The McGuire
Diaries
The Intimate Video Diary Of A Mother And
Nurse, On Trial For Murder
Comments 90 | Page 1 of 6
Feb. 23, 2008 |
|
(CBS) This story originally aired on Sept. 29,
2007.
On May 5, 2004, John Runge of the Virginia Beach
Police Department got a call from a fisherman
stating that he had found a suitcase floating in
the Chesapeake Bay.
"I opened the bag up, unzipped it, noticed that
there were trash bags, black colored trash bags
in the suitcase," Runge remembers. "Once I
peeled the trash bags back I saw a pair of human
legs from the knees down."
Five days later another suitcase washed up on
the shores of Fisherman’s Island; inside that
suitcase was the torso of white male severed
from the waist down. His head and arms were
still attached. Later, a third suitcase with
body parts was found by a fisherman and his
wife.
The victim was eventually identified from a
sketch: William McGuire, from Woodbridge, N.J.
McGuire was married to Melanie, who tells
correspondent Maureen Maher, "When I heard how
my husband was killed I was in complete
disbelief and I could not imagine what he went
through."
But Virginia homicide detective Ray Pickell had
doubts. "I did not believe that Melanie McGuire
was a grieving widow," he says. "I believe that
she was responsible for her husband’s death."
But Melanie insists she is innocent: "I did not
kill the father of my children. I did not kill
my husband."
Three months after the body of Bill McGuire was
found in the Chesapeake Bay, his beautiful wife
was not only a widow -- she was also a murder
suspect.
48 Hours gave Melanie a video camera to document
her innermost thoughts and fears. These video
diaries, which she shot in the quiet of her
bedroom near the Jersey Shore, captured Melanie
in her most private and tortured moments.
Shown on 48 Hours the first time, they are a
rare glimpse into the mind of complex woman, who
some say is a caring mother, others say a
calculating killer.
"I can’t help but think if I had made better
decisions along the way, and left the marriage
earlier, that I wouldn’t be sitting here,"
Melanie confided in one of her video diary
entries.
It is the last place anyone -- especially her
mother Linda Cappararo -- ever expected to find
Melanie. "She was every mother's dream. A good
girl. Never got in trouble," Cappararo says.
"Very supportive of her family. Happy. Wonderful
student."
Melanie became a nurse. "There were several
times where she would see an accident on the
side of the road and she would stop the car and
go over and assist. She was always there for
people," Cappararo tells Maher.
It was a quality that caught the eye of
then-28-year-old Bill McGuire, a veteran of the
U.S. Navy.
Bill's sister, Cindy Ligosh, says Bill and
Melanie were a perfect match from day one. "They
were equals," Cindy remembers. "They both wanted
the same things out of life or so I thought."
The couple married in June 1999. Less than a
year later, the McGuires had their first son.
Melanie went to work at a fertility clinic and
Bill began teaching computer science at a
technical college. Melanie remembers this as a
happy time for her. "I saw Bill morph into kind
of a family man that he always wanted to be and
it really touched me."
But, as with so many couples, the relationship
did not withstand the test of time. By the birth
of their second son, the couple had grown even
further apart. One reason, according to Melanie,
were Bill's frequent trips to Atlantic City. She
says her husband had a gambling problem.
Melanie says Bill became increasingly erratic,
even volatile. She remembers one night he called
from the road in a rage after getting a speeding
ticket. She hung up on him.
"He called back, cursing any number of
obscenities at me. And told me that if I was
there when he got home he was gonna kill me,"
Melanie tells Maher.
Melanie says she didn't believe him, but says
she was scared.
Despite the ongoing battles, Melanie agreed to
buy a new house with Bill. Why, if she was so
unhappy, would she agree to a 15 to 30 year
commitment of buying a home?
Says Melanie, "For the kids. Even though we
weren’t happy we weren't ending this marriage
any time soon that I could see."
Continued
The McGuire Diaries
The Intimate Video Diary Of A Mother And
Nurse, On Trial For Murder
Comments 90 | Page 2 of 6
Feb. 23, 2008
|
|
(CBS) They never
moved into their new home. On the night of April
28, 2004, back in their apartment after the
closing, Melanie says they got into the fight
that finally convinced her to leave Bill.
Believe it or not, Melanie says it was all over
a simple dryer sheet. "He hated them. And I
always left them in the pile of laundry," she
says. "And from there the fight progresses to me
getting slammed up against the doorway and
getting the dyer sheet shoved in my mouth and
slapped across the face."
