Latest / Bless This Mess: A Southern True Crime Podcast / A Little Less Mess: [Virginia] William "Bill" McGuire

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A Little Less Mess: [Virginia] William "Bill" McGuire · Bless This Mess: A Southern True Crime Podcast

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, welcome to bless This Mess, Southern True Crumb podcast.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I'm Kara, Just Kara. This is a little less Mess.
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  Speaker 1: It's our regular episodes minus all of the banter and
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  Speaker 1: opinions and stupidity that me and my husband who normally
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: records with me STU have on. Those are our regular episodes.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: They're the ones that are numbered in the feed, and
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: then these are the ones that we're doing. It's just
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: me reading the story and that way, if you want
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: something that's maybe has less cussing and less opinions and
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: everything like that, this is perfect for you can just
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  Speaker 1: listen to it. They're very short episodes and just tell
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: you the story and then that's it. So if you
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: like this episode or you want to hear a little
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: bit more from us, check out those other episodes and
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  Speaker 1: stuff out at Blessed This Mess Podcast. It's all in
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  Speaker 1: the show notes as well. So let's go ahead and
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  Speaker 1: get into this week's episode. It is technically Southern. It's
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: the body was found in Virginia, but the crime actually
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: occurred in New Jersey. But anyways, if you want to
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  Speaker 1: know more about that, you can check out the other
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  Speaker 1: episode right. William Theodore Bill McGuire he goes by. Bill
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  Speaker 1: was born September twenty first, nineteen sixty four, in the Bronx,
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  Speaker 1: New York, to William and Ruth McGuire. Bill would go
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  Speaker 1: on to serve in the Navy. In the late nineties,
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  Speaker 1: Bill would meet Melanie Slate. Melanie was a very smart woman,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: graduating second in her class at nursing school. She would
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  Speaker 1: go on to work at one of the top fertility
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  Speaker 1: clinics in New Jersey. Bill and Melanie were married in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine. They would have two sons. Bill and
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Melanie created a nice life, Melanie working as a nurse
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  Speaker 1: and Bill working as a computer programmer, living in Woodbridge Township,
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  Speaker 1: New Jersey. On May fifth, two thousand and four, two
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  Speaker 1: fishermen with their children were boating in the Chesapeake Bay,
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  Speaker 1: Virginia by the bridge. The fishermen see a medium suitcase
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  Speaker 1: floating and they think maybe it's someone's luggage and possibly
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: something valuable inside. They pull the suitcase up into the
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  Speaker 1: boat and unzip it. To their horror, they see human legs.
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  Speaker 1: They immediately call police, who arrive at the scene and
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  Speaker 1: take the suitcase into their custody. With only legs, they
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  Speaker 1: had no identification of the person. They looked for missing
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  Speaker 1: persons in the area with no luck. They had their
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  Speaker 1: next big break less than a week later, when, on
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  Speaker 1: May eleventh, a graduate student who was cleaning up litter
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  Speaker 1: on the Fisherman Island National Wildlife Refuge, which is located
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  Speaker 1: in Northampton County, Virginia, he picks up a large suitcase
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  Speaker 1: that had washed ashore. Inside the suitcase is a head
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  Speaker 1: torso in hands. The head has one bullet wound and
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  Speaker 1: the torso has two to the chest. As they are
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  Speaker 1: working to identify the victim. Since they now have a
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  Speaker 1: head and can work on a sketch, the final piece
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  Speaker 1: of the puzzle washes up near the shore back near
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  Speaker 1: the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, the small suitcase of the set
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  Speaker 1: is found. This suitcase contained the arms of the victim.
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  Speaker 1: All of the body parts were wrapped in black trash bags,
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  Speaker 1: and the head was wrapped in a white sheet with
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  Speaker 1: a tag that said each csc. The trash bags were
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  Speaker 1: held together with blue painter's tape. Police initially release a
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  Speaker 1: description to try to get an id, but it was
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  Speaker 1: pretty nondescript at this point. It was just a white male,
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  Speaker 1: medium build with a military style haircut. There were no
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  Speaker 1: tattoos or other distinguishing scars. They performed an autopsy and
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  Speaker 1: determined that the cause of death was a gunshot wound
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  Speaker 1: to his head and two gunshot wounds through his chest.
