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00:00Floating in the Chesapeake Bay.
00:02The severed legs of a white male.
00:05Man's head, torso, and arms.
00:09Who cuts up bodies?
00:11That's a mob move.
00:13Dismemberment, it takes some degree of planning.
00:15A reciprocating saw goes back and forth.
00:18We're gonna see those teeth marks.
00:21This image of human sawdust is very visceral.
00:25Bill's sister called and said,
00:27Bill is missing, and I'm scared.
00:30You get into debt. Will someone get murdered?
00:32Yeah, absolutely.
00:34He was having an affair.
00:36Passions were high.
00:38We found a clear vial of liquid with a syringe.
00:43So what happened?
00:45His case and everything, sex, drugs, murder.
00:49I want you to tell me the truth.
00:52I'm telling you the truth.
00:57Virginia Beach is a coastal town along the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia.
01:13It's a hot spot for tourists.
01:16And the crime rate is very low.
01:19So when body parts start shelling up in the bay, that's a big cause for concern.
01:27Detectives.
01:28Hello.
01:29Especially for forensic specialist Beth Dunton and homicide detective Ray Patel, who were on call that day and have agreed to share their insights with me.
01:38So this case, this was a hell of a complicated case.
01:45It's shocking when you have a dismemberment.
01:49I do think it's exciting that you and I, for the first time, can talk about this case.
01:53You know, one of the things that fascinates me about this case is you've got all the forensics of the dismemberment and the psychology of the dismemberment.
02:03Oh, yeah.
02:04It was May 5th of 2004.
02:11A beautiful day.
02:13And a boater and his family are boating out in the Chesapeake Bay.
02:17And they come across this suitcase floating underwater.
02:21They felt it might have come off a car that was traveling on the bridge.
02:26So they went and they pulled it out of the water.
02:29It was a dark green Kenneth Cole.
02:32And they unzip it and immediately they see skin.
02:41And immediately close it.
02:43And they call 9-1-1.
02:45A marine patrol was dispatched out, boarded their vessel, and was able to examine that these were human remains.
02:59Within the suitcase, there were plastic bags with yellow drawstrings.
03:05They tore this open?
03:07Correct.
03:08They opened that up and saw it was legs from a white male.
03:11This doesn't happen very often, especially Virginia Beach.
03:18The first suitcase generated a lot of news attention.
03:21We are a resort city.
03:23We're getting ready to gear up for the summer.
03:25So body parts and suitcases, you know, not the best thing for us.
03:31So we transported it to the medical examiner's office to view exactly what we had.
03:36You get the legs into the ME, what's the first talk?
03:41There was an injury to the ankle where it looks like somebody was like,
03:45I'm going to cut the feet off, but then that bone's a little hard.
03:49So they went up to the leg area where they were able to, you know, cut around the tissue, cut around the bone,
03:57and, like, disarticulate from the joint.
04:00Oh, yeah. That makes a big difference to me.
04:04Joint disarticulation is a procedure where a limb is removed by separating the bones at the joint,
04:11cutting through the tendons, rather than cutting through the bone itself.
04:15When I see a well-executed dismemberment, I think of someone who has medical knowledge
04:21or someone who has a good working knowledge of anatomy,
04:25perhaps someone who's done this before.
04:28This was pretty clean and pretty surgical is what I initially thought.
04:33The legs themselves were found in a black trash bag with the yellow pull ties.
04:38So you automatically know that this person was driving the remains somewhere.
04:43Absolutely. You've got to contain all those bodily fluids and everything else that is going to come out,
04:48and the trash bag's the best way to contain it all.
04:51There's no discoloration. Legs looked very fresh.
04:56These legs looked like they were recently placed into the water.
05:00But our timeline can also be skewed because at that point in May,
05:05the temperature of the water is anywhere between 55 and 65 degrees.
05:09So that can delay the decomposition of the body parts.
05:14And we have no identification on this person.
05:20We're looking for any kind of tattoos, anything that could help us identify them.
05:25Looking at missing persons, flyers, do we have a missing white male?
05:31Really, there's not a lot to go on.
05:34We were kind of in a wading pattern at that point.
05:37Because you know what's coming next.
