Chapter 1: What happened to Bill McGuire in May 2004?
So this is, I guess, what is my first installment of my video diary.
I am just utterly frustrated and reaching the point where I feel like I don't know how much more of this I can take. It's beyond overwhelming. It is crippling. And there is nothing I can do to change it.
It was around noon on May the 5th, 2004. The water was calm and it was hot outside. A murder was the last thing on my mind that day until we got the call about the suitcase. My name is John Runge with the Virginia Beach Police Department Special Operations Marine Patrol. I patrolled Chesapeake Bay, the oceanfront, and the intercoastal waterway.
Chapter 2: How did Melanie McGuire react to her husband's murder?
I 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. 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 a white male.
Chapter 3: What evidence was found in the Chesapeake Bay?
His head and arms were still attached.
This is a general area where the third suitcase was located by a fisherman and his wife. At that time, pretty much everybody knew if you found a suitcase floating out here, what was going to be in it.
My name is Beth Dutton. I am a forensic specialist supervisor. I've been in forensics for 17 years. This was one of the most brutal crimes that I had seen. The fact that somebody can dismember another human being like a piece of meat is just something that's very disturbing.
The victim was eventually identified from a sketch. The victim was William McGuire from Woodbridge, New Jersey.
My brother had the kindest heart of any person that I've ever known. He always had a smile on his face. You were always happy to be with him.
I haven't had any opportunity to mourn him. I don't even know how to mourn him.
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Chapter 4: What led to Melanie McGuire becoming a murder suspect?
My name is Melanie McGuire and I was married to Bill McGuire.
When I heard how my husband was killed, I was in complete disbelief.
And I could not imagine what he went through.
I did not believe that Mellie McGuire was a grieving widow.
I can't make anybody believe what they don't want to believe.
I believe that she was responsible for her husband's death.
I did not kill the father of my children. I did not kill my husband.
Everybody keeps saying, well, the worst is over. The worst is over. Is it?
The McGuire Diaries.
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Chapter 5: What details emerged about Melanie's life before the murder?
Three months after the body of Bill McGuire was found in the Chesapeake Bay, his beautiful wife was not only a widow, Melanie McGuire was also a murder suspect. I'm just kind of numb at this point, and when the numbness subsides, it's sort of interspersed with terror, so... 48 hours gave Melanie a camera to document her innermost thoughts and fears.
I'm pretty talkative today, considering how wiped out I am. Melanie shot these video diaries in the quiet of her bedroom near the Jersey Shore. They capture her in her most private and tortured moments. I can't keep up with the momentum. I can't keep up.
Shown here for the first time, they are a rare glimpse into the mind of a complex woman, some say is a caring mother, others say a calculating killer. I can't help but think that if I had made better decisions along the way and left the marriage earlier, that I wouldn't be sitting here. It is the last place anyone, especially her mother, Linda Camperero, ever expected to find Melanie.
She was every mother's dream. A good girl.
Never got in trouble. Very supportive of her family.
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Chapter 6: How did Melanie's relationship with Bill change over time?
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. They both wanted the same things out of life, or so I thought.
Let's have a nice round of applause for our happy husbands.
The couple married in June 1999. It was a fairytale wedding.
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Chapter 7: What was the outcome of Melanie McGuire's trial?
All right, ladies, here we go. One, two, three.
Everything it could have been and more.
Mr. and Mrs. William McGuire.
Less than a year later, the Maguires had their first son. Melanie went to work at a fertility clinic, and Bill began teaching computer science at a technical college. Was it a happy time for you? It was. I saw Bill morph into kind of the family man that he always wanted to be, and it really touched me.
But as with so many couples, Bill and Melanie's relationship did not withstand the test of time. I can't say his fault, my fault. Things changed and we were no longer able or willing to meet in the middle. By the birth of their second son, the couple had grown even further apart. One reason, according to Melanie, Bill's frequent trips to Atlantic City.
Would you say that Bill had a gambling problem?
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Chapter 8: What are Melanie McGuire's reflections after being convicted?
Yes. Yes. For him, it was a goal. He needed more money. He wasn't somebody who could sit there and be content with what we had. It was always it had to be a step better. 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 going to kill me. Did you believe him? No, but I was scared. Despite the ongoing battles, Melanie agreed to buy a new house with Bill. If you were so unhappy, why would you bother to look forward to the future? I mean, that's a 15 to 30 year commitment. For the kids.
Even though we weren't happy, we weren't ending this marriage any time soon that I could see. they would never move into that 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, he was all over a simple dryer sheet. He hated them.
He hated them, and I always left them in the pile of laundry. And from there, the fight progresses to me getting slammed up against the doorway and getting the dryer sheet shoved in my mouth and slapped across the face. At this point, one of the kids is there. I grab him, scoop him up, lock myself in the bag. 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. But Bill never tried to contact Melanie, their kids, or anyone else. He simply vanished.
Thursday, I started to call him. No answer. Friday, I started calling more frantically. No answer at any of his numbers. As days turned to weeks, Cindy questioned why Melanie had not filed a missing persons report. It wasn't that out of character for him to have a tantrum, pick up and be gone. Three and a half weeks later, with still no word from Bill, Melanie filed for divorce.
While Melanie McGuire 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 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.
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