Miller, however, claimed that the prescription was written in Melanies handwriting. I believe that the evidence presented to the jury told the jury what happened," Prezioso said. New Jersey Attorney Generals OfficeOne of the three suitcases that contained parts of Bill McGuires body. They also discovered a bottle of the sedative chloral hydrate and two syringes in Bill's car, which they traced to a pharmacy near their children's daycare, and they learned that McGuire had bought a gun 48 hours before her husband's disappearance. Actress Candice King who is best known for her work in the Vampire Diaries will play McGuire. Melanie did try to appeal her case and later get relief from her long sentence, but her petitions were denied. Bill worked as a computer program analyst for a Newark, New Jersey college and Melanie worked as a fertility nurse, according to a 2011 appeal filed in her case. https://t.co/ZGewROXCaQ pic.twitter.com/hlzcKR96Ss. ABC News also reported that other evidence included McGuire's purported internet search history, which amongst others included "undetectable poisons.". Thirteen years have passed since Melanie McGuire's conviction. The Suitcase Killer, Melanie McGuire Story shows the real-life incident that occurred in 2004 in New Jersey, when Melanie, a local nurse killed her husband, William, a computer programmer, and dismembered his body and packed them in a suitcase, and dumped them in the Chesapeake Bay. But Melanie maintains that she did not commit the infamous Suitcase Murder. Though a jury agreed and sentenced Melanie McGuire to life in prison, the so-called Suitcase Killer has long insisted upon her innocence. 2011 - Google Scholar", "N.J. appeals court upholds life sentence for convicted suitcase killer Melanie McGuire", "State v. McGuire, 27 A. [9] Green fibers had been found on one of the bullets lodged in Bill's chest; the fibers were identified as polyester fill, a common material found in household furniture. McGuire is lodged at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women, serving a life sentence in Clinton, New Jersey. ET on ABC. But she didnt report Bill missing. That requires two drivers so certainly that means someone helped her, said Prezioso. Melanie McGuire went on trial on March 5, 2007. The plastic bags that contained Bill's body parts and the bags that contained Bill's clothes, which Melanie had given away to a friend, were demonstrated by forensics to have been manufactured on the same assembly line within hours of one another. Melanie McGuire is currently in a New Jersey jail, awaiting sentencing on July 19. She pleaded not guilty to all indictments and soon posted an accumulated bail of over $2 million. New Jersey Department of Corrections/Find a Grave, Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women, Data from the New Jersey Department of Corrections, Melanie McGuire Was Sentenced to Life in Prison for Murder of Husband Bill. She was sentenced to life in prison. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. Melanie McGuire has been in prison for 13 years, but she still maintains her innocence, she said in an interview with 20/20. So if you wish to learn more about her and her current whereabouts, heres what we know. So she drove around until she found his car and then moved it as a prank. Family and friends can send flowers and/or light a candle as a loving gesture for their loved one. Like, how could somebody think that I did that?. With the story debunked, the request for a new trial was withdrawn. She didnt fit the profile, I guess, of a murderer, Shlosberg told 20/20. [4] She was sentenced to life in prison on July 19, 2007, and is serving her sentence at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Clinton, New Jersey. We looked very closely at Dr. Miller, said Prezioso. In the interview, she continued to say that she was innocent and asked her sons to look into the case and not believe what they were seeing. Welcome to the Quantum Realm. Melanie McGuire, who is not eligible for parole until she is 101 years old, said the hardest part is not being there for her children. At least the prison conversations won't be, ahem, boring for Amy Locane. A dramatization of the romance and marriage of the McGuires, the 2004 murder of Bill, the investigation, and the subsequent trial of Melanie, who who dismembered and disposed of her husband's body in suitcases. When a bullet passes through, its smooth surface becomes imprinted with the same number of lands and grooves as the barrel. His business partner described him as a good father . They surmised that Melanie had sedated Bill, shot him, and cut up his body. YouTube Melanie McGuire has had no contact with them since before the verdict. They insisted he was a compulsive gambler who had become increasingly moody, unpredictable, and tempestuous in the months before his passing. Immediately after murdering Bill, according to the State, defendant embarked on a plan to conceal the crimes and to create the appearance that Bill had abandoned his family, his job, and his new house after a violent argument with her. [9] Similarly, a medical grade towel found with Bill's body matched those stocked at the clinic where Melanie worked. Police also learned that Melanie had been having a long-term affair with a co-worker named Bradley Miller. She was sentenced to life in prison on July 19, 2007, and is serving her sentence at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Clinton, New