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  Speaker 1: Two thirty K thirty eight caliber bullet casings were recovered
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  Speaker 1: from the victim's torso they did note where the body
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  Speaker 1: was dismembered. They were very clean cuts, so possibly someone
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  Speaker 1: with medical training. They pulled the DNA from the body
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  Speaker 1: parts from all the separate suitcases, just to confirm that
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  Speaker 1: all the body parts belonged to the same person. They
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  Speaker 1: also took that DNA sample and ran it through databases
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  Speaker 1: like Coatis, but were not able to come up with
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  Speaker 1: a match. Now. While they were doing this, the sketch
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  Speaker 1: of the victim was completed and they were able to
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  Speaker 1: release that to the public, hoping someone would come forward
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  Speaker 1: with an identification. They continued to look at the evidence
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  Speaker 1: that was provided at the crime scene. It appeared that
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  Speaker 1: whoever disposed of the man in the bay did not
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  Speaker 1: expect him to pop back up to the surface, but
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  Speaker 1: decomposition and caused gases to form, making the suitcase buoyant.
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  Speaker 1: They were able to determine that the sheet wrapped around
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  Speaker 1: his head came from a hospital. The company HCSC was
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  Speaker 1: a provider of bed Linen's to hospitals and doctor's offices.
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  Speaker 1: This further provided evidence that whoever did this had some
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  Speaker 1: sort of tie to the medical field. Four weeks after
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  Speaker 1: the body is first discovered, police received their first big
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  Speaker 1: break when a woman called in saying that she believed
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  Speaker 1: that she knew who the man was and that he
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  Speaker 1: had served on a Navy base with them in Virginia.
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  Speaker 1: The man's name was William McGuire, but he went by Bill.
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  Speaker 1: Police ran his fingerprints and it was a match. Bill
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  Speaker 1: was thirty nine years old at the time of his death.
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  Speaker 1: Please find out that Bill's last address was in New Jersey.
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  Speaker 1: They also discovered that, surprisingly, he had a wife and
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  Speaker 1: two small children, but this seemed odd to them since
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  Speaker 1: no one had reported him missing. They contacted Bill's wife, Melanie,
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  Speaker 1: and she tells police that she did not report him
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  Speaker 1: as missing because the last time that she had seen him.
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  Speaker 1: They had gotten into a huge fight and he had
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  Speaker 1: gotten physical with her. He then stormed out, saying you
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  Speaker 1: will never see me again. The next day she filed
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  Speaker 1: a restraining order. She told police that she just thought
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  Speaker 1: he decided to leave town. They asked Melanie if anyone
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  Speaker 1: would want to hurt Bill, and she said no. She
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  Speaker 1: did mention that he was big into gambling out in
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  Speaker 1: Atlantic City. This was their first big lead. They now
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: are going with the possibility that Bill had some gambling
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  Speaker 1: debts he could not make good on and someone took
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  Speaker 1: him out. They searched the casinos out in Atlantic City
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  Speaker 1: and come across Bill's car at the Flamingo Motel. They
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  Speaker 1: review surveillance video but is unclear who parked the car.
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  Speaker 1: They bring the car in for processing and find a
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  Speaker 1: small vial of pink liquid and a syringe in the
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  Speaker 1: glove compartment. They send this off for testing. They also
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  Speaker 1: vacuumed the floorboards of the vehicle for testing the small
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  Speaker 1: particles and hairs. The material on the driver's side floorboard
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  Speaker 1: came back as small pieces of flesh. The forensic scientist
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  Speaker 1: called this human sawdust, and it is exactly as it sounds.
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  Speaker 1: It's basically skin cells that have flaked off to the
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  Speaker 1: body while it is being sawed apart. Those skin particles
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  Speaker 1: fell on the ground, and whoever cut Bill up stepped
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  Speaker 1: on those skin cells and transferred them to the car
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  Speaker 1: when they got in and drove it to the Flamingo motel.
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  Speaker 1: This confirmed to police that Bill was dead when his
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  Speaker 1: car was left at that motel, so whoever was driving
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  Speaker 1: that car was now the prime suspect in his murder.
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  Speaker 1: They speak to the casinos that Bill frequented and learned
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: that he was actually a pretty responsible gambler. While he
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: liked gambling, he was actually not in any debt. He
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  Speaker 1: had actually just recently won a thirty thousand dollars jackpot.
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  Speaker 1: Rule out the theory that he was in massive gambling
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  Speaker 1: debt and someone killed him when he could not make
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  Speaker 1: good on that debt. Police interview friends and family, and
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  Speaker 1: they described Bill as loyal and fun to be around.
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  Speaker 1: He was just a normal guy living with his wife
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  Speaker 1: and two young children. Nothing stood out to them as
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  Speaker 1: to why Bill was killed in such a gruesome way.
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  Speaker 1: They look into his family life. His wife was a
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  Speaker 1: very respected fertility nurse, however, and everyone seemed to like her,
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  Speaker 1: and she was described as loving to her family. Police
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  Speaker 1: did find out that a gun was purchased. It was
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  Speaker 1: a thirty eight caliber by Melanie just before the murder.
