The Suitcase Murder
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You and your family are having an amazing time out boating on the clear blue waters of Chesapeake Bay. You're catching up with your loved ones you haven't seen in a while. You're really taking advantage of the warmer spring weather in Virginia after months of cold weather. The boat cuts through the clear water with ease. As your boat moves seamlessly through the bay, something in the water catches your eye.

You navigate your boat closer. It's a suitcase right there on top of the water. Your boat gets a little closer still. Could that be? Could that be buried treasure? You pull the suitcase on board the boat, open it, and what's inside? Two severed human legs missing the rest of the body. This week on Forensic Tales, we cover the suitcase murder. ♪

Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney. Each Monday, we release a new episode that discusses real, bone-chilling true crime stories and how forensic science has been used in the case.

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Our story this week is really one of the wildest stories that I've heard in a while. And after reading about the case, I literally couldn't believe that something like this even happened. It's a case in a story that can truly give you nightmares.

The case has actually just recently been featured on the relaunch of Forensic Files 2. So after listening to this episode, I highly recommend you guys watching the episode, which is appropriately titled The Suitcase Killer. So our story begins in the spring of 2004 in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Now, Virginia Beach is a beautiful resort city with literally hundreds of miles of beaches with hotels and different attractions and restaurants. And all of these places are incredible waterfront properties.

And something that I certainly didn't know until I started researching this case is that according to the Guinness Book of Records, Virginia Beach actually holds the record for having the longest pleasure beach in the entire world. So you guys, if you're looking to book your next beach vacation, I think Virginia Beach is it.

So on May 5th, 2004, a family was out boating in Chesapeake Bay. And as the family was just boating along, they come upon what looked to be maybe buried treasure in a suitcase. I think we all have this underlying fantasy that buried treasure exists for one, and that two, we're going to be the ones to discover it.

So the family brings their boat a little closer to what they think might be buried treasure in a suitcase. And they bring the suitcase up on the boat. They open it. And well, it's definitely not buried treasure. Inside the suitcase floating in the Chesapeake Bay were two human legs. And that is it.

There were no other parts to the body, just the two legs that have been clearly severed from the rest of the body. And the legs inside the suitcase appeared to belong to a male and both the legs were carefully wrapped in black plastic bags.

So the news about the two legs discovered in the suitcase floating in Chesapeake Bay obviously got a lot of news attention right from the get-go. It was just so shocking, especially for a highly tourist area like Virginia Beach, to have something like this happen. And it's just such an unusual way to discover a body, or I mean part of a body that is,

The Virginia Beach area was absolutely shocked by the discovery. Six days after the suitcase containing the legs were discovered, another suitcase was found floating in the bay on May 11th. Inside the second suitcase was more black plastic bags and even more shocking was the torso of a white male.

The torso still had the head of the victim attached, but noticeably missing from the torso was the victim's legs, hands, and arms. Now, it's obvious to police that they were dealing with foul play here, right? No one simply chops themselves up and puts themselves in suitcases to go floating down the bay. And in the second suitcase, the police were able to get a rough description of their victim.

Unlike the first suitcase that only contained the legs, this suitcase actually had the head still attached. So the police could tell that the victim was a white male, likely between the ages of 25 and 35 years old, and had a short military-style haircut. And police also recovered a hospital blanket that was found wrapped around the victim's head.

Now, the second suitcase gave police a lot more evidence than the first one did. And that's because in the second suitcase, police found two .38 caliber bullets. And police could also tell that whoever the man was inside the suitcase had been shot at least three times in the torso, which would obviously explain the bullets that were left behind.

The police had most of their victim's body, but they didn't have it all. So the question became, where was the rest of his body? A third suitcase was discovered just five days later on May 16th. The suitcase was the smallest of the three, which contained the arms and hands of their male victim.

Police took DNA samples from all three suitcases and were pretty quickly able to determine that the DNA matched all three suitcases, meaning that all three cases contained the same male victim. And just like the first two suitcases, the rest of the body had been carefully wrapped in black plastic bags.

Once police were able to determine that the DNA matched inside all three suitcases, the next step was to try and figure out exactly who this man was. So police ran the DNA through local and national databases, and well, they got nothing. Police were quick to release to the public that their victim, now known as John Doe, had been cut with surgical precision.

