How Not To Get Away With Murder: Melanie Maguire And Floating Suitcases

The Three Suitcases

On May 5, 2004, two fishermen found a Kenneth Cole suitcase floating near the fourth artificial island of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, and they did what anyone should do when a piece of luggage is found floating around in any body of water: They called the police. 

Let that be your first takeaway from this story. If you ever discover any strange piece of luggage floating in the water, you don’t need to find out for yourself what’s in it. Just call the cops, tell them where you found it, and be very clear that you do not want to know what they find inside. And if someone tries to inform you of its contents, you’re well within your rights to plug your fingers in your ears and shout LA-LA-LA-LA-CAN’T-HEAR-YOU!!!

That being said, inside the suitcase was a set of human legs cut off at the knees, wrapped in blue towels and black trash bags. See?!? If you were in that situation where you found a floating suitcase, how much better would you feel not knowing what was inside? Because now, not only are you left to grapple with the mental image of severed legs but you’re also burdened with the mystery of what happened to the rest of the guy.

Well, six days later, on May 11, a birdwatcher found a matching suitcase washed ashore on Fisherman’s Island 16 miles away at the end of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. Inside that suitcase, police found most of the rest of the body: The head, arms, and torso, detached at the waist. The good news is that police now had the parts that will best help them identify the victim. The bad news is, they now can deduce that there’s at least one more matching suitcase out there containing… let’s just say the “swim trunk area.” 

May 16: One more Kenneth Cole suitcase was found, this time floating in the bay near one of the Bridge-Tunnel’s other islands, and inside was the victim’s midsection. By then, police had informed the public about the other two suitcases, so the fisherman who found this one had a pretty clear idea of what to expect and no doubt just gestured the police in the third suitcase’s general direction. 

On May 21, Virginia Beach, VA. police released a composite sketch of the victim’s face. A woman in Chesapeake, VA. identified the victim as her husband’s friend, 39-year-old William “Bill” McGuire of Woodbridge Township, New Jersey. So, now that police knew who the victim was and where he came from, their next step was to try and figure out how he ended up in three separate suitcases 300 miles away from his home. 

The Happy(?) Couple

Bill McGuire and his wife Melanie had been married for five years and had two children, who were four and two at the time. Bill had been working as a computer programmer, and she was a nurse at a fertility clinic. The day before Bill had disappeared, the couple had closed on a $450,000 mortgage on a new house. Many people in their lives would claim that the couple seemed to have a happy marriage. Of course, we all recognize this as the part of the true-crime documentary where the music starts getting ominous, and the camera slowly zooms in on the wedding photos as everything fades to a very grainy black and white. 

The First Clues

The homicide investigation started to take its first strange turn when they located Bill McGuire’s car in a police impound lot. On May 8, 2004, the car had been towed to the lot after it was reported abandoned at the Flamingo Motel in Atlantic City, 100 miles from his home. This wasn’t exactly out of character for Bill. He had reportedly had a bit of a gambling problem, and would frequently come to Atlantic City to play blackjack.

Evidence Was Piling Up

Despite the level of decomposition, forensic pathologists were able to determine that Bill McGuire was killed from as many as four gunshot wounds. One .38 caliber bullet was found inside the body. More specifically, it was a wadcutter bullet commonly used for shooting paper targets. The bullet also had green fibers attached to it; thick polyester fibers that are used for furniture upholstery. Investigators speculated that perhaps a throw pillow was used to muffle the gunshot.

Detectives started looking into gun registries to see if anyone in Bill McGuire’s life might have owned a .38 caliber handgun. When they found no matches in New Jersey, they started looking into neighboring states, and in Pennsylvania, they discovered that a Taurus .38 revolver was purchased two days before Bill went missing, and on the receipt for the gun there was also an item sold for $9.95. Only two items in the store were listed at that price, and one of them was a box of .38 wadcutter bullets. The gun store owner confirmed the identity of the buyer as, you guessed it, Melanie McGuire. 

And of course, Melanie could explain. She claimed that she had purchased the gun for her husband. According to her, Bill wanted to carry a gun for protection, but was unable to purchase one for himself due to a felony conviction on his record (he was apparently a really bad driver). What happened to the gun from there, she couldn’t/wouldn’t say. Plot convenience strikes again.

But Here’s Where it Really Starts to Get Weird

But then, investigators started finding evidence that Melanie could not brush off. Towels found in the suitcases with the body parts were traced back to the clinic Melanie worked for. Forensics found tiny traces of Bill’s flesh in her car; little specks of bone and muscle that were colorfully described by the media as “human sawdust.” 

While searching Bill’s abandoned car, they found a tiny bottle of chloral hydrate, a sedative used to induce sleep before surgery, along with two syringes. The bottle was traced back to a prescription that was picked up at a Walgreens near the daycare the McGuire children attended. They were not able to determine if Melanie had been the one to pick up the prescription, but the prescription itself came from Dr. Bradley Miller… Melanie’s boss at the clinic… and the two had been having an affair for the past four years.

Only Dr. Miller had not filled out that prescription. When questioned about it, he did not recognize the signature as his own, but he did recognize the other handwriting as Melanie’s. Miller was adamant that he had nothing to do with Bill McGuire’s murder, and he even volunteered to wear a wire and testify against Melanie. 

The only problem was, even in private conversations, Melanie was being equally evasive. She had been promising Dr. Miller for years that she was going to leave her husband so they could finally be together. But seeing as Bill and Melanie had just entered into a $450,000 mortgage on a new house, that idea now seemed like even more of a long shot. But Melanie had told Miller that the new house was just a way to put all of the couple’s assets into an investment that could be split in the divorce instead of a sum of money Bill might piss away playing blackjack.

The Trial

Really, the only two people who could say for certain what truly happened were Melanie McGuire and Bill McGuire. Bill wasn’t talking, and all that Melanie could give were excuses. Although practically none of the evidence directly tied Melaine to her husband’s murder, all of the indirect evidence combined supported a strong enough case to charge her with first-degree murder. But right after Melanie was released on bail, police started receiving anonymous letters from someone claiming to be the real killer. Odd timing, but here we go…

The letters were written by someone who claimed to be a co-worker of Bill McGuire’s sister, Cindy. The letters contained details about the murder that were not released to the public, and one letter was included with a package that included items related to the case, including Bill’s wedding ring, an empty box of the same ammunition used in the murder, and a key to Bill’s car. The letter also stated these items were found in the trash at Cindy’s office.