"At this point one of the kids is there. And I
grab him; scoop him up lock myself in the
bathroom," she adds.
Asked what Bill was saying to her through the
door, Melanie says, "'I’m gonna take the kids
and you’ll never see them again.'"
Melanie says Bill packed his bags and stormed
off in his car. Two days later, she filed a
restraining order, as Melanie says she feared
Bill could pick up their kids and take off with
them.
But Bill never tried to contact Melanie, their
kids, or anyone else. He simply vanished. As
days turned to weeks, Bill's sister Cindy
questioned why Melanie hadn't filed a missing
person’s report.
"It wasn't that out of character for him to have
a tantrum, pick up and be gone," Melanie
explains.
Three and a half weeks later, with still no word
from Bill, Melanie filed for divorce.
While Melanie was taking measures to end her
marriage, Virginia Beach police were analyzing
those matching suitcases found in the Chesapeake
Bay. A fingerprint check confirmed the man
inside the luggage was Bill.
But who killed him and how did his body end up
more than 300 miles away from his home in New
Jersey?
CSI investigator Beth Dunton quickly determined
that Bill McGuire was shot in the head and torso
with a .38 caliber gun. But other forensic
evidence was far more difficult to come by. "The
suitcases were saturated with water," Dunton
explains. "It just destroyed a lot of the
smoking gun type of evidence that probably was
in the suitcase. The water became my greatest
obstacle."
As investigators continued to search for clues,
police informed Melanie her husband was dead. "I
couldn’t feel the ground under me. I was
devastated," she tells Maher.
But there was one clue that caused investigators
to question the grieving widow: the blanket
found wrapped around Bill's torso was the very
same kind of blanket used at the fertility
clinic where Melanie worked.
Bill's sister Cindy refuses to believe that Bill
had been violent with Melanie. "I know my
brother. He would never lay a hand on a woman,"
she says.
Cindy says she never saw any emotional, physical
or verbal abuse aimed at Melanie. "And anyone
that knew Melanie knew that no one would get
away with that. No one could do that to her,"
she says.
And Cindy insists Bill would never abandon his
children.
Det. Pickell says Melanie reluctantly admitted
those suitcases belonged to her and Bill. "We
just felt that she was holding some information,
a lot of information," Pickell says.
She hinted that her husband's trips to Atlantic
City may have put him in contact with some shady
characters. "She informed us that her husband
liked to gamble. That her husband had a knack
for pissing people off," Pickell tells 48 Hours.
Bill's car was found in Atlantic City. Even so,
Pickell believed Melanie was misleading him.
"When you have a husband that's missing but
nobody's reported him missing…yeah, she
immediately becomes a suspect," he says.
Police searched the McGuires' apartment, their
storage unit and Melanie's car but found no
murder weapon, or a tool used to cut up Bill’s
body. In fact, there was no evidence of a crime
scene.
The investigation seemed stalled; police
desperately needed more evidence. Working on the
theory that Bill was most likely killed in his
home state, police in Virginia handed off the
case to New Jersey. There, the investigation
would really zero in on the prime suspect,
Melanie.
New Jersey State Police Detective David
Dalrymple checked for weapons purchases, and
quickly hit pay dirt: Melanie had purchased a
Taurus .38 special revolver.
The McGuire
Diaries
The Intimate Video Diary Of A Mother And Nurse,
On Trial For Murder
Comments 90 | Page 3 of 6
Feb. 23, 2008
(CBS) The gun was bought just 48 hours before
Bill disappeared. Melanie says her husband
wanted it for protection. He couldn’t buy it
himself because he had a felony conviction, the
result of a horrendous driving record. "I wanted
it to at least be a registered weapon," she
says. "So I said, 'Fine.'"
Months passed, and that gun was never found, but
Prosecutor Patti Prezioso was determined to make
a case against Melanie.
Prezioso believes Melanie concocted an elaborate
story to explain Bill’s absence, beginning with
that fight. She tells Maher she believes the
story was "wholly made up."
The restraining order, divorce petition, and
hints of shady characters, she says were all
part of Melanie's cover-up. "There was nothing
that we found to indicate that Bill was involved
with any criminal element whatsoever," Prezioso
says.
The investigation intensified. Melanie’s phones
were tapped and she was put under surveillance,
as were her parents.
The covert operation soon uncovered a secret.
