Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Dismembered Body Washes up in 3 FANCY DESIGNER SUITCASES

Episode Date: November 5, 2020

The dismembered body of Bill McGuire is found in three separate dark green Kenneth Cole suitcases near Virginia Beach, Virginia. The medical examiner determines that the body had been shot multiple times. Now, 13 years later the convicted killer, his wife, maintains her innocence. Joining Nancy Grace today: Ashley Willcott - Judge and trial attorney, Anchor on Court TV, www.ashleywillcott.com  Dr. Angela Arnold - Psychiatrist, Atlanta Ga www.angelaarnoldmd.com Joe Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics Jacksonville State University, Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet" featured on "Poisonous Liaisons" on True Crime Network Kristen Quon - WCYB Bristol, Va - Reporter John Glatt - Author of book about Melanie McGuire case, "To Have and To Kill" available on Amazon, www.johnglatt.com   Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A worst nightmare comes true when parents take their little boys fishing. The little boys are so excited because they think they found pirate treasure. They have found anything but. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Let's kick it off with our friend Amy Robach. So we went out there and anchored off of Fisherman's Island,

and we were just doing some fishing. And suddenly, one notices that a suitcase has floated by. We wheeled the boat around, pulled up alongside it. I immediately thought it probably blew off of a car, you know, off the luggage rack or something. Dee and his son had reached over and were trying to pull it up in. It had some weight to it, so I stopped the boat, reached in and helped him pull that thing up in it had some weight to it so i stopped the boat reached in and helped him pull that thing up

in there and laid it in the floor of the boat they found a dark green kenneth cole suitcase in pretty good condition that was apparently part of a luggage set of three. They put it on board and the little boy with them is very, very excited. He thinks it's buried treasure, so he wants to open it. The contents were covered with a thick trash bag. Guys, you're hearing the voice of a guy named Chris Hinkle, who is out fishing, and the voice of a very special guest joining us today, John Glatt. He is the author of To Have and To Kill. You can find him at johnglatt.com. With me, an all-star panel in addition to John, Ashley Wilcott, judge, trial lawyer, anchor at Court TV. You can find her at ashleywilcott.com. Dr. Angela Arnold, renowned psychiatrist, joining me out

of the Atlanta jurisdiction. She's at AngelaArnoldMD.com. Professor of Forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, and star of a brand new series on the True Crime Network, Poisonous Liaisons. Joseph morgan joining us but first to kristin kwan with wcyb bristol virginia kristin thank you so much for being with us crystal what body of water uh kristin were these guys fishing on so this was the chesapeake bay area in virginia beach virginia absolutely beautiful big tourist spot Chesapeake Bay. To John Glatt joining us in addition to Kristen Kwan, WCYB. John, it's so great to get to talk to you again. Tell me about this group of people that were out fishing. I guess it was the parents

out fishing with the little boys. Tell me what happened, how they managed to pull up a very expensive Kenneth Cole suitcase full of anything but treasure. Yeah, well, actually, it was Chris Hinkle, who is a fisherman, with a friend of his and their two little kids. And it was early May, so it was their first fishing trip of the year. So they were very, very excited. And they weren't getting much catch. And then they sort of they meandered around for a while. And then suddenly they picked up this suitcase and they dragged it in. It was kind of a smallish suitcase. They put it on board.

Chris Hinkle's little boy was terribly, terribly excited. And then they opened it up and there was a black trash bag in there. Okay, this doesn't sound like it's going anywhere good. How old was the little boy, John Glatt? I think it was seven or eight. Oh, my stars. So in Chesapeake Bay, we're big fishers, campers, and RVers. There's channel catfish, carp, trout, eel. Oh, my goodness, there's so many things for them to be fishing for,

but they end up getting a Kenneth Cole. That's not cheap. So take a listen, guys, to our friends at 20-20. It's a turn to say something to Dee. And while I was talking to Dee, the young boy reached down and ripped open the plastic trash bags. There was no doubt of what it was. It's a set of human legs.