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  Speaker 1: Police asked her about the gun and she said that
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  Speaker 1: Bill told her to purchase it for extra protection when
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  Speaker 1: they moved into their new house. They had actually put
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: a down payment on a house the day that Bill
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  Speaker 1: went missing. This also seemed odd to police, as Melanie
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  Speaker 1: just said that Bill was abusive and filed a restraining order.
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  Speaker 1: Although Melanie on the surface does not seem like a killer,
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  Speaker 1: she does seem suspicious. They look into the clinic where
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  Speaker 1: Melanie works, and they find that they use the same
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  Speaker 1: sheets that Bill's head was found wrapped in. With the
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: gun and the sheet connection, they have enough to get
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: a wiretap on Melanie's phone. After tapping her phone, they
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  Speaker 1: discovered that Melanie was having an affair with the doctor
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  Speaker 1: at the clinic, doctor Bradley Miller. This affair was described
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  Speaker 1: as very passionate and intense, and it had been going
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  Speaker 1: on for about two years. This information allowed police to
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  Speaker 1: have access to the clinic's records, where they discovered that
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  Speaker 1: the day of the murder, there was a prescription for
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  Speaker 1: chloral hydrate syrup written under doctor Miller's name. The prescription
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  Speaker 1: was filled at the Walgreens just half a mile from
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  Speaker 1: where Melanie's children went to school. This explained the mystery
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: pink liquid found in the syringe and vial. This drug
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  Speaker 1: is used to sedate someone possibly going into surgery. It
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  Speaker 1: is not a drug commonly used in fertility treatment. A
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: high enough dose would completely knock someone out. They go
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  Speaker 1: to doctor Miller and he looks at the script and
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  Speaker 1: tells them his signature was forged. He says he had
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  Speaker 1: nothing to do with this and is willing to help
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  Speaker 1: police in any way. Police began recording their conversations with
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: doctor Miller's permission, and he tries to get Melanie to
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  Speaker 1: talk about the murder. She swears on her children's lives
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  Speaker 1: that she did not have anything to do with Bill's murder. However,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: on another phone call, she admits to parking Bill's car
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  Speaker 1: at the motel. She claims that the night of the fight,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: she went down to Atlantic City to look for him.
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  Speaker 1: When she saw his car, she moved it to a
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  Speaker 1: different location out of spite. She said that was her
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  Speaker 1: in the video parking the car. While this conversation sealed
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  Speaker 1: Melanie's fate. They now had her confessing to moving the car,
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  Speaker 1: sitting in the driver's seat where the human sawdust was found.
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  Speaker 1: Now that they knew Melanie killed Bill, they needed to
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: figure out how and where she did it. They went
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  Speaker 1: to the apartment where they lived to see if they
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  Speaker 1: could find traces of DNA, but the apartment was immaculate.
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  Speaker 1: Melanie and her children had already moved out, and this
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  Speaker 1: gave her the opportunity to completely scrub and bleach the apartment.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: They now looked at the garbage bags used in the murder.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: The trash bags had a specific chemical composition as they
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: had been made from recycled materials. They also had a
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: distinct pattern from the serrated blade used to cut the bags.
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  Speaker 1: As bags are cut, the blade dolls, leaving unique print
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  Speaker 1: where they are torn, so bags cut within seconds of
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: each other, meaning from the same set sold together will
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: have the same markings. When Melanie packed up Bill's clothes,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: she put them in black trash bags and gave them
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: to a friend. Police were able to obtain those bags,
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  Speaker 1: and the markings in chemical composition were identical. On April
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: twenty third, two thousand and seven, Melanie was found guilty
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  Speaker 1: of first degree murder. She was also found guilty on
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: lesser charges of perjury, desecration of human remains, and possession
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  Speaker 1: of a weapon for an unlawful purpose. She was acquitted
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: on two counts of hindering apprehension, as well as with
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: tampering with evidence and possession of the sedative without a prescription.
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  Speaker 1: She was sentenced to life in prison. She did appeal
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: her case, but that was denied. She now must serve
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: sixty three years before being eligible for parole. Her children
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: now live with Bill's sister. All right, that's our little
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  Speaker 1: less mess for this week out of Virginia slash New Jersey.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: If you like this or want more of our opinions
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: or anything, go check out the regular episode. Those are
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: posted on Thursday. And if you like what you heard,
• 12:52
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• 12:56
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• 12:59
  Speaker 1: out Instagram, Facebook and everything. And I guess we will
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: see you next time. Bye. Everyone. Don't you know it's
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: bad luck to be superstious? Find nothing else? It's working,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: and my hand it's really learning. And say it's worry.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: I came