His name: Dr. Brad Miller, Melanie’s boss. They
had been carrying on an affair for more than two
years.
"I was looking for attention. Affection.
Understanding. And I found it there. And I am
deeply, deeply ashamed of that," Melanie says of
the affair.
Detectives believed they had finally found a
motive for murder.
But Miller had a secret of his own: police had
convinced him to betray his lover. With tape
recorders rolling, Miller asked Melanie pointed
questions about the investigation. On recorded
phone conversations, Melanie swore to Miller
that she had nothing to do with the murder.
Detectives didn’t stop there. Jim Finn, an old
friend from nursing school, was also enlisted to
secretly record conversations.
Melanie never confessed on those tapes but,
through her friends, the police got another big
clue: they that learned Melanie was in Atlantic
City the night after she claimed Bill left her.
She says she went to look for him, found his
car, and then drove it to another part of town.
"I wanted to spite him. I wanted to piss him
off," Melanie tells Maher. "I should be if not
fearful, at least cautious. But I was just so
angry at that point. So angry."
But the prosecutor says that story is not
believable. "Atlantic City has 13 large casinos,
hundreds of restaurants, hundreds of shops,
parking garages and parking lots virtually all
over the city. To think that she just happened
upon his car is simply incredible," Prezioso
says.
Prezioso says Melanie made up that story after
the media reported police had video of someone
parking Bill’s car. Too much glare however
rendered that video useless.
But Melanie had now admitted being the last
known person in Bill's car. The evidence was
piling up.
Melanie insists she had nothing to do with
Bill's murder or with a cover-up of the crime.
Police believed they now had enough, including
the blanket wrapped around Bill's torso, the gun
Melanie bought, and her secret lover. Thirteen
months after those grisly suitcases surfaced in
the Chesapeake Bay, Melanie was arrested for the
murder of her husband.
Patti Prezioso was confident she could prove
that Melanie shot her husband, dismembered him
with a reciprocating saw and then drove 300
miles to dump his body.
Prezioso believes it is unlikely Melanie did all
that alone. She will not say who she believes
the possible accomplice is, so Melanie alone
will stand trial. Asked what her biggest
challenge will be, Prezioso says, "We had a
defendant who is quite beautiful. And is not the
type of person, to look at her, to commit such a
horrific act."
Nine months after Melanie was arrested, she
would stand trial for the murder of her husband,
Bill. She admits she is terrified.
"I have to figure out what to wear tomorrow. And
that sounds like a completely shallow concern.
And I'm reasonably certain that it is. But you
know what? It is one of the very, very few
things that I can control right now. So that's
what I'm going to do," she confided in her video
diary.
Melanie was free on bail, but under intense
scrutiny. "So when people remark that, you know:
'Oh, she's got cold eyes.' I love that one,
that's my favorite, cold eyes," Melanie says in
her video diary. "My first as a murder
defendant. And I don't quite know what the
etiquette is."
The McGuire
Diaries
The Intimate Video Diary Of A Mother And Nurse,
On Trial For Murder
Comments 90 | Page 4 of 6
Feb. 23, 2008
(CBS) Prosecutor Prezioso was prepared for
battle, telling jurors in her opening statement,
"She planned for her husband to disappear, and
disappear he did."
Melanie is represented by a courtroom star,
attorney Joe Tacopina. He and partner Steve
Turano say Bill may have tempted his own fate.
"When you have money out on the street and
you're behind and you're not making payments,
you know what happens? You get shot here and you
get shot here," Turano told the court in his
opening statement, pointing at his chest and his
head.
The state, the defense said, stubbornly focused
only on Melanie. "There's no evidence that shows
she did this. There's circumstances. There's no
hard-core evidence," Tacopino said.
But the prosecutor argued the evidence, like the
gun, the blanket, and the suitcases, are all
"very compelling."
As the days went by, Melanie watched her life
pass before her eyes, as people from her past
testified. "They bring in people that I haven't
seen in years," Melanie commented in her video
diary. "It's like watching ghosts file into the
room."
"The one thing that I'm struck by time and time
again is that they talk about me like I'm dead,"
Melanie commented in her diary. When a former
colleague said on the stand, "She IS a great
nurse," Melanie later videotaped her reaction:
"And I almost cried. I really almost cried. I
hope it meant something to the jury. But I know
it meant something to me."
