june262004
But I love the Snow!
Member since 5/05 15379 total posts
Name:
Kristin
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Wife Arrested In Slaying, Dismembering Of Husband
Wife Arrested In Slaying, Dismembering Of Husband
TED: 10:45 am EDT June 2, 2005
UPDATED: 5:09 pm EDT June 2, 2005
TRENTON, N.J. -- The wife of a New Jersey man whose body was hacked up, put in three suitcases and dumped off the Virginia coast last year was arrested Thursday in his slaying.
Officials said Melanie McGuire, 32, of Brick, will be arraigned in Middlesex County Superior Court on Thursday afternoon on a first-degree murder charge in the death of her husband, William T. McGuire.
McGuire, 39, was killed April 29, 2004. His dismembered body floated ashore in his own matching luggage in the Chesapeake Bay near Norfolk, Va.
Attorney General Peter C. Harvey said authorities believe Melanie McGuire shot her husband in the chest and torso in their Woodbridge apartment before the body was dissected and placed in suitcases that were dumped off the Virginia coast. McGuire bought the gun used to shoot the victim from an Easton, Pa., gun shop two days before the slaying, Harvey said.
"There are more people involved in this matter besides Melanie McGuire," Harvey said at a news conference Thursday announcing the arrest. "She had to have help in cutting up this body and transporting three suitcases from New Jersey down to Virginia."
Harvey said additional arrests were anticipated, but refused to elaborate.
Authorities Thursday morning searched Melanie McGuire's home and the home of her parents in Barnegat. No details were released on the outcome of the searches.
Harvey credited the state police forensics lab with gathering evidence in the case. Forensics experts linked black trash bags found in the McGuires' apartment to trash bags containing the severed body parts, he said, and identified a paint chip found on tape used to seal one of the bags as fingernail polish.
"I am just so stunned," McGuire's sister, Nancy Taylor, said Thursday from her home in Florida. "It doesn't bring him back, but at least justice will be served."
Authorities refused to speculate on a motive in the killing, but indicated that an extramarital affair was a possible factor.
"The investigation over the past nine months has woven a very strange tale of lies, deceit, infidelity and murder," said state police Superintendent Col. Rick Fuentes. He would not elaborate.
Harvey said investigators found no evidence that McGuire was a battered woman or that William McGuire had a gambling problem, despite Melanie McGuire's prior statements to the contrary.
Early in the investigation, McGuire told detectives in Virginia Beach that she and her husband had a violent argument after closing on a $500,000 home in Warren County and that he had stormed out.
That was the last time the New Jersey Institute of Technology employee was seen alive.
His car was later found abandoned at the Flamingo Motel in Atlantic City; she filed for divorce three weeks later.
The McGuires have two sons, ages 4 and 5.
Melanie McGuire, a nurse at Reproductive Medical Associates of New Jersey in Morristown, was arrested in Metuchen after dropping the boys off at daycare.
"All of this good investigation now gives a very loud and somewhat vengeful voice to the murder victim, William McGuire, and that's very, very important," Fuentes said.
Message edited 6/2/2005 5:13:14 PM.
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