Dead Men Talking (13 page)
Authors: Christopher Berry-Dee
Melanie’s old friend, Alison McCausley, went a step further. She said the very idea that Melanie could dismember her husband defied common sense. ‘His whole torso, essentially, in one of those suitcases had to weigh 150lb, or more. She’s going to throw that in a car, drive down to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge…and how big is Melanie? I think Melanie was slightly over 100lb, if that.’
But, if her staunch supporters weren’t buying the prosecution’s scenario, the Rices, her former friends, were. By now John and Susan Rice were convinced Melanie had murdered their friend, Bill, and they could recall a time when Melanie had fought strong waves to save John, who was drowning.
‘I hear that this petite little person couldn’t do something like Bill’s size and be able to carry the suitcases and dump them in the Chesapeake Bay – absolutely she could. I am that confident.’ said Susan Rice.
After deliberating for four days, the jury foreman announced they had reached a verdict. McGuire was guilty of six of the ten counts.
‘Melanie began pulling me on my arm and my lapel,’ remembers Joe Tacopina. ‘She was saying and sobbing: “I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it….my babies, my babies,” meaning her two sons.’
Melanie McGuire was sentenced to 30 years to life with no parole. Unless her appeal is successful, she will die in jail.
Even Bill’s friend, John Rice, felt a pang of something as he watched Melanie almost collapse when the sentence was read to her. But his feelings were tempered by the outrage at what she had done. ‘I really thought I’d be happy,’ he said afterwards. ‘There was no win in this at all.’
Clutching John’s arm, Susan Rice stood firm: ‘Bill loved those boys. They were his crowning achievement, and maybe one day he would have brought them to Chesapeake Bar, so blue and so peaceful. Melanie could have filed for a divorce, but I think that’s the choice she is going to have to ponder now.’
People say that Bill McGuire had loved Virginia ever since his days as a young man in the Navy. They even say he wanted to return and live there. Instead, he drifted back, lost and broken on the waters, his shattered body in need of a place to rest. Chesapeake Bay – ever accepting – gave that to William T. McGuire, if only for a moment, may his soul rest in peace.
* * *
Does Melanie Lyn McGuire really deserve being dubbed ‘The Ice Queen’? It seems to this author that for 99.9 per cent of her life – all but a week of it – we find a dedicated nurse who cared desperately about her patients who wanted to bring children into this world. I do not think we can fault her for that.
Melanie was unhappy with her marriage and, as we have seen from her own letters, she admits that she should have left Bill way back. However, she also admits that she placed her children first, she adored her two young sons…that she wanted to bring them up not losing their father at such early ages, just as she, herself, had done, aged five.
Melanie had been having a long-term affair with her lover, Dr Miller, who was cheating on his wife. So, it would be fair to say that what both lacked at home, Dr Miller and nurse McGuire found in each other’s arms. No terrible sin here either; at least not unless one spends their life living a puritanical existence, the real world a million miles away. And Bill was unfaithful himself.
Of Melanie McGuire’s guilt? This chapter does not judge Mrs McGuire’s guilt, for a jury of her peers have already done so. The state of New Jersey says she has committed a most heinous crime, and, although she is appealing the conviction, this is the way it stands at the time of writing. And there are a number of questions that raised themselves while I researched this chapter on Melanie McGuire.
The first being that the defence argued that within twenty seconds, either Melanie, or Bill, searched the internet on their home computer for information on gambling in Atlantic City, followed by a search for poisons. Tick tock, watch your clock. Twenty seconds…it had to be the same internet user.
It makes little sense that Bill McGuire would make a search for gambling venues in Atlantic City – he was already as at home there as a duck on a pond. But, it does make a lot of sense that Melanie, a nurse, might be looking for some form of drug to knock her husband out after briefly doing a little research on where Bill might gamble in Atlantic City – indeed, perhaps she was looking for a specific venue; an address from where she could allegedly take his car and move it elsewhere – although he was already a dead man walking in advance.