There's a pair of male legs from the knee down, look very fresh, and they recoil in horror. I looked down there and said, oh, my gracious. So I closed the bag back up, and I dialed 911. I was out on patrol in Chesapeake Bay when I received a radio call. I made arrangements with him to meet me, and he transferred a suitcase over to my boat.

I handed him the luggage, and he seemed surprised. He goes, what do you want me to do with that? I said, open it up. I was pretty shocked. I'd never seen a suitcase with body parts in it before. There really wasn't any smell. They actually look kind of fresh. Okay, right there to Joseph Scott Morgan, Professor of Forensics. Joseph Scott, it's amazing how even when you've never seen a dead body before, much less a dead dismembered body, that you know it's, as they are saying, fresh. Their words, not mine. That's how they are describing what they have found. But the reality is they're right.

Joe Scott, explain. Yeah. You know, Nancy, I got to see an image of this suitcase that contained these legs. And when you take a look at them, it does appear fresh. And the reason I know that is I've been around so many decomposed bodies during my career. The skin is nicely pinked up. It doesn't have kind of a greenish. You sound like you're talking about a fish.

Well, you know, I got to tell you, Nancy, there are a lot of comparisons that we do relative to decomposing bodies and, say, picking out fresh fish in the market. Like, you know how they talk about you don't buy fish with cloudy eyes? Well, that's something that we'd look for is a postmortem change in the dead. And it applies to the skin as well. You know, this is my fault, Joe Scott, because I asked you. It's my fault for asking you. I asked for it, and now I'm going to get it. Go ahead.

Take your medicine. Okay, so in the case of a body that has been decomposing, you can see the skin color changes. It'll go from like kind of a deep red and the most striking colors are like black and green. And it's you'll have marbling, which is kind of these little venule looking outgrowth within the, not outgrowth, but. When you're saying venule,looking outgrowths within the, not outgrowths, but contained beneath the skin. When you're saying venule, are you referring to veins? Yeah, but I'm referring to actually the capillary beds where we have arterioles and venules where the transfer takes place of oxygenated blood.

And so the blood will literally decompose within these vessels, and it will start to, you can actually follow the pattern many times. You don't see that in this image that I have borne witness to with these legs in the suitcase. So yeah, they, in my opinion, just from looking at that, they do appear very, very fresh. Take a listen to our friend Megan Sachs speaking with Dan Bowens. They were discovered in the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia in various locations. One was on Fisherman's Island and I believe the two others were actually in the bay. And there were different parts of the body. So in one suitcase, there was

kind of a torso with the arms and head still attached. In the second suitcase, there was the pelvis area, and in the third suitcase, there was really the legs down. So it literally appeared as if the body was cut to fit these suitcases. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace Guys, I'm trying to wrap my mind around the fact that there were multiple suitcases, all from a matching set, which, you know, tells me something about the killer. I mean, there's no way we could find a matching set of luggage in our home. Maybe, maybe somehow we could cobble it together. But did someone go out and buy a matching set of Kenneth Cole luggage? That tells me a lot about the killer. But I'm trying to understand too, Kristen Kwan, a special guest joining me from

WCYB Bristol, joining me along with John Glatt. Kristen, where are the locations as they relate to each other? How many miles apart? The terrain? Were they all submerged in water? What can you tell me, Kristen? Right. So, of course, the first one was found, like we spoke about, in the bay, and a fisherman actually pulled that one up. Right. The second one was found kind of in a more remote area of the beach. And the person who found that one was walking along and actually could smell the odor coming from that second suitcase.