05:39A researcher who was walking along the shoreline comes across this suitcase,
05:50and it's washed up on the shore.
05:53She was curious and unzipped it a little bit and stopped right there
05:58once she smelled the odor of decomposition.
06:06So she calls the authorities.
06:08We go, respond to Fisherman's Island.
06:12There's a Kenneth Cole green suitcase.
06:15It does look like it came from a set.
06:18It's in much worse condition, very waterlogged.
06:24We unzip the suitcase, and inside we see those black trash bags with yellow drawstrings.
06:33Inside the trash bag was a torso that included the head, arms, and hands of a white male.
06:40Also in the larger suitcase was a white medical blanket.
06:46So again, it's more leaning towards somebody in the medical field.
06:50So we, again, carefully peel away the trash bags.
06:55Well, what's the first thing you notice?
06:57He's got a penetrating gunshot wound through and through to his skull and two in his torso.
07:04Left behind.
07:05Left behind.
07:06No exits.
07:07Correct.
07:09Two bullets were recovered at autopsy.
07:11They were consistent with having been fired from a .38 caliber revolve.
07:18What did trace evidence come up with?
07:20It was a piece of fabric on the actual bullet.
07:26And what was interesting was one was encased in, like, this green synthetic fibrous material.
07:35And what would those green fibers possibly be?
07:38Well, first, well, then think about clothing.
07:40Passing through is going to pick up fibers.
07:43Or, more commonly, the person is shot through a pillow.
07:48To luffle the sound of the gunshot.
07:52The homemade silencer.
07:54The homemade silencer, yeah.
07:55Yeah.
07:58Now, with the second suitcase, we found other evidence in the back.
08:04We found a metal weight.
08:07And that was in the front pocket.
08:09And it was only 5.5 pounds.
08:13Five and a half pounds isn't nearly enough to sink a body.
08:16Or even the upper half of a body.
08:18It takes almost four times the amount of weight that you're trying to sink to maintain negative buoyancy.
08:25Now, either the killer was in a rush and threw in what they had.
08:29Or, more likely, didn't know the science.
08:32I think the reason the weight was in the second suitcase,
08:35because the second suitcase had the head and hands,
08:37which are two of the biggest identifiers of who the individual is.
08:40Someone clearly took very careful measures to ensure that his body was either never found,
08:49or found in a way you would have a very difficult time putting the case together.
08:53His face was in bad shape.
08:57The decomposition had really accelerated.
09:00Investigators attempt to run their fingerprints, hoping to obtain an ID for the John Doe.
09:06Because he's been in the water, we got a lot of pruning,
09:09and that makes it a little bit more difficult to get good quality fingerprints.
09:13But I took the fingerprints and turned them over to our latent fingerprint examiners.
09:20That can take several days to a week to search the entire databank.
09:26We're only missing one section, which is the pelvis and the thigh area.
09:31At this point, there was so much news.
09:33Everybody was looking for suitcases floating in the water.
09:37Then a third suitcase is found.
09:39The latest and third suitcase was brought to shore on Sunday,
09:44floating in the water off the second island of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel.
09:49This suitcase is found in the rocks off the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel.
09:55A Kenneth Cole, smaller than 30 inches, but larger than the smaller suitcase,
10:00so it's a good assumption that this is like the middle suitcase of a set.
10:05And there were two black trash bags, again with the same yellow drawstrings.
10:12Inside was the pelvis and the thigh area,
10:17severed from the knee up and the waist down.
10:21One of the things that fascinates me about these dismemberment cases is the instrument, right?
10:27So tell me, was there a saw cut in any of the found?
10:31I always thought these cuts, especially the leg, a scalpel could have done that.
10:38Maybe a larger knife for the torso.
10:40The M.E. thought it was a power saw, and the teeth were consistent with a sawzall.
10:45A sawzall is a saw that goes back and forth rapidly, doesn't make that much noise, and is pretty efficient.
10:56Which, again, points to someone who seemed to know what they were doing.
11:01We all felt in the unit this was one victim.
11:05All the body parts have been recovered now.
11:07Without a hit on the fingerprints, Detective Piquel tries another forensic tool to identify their John Doe and figure out why he was killed.
11:19You have to reverse engineer the man whose body parts were discovered, his life, and the people in it.