Cutting up a human body, especially a grown adult, is an extremely difficult task that must require some level of skill. So police were asking themselves, was it possible that whoever did this had some sort of medical training? The victim's head found in the second suitcase had been submerged in water for at least two weeks before it was discovered.

So this made it extremely difficult for the medical examiner to try and ID the body. The face and head of the victim were almost unrecognizable because they had been in the water for so long. So the police call on a forensic sketch artist to try and create a sketch of the man in order to be able to ID him. Police needed to give this man a name if they were going to have any luck in finding his killer.

The forensic sketch artist was able to put together some basic facial features based on his estimated age and race, but that was pretty much it. They really didn't have much to go off, and the composite sketch was released to the media in hopes that someone, anyone, would be able to recognize him.

After the composite sketch of the victim found dismembered in three suitcases was aired on TV, police got the tip they were hoping for. A caller had contacted the police and identified the person as Bill McGuire. To prove that the caller had provided the correct ID, the police ran the victim's fingerprints and compared them to Bill McGuire. And John Doe was officially ID'd as McGuire.

Bill McGuire was a 39-year-old computer programmer. He was a father with two young children who lived in New Jersey. He was also a U.S. Navy veteran who never met a single person he didn't like. Close friends and family of Bill described him as being a super loving guy who was loyal and he was just a fun person to be around.

Bill McGuire had been missing for about four weeks before he was officially ID'd as John Doe. And the first thing police want to do after they know who their victim is, is talk to Bill's wife, Melanie. Bill's wife, Melanie McGuire, grew up in New Jersey and studied to become a nurse. She married Bill in 1999 and the couple went on to have two sons together.

She worked as a nurse at a local fertility clinic, and around the time of Bill's death, the couple actually had plans to buy and move in to their first home together. So us Forensic Tales listeners know that when someone is found murdered, the first person that police want to talk to is their significant other. And that's exactly what the police do here.

The first thing police learn is that Bill McGuire had been missing for nearly four weeks before his body was discovered. So police want to hear from his wife, Melanie, and basically find out exactly why she never reported her husband and father of her children missing.

And her response is that she didn't report him missing because according to Melanie, the night he left, they had gotten into a huge physical fight. And Melanie said that Bill actually stuffed a dryer sheet into her mouth. He pushed her up against a wall and said that he was going to be leaving and he was leaving for good.

So Melanie's basically like, why would I report him missing when he told me himself that he was leaving for good? So the day after this domestic dispute between Melanie and Bill, Melanie allegedly went to the courthouse to get a restraining order put out against Bill because she was in so much fear for her husband.

And even though Bill had told her that she was never going to see him again, she still felt that she needed to protect herself by getting this restraining order. So the police asked Melanie who she thought might want to kill her husband Bill. Like, did he have any enemies? Or was he involved in any bad business deals recently? Was there anything that might lead to a possible suspect?

But Melanie said she really didn't know who would want to kill her husband. And she told police that Bill had a gambling problem. So it's possible that he had gotten involved with the wrong people and maybe he was behind on a payment on a gambling bet.

Now, by this point, the police end their conversation with Melanie McGuire and they start to turn their attention to other incoming leads in the case. Police were still asking themselves, who would have had the motive to murder Bill McGuire in such a savage and brutal way? The police are now in full investigation mode to try and find Bill McGuire's killer.

and they got one huge step closer on April 30, 2004. On April 30, 2004, Bill's 2002 Nissan Maxima was found parked outside the Flamingo Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Police obtained the security video from the Flamingo Hotel that showed the vehicle being abandoned in the parking lot, but the police needed to find out who

was behind the wheel of the Nissan. Inside Bill McGuire's car, police investigators obtained a lot of valuable forensic evidence. Inside the car's glove compartment, police were shocked to discover a small syringe filled with an unknown pink solution. Now, that's not something you see every day, especially in a dead man's abandoned car.

Because the vehicle looked like it may have been cleaned, police decided to vacuum basically the entire car, including the driver's side rug and the passenger's side rug.

This can be really helpful to investigators because it's nearly impossible for us people to eliminate any and all traces of evidence even once we extensively clean something. We still leave behind a lot of evidence that can still be collected. And that's exactly what investigators discovered when they vacuumed the inside of Bill McGuire's car.

After analyzing what was picked up inside the vacuum, investigators discovered tiny pieces of human flesh. After analyzing what was picked up in the vacuum, a forensic expert found what is known as human sawdust on the floor of Bill McGuire's car.