Is it the same body of water, Kristen? It's all around the Chesapeake Bay area. What I'm trying to figure out is, Kristen Kwan, WCYB, did someone throw the three suitcases out at one location or did they travel from location to location trying to hide evidence? Well, it's quite possible. I think that they could have dropped them all in the same location or that they could have found them, you know, in various areas of the beach. So one fisher person found it, then one person walking along the beach found it, and then

where was the third one? I believe the third one was found submerged in water as well. To John Glatt joining me, author of To Have and To Kill, how far apart were the three suitcases and were they a matching set? And do you believe, John Glatt, that the killer had to travel, for instance, in a vehicle to have them thrown away that far apart? Or were they thrown, just for instance, over a bridge and the tide took them to different places? Yeah, no, they were thrown over the bridge, the Chesapeake Bay Tunnel, I think, bridge, and in one spot.

But they were found over the period of the week, eight days, I think. So the first one with the legs, which were totally fresh, was found, I think, the next day after they were thrown or discarded. And then about three or four days later, the second suitcase was found on Fisherman's Island. And then the third case was found a few days after that, a few miles away. So they've kind of drifted downstream, I guess, and the tides at the Chesapeake Bay had a lot to do with it.

But they were definitely found for one spot. That's where you really need a current and tide expert. And a common case that everyone may remember and familiar with, to you, Ashley Wilcott, judge and trial lawyer, Court TV anchor, Ashley would be the Scott Peterson case, because we know that Lacey and Connor were together because Connor was still in Lacey's tummy. She was pregnant, eight months pregnant when she was murdered and thrown into the San Francisco Bay. As I recall, one of the bodies, and I'm pretty sure it was baby Connor, washed ashore first. And then about 24 to 36 hours later, Lacey's body washed ashore.

So we know, as in this case where the suitcases were all thrown in the water at the same time, a lot has to do with the currents and tides as to when they're going to wash ashore, Ashley. And that's something you've got to prove to a jury. Absolutely. And it's not going to be just one little, you know, 10 minute piece of testimony to prove it to a jury. You are going to have to have an expert who's going to come in and say, this is the way tides are. This is what we know. This is how we can track where it was thrown in, why it landed here. Were they thrown in at the same time? Were there three separate suitcases?

Could there have been three different people who put body parts in suitcases and went three different directions and threw them over at different places? Those are the kinds of things that that kind of expert can provide at trial to convince the jury the defendant did it. Because, you know, Joseph Scott Morgan, for instance, I've seen defendants do this many, many times. They commit a murder. Then they take the gun and they break it down and they throw this piece over that bridge. They throw this piece over that bridge. They throw this piece into a garbage bin, thinking that nobody will figure out how to put the pieces together. In this case, there's always the possibility that happened.

But come on, let's get real. You got a matching set of Kenneth Cole luggage and every suitcase has body parts. When you put them all together, you get a body. Yeah. And, you know, to Ashley's point, talking about experts, you know, Nancy, not to give you a history lesson, but. Oh, go ahead, Nancy, not to give you a history lesson, but Chesapeake Bay is one of the locations where, you know, the original colonists actually landed. I didn't realize you were going to go that far back. Well, they're fully, what I'm saying is they're fully aware of the tides in this area. It's not

some isolated area. You've got a lot of shipping that goes through there. And you've got a lot of rivers that dump into this area, just out of the greater Beltway area. And then to boot, you're dealing with the Atlantic Ocean. So every time tide comes in, it begins to elevate. And then as it goes out, it draws things in the bay out. So you've got a lot of these things that are impacting. Then you have this specific area, just like Kristen had mentioned just a moment ago, this bridge, or maybe it was Sean, where the suitcases were probably dumped off of. And so you've got this target area. You can actually trace these tidal flow that goes through there and what the disbursement might be or the potential might be. You know, you've got

weather impact, water vehicle impact, and then you've got the tides to deal with. But this is a science, Nancy. They have the same peg down. So yeah, it would be easy to track. And the reality is, and the reason I was curious is because, right or wrong, I now look at everything as evidence of what I can prove at trial. And I was thinking, if they had been discarded separately, is there surveillance video? Did somebody cross a toll? Did somebody go by a tag grabber, you know, your tag number grabber, to help me identify in some way? Did they have to go into a marina? Is there surveillance video at the bridge?

