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08: The prosecution says that Melanie drove Bill’s body to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in Virginia, where she disposed of his remains but Melanie says she was in Delaware furniture shopping. Does Melanie have an alibi witness to support her claim and if so, why didn’t this witness testify? Also, the prosecution introduces damning Internet searches made on the McGuire’s home computer, but was it Melanie who made these searches or someone else?
If you have any information regarding this case, you can submit it by emailing us at tips@directappealpodcast.com or leaving a voicemail at (732) 510-0996. If you have a question to ask Melanie, be sure to submit it to us by 7/31/19 and we may select it for a future episode.
For Images related to this episode, visit: https://directappealpodcast.com/images/#ep08
Credits:
- Hosted by: Meghan Sacks and Amy Shlosberg
- Produced by: James Varga
- Written by: Meghan Sacks
- Recorded, mixed, and edited by Justin Kral at JC Studios
- Music and underscore by Dessert Media
- Legal Counsel: Barry Janay
- Special thanks to Alan Tockerman , Jesse Lindmar
- Producer-At-Large, Adam Curry
- Photo credits: Joshua Davis under cc license 2.0
Love following the podcast. Sometimes I feel I want to jump in and say “wait a minute, she’s contradicting herself”
🙂
One thing that bugs in the episode June12th – she says she goes to Delaware to sell furniture but her mom says she goes to buy new furniture to furnish her new home. Which one is it? If she’s going to sell the furniture, it would make more sense to call in advance and research the conditions instead of driving there, without furniture to discuss how she would sell it?
Also, in the previous episode, where she goes to Atlantic city and decides to switch off the “road tax” meter. She says she turned it off because she didn’t want her husband to know where she is. But at that point the police told her he is dead and right after the trip she tries to “delete” the records because she is afraid to be connected to his murder. So at that point if she is told that’s he’s dead, why is she going to look for him in Atlantic city? Doesn’t add up.
She seems to remember a lot of details from that time and describes everything very well but when it comes to incriminating details, she suddenly doesn’t remember some details. Sounds fishy.
Amazing podcast though.
Thanks for this! Just to clarify, Melanie said she wanted to sell all of her furniture and buy different furniture, which is why she went to Delaware – to buy new furniture. That is her version.
My personal opinion was that it was Bill at the computer making the searches and not Melanie. Also the searches for suicide could have been Bill looking up ways to commit suicide to murder Melanie and make it look like a suicide. I also feel that there were a lot of things that her attorneys didn’t do. The missing cell phone records, etc. Should have been dealved in two more by them.
In reply to above poster…she told her mother that she wanted to get rid of anything that they had together and buy new furniture She didn’t say she was going to Delaware to sell her furniture she wanted to get new stuff because she wanted to start new.also when she stated that she turned off the EZ pass at that point she didn’t know that he was deceased. she was going to Atlantic City looking for him and didn’t want him to see an E-ZPass charge and know that that’s what she was doing. as for her memory I think she remembers everything very clearly she seems to have a very accurate memory of what happened I didn’t listen to any gaps.
– Will you ladies be looking further into the cellphone records? I don’t think it hurts to try contacting the cellphone company again. Melanie might even be able to request it herself
– Also is there a way to visit/contact the pharmacy to see if they can provide any more information on who collected the prescription? I feel Melanie needs to hire a private investigator to dig deeper into all the things are lawyers clearly did not do.
– What about the Google searches post the husband’s disappearance? Anything of interest?
– I’m still on the fence about the truth. This is such a fascinating case, can’t believe I’ve never heard about it before! Looking forward to next episode 🙂
Thank you for your questions Julie. We are trying to find out about the phone records and if/when we get anything, we will let you all know. The pharmacy had no further information. It was too long after for the pharmacist on duty to recall who dropped off or picked up the prescription and surveillance was not available. Melanie had an investigator at one point but this information just wasn’t available. There were no google searches made on the McGuire’s home computer after Bill went missing for quite some time and none that were sinister that we know of. Thank you for listening. We’ll keep you posted and we are also undecided at this point.