The second matter is, of course, the purchase of the gun. Melanie has given two conflicting accounts as to why the weapon was purchased, the first being to James Finn: that she needed a gun to protect herself from Bill’s growing paranoia. The other reason, that she gave to friends, was that Bill wanted a gun, but he couldn’t legally purchase one because he had a criminal conviction. And, it is the word ‘paranoia’ that catches the eye. Bill had already allegedly told a buddy that he was interested in purchasing a firearm, but for what purpose? Did Bill believe that he may become the target of a hit man over unpaid gambling debts, and wanted to be able to protect himself? Or, was he secretly worried that his wife might want him out of the way? But thousands of US citizens want to own a gun, and talk about it to others, so the significance of him talking to a buddy about getting hold of one may mean nothing at all.
What we do know is that Melanie McGuire made enquiries about purchasing a gun, and Pennsylvania state gun law, through James Finn – a self-acknowledged gun enthusiast – weeks before a search was made by either husband, or wife, on the McGuires’ home computer, and that Bill suffered fatal gunshot wounds to the head, just two days after the weapon was purchased. Conveniently, it seems for Mrs McGuire, the weapon went missing from her storage locker, a secure box to which Melanie had sole access.
Criminal history affirms that there are thousands of individuals who carefully, even meticulously plan the ‘perfect murder’. However, they fail, to their cost, to plan the perfect getaway, for the Devil is in the detail.
Mrs McGuire was too careful, yet plumb-dumb stupid at the same time. She was lacking common sense. She left a trail of circumstantial clues – none of which would have stood a guilty test if they had stood alone. But her mistake was leaving a trail of links that formed a chain of evidence so strong that even a possibly sympathetic jury could not ignore the significance.
I suggest that had Melanie come clean from the outset…had she given evidence at her trial to say that she had been physically and mentally abused by her husband, her previous good standing would have weighed in her favour. Had she said that she was in real fear of her gambling husband taking away her kids, she might have received a legal slap on the wrist – maybe five years imprisonment or less. Had she said that she had tried to keep the family together for the well-being of her two young boys, some of the jurors might have acknowledged her plea.
As it was, she drugged her husband senseless while he was celebrating the purchase of their dream home with a glass of wine. Their two boys were asleep in their beds. The next morning, Melanie McGuire took the kids to play school. She returned, took out a revolver, placed a pillow over her sleeping husband’s head, and shot him dead.
That leaves us with other questions: where was the blood spatter, and how did this tiny woman drag her large, deadweight husband into his car? Did she shoot him someplace else, and where did she dismember the body? For my part, there are a whole set of questions not paired with answers, and this is the enigma which is Melanie McGuire.
The following is a letter prosecutors received, purportedly from a Mafia mobster, explaining why Melanie McGuire could not have killed her husband. Police believe that Melanie typed the letter herself. This letter was never introduced into evidence.
Mr Harvey,
Your office and the media have reflected on the life and death of William T McGuire, and you’ve made it obvious that you intend to prosecute his wife. You and the media have exalted him as a decent person and a victim. He was a victim, all right. Of his greed, his big ego, and his even bigger mouth. I first met McGuire because we knew a lot of the same people. He was friendly enough at first, and loved to talk about himself along with anything and everything else he could claim to know everything about. He talked about AC
[Atlantic City]
. He talked
about a house. About Virginia. About his wife. His sister. His ex-wife. You couldn’t shut the guy up, which was part of his own undoing.
McGuire bragged about his position at NJIT
[New Jersey Institute of Technology].
