Watch new at 9/8c on ABC. Melanie McGuire admitted to having an affair with a doctor at the fertility clinic where she worked. In 2004, three separate dark green Kenneth Cole suitcases, containing pieces of a dismembered body, were found in and around the Chesapeake Bay, near Virginia Beach, Virginia. Melanie McGuire said that Bill McGuire had asked her to buy the gun for him since he had a felony conviction from a bad driving record, which barred him from purchasing one on his own. New Jersey fertility clinic nurse Melanie McGuire stands accused of murdering her husband, William, in 2004. Also if the crime scene didnt happen [at the family home] and shes home with her children all night, where is this happening? Prezioso is certain that Bill McGuires murderer is the woman who was convicted and is now sitting in prison. At trial, prosecutors presented an apparent mountain of circumstantial evidence against Melanie McGuire in Bill McGuires disappearance and murder. On April 23, 2007, McGuire's murder trial jury found her guilty of first-degree murder, finding that the evidence established her culpability for the murder beyond a reasonable doubt. Her penalty is actually categorized as the following: life in prison for first-degree murder; life in prison for the possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose; 10 years for desecrating human remains; and five years for perjury. Make up your mind. Melanies not the only person who believes that the police got it wrong. A four-count indictment came down from a state grand jury. [1], By April 2004, the McGuires had been married for five years. Offers may be subject to change without notice. Prosecutors allege that McGuire, 34, shot him to death, sliced his body into four pieces with a power saw and then dumped his remains in the Chesapeake Bay. 01: Three suitcases, containing human remains, surfaced in Virginia's Chesapeake Bay in May 2004. Their relationship began in 2002, according to the appeal. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? Investigators also found trash bags in Melanie McGuire's home that they believed matched those used to wrap parts of Bill McGuire's body. Of course, since we do not know either of their names, we have no way of digging up any other credible information concerning their current standing. They looked high and low to connect Melanie to some pet, and once they found that there was no way to connect Melanie to these pet hairs, it became not of evidentiary value, said Sacks. Five days after Bill McGuire went missing, investigators said Melanie McGuire made another bizarre road trip, this time to Delaware. The court awarded custody of her two sons to Bill McGuires sister, Cindy Ligosh, and Melanie McGuire has had no contact with them since her trial. Dig, dig." Suitcase Killer: The. Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters. This stuff exists, she said on the show. Melanie McGuire, The Suitcase Killer Who Murdered And Dismembered Her Husband. NEW BRUNSWICK - Melanie McGuire the former Woodbridge resident convicted of killing her husband, dismembering his body, packing it in suitcases and tossing it off a bridge in Virginia . 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. Dig, dig., 20/20 airs Fridays at 9 pm on ABC, right after Americas Funniest Home Videos at 8 pm. Melanie McGuire is serving a life sentence in the murder of her husband, Bill McGuire, at a women's correctional facility in New Jersey. But, after that fateful April day, when the sun rose, their father was nowhere to be found. After a nearly month and a half long trial, Melanie McGuire was found guilty. After all these years, I still feel hurt. Meanwhile, investigators found more and more evidence that suggested that Melanie McGuire had killed her husband. After being released on bail, Melanie faced additional charges on October 11, 2005. YouTubeMelanie McGuire says shes innocent and that someone else killed her husband, Bill, in 2004. Melanie McGuire Today: Where Is the Suitcase Killer Now in 2020. People are feeling this way now, but when it's no longer a story, I'll just be forgotten. So she drove around until she found his car and then moved it as a prank. So, as soon as the topic of custody arose, the two boys were sent to them, especially since Bill and Cindy were already great parents to their own adult children: Laura Ligosh and Max Ligosh. Miller agreed to cooperate with investigators and was never charged in the crime. Please review our privacy policy here: https://heavy.com/privacy-policy/, Copyright 2023 Heavy, Inc. All rights reserved. That same year, she married her husband, a U.S. Navy veteran named William Bill McGuire. The Departments virus mitigation tactics, along with its universal testing initiative of staff and inmates, has controlled the spread of COVID-19 within NJDOC facilities. Would love your thoughts, please comment. It premiered on 17th June 2022 and is airing exclusively on Lifetime.The show follows the shocking murder of Bill McGuire, so don't miss it - learn how to watch Suitcase Killer The Melanie McGuire Story in Canada on Lifetime.. No matter where you live, the alluring Suitcase Killer The . Melanie McGuire told the podcast "Direct Appeal" that she is not the suitcase killer, and that the true murderer is still on the loose. Melanie McGuire has been in prison for 13 years, but she still maintains her innocence, she said in an interview with 20/20. Dont accept what youre just being told on the surface. by Chilling Crimes July 20, 2020. As a realtor at the Weichert office in Franklin Lakes, she, along with her husband, pharmacist Bill Ligosh of Wyckoff, New Jersey, were deemed well qualified and capable of taking good care of the toddlers. 2023 Oscars predictions: See who will win at the 95th Academy Awards. It shows no inmates or staff at the facility had confirmed positive test results between August 22, 2020, and September 25, 2020. 