Jersey.She will not be eligible for parole until she is 100 . After a 7-week trial, Melanie McGuire was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. [9] Police released a facial reconstruction sketch of the victim, which an acquaintance of Bill McGuire's recognized. Watch the full story on "20/20" Friday, Sept. 25, at 9 p.m. Melanies not the only person who believes that the police got it wrong. The publication reported that two days after Bill left, McGuire filed for a restraining order so he couldn't unexpectedly take their children, and three weeks after he had disappeared she filed for a divorce. If youre willing to wear a wire, well believe you, said Sacks. I just wanted to get away from him at that point. Melanie went to Middletown High School South and. by 2Paragraphs in Culture, True Crime Murder TV | September 25, 2020. The jury deliberated for three days before convicting her of all four counts lodged against her in the first indictment, and acquitted her of the eight counts filed in the second indictment. [21] The case has been profiled on television outlets: Snapped Oxygen Network; Dateline NBC; 48 Hours Mystery CBS; and The Investigators TruTV; Deadly Affairs Investigation Discovery, and Forensic Files II, among other true crime television shows. She put his remains into a 3-piece suitcase set, and those three pieces were later found in Chesapeake Bay. On April 28, 2004, the last day anyone ever saw Bill alive, Melanie had dropped off their sons, aged 2 and 4, at their daycare as routine at around 8:20 am. In addition to 20/20, her case is being examined in a podcast, Direct Appeal. She filed an appeal to the New Jersey Superior Court, which affirmed her conviction and sentence in 2011. In a new episode of "20/20," co-anchor Amy Robach sits down for the first on-camera interview with Melanie McGuire since she was sentenced to life in prison 13 . As Dr. Bradley Miller testified in the Melanie McGuire court case, there was an ongoing affair between himself and Melanie when Bill McGuire was killed. Like, how could somebody think that I did that? https://t.co/f9HrMsbxkY. Melanie McGuire says she isnt hoping for prison release, in a new jailhouse interview with @ARobach Friday at 9/8c during a new #ABC2020. It is physically exhausting. There are times when podcasts and media can shine a light on certain cases where what the government did was not right. "Beware of pretty faces that you find, a pretty face can hide an evil mind." -Johnny Ramistella. Because the murder did not occur in Virginia, however, authorities turned over their investigation to the New Jersey State Police.[10]. Do you know how hard it is to cut through bone? Melanie was a nurse at a fertility clinic and Bill was a computer programmer. They were confident Miller was not involved in the crime but were never able to bring charges against anyone else. [9] The third and smallest suitcase, containing arms, was recovered floating in the water near the Chesapeake Bay BridgeTunnel's second artificial island on May 16. Melanie, who grew up in Brick, and William McGuire were married in 1999 and had lived with their two sons in Woodbridge at the time of the murder. The Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women near Clinton, New Jersey, made headlines for allegations of sexual abuse and for the recent spread of the coronavirus, New Jersey Spotlight News reported. They pulled out the piping, pulling floorboards up, said Sacks. And about a week later, suitcases containing his body parts began to float to the surface in the Chesapeake Bay. Melanie McGuire was found guilty of murdering Bill McGuire, 39, in April 2004. Prosecutors believed that McGuire forged the prescription as she had access to this prescription pad. She offered explanations for the stories she told police, such as her claim she stumbled across her husbands car in Atlantic City and moved it. ET on Saturday, June 18 on the Lifetime network. Making matters worse, Melanie McGuire had called the company and attempted to have those charges removed. Pam Grier reflects on her most iconic roles, from, State Superior Court Judge Angela Borkowski gave Locane more time after the punishment, Wrong Turn: The tragic story of former It Girl Amy Locane, Amy Locane to be re-sentenced for fatal auto crash, Amy Locane recalls drunk-driving crash in post-prison interview. It shows no inmates or staff at the facility had confirmed positive test results between August 22, 2020, and September 25, 2020. McGuire maintains her innocence, and wants her two adult sons to look into the case for themselves. Through record tracing, they found out that the chloral hydrate was picked up at a Walgreens pharmacy just down the road from the McGuire children's daycare on the morning that Bill McGuire disappeared. In April 2004, defendant conducted internet research to learn about buying a gun and about poisons, sedative drugs, and murder. In the early morning hours of April 29, 2004, the day her husband disappeared, Melanie McGuire said that they had a violent fight and claimed that he choked her with a dryer sheet and hit her before leaving the house. This stuff exists, she said on the show. Three suitcases were found washed up, inside each were the remains. If I wanted to look for something like that, I have a [physicians' desk reference]. The podcast, hosted by Fairleigh Dickinson University criminology professors Meghan Sacks and Amy