Said he had the placed
[sic]
wired and that the boss man had no idea what he was up to, which is how I imagine he got out and got away as much as he did. He talked of his connections at the local and state level, in various departments of state. How they could and would play into his consulting business. He talked of corruption at the health departments, and how it was given a pretty face by NJIT. He bragged about how he once worked two full-time jobs, at NJIT and at a local health office, and how even doing that he still had enough time to get all his side action and get home without the wife being any wiser. He talked about his scams at work, the anonymity the access to some of the technologies could give him, to do almost anything he wanted at work or outside of it. He talked about blackmailing some of the higher-ups at the state level who were doling out grant work to people collecting unemployment. He seemed to be unfazed by the stink his confrontations could raise in the office, stating it was their own fault for putting themselves in a compromised position to begin with. He talked about overthrowing his boss at the college, and about overthrowing the state level boss with the help of a guy named Roy. Did your office bother to note any of that during their thorough investigation? I think not.
He also loved to gamble, loved to flash card. I’d see him in AC, and at some private games to
[sic].
The funny part is that he was a pretty good player but his ego wouldn’t let him lose. He won a lot, but when he lost, he lost big and chased the money as hard as he chased some of the tail
[women]
that hangs around those places. He blamed everyone when he lost; the house, the dealer, even his wife, if you can imagine that. I personally find your observation that his death could have nothing to do with gambling one of the most hilarious things you’ve said publicly. Have you ever BEEN to AC?
Don’t believe me? Ask his wife about the Steakhouse in North Jersey, and about an unfortunate accident coming home from work there later one night. What he didn’t tell her was that he wasn’t working, and he had lost a bundle. I heard him talk about getting pulled over on top of it that night, and how it was her
[Melanie’s]
fault. I laughed. You can’t be serious, man. She takes that from you? That and more. She likes it, is what he said and that put me off. You want to screw around on your old lady? Fine. You want to gamble away the family nut? That’s fine to
[sic].
But saying she likes it and seeing that he believed it blew me
away. No wonder she ended up in bed with some doctor. Of course, you could say it was her own fault for marrying him, more her fault for staying.
More laughter from me when you leaked to the papers that this doctor friend of the wife’s turned ‘states evidence’. There was nothing that man could of said
[sic]
that would hurt her for the simple reason that she didn’t kill him. So that either makes you a liar, or him a coward who makes up stories to save his own sorry skin. Either way, I guess she never learned her lesson about choosing men.
Also, if you haven’t figured out yet that his sister knew more of what he was up to than what she ever let on, you have your head further into the sand than I imagined. He talked about her a lot, and I think they had a weird relationship, those two
[Bill and his sister]
. The guys used to joke about it a lot. She
[Bill’s sister]
did something with real estate – he bitched about paying for her license, and he got her to give him access to one of those agent-only sites. He could plug away on there for days at a time, looking up houses, looking up tax records of people he knew. She had a husband who owned some kind of pharmacy, and he talked a lot about all the scams there, and the cash to be had. But in the same breath he
[Bill McGuire]
would complain how selfish she was to not want to put her own ass on the line, whatever that meant. I tuned out a lot after I figured out he lacked a certain amount of follow through with some ideas. He shrugged it off, saying there were all kinds of strings that get set up around stuff like that. He wanted the cash, but didn’t want to get his hands dirty where anyone could see, was more than I thought. As for the other sister, I guess the apple didn’t fall for. He played us a phone message she
[Melanie]
left him, laughing at what a crazy she was. The message had said she would sue him and he wouldn’t get his house he was buying. Christmas must have been something at their home.
We kept McGuire close because he was good for certain things – obviously things you’ll never find out about. But in time he developed a drug habit. He even tried dealing. Then he decided he wanted a piece
[of the action]
to
[sic].
We privately agreed against putting one in his hands. He tried Camden, Trenton, even Newark, but his problem was that he looked like a cop. No surprise the wife bought it, even if she was a damn fool for not knowing better. He always complained about how stupid she had gotten. I even asked him, wasn’t she stupid when you married her? He said no way his wife was stupid but good in bed. The second he said she was a lousy lay but pretty. He claimed she had been smart but let herself go to hell after having kids. Which is why he felt completely justified in sticking it in anything that
walked. Personally, I thought he was either gay or sexually bent. He said his wife was so stupid he come home high one night, and when she asked him why his eyes were bloodshot he told her he had taken Viagra. When she asked him why he got pissed and told even that couldn’t help him get it up for her. Nice guy. My point being that Billy Mac
[McGuire]
liked an altered state of mind. I’ll bet you twice your pension that the toxicology report showed more than a little Viagra. How about
[it]
H? Do you believe yet that I’m more than some random psycho writing to harass you? If not, you will.