I agree the attorneys didn’t do a whole lot to help her case. The phone records situation is a true mystery – seems very strange they weren’t available. And her defense didn’t question any of it.
The computer forensics truly implies that Bill was making most of these searches. Its far fetched but maybe he committed suicide and hired someone to dispose of his body in order to frame her. To get back at her for cheating on him. He was suicidal and unhappy and probably knew about the cheating. And he had a dark side to him. It’s one way to explain the internet searches and his death so soon after.
When I said that her memory is not always consistent- I was referring to her story what happened the day after he disappeared. All the driving back and forth, moving the car. Why did she have spare keys to his car with her at that point? She wasn’t planning to find his car. She just stumbled upon it. She was almost rambling when talking about it. Very unlike her. For me This is the biggest red flag in the entire story.
All of these things being discussed are evidences of reasonable doubt! The defense doesn’t have to do anymore according to the law.
This case was permeated with reasonable doubt. What Prezioso did was she gave the Jury a story of what may have occurred. There was no proof of any of this and in my opinion the story was far-fetched. I also find it very odd that nobody from the prosecution is willing to talk for this podcast yet they were all more than willing to talk when 20/20 did an episode or when snapped did an episode. They concocted a case out of sheer speculation and fantasy. They needed to look at all the people that he was associated with and delve into things. Instead they only delved into her.
We always welcome a discussion with anyone from the police or prosecution’s side so maybe someone will have a change of heart. We can only hope.
Not sure if she did it or not but you need to get the bridge info correct. It was NOT the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. It was the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. On that bridge there is much less traffic and it is not a high bridge. Also there are several pull over spots, some that fisherman use to fish off of the bridge. It would be easy to drop a suitcase over the side. Your description is not accurate and you try to say it is a bridge like the Delaware Memorial Bridge. Nothing like that bridge. Also it is at the entrance to the Atlantic Ocean, much closer (a good 40 miles) to the Atlantic than the Chesapeake Bay Bridge or the Delaware Memorial Bridge.
Make no mistakes about it, the cadaver dogs were used by law enforcement for the McGuire cars and the Woodbridge apt.They couldn’t risk another set-back after they came up empty at the Woodbridge apt. At trial, there was no mention of cadaver dogs by the prosecution or the defense, which makes me think, did the defense make any stipulations to accommodate the prosecution? Why didn’t the defense team press the issue or bring in their own expert?
How can this be non biased when you only are listening to one side and access to the people on that side. That side being the defendant for despite being in the middle of appeal still has gains to be made by participating. She has much more to gain then to lose by doing this. I see her manipulation driving the podcast.
1. I’m from NJ I know the area and distances to and from. I’ve never met anyone who is going to drive all the way to Delaware for sales tax this makes no sense with all the times and gas spent not worth it. This is just a weak defense for her being in that area when disposing of the body.
2. Two days before his murder a gun is purchased and your only taking her word that it was for her husband.
3. The back and forth trips to AC multiple times.
4. Maybe her phone was turned off that’s why defense didn’t introduce that into evidence. Shutting off her phone doesn’t look good just as the ez pass stuff.
These are just a few of the many coincidences that would be going on.
****Before the murder while living in Woodbridge she was also sleeping with at least one other man because I know him. She’s written him from prison the first few years she was there. I don’t know if they are still in contact. This just goes more to her character and who she really is. She’s not innocent and wrongly convicted.
Hi Allison. Thank you for your comments. Let us address them in order:
1. We agree that the Delaware story does not fit well though we are not sure that this means she was on a 14 to 16 hour drive to Virginia to dispose of Bill’s body. We find Melanie’s mother a credible witness and so while the Delaware story may not add up, we just aren’t sure the Virginia story does either.
2. We are not taking just her word for the firearms purchase. There was a witness who was not permitted to testify who would have lent strong support to Melanie’s claims. In that regard, we remain skeptical but this witness has no relation to Melanie and no reason whatsoever to help her. He was quite credible.
3. The trips to Atlantic City are one of the most troubling part of Melanie’s story for us. We have had mixed feedback on her story but we also think this does not add up. I believe Amy and I were clear on this point.