11:29What's my next step?
11:31Well, I went to our sketch artist that works for the police department.
11:35The face was unrecognizable, but a good forensic artist can recreate it using the bone structure.
11:45They got a good likeness and put it out to the public.
11:48I was in the seventh grade. My mom was watching the morning news, and she had seen this sketch, and she calls my dad in, and she says,
12:05John, look at this. This looks like Bill.
12:08My dad and Bill were best friends, and we called him Uncle Bill.
12:12Bill was very charismatic, very warm.
12:15He had a really great energy. He was very funny. He was a big personality.
12:23That night, the police department receives a phone call from Mr. and Mrs. Rice.
12:30So I asked if they could come in that night for an interview, and they did.
12:36And then I showed them the sketch.
12:38Right away, Mrs. Rice sat up in her chair, and she looked right at me, and she gave me a nod.
12:46This was their friend, Bill McGuire. He had been missing since April 28th.
12:55We find out from Bill's friends that he's a 39-year-old Navy veteran married with two kids, and that he lives in New Jersey.
13:03If he lives in New Jersey, how did he wind up in Virginia Beach?
13:13This is a cold, calculated murder.
13:17They started their affair when she was actually pregnant.
13:21He has the medical knowledge to do a dismemberment.
13:24I want to know what happened that caused her to get this restraining figure.
13:37With the help of an anthropologic sketch, the dismembered victim found in three separate suitcases are identified as that of Bill McGuire.
13:46You want to know who may have motive to see harm come to Bill McGuire, and who had the opportunity.
13:56My parents were very close to Bill, so they wanted to participate in whatever way they could to shine light on who he was and to get justice for him.
14:06Bill McGuire was 39 years old, served in the Navy.
14:10He worked in the information technology field, which was emerging in the early 2000s.
14:16It was described to me that he had Irish charm, and he liked a good time.
14:20And then he met Melanie.
14:22My parents, they loved Melanie.
14:25They felt like Melanie was a really great counterpart for Bill, that she met him on his level.
14:31They were both very intelligent, and they had a really great banter back and forth.
14:36My dad was the best man in Bill and Melanie's wedding.
14:42Melanie was a beautiful bride, and they just thought he really hit the jackpot.
14:47Melanie McGuire was in her 30s.
14:50She was working as an RN.
14:52She was educated, mother of two sons that she shared with Bill.
14:56Bill was a really dedicated father.
14:58He was very involved.
14:59You could tell he put his heart and soul into parenting.
15:02There were no signs from the outside looking in that there was any trouble in his life.
15:10But in early May, Bill's sister, Cindy, had called and let my dad know that he was missing.
15:16Bill was a great person, so who could have done this?
15:22Generally speaking, in any relationship, the significant other, spouse, etc., is usually the first person that anyone takes a look at.
15:29The fact that Bill McGuire's wife Melanie was a nurse lines up with the findings from the body.
15:36That whoever murdered Bill had enough medical knowledge to dismember him with precision.
15:42Before I actually notified his wife, I immediately contacted Woodbridge Police Department in New Jersey.
15:51I just want to know what happened for the last few weeks.
15:57Had his wife reported him missing?
15:59Not missing.
16:01I found out that his wife Melanie had obtained a temporary restraining order on him on the 29th of April, and we're finding the first suitcase on May 5th.
16:13Interesting.
16:14I want to know what happened that caused her to get this restraining order.
16:23I wanted to travel to New Jersey and notify Melanie McGuire because I want to see the emotion when I tell her her husband was found deceased.
16:33But I discovered that the local police department made the death notification without my knowledge.
16:42So, the element of surprise was no longer there.
16:46So, my bosses are telling me, go to New Jersey, do as much background on this family as possible, and then if you can, find out where it happened.
16:56So, you're thinking he was killed?
16:59In New Jersey.
17:05So, on June 1st, 2004, myself and my partner, we drove to Teaneck, New Jersey, and we interviewed Bill McGuire's sister.
17:17She was desperate to find out what happened to her brother, but she wanted justice done.
17:22Cindy loved her brother, it was obvious.
17:26She told us he and Melanie just purchased a brand new home.