Is there some way to determine if this person can be spotted on video? That's what I was trying to get at, if they had been thrown away in separate locations. Of course, the big question, who's in the suitcase? Take a listen to our friend Maureen Maher at 48 Hours. Virginia Beach police were analyzing those matching suitcases found in the Chesapeake Bay. A fingerprint check confirmed the man inside the luggage was Bill McGuire. But who killed him and how did he end up here? More than 300 miles away from his home in New Jersey? Do you believe all three suitcases were thrown off this bridge? Yes, I do.

CSI investigator Beth Dutton 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. It just destroyed a lot of that smoking gun type of evidence that probably was in the suitcase. The water became my greatest obstacle. To John Glatt, joining me, author of the book To Have and To Kill. And you can find that like we did on Amazon. He's also at John Glatt with two Ts dot com. John, let's talk about the suitcases. OK, I know I don't want to bury the lead here. The victim is Bill McGuire. Now I got to find out how do they know it's Bill McGuire?

I mean, you find a foot. How do you know that's Bill McGuire? And what evidence was lost because those suitcases were saturated in water for at least 24 hours and two of the suitcases for much longer. So how first of all, tell me I'm thinking about how this can be proven at trial. Tell me how badly the suitcases were saturated and what kind of evidence we lost. Well, they were really badly saturated and the bodies were in very, very bad condition. They just about could find that there'd been a shot in the head and the torso, but there was nothing else to show what had happened to him except the body had been cut.

I mean, it's a really interesting story about how they identified Bill Maguire. How? Tell me. Well, the face was in such a bad condition that the detective at Virginia Beach and they'd heard that Bill hadn't been seen for a while you know he and they were wondering where he was and they saw it come up on the news they saw this photo fit picture roaring and they said I bet this isn't Bill and then the more they thought about it they actually went to the police and they identified him as their friend Bill McGuire. So it was kind of a really one in a hundred chance that he would have got identified.

It just happened to be a friend that saw it on the news. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we're talking about a little boy out fishing with parents, and he thinks he's found pirate treasure in the water. They pull it up, and it is one of three matching Kenneth Cole suitcases. They open it up, and just like in the movies, there's a plastic bag in there, a black plastic bag. It contains anything but gold coins. Inside are legs, dismembered legs of a human. Out of the blue, two other suitcases wash up the rest of the victim's body. I didn't know that, John Glatt, that when police are trying to figure out who it is,

they have no leads. I've worked a lot with reconstructionists, and I'll tell you what happened in one of my cases, John. You're going to love this, Joe Scott. And especially you, Dr. Angela Arnold, psychiatrist. I had a woman's body and she was a Jane Doe. We didn't know who she was. I had a facial reconstructionist do a sketch on her. The case went on, was hard to prove. We finally connected it to a chef in Atlanta. And I got to digging around

in his history and found his ex-girlfriend. Wait for it. He had tried to strangle her. We think Jane Doe died of strangulation. Her body had been out in the elements for a while. I had the jury look at her picture, the girlfriend, the living girlfriend, to Jane Doe.

They were identical. Unrelated. Bloodline. But they looked like doppelganger twins. So I argued in closing argument who would kill this woman other than the guy that was rejected by this woman. I mean, these sketch artists are amazing. And the likelihood that a friend of the victim happens to be from New Jersey, now in Chesapeake area, sees the sketch on TV and says, wow, that looks like Bill McGuire. But who is Bill McGuire? How does his body end up at Chesapeake Bay when he's from New Jersey?

Now, his friends knew he hadn't been seen and there was concern for his whereabouts. We know he was married and had a happy family. What do we know about his wife? Take a listen to our friend Maureen Maher. She was every mother's dream. A good girl. Never got in trouble. Very supportive of her family.

