bodybuilding. So to Sally, it felt worth it.

At least, that’s how it started.

The reality at home was a lot darker. According to Sally, Ray turned violent just three days after their wedding. He didn’t just target her. He allegedly became physically abusive toward the children as well.

When Sally was around, the kids had some protection. But she traveled often, mostly on trips to South America to pick up steroids. Not for herself, but for Ray to use and sell at the gym. While she was gone, the situation got worse.

Ray believed in corporal punishment. If one of the kids did something wrong, he’d take them into a room, belt in hand, and beat the one in trouble while forcing the other to watch. It wasn’t discipline. It was cruelty dressed up as control.

And it didn’t stop with the kids. Sally said her own abuse started with slaps and shoves. But Ray was also using steroids. And with that came the rage. Things escalated. The slaps became punches. Then came the choking.

Valentine’s Day Violence: The Breaking Point in a Brutal Marriage

Steroids didn’t just bulk Ray up. They flipped a switch. The shoves turned into punches. The punches turned into choking. And eventually, according to Sally, the abuse crossed into sexual violence. Her children later said they saw Ray choke their mother more than once. One time, they watched him break her nose.

That incident actually pushed Sally to report him. Charges were filed. But that small act of defiance came with a price. According to Sally and the kids, Ray came home, found out about the charges, and beat her until she agreed to drop them.

Consent wasn’t something Ray seemed to care about either. Sally said if she wasn’t in the mood, it didn’t matter. He’d force himself on her. Sometimes with pressure. Sometimes with fists.

By 1995, he had broken five of her bones. One of those times, a fractured rib punctured her lung.

And while all of that was happening behind closed doors, Ray had another woman. Her name was Marianne Myers. According to Sally, Ray had made up his mind to leave her for Marianne. He had also decided to spend Valentine’s Day with her instead of his wife.

But he didn’t exactly announce that.

That afternoon, Ray told Sally he was heading out to buy chicken for dinner. In reality, he was off to spend the evening with his girlfriend.

And whether he planned to or not, he came home eventually.

Sometime after ten that night, Ray walked back through the door. According to Sally, the second he came inside, things exploded into a fight.

And this time, she said, it went too far.

That same night, Sally called 911.

“He just beat me up,” she said.

And then she told them she had shot her husband.

The Shotgun, the Trial, and the Aftermath: Sally McNeil’s Fight for Her Life

According to Sally, when Ray came home that night, things turned violent fast. She said he slapped her, shoved her to the floor, and started choking her. She managed to squirm away, ran into the bedroom, and grabbed a sawed-off shotgun from the closet.

Then she fired. Twice.

One shot hit Ray in the stomach. The second hit him in the jaw.

When emergency responders arrived, Ray was still alive. But the damage was too severe. He died in the hospital two hours later.

Sally didn’t deny what she did. She owned it from the beginning. But in court, she argued that this wasn’t murder, it was survival. Her legal team presented a defense based on Battered Woman Syndrome, a concept used to explain the psychological state of someone trapped in a long-term abusive relationship. In other words, she wasn’t acting out of sudden rage. She was acting out of fear. Fear that had built up over years of violence.

The court didn’t see it as a clear case of self-defense. But they didn’t hit her with first-degree murder either. Sally was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 19 years to life.

She served her time. Nineteen years behind bars.

In 2020, she was released on parole. She’s since remarried. She’s a grandmother now.

And her story, like so many others caught in the overlap of domestic violence and the criminal justice system, still sparks debate.