17:30Bill was very excited about the closing on this house.
17:35The last time that Bill had called my dad, he thought he was about to embark on a new chapter of life.
17:42What was very interesting was that Bill's sister did not know about the restraining order.
17:48According to Bill's sister, Bill McGuire was happy in his life raising his two sons with his wife.
17:58We know something happened in order to get this restraining order.
18:04So, what happened?
18:06We're going to have to talk to Bill's wife and figure this one out.
18:09We met Melanie McGuire face to face for the first time at her attorney's office.
18:27It was a non-threatening, non-accusatory interview.
18:31Melanie says their marriage was on the rocks. They fought all the time. They had grown apart.
18:38I asked her when was the last time she ever seen me.
18:42And she told me that on April 28th of 2004, they had closed that evening on a new house.
18:50She and Bill went back to their apartment and they were both exhausted.
18:57But Melanie says they both wake up about 1.30, 2 o'clock in the morning and almost immediately start arguing about money and the new house.
19:08Melanie's accusing Bill of, you're the one that wanted this house.
19:13And he's accusing her of not being a very attentive mother.
19:16According to Melanie, emotions are high, passions are high.
19:23Melanie said even though they fought constantly, this time Bill was violent.
19:29He pushes her up against the wall. He has a dryer sheet and he stuffs this dryer sheet in her mouth.
19:37Melanie said that she then escaped and locked herself in a bathroom.
19:41And she said she was terrified and feared for her life.
19:58As police interviewed Bill's wife Melanie, she alleges that after being violently assaulted by Bill, she barricaded herself in the bathroom, fearing for her life.
20:09She could hear Bill rummaging through the house, the drawers.
20:14Next thing she hears is, you're the reason why the kids are not going to have a father and you'll never see me again.
20:21And she states that Bill stormed out of the house. He took three suitcases and he disappeared.
20:28So Melanie said she went to the local courthouse the next day and filed for the temporary restraining order.
20:40She was asked, you know, why didn't she report him missing?
20:44And she said, well, he wasn't missing because he left on his own. So he was not missing.
20:52So I'm watching her demeanor. I'm watching her expressions.
20:57I'm looking at her eyes and I did not see the eyes tear up.
21:01Clearly, Bill and Melanie weren't the happy couple everyone thought they were.
21:06But that doesn't mean she murdered him.
21:09And dismemberment takes some degree of planning.
21:11It's not the sudden crime of passion where you shoot someone in a love argument and then decide, oh, I'm going to take him upstairs, cut him on cases.
21:20This is a cold, calculated, planned, intentional murder.
21:26And then she said her husband gambled in Atlantic City. Sometimes he would lose thousands of dollars.
21:35Melanie said he may have been in over his head to someone in Atlantic City.
21:41What happens to people that can't pay their gambling debts when they're dealing with some unsightly characters in the gambling world?
21:48They end up dead.
21:51Who cuts up bodies?
21:53That's a mob move.
21:55Melanie said that he left in his 1998 black Nissan Maximum and that you would probably find his vehicle in Atlantic City.
22:07Police immediately put out an APB on Bill's vehicle, then focus in on the timeline.
22:15Time of death?
22:16We have to put it with definitely when was the last time we saw somebody saw him alive.
22:23And that would have been closing on that new house.
22:27OK, so the 28th?
22:2828.
22:29OK, so you're thinking these were all thrown in at the same time, right?
22:32I think because the window of opportunity to throw the suitcases over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge is so narrow they have to go over and I think at the same time.
22:45Spanning the Chesapeake Bay is the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, it is 17 miles long with two one-mile tunnels and there are specific pull-off spots.
22:58There's no cameras on the bridge, so it wouldn't take much to pull over on the side, get the suitcases out of the back of the car and flip it right on over.
23:07Melanie suggested Bill's gambling may have resulted in him being murdered and dumped in the water.
23:17Investigators have to follow up on that information.
23:21Bill was known to put a couple bucks on the ponies as they sit him.
23:26But anyone who understands gambling knows people don't always hit it big.
23:32They lose and they lose big.
23:34This is what happens in gambling.
23:36You get into debt and he might have been in a gambling debt and went and got money someplace else.
23:42For instance, an organized crime member.