4. The defense never had the option to introduce her phone records into evidence because the prosecution did not offer them up. We would question why. This would be a logical first step for the prosecution, to get her phone records and show that AHA moment that she was in Virginia but this never happened and that is something we do not understand. We would have asked the prosecution first thing why they did not ascertain her phone records but the prosecution and all police investigators we contacted declined to participate. We still welcome and always will their input.
On a last note, if you know of someone Melanie was involved with and would like to give us more information we would certainly appreciate it and we would absolutely follow up on your tip. Please feel free at anytime to e-mail us at tips@directappealpodcast.com. We are happy to follow any lead and really need some viable tips. Thank you.
The “going to Delaware to buy furniture” story is strange to me. They had just closed on an expensive house which they had put a lot of money into, she was looking for a new apartment to rent which would require an outlay of funds (security deposit, first/last month rent) and it sounds like she hadn’t rented a new apartment yet. So she was going to buy furniture and have it delivered to where? And the reason for going to Delaware was to save on sales tax…so she must have been planning to spend a lot? Where was all this money coming from? Her friend had to give her a few thousand for a lawyer right? And then she ended up coming home without furniture so she didn’t need it after all? Doesn’t make sense to me.
We agree that this is very difficult to understand given all of the circumstances. It’s certainly one piece of the puzzle that does not fit.
The witness that was not allowed to testify regarding the firearm purchase that would have lent real credibility to her story, to me shows that she was not given true Justice in her trial. I am not an attorney but I would think that if there is something that could help the person that it should be allowed to be introduced. Wouldn’t that be a cause for prosecutorial misconduct?
I have one other comment. This case shows areas where she looks guilty and areas where she could be innocent. Although I do think that there was enough reasonable doubt to find her not guilty there are some questions that linger. Given the fact that they had just settled on this house and he took off, wouldn’t her main concern be finding him and saying hey what are we going to do about this house? If she went to Atlantic City and actually found his car then if that were me I would wait for him by the car if he wasn’t answering my calls and say you want to get divorced that’s fine but we have two kids and what about this house that we just settled on? What was the purpose of going to Atlantic City to look for his car? Shouldn’t she have been looking for him? While I do believe that there is plenty that raises reasonable doubt there are some questions that linger. The Delaware trip and the Atlantic City trips are the main problem.
Exactly right, all the actions she did immediately after the night of his disappearance look suspicious. They just bought a super expensive house, but after the dryer sheet altercation she gets so angry that starts planning her life without him: restraining order, selling furniture they own together because she wants no part of it, planning to buy new furniture, looking for new house. There were red flags in his behavior before, why take such a drastic measure now all of a sudden. What was she planning to do with a house? She seemed like a rational and responsible person, but the way she dealt with the house situation seemed very relaxed.
So, She files a restraining order, and then she goes looking for him/his car to AC that same night. Just to prove herself that he went to gamble to deal with the situation and he’s weak. Fine, I can buy this to some extent as she want to confirm that ending this relationship is a good move. However, when she stumbles upon his car in the dark, she happens to have his car keys with her? That’s unbelievable to me.
Next, after she moves his car, Bill would have been alarmed and without a car. At this point, she thinks he’s alive. Wasn’t she worried after a few days, how did he get on, how is he doing, why is he not coming home? Even if they were fighting, he’s the father of her children, she didn’t seem a tiny bit curious where he’s at. Or maybe I just perceived that way.
Thank you for this podcast! (If you have time, and think it is of merit, look into Rafay-Burns family murder case in Washington state.)
It is wrong and disconcerting to me that people are de-emphasizing reasonable doubt about guilt – it is the primary parameter here. Not reasonable doubt about something Melanie says, purports, or attempts to explain. Even if she lies or gets something wrong or convoluted – that is not the key issue nor does it make her a murderer.