In this case, the prosecutor says, the crime was
cruel, and calculated. Prezioso believes Melanie
drugged Bill before shooting him. She claims
Melanie used a powerful sedative, chloral
hydrate, obtained with a prescription that
someone forged on the pad of Melanie’s lover,
Dr. Brad Miller.
But no evidence of the drug was found in Bill’s
body; the state argues his body was found too
late to test.
Then there's the matter of the searches
conducted on the McGuire home computer, just
days before Bill disappeared. Search engine
search terms, an investigator testified,
included, "instant undetectable poisons," "how
to purchase guns?" and "how to commit murder."
But, as the defense showed, that may not be as
bad as it seems - the investigator acknowledged
they had no idea who made those searches. "There
are other searches. Seconds after the so-called
incriminating search. Where it's a Web site or a
site that only Bill McGuire could access. It's
password protected," Turrano explained.
Prezioso admitted she cannot pinpoint when or
even where the murder occurred but she has a
theory that it happened in the apartment.
That apartment, particularly the bathroom, was
painstakingly searched several times. All, to no
avail: no forensic evidence was discovered.
Prezioso shrugs that off, suggesting Melanie did
a thorough cleaning job. "We have somebody who
is very bright, who was doing computer searches
and research on how to do this effectively,"
Prezioso argues.
Perhaps the strongest evidence against Melanie
is the very story she herself has told,
especially that part about coming to Atlantic
City, looking for her husband. Remember, Melanie
said that she found Bill’s car and moved it out
of spite. That would have been just hours before
she filed a restraining order against him.
Why would she go down there?
"It's not logical. It's not logical at all. And
I acknowledge that," Melanie tells Maher.
"Me moving his car is something that, you know,
to anybody who knows me seems so natural and so
me, you know. So passively spiteful. Yet at the
same time not overtly confrontational. I just
gotta wonder will the jury believe it, you
know," Melanie said in her video diary.
Four weeks into the trial, Cindy Ligosh takes
the stand. By now, she is Melanie’s bitter
enemy, and has temporary custody of Melanie and
Bill’s children.
"It was incredibly frustrating because she came
off very sympathetically," Melanie noted in her
video diary of Cindy's testimony. "To the point
where when she was crying I started to cry."
The trial is taking its toll on Melanie, and she
is feeling the wrath of the prosecutor. "With
her, I’m scum. Did I sleep with her boyfriend in
high school? Did I beat her for a role in the
high school play?" she asks in her video diary.
But Prezioso says this was was not personal at
all. "This was a murder trial. It wasn't a tea
party. I wasn’t there to become friendly with
her. I was there to do my job," she says.
The McGuire
Diaries
The Intimate Video Diary Of A Mother And Nurse,
On Trial For Murder
Comments 90 | Page 5 of 6
Feb. 23, 2008
(CBS) In the course of the trial, a situation
Melanie had been dreading came true: she'd have
to face off in court with two men who betrayed
her.
First up was her old friend Jim Finn, who
described how Melanie told him Bill was dead. "I
felt like I was the director saying action and
she went 'He’s dead.' It sounded phony to me,"
Finn testified.
Finn had been in love with Melanie since nursing
school, a feeling she never returned. Of his
testimony, Melanie commented in her diary, "Finn
was just so sanctimonious and self-righteous."
In his secretly recorded phone conversations,
Finn pumped Melanie for information.
But then, Tacopina dug a little deeper and
exposed Finn’s real reason for interrogating his
friend. "You felt betrayed when you found out
that the woman you were madly in love with was
having an affair with a doctor that she worked
with. Correct?" the defense attorney asked.
"That’s correct, Sir," Finn replied on the
stand.
Next on the stand was her ex-lover, Dr. Bradley
Miller. It was the first time in two years that
Melanie came face-to-face with Miller, whom the
prosecution claims was a motive for murder.
On the stand, Miller testified that his
relationship got more intimate with Melanie when
she was 38 weeks pregnant.
What was Melanie thinking?
"I'm thinking, 'Here is somebody who thinks the
sun rises and sets over me anyway,'" she tells
Maher.
Miller also testified that he was in love with
Melanie at the time and that she had also told
him she loved him. "Just to hear him get up
there and say how much he had loved me," Melanie
commented in her diary on Miller's testimony. "I
just died all over again."
"We were hoping to be together in the future, to
buy a house and have kids together," Miller
testified.
It became even more painful as she listened to
his secret tape recordings in court.