23:44And generally speaking, will someone get murdered?
23:47Yeah, absolutely.
23:51The next day, I get a phone call from my department from Virginia Beach saying we've located Bill McGuire's vehicle.
24:00The vehicle is located in Atlantic City.
24:05So we immediately drive to Atlantic City.
24:10We respond to this motel called the Flamingo Motel.
24:15This motel is not on the main strip.
24:18It's one of these no-tell motel kind of places.
24:20Talking to the management, we discovered that Atlantic City Forensics towed the vehicle to their facility.
24:27We also know they have security cameras.
24:30Detective Piquel arranges to have the security footage picked up, then heads to the forensic lab to examine the car.
24:39Investigators meticulously searched this vehicle.
24:43In the front passenger seat, there was two brochures.
24:47One from Atlantic City and one from Virginia Beach.
24:52Almost looked staged.
24:54We continue our search, and there's a clear vial of liquid in the glove box with a syringe.
25:06I remember looking at it like, that's kind of odd.
25:10That would be sent off for analysis.
25:13Police did trace evidence on the floorboard of the vehicle, and they were able to recover skin cells.
25:22These were particles from subcutaneous muscle and bone deep inside.
25:28The only way that they're going to come out of the body is through some sort of force trauma.
25:35Dismemberment of a body is messy.
25:39If you use a saw, there is a lot of skin and blood and tissue matter that is going to be flying throughout the air, landing on various surfaces.
25:47This image of human sawdust is very visceral, right?
25:51Because it's like, you know what sawdust is.
25:53You put a two-by-four down, you start .
25:56So even if you're keeping things really clean, you're going to at some point walk through that biological dust.
26:05These skin cells got attached to the driver of that car, who transferred it to the floorboard of Bill Maguire's vehicle.
26:16This is a huge piece of evidence.
26:20It tells us that somebody who was involved in that murder was the driver of that car.
26:27After finding human sawdust in Bill Maguire's car, investigators send the samples to the lab for processing.
26:38It seems that whoever drove that car may have staged it to look like Bill met his demise at the casino.
26:45The next day, we were able to get the security footage off of the Flamingo Motel's security equipment.
26:54Bill's car was seen driven to a particular spot, and an individual leaves that vehicle.
27:03But because there was some kind of a security light shining at the camera, you could not make out the person that was driving.
27:13Without any solid identification from the surveillance footage, investigators turned to the lab results.
27:20The skin cells actually came back to Bill Maguire.
27:27At this point, the theory that he was murdered because of his gambling habits is losing steam with investigators.
27:34If it's a lob hit, they wouldn't have left any evidence behind.
27:39In this case, you have the bullets, the bone dust, and a hypodermic needle and syringe.
27:45And, of course, the surveillance video.
27:48It suggests an amateur killer, which leads detectives back to the one suspect still on their radar.
27:55Melanie Maguire.
27:58We learned that Melanie had just moved completely out of the apartment where she and Bill were living.
28:07We contacted the management, and they gave us permission to search the apartment.
28:13When we walked in, it was absolutely spotless and smelt of fresh paint.
28:22I'm thinking somebody left that apartment so clean that maybe somebody's trying to hide something.
28:30Where could a dismemberment happen?
28:33How about upstairs in the big stall shower?
28:36Police comb every single inch of that bathroom.
28:43They even take out the drain pipe.
28:46It's not just absent of blood and bone.
28:49It's absent of everything.
28:51In a shower, you'd expect to see, oh, some hair, some soap, soapy stuff on the floor.
28:57No, this shower is spotless.
29:01We didn't find any evidential value of processing that apartment.
29:08With no new evidence from the apartment, law enforcement returns to the blanket found in one of the suitcases
29:14and discovers a surprising link to Melanie Maguire.
29:18In the 30-inch suitcase where the torso, head, and hands were was a medical blanket.
29:24And the tag was still on the blanket.
29:29And the tag said HCSC.
29:32Wouldn't you know it? HCSC materials, linens, and bedding were utilized in the practice where Melanie worked.
29:41Detectives meet with Melanie's boss, Dr. Bradley Miller, who runs the fertility clinic where she worked.
29:49Detectives press Dr. Miller about the white medical blanket found inside one of the suitcases.