Happy. Wonderful, 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. It was a quality that caught the eye of 28-year-old Bill McGuire, a veteran of the U.S. Navy. He was one of those people that just had a gift. He could talk to anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Bill's sister, Cindy Lagosh, says from day one, Bill and Melanie were a perfect match. They were equals. So a happy marriage. So how does this guy end up severed in multiple suitcases? You always look at the wife, the family, the husband, the lover first. But let's dig a little deeper. How did these two meet? Doesn't start in the right way.

Listen to our friends at Direct Appeal. We decided we would go over there and confront him together. Needless to say, that was a little explosive. But after lots of yelling and screaming, accusing, pushing, he had pushed her at one point. I did see it, but she was really kind of going at him. So in my mind, I'm telling myself, well, she was kind of going at him. So in my mind, I'm telling myself, well, she was physically lunging at him. It's not like he hit her. He was just kind of pushing her back. But nonetheless, she sat in my car afterwards and she said that she was done.

That was it. She had had it and that I could go back in there if I wanted to. But she warned me against it. She told me that ultimately he would make me think that I was crazy that he would end up more or less controlling my life and that I would basically I would see I would I would learn the hard way okay you are hearing two women fighting over a married man like there's not another man in the universe that you can find you have to pick one that's already married to john glatt author of to having to kill who are these women one of them is melanie and i understand that when she met bill mcguire he was already married yeah he's already married to a lady called Marcy. And he started having an affair

with Melanie. And when Marcy found out, she actually called Melanie and said, I'd like to meet you. And believe it or not, they actually met, I think, in a car. And Marcy tried to warn Melanie against Bill, not that Marcy wanted Bill back. But she was telling him, as you could hear in that interview, that Bill would only be trouble for her. To Dr. Angela Arnold, psychiatrist joining me out of the Atlanta jurisdiction. Dr. Angie, that starts the marriage off, the relationship off on the wrong foot when you're, and we always say you steal him away from his wife.

That's BS. You don't steal him if he doesn't want to be stolen. Oh my gosh. I mean, what a, what a way to start a marriage. But she did start the marriage that way. So when someone starts a marriage,

they feel like they're going to go into, they feel like they can make everything better and they're going to go into this happy life with somebody. Right. Man, I would feel like if the guy would cheat on his first wife, why wouldn't he cheat on me as well? That would be my fear. Guys, take a listen to Megan Saxon, Amy Schlossberg, the direct appeal. Bill left for X amount of time.

Yeah. Now, are we talking he would leave for hours or days? That's pretty relevant. Days. Days, okay. Yeah, it was days. And is there anyone saying that he was abusive to them, whether it be Marcy or Kathy or is anyone else?

Okay, so here's what Marcy said. I have a report that I found. It's a, let's see, an interview that was conducted with one of the investigators. And I think it was submitted into evidence because it has a bait stamp on it. It's not a very long interview. So I'll just read you a brief portion. Okay.

Marcy is the victim's first wife. They were married for eight years and divorced in 1994. When the victim was in the Navy, they were living in Virginia Beach. She described the victim as having a big mouth, controlling and a temper. She further described the victim as having a big mouth, controlling, and a temper. She further described the victim as being verbally abusive.

However, the victim did put a pillow over her face one time during an argument. Okay, so that's abuse. So we're hearing about him being abusive. We're also hearing Chesapeake Bay coming back into the scenario. To John Glatt, did he live in Chesapeake Bay with the first wife? No, no. He was in the Navy. He was stationed there.

So he always loved the Chesapeake Bay. And he actually dreamed of moving to Virginia Beach. But he did, in fact, live in New Jersey. He was there the whole time. So now we're finding a connection to Chesapeake Bay. But he lived with his wife, Melanie, in New Jersey, correct? Correct, yes. Okay.

Now, we know that Bill and Melanie get married. They move into a townhome, but then somehow things start to change. She says that Bill developed issues with gambling. Is that true, John Glatt? I don't think he had issues with gambling. He was actually a very good gambler. Whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait. If you're a very good gambler, that means you do it a lot.