Now, I know it's kind of a gross term, even I can admit that, but basically human sawdust is microscopic pieces of our skin and our flesh that is left behind. And we create our own human sawdust all the time. You sit down on your couch, you leave behind human sawdust.

Right now, listening to this episode, you're leaving behind microscopic pieces of your skin and flesh on whatever you're sitting or standing on. Pretty crazy, right? So the human sawdust that was discovered on the floor of Bill McGuire's car was matched through DNA to Bill himself. But that didn't necessarily tell the police much. They needed to keep digging.

Investigators learned from Bill McGuire's wife, Melanie, that Bill liked to gamble a lot, which might explain why his car was found parked at the Flamingo Hotel in Atlantic City. But as soon as investigators started looking into Bill's gambling habits, they quickly found out that Bill was actually known as a really disciplined gambler.

He was known throughout many casinos in the Atlantic City area, and everyone that the police talked to said that Bill was super disciplined with his bets, that he was actually a really good gambler if there was such a thing. In fact, police learned that Bill had actually won a $30,000 jackpot just a few months prior to his death.

None of this adds up to Bill being some reckless gambler as his wife Melanie made it out to be. Bill McGuire was quite the opposite, actually. Now, if Bill McGuire didn't have any known enemies and his death probably isn't related to his gambling, then police were still wondering who in the world would want him dead.

So the investigators turned their attention back to Bill McGuire's autopsy. If you remember, there were two .38 caliber bullets discovered in the second suitcase. And the medical examiner determined that Bill was shot at least three times with a .38 caliber handgun. So the police wanted to know, was there anyone in Bill's life that had a .38 caliber handgun?

Well, the police didn't have to search very long. Bill's wife, Melanie, had actually purchased a .38 caliber handgun on April 26, 2004, which was just two days before Bill went missing. As soon as police learned about the handgun, they questioned Melanie about it.

But her response to the police was that she bought the weapon because Bill was the one who told her to buy it for protection. Because the couple were planning to move into their first home together. The fact that her husband also was shot with a .38 caliber handgun is simply a coincidence.

Even though Melanie herself had a .38 caliber weapon, the same kind used to kill Bill, was Melanie McGuire really a cold-blooded killer? The type of killer who would murder her husband, chop his body up into pieces, and send the pieces floating down the Chesapeake Bay. The police in the investigation weren't too sure about that.

Melanie McGuire was a nurse, remember? She held a really stable job at a fertility clinic. She had absolutely no criminal record, nothing in her past to suggest that she would be capable of something like this. Plus, she was also the mother of two young sons. Would Melanie really leave her own children without a father?

Just as the police started to look into Melanie's past to really find out for themselves if she was capable of murder, they learned about Dr. Bradley Miller. Dr. Bradley Miller and Melanie McGuire were co-workers together at the fertility clinic, but the two weren't just co-workers. Bradley Miller and Melanie McGuire were actually having an affair together that had lasted for over two years by this point.

Now, these two weren't just having a fling type of affair. No, it was discovered that Bradley Miller and Melanie McGuire were in an intense love affair and that the two of them even talked about getting married someday.

Once police learn about Melanie McGuire's affair with her co-worker, Dr. Bradley Miller, they don't immediately confront Melanie about it. Instead, the police wanted to know more about Bradley Miller because for one, he's a doctor and a syringe with an unknown pink substance was found in Bill's car. And two, this guy is having an affair with a dead man's wife.

These are two really good reasons why police want to talk to him and they want to talk to him right away. As soon as police learned about Dr. Bradley Miller and his relationship with Melanie, they need to find out exactly what that unknown pink substance was.

I think we all know that finding a syringe with an unknown substance in it in a dead man's car is not a good sign, especially when the dead man's wife is having a steamy affair with a doctor. A chemical test revealed that the substance inside the syringe was chloral hydrate.

which is a type of sedative that is usually administered to a patient right before they go into surgery. It basically allows the patient to relax a little bit more. Definitely not something that is used in a fertility clinic where Melanie McGuire and her secret doctor boyfriend worked.

Police soon discovered that the prescription for the chloral hydrate was filled by none other than Dr. Bradley Miller, who we now know as Melanie's secret lover. The prescription for the chloral hydrate was filled at a Walgreens pharmacy on the same exact day Bill McGuire was last seen alive. The location of the Walgreens pharmacy is even more disturbing to the police.

