Post by lace on Oct 31, 2006 21:05:10 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300]A WEB OF INTRIGUE
New indictment: Nurse used Google to plot 'suitcase' killing of husband [/glow]
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
BY JIM O'NEILL
Star-Ledger Staff
At the keyboard of her home computer in April 2004, Melanie McGuire typed a series of phrases into an Internet search engine, conducting research, prosecutors say, on what to do next. Several lines stood out.
[glow=red,2,300]"Undetectable poisons."
"How to purchase an illegal weapon."
"How to commit a murder." [/glow]
Just days after running those phrases through Google, the petite fertility clinic nurse gave her husband a powerful sedative, shot him to death and dismembered him with a power saw inside the couple's Woodbridge apartment, an assistant attorney general charged in court yesterday.
More than two years after the body of William McGuire was found in a set of matching suitcases in Chesapeake Bay, and more than a year after the arrest of his wife, authorities revealed new details about the case, contending Melanie McGuire carefully pondered and plotted the murder.
The disclosure came as a state grand jury handed up a new indictment accusing McGuire, 34, of hindering apprehension, evidence tampering and filing false reports, among other counts. The charges could add two decades to the 30-year term she already faces if convicted on all counts.
The new indictment stems from a series of letters authorities said McGuire mailed out in an effort to throw investigators off her trail. The letters suggested she was being framed for the killing of her husband, 39, a computer programmer and adjunct professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
In outlining some of the evidence in the case, Assistant Attorney General Patricia Prezioso told a Superior Court judge in New Brunswick that an examination of McGuire's home computer found the incriminating Google searches in a temporary Internet file that had not been deleted.
Several of the searches dealt with a sedative, chloral hydrate, Prezioso said.
"There was a plethora of searches on chloral hydrate," the prosecutor said. Chloral hydrate is a strong sedative used to treat insomnia, relieve anxiety and induce sleep before surgery. Several Web sites suggest it is undetectable if not given in large doses.
McGuire, who had access to prescription pads at the Morristown fertility clinic where she worked, wrote a prescription for the drug by forging the name of her boss, Barry Miller, a physician with whom she was having an affair. Prezioso said McGuire subsequently bought the sedative at a Walgreens just days before the murder.
McGuire, who now lives in Brick Township, had been free since posting $2 million bail after her arrest in June 2005. Superior Court Judge Frederick DeVesa raised McGuire's bail to $2.1 million but said she need only post an additional 10 percent, or $10,000, to secure her release.
She was taken into custody yesterday and remained in the Middlesex County jail late last night.
One of her lawyers, Joseph Tacopina, called the evidence in the latest indictment "laughable," insisting there is nothing other than sheer speculation to suggest the husband was drugged before being killed.
A detailed examination of the victim's remains showed "there is absolutely no evidence, no evidence at all, of any controlled dangerous substance in this man's body whatsoever," Tacopina said.
"As certain as (Prezioso) is that Mrs. McGuire is the killer, we are certain she is not," the defense lawyer said.
McGuire sat quietly at the defense table, her arms folded across her chest for much of the 90-minute hearing. Her family and friends sat in a row behind her. Cindy Ligosh, William McGuire's sister and now the caretaker of the couple's two young children, sat in the rear of the crowded courtroom.
Much of yesterday's hearing centered on the letters McGuire allegedly wrote to mislead authorities.
Prezioso said investigators determined McGuire used an American Express gift card to pay FedEx to mail a package containing one of the letters and other evidence of the crime.
Police traced the gift card purchase to a store in Paterson. Just three minutes before the card was bought, a video surveillance camera captured the image of a woman who closely resembles McGuire, Prezioso said.
As authorities investigated the killing, Prezioso said, McGuire sent letters suggesting she had been framed by organized crime to then-Attorney General Peter Harvey, the Trentonian newspaper and her lawyer.
Then, while Prezioso was presenting the murder charges to a grand jury in October 2005, McGuire sent the assistant attorney general a package containing a letter detailing ways to "set up Melanie."
Included in the package were the victim's custom wedding ring, a bracelet and a key to the victim's car. Prezioso said yesterday McGuire has admitted abandoning the car in Atlantic City.