Is that right? Yes, but he also won. And he was very successful. He won a lot more than he lost. And when I was at trial, I mean, they had a lot of testimony about this. And he actually had a roof where he'd actually go to a casino and put a few thousand dollars into the bank. And they would comp him free rooms, free food and everything. And then he'd gamble, win some money, take his money out of the bank, and he'd have a great weekend.

So it wasn't that he had a gambling problem exactly, although Melanie tried to make out that he did. It was actually pretty successful what he did, and he knew when to stop, which was the big thing. Okay. All right. I'm not a gambler. I worked pretty hard to make a living, and I don't want to lose it on the roulette table. But in addition to gambling, there seems to be another problem. Take a listen to our cut number six, Amy Robach. There were good times with that, and there were bad times. And there were a couple of times I put my foot down, and I said, that's it. No more. So then he would get involved in the stock market. He wanted what he wanted and he couldn't get it fast enough.

And with that came frustration and eventually that frustration became directed at me. There was one particular argument over the phone where he had gotten stopped for a traffic ticket. He had an absolutely atrocious driving record. So I start to argue back, and the next thing coming out of his mouth is, when I get home, I'm going to kill you, I'm going to smash your face in. It's very difficult for me to think back on it because I actually drove off in the middle of the night, and I had left and I should have stayed gone. Why did you stay?

I wasn't strong enough to leave. Did you love him? I did. I did, and even though, now at this point, bear in mind, I'm having an affair. crime stories with nancy grace there's one particular argument over the phone where he had gotten stopped for a traffic ticket he had an absolutely atrocious driving record so i start to argue back and the next thing coming out of his mouth is when I get home, I'm going to kill you. I'm going to smash your face. And it's very difficult for me to think back on it because I actually drove off in the middle of the night and I, I had left and I should have stayed gone. Why did you stay? I wasn't strong enough to leave. Did you love him?

I did. I did. And even though now at this point, bear in mind, I'm having an affair. What? Okay, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Kristen Kwan, WCYB, Bristol, she is painting him out to be the bad guy. Maybe he is a bad guy, but she's having an affair. Yes, she was having an affair with a doctor where she worked. She worked at a fertility clinic as a nurse. She was having an affair with a doctor, Dr. Bradley Miller. And did he, Bill McGuire, know about that? I don't believe that Bill McGuire knew. Good lord in heaven. So bottom line, Dr. Angela Arnold, you're a shrink. Anybody could have done this. He's got connections to Chesapeake Bay. He's got an angry ex-wife. He's a gambler. And let me tell you, nothing good happens when you're a steady gambler.

You are around, well, as my grandmother used to say, you lay down with a dog, you wake up with a flea. So when you're with pro gamblers all the time, nothing good is going to happen there. And now I find out there's another man in the picture there's a lot going on here dr angie and i think i've got problems with my husband won't take the trash out for pete's sake i mean it's very it's all very complicated and no one no one seems to be doing the right thing in this cadre of people, do they? Everybody's got an angle, don't they? Yeah, it seems like they do, and it makes the waters very murky, Ashley Wilcott.

I mean, he didn't kill himself and sever his limbs apart and jump into a Kenneth Cole suitcase on his own. So now we've got a whole plethora of potential suspects. Yep. Ruh-roh. That's what I would say for this wife because listen her having an affair doesn't mean she did it but it sure does provide what motive and we all know that when they are looking at an individual if they see motive they really like to uh they double down on you take a listen to our cut nine maureen Maher at 48 hours. What was he saying to you through the doorway?

I'm going to 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. With that restraining order, he could not go to school and pick up the kids and take off with them. And that was my biggest fear. And there's more. We find out that Melanie goes to Atlantic City the night after Bill leaves her to go find him. She says, let me understand this, John Glatt, that she found his car, but then moved his car to, quote, piss him off. Right. That didn't make much sense, actually. I mean, Bill, according to Melanie, they had a big fight and it was literally hours after they signed a contract on a brand new house, his dream house. That was the night he disappeared. She said they had a fight.