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. September 26, 2020 Examined He ran tests, but he didn't do all the tests that you actually need to definitively say whether these bags match, added Sacks. In April 2004, defendant conducted internet research to learn about buying a gun and about poisons, sedative drugs, and murder. Powered by. All we know is that they havent been in touch with their mother since before she was convicted. Three suitcases were found washed up, inside each were the remains. But she didnt report Bill missing. The prescription for chloral hydrate came from Millers prescription pad. That requires two drivers so certainly that means someone helped her, said Prezioso. Her defense lawyers have not said if McGuire will testify . She was later charged with other offences including perjury and desecration of human remains, for which she also pled not guilt. 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. by 2Paragraphs in Culture, True Crime Murder TV | September 25, 2020. A top priority for New Jersey investigators was determining if Melanie McGuire had ever owned a gun. 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 . She was indicted on four additional, relatively smaller charges in October. READ NEXT: Melanie McGuire Today: Where Is the Suitcase Killer Now in 2020? William McGuire was 39 when he died. 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. Dig, dig. After a nearly month and a half long trial, Melanie McGuire was found guilty. 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. Melanie went to Middletown High School South and. He said he was leaving and he wasnt coming back and [that] I could tell my children they didnt have a father.. McGuire offered a message to her sons on 20/20, who are now adults, encouraging them to look deeper into the case and find the truth for themselves. I just burst into tears, Melanie said of learning about her husbands death in a 2007 interview. 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. She will not be eligible for parole until she is 100 years old. It never made sense.. Melanie McGuire defends her innocence from inside prison in 2019, over a decade after she was convicted. Melanie McGuires story made national headlines in the mid-2000s, when she was charged with first-degree murder and dubbed the Suitcase Killer by some in the media. Another important development for investigators was the discovery of Bill McGuire's car. https://t.co/ZGewRPfd2o pic.twitter.com/i4dBUBR7PJ. 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. Download is FREE. McGuire had a message for her sons, who are now adults, "Make up your mind. They knew that Pennsylvania was close and a lot of people will go to Pennsylvania for firearms because gun laws are more lax, Sacks said. Bill McGuire, 39, disappeared April 28, 2004, shortly after announcing to his friends that he and his wife had just closed the sale of their first home, according to an appeal filed in her case. And shes not the only one who thinks that police arrested the wrong suspect. [13] She was also convicted of the lesser charges of perjury, desecration of human remains, and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose. But life can spring an unexpected surprise, and it was an alleged infidelity in the McGuires' case that shattered to tragic pieces their marriage with the gruesome death of Bill in 2004. NEW BRUNSWICK - Attorney General Stuart Rabner and Criminal Justice Director Gregory A. Paw announced that Melanie McGuire was found guilty of murder today in the 2004 shooting death of her husband, William McGuire, whose severed remains were found in three suitcases along the Virginia coast in May 2004. Miller, however, claimed that the prescription was written in Melanies handwriting. Making matters worse, Melanie McGuire had called the company and attempted to have those charges removed. Melanie McGuire claimed that her gun could not have been the murder weapon since the numbers of lands and grooves on the bullets that came out of Bill McGuire didn't match the number that the manufacturing website said it had made her gun with. These documents exist. Background Bill McGuire was born in September of 1964. Melanie and Bill McGuire pictured hugging at an unknown date. [9] Police released a facial reconstruction sketch of the victim, which an acquaintance of Bill McGuire's recognized. It was while Melanie was pregnant for the second time, during the 38th week, that her affair with Dr. Bradley Miller, her co-worker in the fertility clinic where she worked as a nurse, began. State Superior Court Judge Angela Borkowski gave Locane more time after the punishmentfor her original conviction (second-degree vehicular homicide and assault by an auto), which was deemed too lenient. A Wednesday. She maintains her innocence and . But when fishermen discovered a suitcase stuffed with Bill's remains just days after the couple had closed on their new dream home . WOODBRIDGE - Former township resident Melanie McGuire has spent 13 years in prison after receiving a life sentence for the death of her husband, William McGuire, but in a new television. Entertainment Weekly is a registered trademark of Meredith Corporation All Rights Reserved. I absolutely tried to have those charges taken off because I feared that people would look and think what they ultimately ended up thinking," McGuire said. She later told police that she believed he'd gone to Atlantic City to gamble as he had a penchant for doing so. 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. Therefore, more than a year after the incident, on June 7, 2005, Melanie was officially arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Locane is back behind bars for killing Helene Seeman, 60, in a 2010 drunk driving collision in New Jersey's Montgomery Township. Melanie McGuire, sentenced to life in prison for killing her husband in a case known as the "Suitcase Murder," filed a petition in New Jersey Superior Court Thursday asking a judge for more. [6][7] She enrolled at Rutgers University with a double major in math and psychology and graduated in 1994. According to some reports, in 2007, during Melanies murder trial, Cindy put it into evidence that both of her sister-in-laws children, then aged 5 and 7, had been positively diagnosed with autism. It's out there," she said. Melanie McGuire was found guilty of murdering Bill McGuire, 39, in April 2004. Check out what's clicking today in entertainment. https://t.co/ZGewROXCaQ pic.twitter.com/hlzcKR96Ss. Bill McGuire, 39, went missing on April 29, 2004. 