29:55He vehemently denies knowing anything about it.
29:58However, what he did tell them was an entirely different story.
30:03Dr. Miller told investigators he was having an affair with Melanie Maguire.
30:10There are some details about when the affair started that are particularly salacious.
30:18We find out that they started their affair when she was actually pregnant.
30:25And it was a two-year-long sort of affair where they had kind of talked about leaving their respective spouses.
30:33But, you know, they couldn't really figure it out because that would be a really messy sin kind of situation.
30:38He had a family, she had a family. What were they going to do?
30:41Dr. Miller never, I believe, was going to leave his wife for Ms. Maguire.
30:48And I think Ms. Maguire hoped that, you know, someone would come in and save her.
30:54But he insists that he had nothing to do with Bill Maguire's death.
30:58And he doesn't appear willing to say anything else.
31:01Dr. Miller could be an accomplice. We know she was having an affair with Dr. Miller.
31:06And it was a blanket utilized in the practice.
31:13As detectives finish with Dr. Miller, they're suspicious.
31:17But without more evidence, their hands are tied.
31:21But detectives get lab results from the mystery liquid found in Bill Maguire's car,
31:26leading to another shocking connection.
31:29It was chloral hydrate, which is a sedative often used in medical practices.
31:36Police tracked down the prescription for chloral hydrate, written by Dr. Bradley Miller.
31:44Why would Bill Maguire have this sedative in his glove box?
31:48This is an intoxicant that would have incapacitated Bill Maguire.
31:53His defenses would have been gone.
31:56Is Dr. Miller the mastermind of this brutal murder?
32:00Or are they in it together?
32:03He's a man.
32:04He's strong enough to lift suitcases full of body parts.
32:08And, of course, he has the medical knowledge to do a dismemberment.
32:12And he just happened to be in an intimate relationship with the victim's wife.
32:18Dr. Miller was in love with Melanie Maguire.
32:21Dr. Miller has motive.
32:24Not only was Melanie Maguire working for Dr. Bradley Miller,
32:37it came out that she was having a multi-year affair with Dr. Miller.
32:43There's all kinds of motives for murder.
32:46But, to me, someone deeply in love with another person, that provides a special kind of desire to kill the spouse.
32:59Detectives question Dr. Miller about the prescription for chloral hydrate, but he denies writing it.
33:05But he does confess to police that Melanie sometimes wrote prescriptions and forged his signature.
33:14We believe the murder took place on April 28th or April 29th.
33:18The first suitcase appeared on May 5th.
33:21The doctor claims he can provide proof of his whereabouts during that entire window of time.
33:27Bradley didn't believe that Melanie could have done it.
33:31You have this slight young woman accused of a brutal murder and the dismemberment of her husband.
33:39It defies expectations. It defies the common human experience.
33:44Investigators again approached Dr. Miller.
33:48His alibi had checked out, but they were shocked to learn that he was still carrying on an affair with Melanie.
33:54At this point, the investigators turn up the heat on Dr. Miller, and they ask for his assistance.
34:00And he agrees to wear a wire in conversations with Melanie.
34:06After 10 months of building their case, detectives secure the cooperation of Dr. Miller and obtain a warrant for a wiretap.
34:15We set up the electronic devices to listen to Ms. McGuire's conversation.
34:20We listened to over hundreds of phone calls of Ms. McGuire, some to Dr. Miller.
34:26I think part of him was trying to find out that, did it actually happen?
34:32Could it be true? Is this woman capable of murder?
34:37It is now 2.30 p.m., May 31st, 2005.
34:42Brad Miller making an outgoing call to Melanie McGuire.
34:47The wiretaps went on for months.
35:02If you want us to stick together, I've got to know everything now.
35:06What do you mean you have to know everything now?
35:08I mean, there's no other secrets between us.
35:12But we weren't hearing a confession from Melanie.
35:16Melanie had another gentleman in her life named James Finn.
35:21James Finn knew Melanie from nursing school.
35:25I think Jim probably looked at her as a potential girlfriend.
35:30But James was in the friend zone.
35:33And when he learned of her relationship with Dr. Miller, he began to assist investigators in this case.