[glow=red,2,300]McGuire's trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 22.[/glow]
www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-9/116227766034640.xml&coll=1
New indictment: Nurse used Google to plot 'suitcase' killing of husband [/glow]
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
BY JIM O'NEILL
Star-Ledger Staff
At the keyboard of her home computer in April 2004, Melanie McGuire typed a series of phrases into an Internet search engine, conducting research, prosecutors say, on what to do next. Several lines stood out.
[glow=red,2,300]"Undetectable poisons."
"How to purchase an illegal weapon."
"How to commit a murder." [/glow]
Just days after running those phrases through Google, the petite fertility clinic nurse gave her husband a powerful sedative, shot him to death and dismembered him with a power saw inside the couple's Woodbridge apartment, an assistant attorney general charged in court yesterday.
More than two years after the body of William McGuire was found in a set of matching suitcases in Chesapeake Bay, and more than a year after the arrest of his wife, authorities revealed new details about the case, contending Melanie McGuire carefully pondered and plotted the murder.
The disclosure came as a state grand jury handed up a new indictment accusing McGuire, 34, of hindering apprehension, evidence tampering and filing false reports, among other counts. The charges could add two decades to the 30-year term she already faces if convicted on all counts.
The new indictment stems from a series of letters authorities said McGuire mailed out in an effort to throw investigators off her trail. The letters suggested she was being framed for the killing of her husband, 39, a computer programmer and adjunct professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
In outlining some of the evidence in the case, Assistant Attorney General Patricia Prezioso told a Superior Court judge in New Brunswick that an examination of McGuire's home computer found the incriminating Google searches in a temporary Internet file that had not been deleted.
Several of the searches dealt with a sedative, chloral hydrate, Prezioso said.
"There was a plethora of searches on chloral hydrate," the prosecutor said. Chloral hydrate is a strong sedative used to treat insomnia, relieve anxiety and induce sleep before surgery. Several Web sites suggest it is undetectable if not given in large doses.
McGuire, who had access to prescription pads at the Morristown fertility clinic where she worked, wrote a prescription for the drug by forging the name of her boss, Barry Miller, a physician with whom she was having an affair. Prezioso said McGuire subsequently bought the sedative at a Walgreens just days before the murder.
McGuire, who now lives in Brick Township, had been free since posting $2 million bail after her arrest in June 2005. Superior Court Judge Frederick DeVesa raised McGuire's bail to $2.1 million but said she need only post an additional 10 percent, or $10,000, to secure her release.
She was taken into custody yesterday and remained in the Middlesex County jail late last night.
One of her lawyers, Joseph Tacopina, called the evidence in the latest indictment "laughable," insisting there is nothing other than sheer speculation to suggest the husband was drugged before being killed.
A detailed examination of the victim's remains showed "there is absolutely no evidence, no evidence at all, of any controlled dangerous substance in this man's body whatsoever," Tacopina said.
"As certain as (Prezioso) is that Mrs. McGuire is the killer, we are certain she is not," the defense lawyer said.
McGuire sat quietly at the defense table, her arms folded across her chest for much of the 90-minute hearing. Her family and friends sat in a row behind her. Cindy Ligosh, William McGuire's sister and now the caretaker of the couple's two young children, sat in the rear of the crowded courtroom.
Much of yesterday's hearing centered on the letters McGuire allegedly wrote to mislead authorities.
Prezioso said investigators determined McGuire used an American Express gift card to pay FedEx to mail a package containing one of the letters and other evidence of the crime.
Police traced the gift card purchase to a store in Paterson. Just three minutes before the card was bought, a video surveillance camera captured the image of a woman who closely resembles McGuire, Prezioso said.
As authorities investigated the killing, Prezioso said, McGuire sent letters suggesting she had been framed by organized crime to then-Attorney General Peter Harvey, the Trentonian newspaper and her lawyer.
Then, while Prezioso was presenting the murder charges to a grand jury in October 2005, McGuire sent the assistant attorney general a package containing a letter detailing ways to "set up Melanie."
Included in the package were the victim's custom wedding ring, a bracelet and a key to the victim's car. Prezioso said yesterday McGuire has admitted abandoning the car in Atlantic City.
[glow=red,2,300]McGuire's trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 22.[/glow]
www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-9/116227766034640.xml&coll=1