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Melanie Lyn McGuire is a former nurse from the U.S who was found guilty of killing her husband on April 28, 2004
The case got a lot of attention and was named the "suitcase murder" by the media.
On July 19, 2007, she was sentenced to life in prison.
She is currently serving her time at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Clinton, New Jersey.
She won’t be eligible for parole until she is 101 years old.
Early life
Melanie Lyn McGuire was born on October 8, 1972.
She grew up in Ridgewood and Middletown Township, New Jersey, and attended Middletown High School South.
She attended Rutgers University, where she majored in math and psychology, and graduated in 1994.
She graduated second in her class from the Charles E. Gregory School of Nursing (now Raritan Bay Medical Center) in 1997, earning a nursing diploma.
She married her husband William T. "Bill" McGuire in 1999.
William, born on September 21, 1964, was a U.S. Navy veteran.
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| Melanie McGuire and husband |
The Murder
By April 2004, the McGuires had been married for five years.
Melanie worked as a nurse at a fertility clinic, and Bill was a computer programmer.
The couple had two sons and lived in an apartment in Woodbridge Township, New Jersey.
They planned to move to a larger home in Warren County that month.
They finalized the paperwork for their new house on April 28, but never moved in.
That night, the prosecution claimed that McGuire drugged her husband, killed him with a gun.
After killing him, she dismembered his body and put his remains into a 3-piece suitcase set.
Those three pieces were later found in Chesapeake Bay.
Investigation
On May 5, 2004, two fishermen and two children found the first suitcase, which contained human legs.
The suitcase was found floating near the fourth artificial island of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.
This discovery led to the start of a murder investigation.
On May 11, a larger second suitcase was discovered on the beach of Fisherman Island National Wildlife Refuge by a graduate student who was cleaning up litter.
That suitcase contained a head and a torso.
The head had one bullet wound and the torso had two bullet wounds to the chest.
On May 16, the third and smallest suitcase, which contained arms, was found floating in the water near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel's second artificial island.
Police released a facial reconstruction sketch of the victim, which was recognized by someone who knew Bill McGuire.
Melanie became the prime suspect, and the investigation was handed over to the New Jersey State Police.
During the investigation, incriminating evidence against Melanie was uncovered.
Incriminating Evidence Against Melanie
On April 26, 2004, Melanie bought a .38 caliber handgun from a store in Easton, Pennsylvania.
Bill was killed with a .38 caliber handgun using wadcutter bullets.
Melanie's receipt for the gun also included an unspecified $9.95 purchase.
The store had only two items priced at that amount, one of which was a box of wadcutter bullets.
Police received a tip from a private towing company employee.
He reported towing a 2002 Nissan Maxima, Bill McGuire's car, from the Flamingo Motel in Atlantic City on May 8, 2004.
Further investigation revealed a security video showing the car being moved in the early hours of April 30, 2004.
The footage was blurry and the police weren't able to identify the person in the video.
Melanie later claimed she had moved the car as a "prank".
Investigators later discovered that, a few days earlier, she had applied for a protection order, claiming her husband had slapped her.
They also learned that Melanie had been having a long-term affair with a co-worker named Bradley Miller.
Her E-ZPass tag was recorded at a toll booth in Delaware two days after the murder.
She explained this by saying she went furniture shopping in Delaware because it has no sales tax.
Before she was charged with murder, Melanie contacted E-ZPass and tried to have the $0.90 charge removed from her account history.
Days later, an unidentified man, widely believed to be her stepfather, also contacted E-ZPass and tried to have the charge removed.
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| Melanie McGuire |
Forensics showed that the plastic bags containing Bill's body parts and the bags holding his clothes were made on the same assembly line.
The bags were produced within hours of each other.
Melanie admitted that the couple owned the same set of luggage as the one in which the body was found, specifically a matching three-piece Kenneth Cole suitcase set.
Green fibers had been found on one of the bullets lodged in Bill's chest.
The fibers were identified as polyester fill, which is commonly used in household furniture.
Bill and Melanie owned a green couch.
Investigators think the murderer might have used a pillow or couch cushion from it as a makeshift silencer when Bill was shot.
A medical-grade towel found with Bill's body matched the ones stocked at the clinic where Melanie worked.
A witness testified that Melanie used the same towels to protect furniture during her move.
Police believe she used a syringe and prescription from her work to obtain the drug used to incapacitate her husband.
Trial
On June 2, 2005, over a year after the murder, Melanie took her children to child care and preschool.
After leaving her older child's school, Melanie was approached by law enforcement, who emerged from the bushes and took her into custody without incident.
She was promptly booked into the Middlesex County Adult Correctional Center on first-degree murder charges but managed to post her $750,000 bail (about $1.5 million today).
Through her attorneys, Joe Tacopina, Steve Turano, and Marc Ward, she pleaded not guilty to the charges.
After being released on bail, Melanie faced additional charges on October 11, 2005.
A four-count indictment came down from a state grand jury.
Her bail was increased to $2.1 million (equivalent to $3.3 million today), but she was released once more.
On October 26, 2006, over a year later, McGuire was charged with two counts of hindering apprehension for allegedly writing letters to the police in an attempt to mislead their investigation.
She again pleaded not guilty and was released after posting $10,000 bail.
Nearly three years after the crime, McGuire's murder trial began at the Middlesex County Courthouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on March 5, 2007.
Prosecutors argued that her motive for the murder was to start a new life with her lover.
McGuire kept saying she was innocent, insisting that her husband had been getting more moody and unpredictable.
She also said that he had a problem with gambling.
On April 23, 2007, the jury in McGuire's murder trial found her guilty of first-degree murder.
They decided that the evidence clearly showed she was responsible for the crime.
She was also found guilty of lesser charges, including perjury, desecration of human remains, and illegal possession of a weapon.
However, McGuire was acquitted of the two counts of hindering apprehension, as well as tampering with evidence and possession of Xanax without prescription.
Right after her conviction but before sentencing, McGuire asked for a new trial.
She claimed that jailhouse informant Christopher Thieme said her husband was in debt and might have been killed by mobsters from Atlantic City.
However, prosecutors proved that the informant was unreliable and often made up stories, according to a New Jersey State Police investigation.
The informant later changed his story and accused McGuire's attorney of encouraging him to lie.
With the story debunked, the request for a new trial was withdrawn.
On July 19, 2007, at the age of 34, McGuire was sentenced to life in prison.
During her arraignment on murder charges, McGuire's case was dubbed the "Suitcase Murder" by various media outlets.
McGuire's conviction was affirmed by an appeals court on March 16, 2011.
She must serve more than 63 years before she is eligible for parole.
On September 20, 2011, the New Jersey Supreme Court declined to hear her further appeal.
On April 29, 2014, McGuire filed a motion for post-conviction relief, claiming that her lawyer was ineffective and that new evidence had come to light.
On September 25, 2014, McGuire went to court with her new public defender, Lois DeJulio, to seek a hearing to overturn her 2007 murder conviction.
She argued that her former lawyer, Joe Tacopina, had been inadequate.
However, the request was denied.
In other news, an Ohio man has received a life sentence for breaking into his ex-girlfriend’s home and brutally murdering her
He stabbed her more than 30 times and then slit her throat to "speed up the process."
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