And that's because the pharmacy was less than one mile from where Melanie McGuire drops off her kids in the morning. There's nothing left for police investigators to do except to confront Dr. Bradley Miller himself. Right away, Bradley denies having any involvement in the disappearance or murder of Melanie's husband, Bill.

which of course isn't the first time a person of interest has ever denied having any involvement and it certainly won't be the last time. But he denies everything except the affair. He denies writing the prescription for the chloral hydrate and he denies knowing anything about Bill's murder.

And to prove to the police that he had nothing to do with Bill McGuire's murder, Bradley Miller agrees to wear a police wire and start recording his phone conversations with Melanie. Bradley Miller started trying to get Melanie to open up and talk about Bill's murder. And on a couple of these phone conversations, Melanie becomes slightly suspicious and

Like, why all of a sudden is Bradley so interested in Bill's case? Police already know that Melanie McGuire is an extremely smart and cunning lady, and she isn't going to be an easy person to try and trip up here, especially when it comes to learning more about her husband's murder.

But Melanie McGuire does make a single mistake on one of these recorded phone conversations. On one of these phone calls, Melanie admitted to Bradley that she was the one who parked Bill's car at the hotel in Atlantic City after his disappearance.

This becomes an extremely important piece to the puzzle because to the police, this explains that the human sawdust found in Bill's car was certainly tracked there by Melanie. Police had already discovered Bill's flesh on the inside of the car and now they have Melanie's confession to the fact that she was the one who parked his vehicle there.

Based on what the police already know in their investigation into Bill McGuire's death, his wife Melanie now becomes their prime suspect. Bill's body had been wrapped inside black garbage bags before they were placed inside the three matching suitcases. So the police turned their attention to try and find out exactly where those black trash bags came from.

After Bill McGuire's disappearance, his wife Melanie gave away all of his clothes to family and friends. And what did Melanie use to pack up and give away her husband's clothes? Black plastic bags. Police knew that the garbage bags found with Bill McGuire's body were made from recycled bags. And that's because the patterns on the plastic bags were very unique.

Both sets of bags, the ones found with Bill's body and the bags Melanie used to pack his clothes, were found to be a perfect match. But how exactly were investigators able to determine that they were from the same exact bag? Well, it turns out that recycled plastic bags that are cut within seconds of each other will carry identical marks on them.

And in this case, the tool marks found on the bags inside the suitcases perfectly match the tool marks on the bags Melanie used to pack his clothes up, leaving only one possible explanation. That the bags used to hold the body pieces of Bill's severed body came from the exact same box as the bags found inside Melanie and Bill's apartment.

Homicide investigators were now certain that Melanie McGuire was the one responsible for her husband's murder. They had evidence that Melanie was the one who dragged the human sawdust belonging to Bill inside the Nissan. They were also able to match the black plastic bags used to dispose of Bill's body to the same kind found in her apartment.

and they knew she had purchased a .38 caliber handgun, the same exact caliber used in Bill's murder just two days before. Police also felt like they had the perfect motive. Melanie was having a long-term affair with her co-worker Bradley Miller, and the police felt like the only way that she could really be with Bradley is if she killed her husband.

Melanie was arrested at her home in Brick Township, New Jersey, and charged with first-degree murder on June 2, 2005, nearly one year after Bill's murder. Once charged with first-degree murder, bail was originally set at $750,000, which in 2020, that amount would be somewhere right below $1 million.

But she was able to post the $750,000 bail and through her attorney pled not guilty to Bill McGuire's murder. I know you're probably wondering why Melanie's boyfriend, Dr. Bradley Miller, wasn't arrested. Bradley did write the prescription for the chloral hydrate after all.

Well, during the investigation, the police learned that Bradley actually had never wrote the prescription. That Melanie had actually forged his signature in order to fill that prescription. And Bradley had absolutely no idea that the prescription was even filled.

So because Melanie had forged the signature on the prescription, the police really didn't have any reason to believe that he was ever involved in the murder plot against Bill McGuire.

After Melanie posted the $750,000 bail and pled not guilty to Bill's murder, she was charged with four additional counts later that year in October. And this was because after a grand jury reviewed the case, they had actually requested that additional counts be added to the indictment.