Many a prosecutor develops the infamous “just so” story about events that implicate a defendant. Then they get very righteous about it, go out and spend 10 times what the defense can afford, and bring the press and PR into their corner. These stories are most often exciting and intriguing – and appear to very possibly bear truth. It is pretty much true that a soap opera like story is the best strategy for the prosecutors in the USA. They can, and have, convicted many a complete innocent while getting excellent press and career advancement resulting from THAT VERY CASE.
We are attempting here, though, to judge whether there was reasonable doubt that Melanie killed Bill, and whether she received a fair trial. Is there reasonable doubt that the prosecutor’s just so story is wrong, or that she received an unfair trial. It seems like most on these boards would say yes.
Of course, we all want to know the truth about the murder, too, which is natural and intriguing … but my point is that it is very important to remember that it is secondary.
Just read your comment and agree 100% with your analysis. The primary focus should be, Did the State of NJ produce credible evidence, which would prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Melanie Mcguire committed the crimes, as charged in the indictment? Coincidences, speculation and who she slept with are no substitutes for credible evidence.
The verdict is in, if the State of New Jersey expects intelligent and rational thinking people to believe that they produced any evidence, circumstantial or direct, that Ms McGuire committed this horrific crime just because the prosecutor, Patricia Prezioso, says so, they got another thing coming.
I’m supposed to believe, that the victim, in this case, was last known to be alive on April 28, 2004 because evidence was produced that the victim received a phone call around 6pm from his best friend. There’s no dispute, this is a fact established by the prosecution and accepted as Gospel truth by the jury.
Another fact is, in the early morning hours of Friday, April 30, 2004, at 12:40 am, a surveillance camera at the Flamingo Motel, in Atlantic City, recorded the victim’s car pulling into a parking space and left there, Eventually, the car was towed and a forensic team examined the vehicle and found “sawdust” on the floor of the driver and passenger side in the vehicle,. The prosecutor put experts on the witness stand, bought and paid for by the State, who swore on a stack of bibles, that the particles found on the floor of that vehicle were tracked there by the killers walking through the crime scene at the Woodbridge apartment, also believed by the jury.
So, accepting the foregoing as true,(and we have to because the jury did) we must believe that the murder took place between April 28th 6pm and April 30th 12:40am. (approx. 30 hours) There’s no wiggle room here, if he was alive on the 28th and evidence of his death is found on the 30th, the only conclusion is, he was murdered within that 30hr period. There’s no denying that fact. Like it or not, the timeline for the murder is locked in. They couldn’t prove, with any evidence, that the murder took place in the apartment. If not the apartment, where then? There was only 30 hours to commit this crime.
Now, we’re told by Patricia Prezioso (hereinafter referred to as, PP) That Ms McGuire constructed a Dr Frankenstien like laboratory in her apartment. We’re supposed to believe that there are gunshots going on, hacking of body parts, electric saws cutting through bones, blood flying all over the place, which according to PP, Melanie anticipated, so dropcloths, surgical gloves etc., were used. Of course, nobody heard a thing. PP wants us to believe that the Woodbridge apartment was not “connected” to the one behind it. “There’s a crack in the wall separating the apartments.” What the hell does that even mean?
Sound waves come to a crack and stop. I don’t recall any acoustical experts testifying in this case, or is she that too.
Melanie Mcguire is a fertility nurse, with medical training in human anatomy and we heard expert testimony on this podcast from a qualified doctor, produced by the Dr Sacks and Dr Shlosberg, that with Ms McGuire’s training, it would make no sense to dismember a body in this manner, borderline stupid.
Thanks to the hosts of this podcast, we now have Melanie herself telling us what transpired within that 30 hour period. I listened carefully to her account of everything she did within that 30 hour period and I find her account credible.
If you believe PP’s theory, that Melanie McGuire is super intelligent because she “meticulously” cleaned up the crime scene then it must follow, that fabricating a coverup should be a cinch. PP expects us to believe that Ms McGuire concocted one of the most unsophisticated and dumbest coverups of all times.
PP, the one that John Glatt describes as the woman with the “corkscrew” hairdo, put on a dog and pony show in Middlesex County New Jersey to convict an innocent woman. Is it any wonder why she refused to participate in this podcast series. Hmmmmm.