35:39James Finn told investigators that Melanie had approached him about buying her a gun because she needed protection from her husband.
35:52What struck me is the cold and callousness of Ms. McGuire in her tone in those conversations.
36:09What struck me is the cold and callousness of Ms. McGuire in her tone in those conversations.
36:22I want you to tell me the truth.
36:24Well, what about the gun?
36:27What about the gun?
36:29I don't have it.
36:30Well, who does?
36:32I don't know.
36:35Now, the body did give us the bullets, but without a gun to compare them to, it's useless.
36:41If Melanie McGuire came from New Jersey and dumped bodies at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, she could have tossed that gun anywhere out on that stretch of road.
36:53The police check every gun shop in the area, looking for anyone that may have sold Melanie a gun.
37:00In New Jersey, it's very hard to buy a firearm. You have to have a background check. It's easier to buy a gun in another state like Pennsylvania.
37:08Detectives expand their search of gun stores, and they get a huge break.
37:14There was a receipt that was found that showed that Ms. McGuire purchased a gun in Pennsylvania.
37:19Not just any gun, a .38 caliber gun. The same caliber of bullets that were found inside Bill McGuire.
37:27Investigators have tracked down a gun shop in Palmerton, Pennsylvania, just two hours away from the McGuire home, where they believe that Melanie McGuire purchased a .38 revolver and a box of bullets.
37:48When police went to the gun shop in Pennsylvania, the owner immediately was able to recognize Melanie, because he's like, we don't get a lot of women in here. Right? So she just kind of like stood out.
38:04The gun owner remembers Melanie coming in two days before the murder, and she used a Pennsylvania driver's license.
38:13That license she used traced back to her aunt in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.
38:19So Melanie purchased a gun two days before the murder and took efforts to cover up her residence and bought the gun out of state. Highly suspicious, highly circumstantial.
38:32Hey, Mel. Say please stop at my parents' house today.
38:39Okay. They were looking for you.
38:42Okay. Apparently there was a gun store in Palmerton, and your name was on a receipt from having purchased a gun about a year ago.
38:50Okay. And they were looking for you.
38:53Alright.
38:55Is there anything I should know?
38:58Not particularly.
38:59On June 2, 2005, more than a year after her husband's murder, Melanie McGuire is arrested while dropping her children off at school.
39:11She is immediately booked and charged with first-degree murder.
39:16After she was arrested, that's where we ended up doing a search warrant on Melanie McGuire's computer.
39:22And when we were searching it, we found an interesting thing.
39:28She was searching how to get away with murder, certain intoxicants that would incapacitate a person.
39:36How to get a gun.
39:38That's pretty good circumstance, if you ask me.
39:40Melanie has the medical knowledge to do a relatively clean dismemberment.
39:47And there's a strong personal motive for killing her husband.
39:53In spring of 2007, Melanie goes on trial for the murder of her husband.
39:59They never found the bloody crime scene. They never found that gun. They never found that crucial piece of DNA evidence that they could definitively say, yeah, murder happened here. And Melanie McGuire did it.
40:13So, when you stand before that jury, a circumstantial case is made by telling a story, a compelling story. That's what you do. You run right through it.
40:26We know she was having an affair with Dr. Miller.
40:29Purchasing a gun, the possession of hydrochlorine, her matching suitcase luggage, her easy pass records going down south.
40:37Melanie McGuire was ultimately convicted of murder, and she was sentenced to life in prison.
40:45There's a special place in hell for someone who's capable of carrying out this kind of planning and never walking away.
40:55How do you ever look these children in the face and say, not only did I kill your father, I planned it for weeks?
41:02How callous.
41:07For five years, this was a really big part of our lives. It was a really hard time for all parties involved. I've kind of left it in the past.
41:16There are multiple tragedies in this, right? The destruction of a family at the heart of it. Children who had to grow up with no mother or father, and there's no way that they're ever going to be made whole.
41:26Bill was eviscerated by Melanie with lie after lie after lie. Bill McGuire was a good friend. He was a great brother. He was a wonderful father. And people need to hear that.
41:39And so that's part of trying to give back to the family, not only justice that Melanie McGuire is going to get punished for her evil acts, but justice to give back this man's good name.
41:52All right.
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