Bill and Melanie McGuire were an attractive couple in their thirties. They had two young sons, two successful careers, and they had just closed on a $500,000 home when Bill disappeared. Melanie told their friends that they had fought on the night they had closed on their new home. Bill had physically attacked her and walked out, telling her that he was done with her.
Bill didn’t seem like the type of guy who would hit his wife and leave his children behind. But Melanie insisted that he had hit her and walked out on his family. She even went to court and took out a restraining order against him.
As the days passed and no one heard from Bill, Melanie appeared to be moving on with her life without him. But Bill’s family and friends worried. Bill had been a gambler. Maybe he had pissed off the wrong people.
Then a bizarre news story got everyone’s attention. First, a Kenneth Cole suitcase was found in Virginia Beach. It contained a pair of bloodless male human legs which had been severed at the knees.
One week later, Virginia Beach police recovered a second suitcase that was part of the same Kenneth Cole set. It held a five-pound weight, black trash bags, and more human remains. This time, it was a man’s head and torso. But who this man was and when he had been killed were still unknown.
The third and last suitcase was recovered within two weeks. It contained the man’s hips and thighs. Virginia Beach police launched an intensive investigation to identify the victim and identified him as Bill McGuire.
Join us at the quiet end today for a haunting case that became known as The Suitcase Murder. Well-respected fertility nurse Melanie McGuire was accused of her husband’s murder and dismemberment and she faced life in prison. Although her attorney would argue her innocence, a complex unravelling of the facts would reveal a twisted murder plot which grew from infidelity, greed, and hate.