So with these new counts added, the judge in the case raised her bail to over $2.1 million, which surprisingly she was able to post and she was released from jail once again. Melanie McGuire's murder trial finally began on March 5th, 2007, nearly three years after Bill's severed body was discovered floating in the Chesapeake Bay.

The prosecutors in the case presented the forensic evidence, highlighting the human sawdust found in Bill's Nissan that was abandoned in Atlantic City. Prosecutors explained that after cutting up her husband's body and placing the body pieces inside the suitcases, she unknowingly dragged the sawdust into the car.

They drove home to the jury that just two days before Bill's disappearance, Melanie went out and purchased a .38 caliber handgun, and Bill was killed by three gunshot wounds from the same caliber weapon. The syringe found in Bill's glove compartment containing the chloral hydrate was filled with a forged signature from Melanie's boyfriend, Bradley.

Prosecutors argued that the substance, which is a sedative, was used to subdue Bill just long enough so that Melanie could shoot him three times with a .38 caliber handgun. The black plastic bags that were used to wrap Bill's severed body pieces in were an exact match to the same bags found in Melanie's apartment, based on the unique tool marks.

proving that the bags came from the same exact box. And finally, prosecutors explained in detail the motive behind the brutal and savage murder. Melanie McGuire's affair with her co-worker, Dr. Bradley Miller. Melanie wanted to be with her lover, and she no longer wanted to be married to her husband, Bill.

Many would argue, why not simply just get a divorce? But we know that murder is never logical. The forensic evidence was simply too overwhelming, and after a seven-week murder trial, Melanie McGuire was found guilty of first-degree murder on April 23, 2007.

On top of the first-degree murder conviction, Melanie was also convicted of lesser charges including perjury, discretion of human remains, and possession of a weapon for unlawful purposes. Melanie was, however, actually acquitted of two of the original charges, which included a tampering with evidence charge and possession of Xanax without a prescription.

After her conviction, and even before her sentencing hearing, Melanie McGuire filed an appeal for a new trial. Her lawyers filed the appeal because they found out about a jailhouse informant by the name of Christopher Time, who claimed he had information about Bill McGuire's murder.

The jailhouse informant claimed that Bill McGuire was deeply in debt from his gambling addiction and that he was actually murdered by the Atlantic City mobsters. The court looked into these claims made by the jailhouse informant, and after an investigation was done, they learned that Christopher Time was, quote, "...entirely incredible and routinely and habitually fabricated stories."

So Melanie's appeal for a new trial based on the jailhouse informant was completely thrown out. The sentencing of Melanie McGuire for the murder of her husband, Bill, went forward on July 19, 2007. And with Melanie being only 34 years old, she was sentenced to life in prison. Melanie McGuire has maintained her innocence to the murder.

Through her attorneys, she has filed several appeals to her case over the years. The first appeal on March 16, 2011, confirmed her conviction, citing that she's to serve more than 63 years of her life sentence before she will be eligible for parole. But this didn't stop Melanie. She filed yet another appeal still claiming to be completely innocent.

But just like before, on September 10, 2011, the New Jersey Supreme Court once again denied her appeal. By 2014, Melanie took a different approach and filed a motion for post-conviction relief. And in her motion, she basically argued that she had ineffective assistance of counsel and that she even had new evidence that would prove her innocence.

Melanie McGuire is relentless. By this point, Melanie has a new attorney, a New Jersey public defender. Melanie and her public defender appeared in court together on September 25, 2014, now 10 years after Bill McGuire's murder, to try and get her 2007 murder conviction overturned.

But just like before, the motion was denied and the court upheld the conviction. Melanie McGuire is currently serving her sentence at a women's prison in Clinton, New Jersey. She will be eligible for parole after serving a minimum of 63 years to her life sentence. She will be about 98 years old.

Melanie and Bill's two children are now being raised by Bill's sister. They will spend the rest of their lives without their mother and father, all because of what Melanie McGuire did. The forensic science obtained from Bill McGuire's car and the black trash bags led police right to Melanie McGuire.

If Melanie hadn't dragged the human sawdust into Bill's car or didn't use the same black trash bags to give away her husband's clothes, she may just have gotten away with cold-blooded murder. ♪

Forensic Tales is a Rockefeller Audio production. To read more about the suitcase murder and check out photos from the case, head over to our website, ForensicTales.com. Don't forget to subscribe to Forensic Tales on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your shows so you don't miss an episode.

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Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.

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