On cross examination, Tacopina used Dr. Miller's
own words to poke holes in the state's theory
that Melanie murdered her husband to be with
him. "Never once not before the death of her
husband or after, did she ever ask you to leave
you wife, correct?" Tacopina asked.
"No she did not," Miller replied.
He also testified that he had made it clear to
Melanie that he was not planning to leave his
wife anytime soon.
After two days on the stand, Miller returned to
his new home in Michigan, with his wife, his
children and his job at another fertility
clinic.
After five weeks of prosecution testimony, the
defense got its turn.
Tacopina came out of the gate confident, saying
the state not only failed to find the murder
weapon, a motive, or an accomplice, it also
failed to prove its own theory that Melanie shot
and dismembered Bill in their apartment.
"Impossible for that crime to have occurred in
that apartment without there being a piece of
evidence," Tacopina told jurors. "Impossible for
a neighbor not to hear gun shots. Impossible for
neighbors not to hear a reciprocating saw sawing
through bone."
Impossible, says Tacopina, for this loving
nurse, mother and friend, to commit such a
ghoulish crime.
A parade of fiercely loyal friends and patients
took the stand to drive home that point.
But would the jury get to see that side of
Melanie?
"I need to be prepared to testify. If I were a
juror I would want to hear it from me," Melanie
said in her video diary. "But I understand the
concerns that the attorneys have which is why?
You've already been cross examined by two people
you loved and trusted. It's just -- surreality
-- is a little much today."
In the end, Melanie did not take the stand.
After seven weeks and more than 70 witnesses,
closing arguments began.
"They saw what they wanted to see; they heard
what they wanted to hear. No one but Melanie
McGuire, no one was investigated besides Melanie
McGuire," Tacopina told the court.
Not even those shady characters Bill supposedly
angered in Atlantic City, the defense attorney
said. "He was a big gambler, ladies and
gentlemen," Tacopina said. "He gambled beyond
his means. There's no question about that."
But Prezioso said Bill's only real enemy is
sitting in the defendant's chair. "Don’t let
drama, don’t let looks, keep you from doing what
may be an unpleasant task," Prezioso told
jurors.
The McGuire
Diaries
The Intimate Video Diary Of A Mother And Nurse,
On Trial For Murder
Comments 90 | Page 6 of 6
Feb. 23, 2008
(CBS) In the privacy of her bedroom, Melanie
McGuire prepared for the worst while she waited
for the verdict. "To the boys. I hope you never
see this. I hope you don't have to. I love you
more than life itself and I would never have
taken your father from you," she said in her
diary.
"I loved my husband. Was I in love with him
anymore? No. But, we had kids together. We had a
life together," Melanie tells Maher.
Asked why she thinks people should believe her,
Melanie says, "Because this…is not who I am. I
have spent my life, my professional life giving
people life. Trying to bring life into the
world."
Then came the verdict: guilty.
Joe Tacopina didn't expect this. "That 12 people
were able to say, 'Convict her beyond a
reasonable doubt' based on that record was
shocking to me," he says.
"Melanie's literally pulling on my lapel and my
arm," he recalls. "She's telling me, you know,
time and again, 'I didn't do it. I didn't do it.
My kids, my kids!'"
"I felt responsible. Not because I killed my
husband, because I didn't. But because if I
hadn't stayed with him this long, if I hadn't
had the affair, if I hadn't moved the car, if I
hadn't bought the gun, that these people I love,
let alone me, wouldn't be in this kind of pain
right now," Melanie says.
Melanie's mother Linda says hearing the verdict
was the worst moment of her life. "It was like a
death, hearing those words, and seeing her face.
And just knowing that these 12 people could
think that she killed her husband," she says.
Prosecutor Patti Prezioso was grateful. "My ears
started buzzing once I heard guilty. And I
didn't hear anything else," she recalls. "But
just tremendous, tremendous relief."
Melanie was taken into custody, and put on
suicide watch.
Three months later, at her sentencing hearing,
Melanie did not make a statement, before the
judge imposed the maximum sentence of life in
prison.
"It's absolutely indescribable. The hell for me,
the hell for my family. This is my life now.
This is what I have to deal with," Melanie tells
Maher.
But she remains defiant. "I can't make anybody
believe who's convinced that I've done this that
I didn't," she says. "All I can continue to do
is to tell the truth, and it's not the most
flattering truth. But, it's the truth."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Melanie McGuire will be eligible for parole in
2073. She would be 100 years old.
Melanie McGuire's parents are fighting her
husband's family for custody of the children. 1
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
|