Schlosberg questions Melanie McGuire's guilt and suggests that there is evidence in the case that never received the legal scrutiny it deserved. Melanie Lyn McGuire (ne Slate; born October 8, 1972) is an American former nurse who was convicted of murdering her husband on April 28, 2004, in what media dubbed the "suitcase murder". Bills car contained a bottle of chloral hydrate, a sedative, and two syringes, which had been prescribed by Bradley Miller. Before she was charged with murder, Melanie contacted E-ZPass and attempted to have the $0.90 charge removed from her account history. With all of her appeals exhausted, Melanie McGuire said she participated in the podcast hoping that new evidence might be discovered that could lead to her exoneration. In 2007, McGuire was convicted of killing and dismembering her husband, Bill. Investigators discovered that the parking lot had surveillance cameras, and they pulled the security footage thinking they had stumbled upon a smoking gun that would show who dumped Bill McGuire's car. It says: The State alleged that defendant wanted to end her marriage to Bill but also had concerns about divorce. Melanie McGuire, 34-years old, sentenced to life in prison for murdering her husband Photo Source: NJ.com (website) However, prosecutors established that the informant was "entirely incredible and routinely and habitually fabricates stories" according to a New Jersey State Police investigation, before recanting and accusing McGuire's attorney of suborning perjury. Soon after William and Melanie McGuire tied the knot in 1999, they welcomed their first child, a son, in 2000. The McGuire family resided in a Woodbridge Township apartment but had plans to move to a much larger home in Warren County by the end of April. There were times I wanted him gone, she told 20/20. There are just too many holes in this story.. [1], By April 2004, the McGuires had been married for five years. It is with deep sorrow that we announce the death of Lena Christine Kindschi of Perry, Oklahoma, who passed away on February 27, 2023, at the age of 92, leaving to mourn family and friends. She was immediately booked into the Middlesex County Adult Correctional Center on first-degree murder charges, but made her $750,000 bail ($1.04 million today). The circumstantial evidence against Melanie McGuire was mounting by this point, but investigators were still having trouble finding any physical evidence that would link Melanie McGuire to her husband's murder, according to Sacks. The 62-year-old actress posted a jaw-dropping selfie on Instagram Tuesday night, featuring the . Melanie McGuire Was Sentenced to Life in Prison for Murder of Husband Bill, Please review our privacy policy here: https://heavy.com/privacy-policy/, Copyright 2023 Heavy, Inc. All rights reserved. Thats what happened the night of April 28, 2004, the day Bill McGuire disappeared, according to his wife. But despite her apparent grief, police soon began to suspect that Melanie McGuire had murdered her husband. [11] Through her attorneys, Joe Tacopina,[12] Steve Turano, and Marc Ward, she pleaded not guilty to the charges. He probably would have broken my cheek if it had been a closed fist, Melanie McGuire told 20/20. However, not much else about the day was typical. In September 2020 McGuire took part in a rare interview with ABC News, in which she continued to profess her innocence for the crime. And on May 16, a third. Investigators, however, found it highly suspicious that Melanie had then tried to have 90-cent EZ Pass toll charges, which proved shed gone to Atlantic City, removed from her account. On June 2, 2005, more than a year after the fact, Melanie was charged with first-degree murder, leading to her sons being taken and placed into a much safer home for them to grow up in. Her 2007 trial became a nationally televised event. Melanie McGuire is an American former nurse who was found guilty of killing her husband, Bill McGuire, on April 28, 2004, in a case called the "suitcase murder" by the media. With Candice King, Michael Roark, Tristan Laurence, Jackson Hurst. Bradley Miller told a Middlesex County court this afternoon that he lied to a grand jury when he said he stopped having sex with . She will not be eligible for parole until she is 100 years old. Her trial began in March 5, 2007. William and Melanie McGuires children, whose names are not revealed in any public records for their own privacy and safety, were placed with Bills elder sister, Cindy Ligosh. She will not be eligible for parole until she is 100 years old. During her interview with ABC News, McGuire shared a message for her sons, saying: "Make up your mind. Don't accept what you're just being told on the surface. Meghan Sacks, host of podcast "Direct Appeal" and Fairleigh Dickinson University criminology professor questions Melanie McGuire's guilt. The 2004 case was dubbed the suitcase murder because the victims legs were found in a suitcase that washed up in Virginia Beach. ], Pretty Little Liars Reboot Is Coming-of-RAGE Horror with More Murder, Cast of Pretty Little Liars, 2017, l-r: Troian Bellisario, Ashley Benson, Lucy Hale, Shay Mitchell, (cropped) photo: Dominick D / CC BY-SA, 2012-2023, 2paragraphs Productions, LLC. Following the 2018 investigation into allegations of sexual abuse at the prison, the DOC released a statement in April, 2020, saying reforms were introduced at the prison to make it easier for inmates to report sexual abuse.