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. The evidence in this case points to a well-organized, meticulously planned execution of a murder, Prezioso said during the trial. Melanie McGuire, a 34-year-old mother of two, maintains that she didn't kill her husband and says the real killer tried to frame her. After all these years, I still feel hurt. Dig, dig. She adds, Is she trying to say that the man who was so excited to be buying this house, because he wanted to have this house for the wife that he loved and his children, that at the same time trying to kill her? There are times when podcasts and media can shine a light on certain cases where what the government did was not right. Author John Glatt wrote a book about the case, entitled To Have and To Kill. Melanie McGuire is serving a life sentence in the murder of her husband, Bill McGuire, at a womens correctional facility in New Jersey. To drive from New Jersey to the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia requires driving through Delaware, and the first suitcase turned up the very next day, Prezioso said. Days later, an unidentified man, believed by many to be her stepfather, also contacted E-ZPass and attempted to have the charge removed. After re-examining her murder conviction over a decade later, Sacks and Shlosberg, believe Melanie McGuire was wrongfully convicted. https://t.co/ZGewROXCaQ pic.twitter.com/hlzcKR96Ss. says the actress. I still feel bothered. Melanie McGuire, shown at left during her trial, was convicted of fatally shooting her husband, cutting up his body with a power saw and then stuffing his remains into suitcases she later. Melanie went to work at a fertility clinic and Bill began teaching computer science at a technical college. Thats what happened the night of April 28, 2004, the day Bill McGuire disappeared, according to his wife. Although investigators were unable to find physical evidence of murder inside the McGuire's home, they were able to find small pieces of Bill McGuire's flesh -- evidence that would eventually be referred to in the media as human sawdust -- from the car. Speaking to ABC News' Amy Robach for 20/20, she said: "I'm doing this because there's a murderer walking around. ET on ABC (Video By Bumper. During the 20/20 interview, Melanie sends a message to her now adult sons, whom she hasnt had contact with since her 2007 trial. They surmised that Melanie had sedated Bill, shot him, and cut up his body. The very next day, Melanie spoke with divorce attorneys and attempted to file for a restraining order. But despite her apparent grief, police soon began to suspect that Melanie McGuire had murdered her husband. I have a book that I can look in that doesn't leave an internet history, Melanie McGuire told "20/20.". 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. Melanie did file for a re-trial before her sentencing on the basis that her husband was deeply in debt and may have been killed by Atlantic City mobsters, but to no avail. [9] Bill and Melanie owned a green couch, and investigators theorized that the murderer used a pillow or couch cushion as a makeshift silencer) to shoot Bill. She maintains her innocence, having recently told 20/20 that "after all these years, I still feel hurt. She didnt fit the profile, I guess, of a murderer, Shlosberg told 20/20. "I have this Forrest Gump-ian way of touching something and it becomes a hit!" She graduated from Oberlin College, where she earned a double degree in American History and French. McGuire appealed her case, saying she did not receive a fair trial. Bill McGuire's body was found around Chesapeake Bay near Virginia Beach, Virginia, his corpse had been shot and then dismembered, and he was put in three separate suitcases which were found in May 2004. Dr. A few weeks later, once Bills body was discovered and Melanie was identified as the prime suspect, Dr. Bradley had asked her to swear upon her childrens life that she had no hand in this homicide, which she did. The Twisted Case of Melanie McGuire That Chapter 1.81M subscribers Subscribe 64K 1.8M views 9 months ago 2004, Chesapeake Bay. There are just too many holes in this story.. He was 39 years old. 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. While the prosecutors claimed, supported by evidence, that Melanie killed her husband in cold blood in the hopes of freely taking up a new life with Bradley Miller, her defense team argued that she was innocent and it was Bill who had issues. Melanie McGuire says 'it's a coincidence' she bought gun before husband disappeared McGuire said she spoke in a new "20/20" interview, 16 years after she was convicted of murdering her husband . 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. Locane said she worries that her daughters and the public will forget her. The chart below captures the current COVID cases within the inmate and staff population, following Phase 2 testing, which includes retesting those individuals who were previously negative. Its out there., Melanie McGuire said she's speaking in a new #ABC2020 interview tonight with @ARobach, 16 years after she was convicted of murdering her husband, because she believes "the killer is out there and it's not me." Fairleigh Dickinson University criminology professors Meghan Sacks and Amy Shlosberg have an entire podcast called Direct Appeal dedicated to questioning Melanies conviction. Prosecutors have always maintained that they believed Melanie McGuire likely had an accomplice. Prezioso said she has no doubt Melanie McGuire's gun was the murder weapon. Like, how could somebody think that I did that?".