I watched this case on True TV when I was home recuperating from surgery and it was mesmerizing. I think she was convicted because there were just too many unexplained coincidences. What seemed incongruent, though, is her demeanor and professionalism. But the fact is, many people who act out their dark fantasies (most of us wouldn’t dare kill someone even if we hated them enough to think about it!),appear as ordinary folks. At the time I watched the trial, I recall almost feeling sorry for her because she seemed like someone I might know or work with and she had a lot going for her.
The Woodbridge apt. had no evidence of a crime which begs the question, where DID it happen? He was too heavy to move albeit intact (ug) and I don’t believe anyone helped her (whose father would aide in that task? and M’s mother seems quite genuine). The one thing I think proves her guilt is something that’s not mentioned here. Whomever sent the DA the “mafia crime letter” also included his wedding ring. If it was Melanie trying to save herself and she was innocent, then why would she have his ring if he disappeared wearing it?! And let’s face it, Presioso was correct in pointing out that the mafia doesn’t operate that way. So much more to mention here. I was intrigued by her description of Bill on this podcast and the possibility that he got the chlorohydrate himself. However, even if he did, it’s somewhat irrelevant to the crime itself. Also, in her taped phone calls w/her lover, she seems quite blase when he mentions that there must be some way to prove she didn’t do it, responding “they don’t seems to want to hear any of that.” Hell, I’d be crying and hunting for the gun to prove my innocence! Whatever. Maybe she’ll be released some day and I hope it’s soon IF (big if) she’s truly innocent.
You have the bridge wrong. It is the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. That bridge is 17 miles long and has multiple pull offs which many use to fish from off of the bridge. Also the bridge/tunnel is at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and practically in in Atlantic Ocean.
Isn’t it possible that Melanie and Bill both were involved in getting the prescription? They were still together, buying a home together etc. She could have offered to help him get it as a sleep aid since he was supposedly on steroids and having trouble sleeping. He could have dropped it off at Walgreens himself, and either he waited for it or she picked it up after dropping the kids at daycare.
Was there ever any evidence introduced about Bill’s gambling, the extent of it, etc. to support the theory he owed money to someone? I’m wondering how they bought the $500k house if he gambled so much.
I am enjoying the podcast very much! I remember this case happening and the trial coverage so it’s interesting to hear from Melanie.
One more question wasn’t one of the theories and or possibilities that Melanie did not drive down to Virginia at all and was dumbed someone much closer and the current is what brought them down to Virginia? I may be mistaken but I think I remember at the time that was being discussed because their was news coverage of the directions of the currents weather during the time between the disappearance and the discovery of the suitcase. Did this ever come up in trial?
Also one last thing, I’m sure her mom does seem very credible and some of her stories of her husbands behavior are. However, no mother wants to believe that their child is capable of murder and then one so gruesome. She does not address or discuss or any of her daughters bizarre behavior like the AC trip moving cars trips for example with you or any other media, public forum she has done since her daughters arrest. At best she deflects and made less sense then melanie which were non answers. I believe she is in such denial that she actually does believe her daughter is innocent. It’s a form of self preservation for her survival; much easier then coming to terms with your daughter being a murderer. It’s also not unusual in this type of circumstance as a coping mechanism. I do feel very bad for her mother as she’s also a victim in this. I know it can be hard to take emotions out of it but to look at it logically I don’t know how you can say her mother’s credibility is NOT majorly compromised, biased, with major gains to be had as she’s the accused mother.
I tend to believe the furniture story, mainly because Delaware is not far from where her parents were living and because if she were trying to concoct a story, she would have come up with something better than that! She was selling the Pennsylvania House (that’s what she said, right?) furniture and she doubtless got a decent amount of money for it. That could have paid for modest furniture for the smaller apartment she was moving to. If I have the story clear, she was going to look for some furniture. That doesn’t mean she planned to buy a whole lot on the spot. For my own mother, looking for furniture takes many trips and weeks just to buy one item! I do totally believe her mother when she said there was no body in the car!