Here’s a question for you, Mr Harvey. McGuire was talking about the life insurance he was going to get. A mill
[million]
on the wife. Two on him. He talked about Virginia, and that was where he was going once he made his money here
[in New Jersey].
How his wife hated it. When I asked how he was planning on convincing her to move, he smiled and said he would be rid of her by then. Did it dawn on you that Mrs McGuire, in her ‘selfish’ plot to kill her husband, didn’t bother to wait for him to actually purchase the insurance? Oh, she’s got the boyfriend with money, she didn’t need it. First, I don’t know anybody who would pass on two mill, money or not. Second, even if she coaxed that boyfriend away from his happy home, how much do you think it would leave her after he paid out his old lady? I’m telling you that I don’t know what he meant when he said he’d be ‘rid’ of her by then, but I have a couple of thoughts. And two mill on him and one on her casts a little doubt on his motivation should something tragic happen. Did any of you in the midst of your ‘dogged detective work’ even ask her about it? Or are you going to sit there with a straight face and tell me McGuire meant he wanted a divorce?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not going for sainthood myself. But what got to us about him was that he eventually turned on everyone. He talked about going to the press a lot about the money the college spent on equipment for a terrorism database that no one bothered to use. He talked about getting ‘rid’ of his old lady. He talked about turning in the sister’s husband to the pharmacy board. Even blood wasn’t thicker than water with this guy. And he wouldn’t shut up. Didn’t matter if he liked you or didn’t or even if he owed you. He feared no playback from anyone. I don’t even think he wanted the piece out of fear. Not a guy like this. He wanted to intimidate people with it. What intimidated people was his running mouth.
You shouldn’t care that the wife bought a gun. You shouldn’t care that the suitcases were hers. You shouldn’t care that the garbage bags match. I’m telling you that you shouldn’t care if there’s video footage of her smiling and waving from the docks at Virginia Beach. Know
why? Obviously you don’t, so I’ll make it simple. And it’s not because she couldn’t physically have done what it took two – and at one point three – men to do. It’s because Billy Mac brought everything that was needed to do him, and more. Not on purpose of course, but it was easier than anyone could believe. And the fight with his old lady? Probably he saved her life leaving her that morning, even if all he was doing was looking to get the hell out of dodge for a few days. I’m guessing you didn’t find any of his cell phones – the one’s that weren’t traceable, anyway. Point is if it was necessary, if she was with him, she would have been done same as him. Probably worse, if you catch my drift, even though she was a lousy lay like he said. She ended up helping us, but not in any way you or your dogged detectives think. Her bad luck was our good fortune. And Billy Mac left the door wide open.
So why write this? Well, I can tell you now to abandon the print analysis, and even analysis of the type
[of this letter].
This will be photocopied and handled in a manner you couldn’t trace even if you did your job. So it’s not hurting me any. And I’ve got nothing for the wife, or against her. But I read about those kids. The father they’re better off without, but they don’t need a Ma on Death Row. So now it’s up to you to figure it out. She can’t help you much, but did you even ask her? I know, you think this is a hoax. Well allow me to part with some facts that should finally convince you otherwise:
- I’m taking the liberty of sending this to the media, in case you want to close your eyes to this same as you have everything else in this case.
- I’m sending it to the wife’s lawyer.
- The way the articles read last year, it made it seem like his arms were cut off. They weren’t.
- He was wearing nothing but purple briefs when you found him.
- Ever figure out where the weights came from?
NOW DO YOU BELIEVE ME????’