He stormed out and she expected him to go to Atlantic City. So she sneaked on down there in her car and just happened to find his car. John Glatt, I mean, if she had something like Find My iPhone or Live360, she could easily find his car. Right. Well, I don't know how she did it, but she knew where he gambled, I guess. It's also whether he drove the car there, of course, you know, or whether somebody else did. But she told police she did find the car.

And what else did she tell them? She tells him that she moved his car just to piss him off and drive it somewhere else. Now, what can you tell me about video that emerges of someone parking Bill's car? Yeah, there's video from the casino that the police later get. And I think Melanie realizes that it could have been filmed, so she wants to go and move the car, in fact. Interesting that after this video emerges of someone parking Bill's car, she then explains that she found the car and moved the car to irritate her husband for walking out. Kind of a get back. Is that her story?

That's right, yes. Interesting, interesting. Take a listen to our friend Maureen Marr. As investigators continued to search for clues, police informed Melanie her husband was dead. I couldn't feel the ground under me and I was devastated but there was one clue that caused investigators to question the grieving

widow a blanket found wrapped around her dead husband's torso was the very same kind of blanket used at the fertility clinic where Melanie McGuire worked. So you've got a connection back to the fertility clinic to Kristen Kwan. You told me earlier that Melanie was having an affair with someone at the clinic. Yes, she was having an affair with someone at the clinic? Yes, she was having an affair with a doctor at the clinic, Dr. Bradley Miller. So now suddenly, because the blanket from the fertility clinic is found, then what does that mean? John Glatt, could you explain to me the significance of that blanket that was from the fertility clinic where she worked along with her lover? Well, that was a smoking gun, really. Once they found that blanket and they traced it to that fertility clinic, that's where Melanie worked.

And they had a direct link between Bill McGuire's body in the suitcases and his wife, Melanie. And her lover. Tell me something. Where was the blanket found exactly? I think it was wrapped around one of the body parts, in fact. And then there was plastic on top of that. Someone went to a great deal of trouble. I mean, you'd think Joe Scott Morgan, that fingerprints would be all over the plastic, but it had been in water for so long. Yeah, anything in there is going to be compromised, Nancy, from an evidentiary standpoint. And, you know, and I'm talking about things like fingerprints, anything particularly fragile, fiber, for instance, and hair, you know, can be

compromised. But, you know, Nancy, I got to tell you, this fellow, we keep talking about him having been dismembered. That's obviously not what killed him. He was shot and he was shot multiple times. What's very fascinating to me, Nancy, is the type of weapon that was used in this case and specifically the type of ammunition. He was shot with a.38 special round, which is something you see. It's a revolver, okay, what we used to call a wheel gun. You don't see them a lot nowadays. But he was shot with an ammunition that's referred to as a wad cutter. This is a round that, if people will think at home about the kind of conical

or cone-shaped bullet that you have you typically think of, wad cutters don't look like that. They're flat. They're actually flush with the end of the casing. They're used for target practice. But here's the interesting thing. When you use a wad cutter bullet, these bullets are what we refer to as subsonic. So when you fire these bullets into anything, they don't make as loud of a cracking noise. Okay. As say, for instance, a bullet that is hypersonic. Excuse me, Joe Scott, as enthralled as I am with that, and I'm not being facetious, I mean it. What does that have to do with who killed McGuire? I mean, in my mind, it's got to have somebody with, it's got to

be someone with a great deal of physical strength to dismember him in the manner in which he was dismembered. And remember, you and I both keep talking about how much effort went into killing him, dismembering him, and concealing his body. John Glatt, what, if anything, does the purchase of the luggage, the luggage, what do we know about the luggage? Just that it was purchased a few months earlier, and they took it on a trip that they took with their best friends, John and Susan Rice to Atlantic city. And the rice is remember that those three suitcases in their car.

So that's about all I know about it. Well, that's a bombshell to me because now I know that Kenneth Cole luggage, a three piece set was used by the family. I mean, John, that's a big, big clue to me. Sure. Oh, yeah. And when the police found that and there were photographs of them in Atlantic City, I think with the luggage, that really tied it in.

So, John Glatt, how do police tie Bill McGuire to his killer? They were well through the luggage, through the blanket that was from the fertility clinic. Melanie was also when the police informed her her husband was dead and had been killed. They didn't tell her exactly what had happened because they didn't want to upset her. But she seemed incredibly cold and motionless and didn't have a nice word to say about him. I mean, it's one thing on a podcast to hear Melanie give her version, but the version I heard from everyone at the trial was very, very different. And this was a very cold lady indeed. Take a listen to NG Mysteries. Melanie McGuire might as well have taken out a billboard on 3rd Avenue that said,

I murdered my husband and hacked his body up. She put his body, it's very interesting the way she did this, she put his body in three matching Kenneth Cole suitcases, the black and green ones. So she got expensive matching luggage in which to hide his severed body. In one of the suitcases was a five-pound weight, which shows premeditation in trying to get rid of the remains. She wanted to sink them to the bottom of the Jersey Shore. To Kristen Kwan, WCYB Bristol, where is Melanie McGuire now? She is now in prison.

She was found guilty of murdering her husband and is now spending life in prison plus five years. To Kristen Kwan, what was her defense? Her defense, I mean, she has said even now she's saying that she is not guilty. Who did she say did it? She hasn't really said who she thinks necessarily did it, but she says that she is not guilty. Well, actually, she said at trial that her defense was that it was gang-related and that Bill had got himself into a lot of trouble gambling in Atlantic City, owed a lot of money to the mob, and that's who killed him.

And, in fact, she even faked letters from mob bosses to the prosecutor, which she sent by FedEx, written like a mob boss saying, we got Bill, he got what he deserved, which kind of backfired on her because there was a lot of evidence that she'd actually sent the letters along with an accomplice of hers. I've never heard of the mob writing letters after the fact about what they did. Oh, this letter is hilarious. Please tell me. Yeah, I mean, it's written like a mob boss.

You know, Bill got what he deserved. You know, he crossed earth and he got his justice earth. And that letter was part of the evidence at trial. I mean, it sounds like a fifth grade girl writing a novel. Very much so, yeah. John Glatt, how is she faring behind bars, may I ask? Not too well, I don't think. I saw in People magazine last night that one of the stars of Melrose Place is Amy Lucane,

who is there for a drunk driving charge, is her new cellmate, and they get on very well. But Melanie's kind of devoted herself to trying to get her case restarted. She's kind of exhausted her appeals. But with this podcast, she certainly generated a lot of new interest in this case. And she's put over a total new story of what had happened. Oh, what's her new story? I can't wait to hear this. Oh, that, you know, she's totally innocent and all circumstantial.

The prosecutors got us wrong. Also that her defense attorney did a terrible job and, you know, was very ineffectual. So that's what she's been trying to sell. But I don't think it's going to do her much good. No, not when you lie about moving the victim's car and you sever the body and put it in the family luggage. Well, the biggest clue was that actually police found out that literally, I think a week before Bill McGuire was killed, she went to, I think it was Ohio, and purchased that.38 caliber gun.

Yeah, they'll never find that. Right. No, she purchased it, and she gave her own name and her aunt's address and everything, and that was in the trial. And the guy recognized her, that sold it to her. So, I mean, talk about a smoking gun. Yeah, literally. And let me ask you this.

Did they do a ballistics match on the weapon? Yes, they did. But it was cleaned up so well where the murder was done. They never got any residue from the gun or anything like that. And Melanie said it wasn't a match, but at trial they said it was a match with the lanes and grooves and everything. Well, I doubt very seriously. I mean, that's the striation marks on a bullet match up directly to only one gun. It's like a fingerprint.

And unless she has been trained in ballistics analysis, I doubt she was a match for the crime lab expert. We wait as justice unfolds while Melanie McGuire cools her jets behind bars. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.