Attorneys get last chance to sway McGuire jury In closing, defense says investigators narrowed on McGuire too quickly BY KATHY CHANG Staff Writer NEW BRUNSWICK - With family and friends of both William and Melanie McGuire sitting in the courtroom, the prosecution and defense made their closing arguments last week, each lasting over three hours. The nine-woman and three-man jury started deliberations on April 18 to determine whether Melanie McGuire, a 34-year-old fertility clinic nurse is guilty or not guilty of killing her husband, William McGuire, in their Woodbridge Center Plaza apartment and later dismembering his body between April 28, 2004, and May 5, 2004. McGuire was found guilty on Monday after four days of deliberation. The defense, during their three-hour and 20-minute closing argument, questioned if the prosecution had such a strong circumstantial case against Melanie McGuire, why did Detective Sgt. William Scull, the supervisor of the south squad of the New Jersey State Police Major Crimes Unit, ask a lieutenant in the Atlantic County region Major Crimes Unit as recently as Feb. 19 of this year, if William McGuire's murder had any connection with the four women who were murdered near the Golden Key Motel along the Black Horse Pike in Egg Harbor Township in November 2006. "If that doesn't send shivers up and down your spine that the murder of William McGuire could be tied to another murder in Atlantic City," said defense attorney Joseph Tacopina. "And if the state has a reasonable doubt, ladies and gentlemen, how could they ask you not to have one? The state of this case and the state of this evidence is in shambles." Scull had previously testified that he had reached out to the Major Crimes Unit in Atlantic County to inquire about the computer equipment from the Flamingo Motel, where Melanie McGuire had admitted to her friend, James Finn, on a consensual wiretap captured by the state police that she moved her husband's 2002 Nissan Maxima to the motel's parking lot. Tacopina attempted to pick holes in the prosecution's case by focusing on a lack of physical evidence in the apartment where the state contends Melanie McGuire killed and dismembered her husband. "The state has no proof," he said. "Thomas Lesniak of the New Jersey State Police Office of Forensic Science testified there was no evidence, no blood evidence, found in the apartment. He did 200 reports on this case and searched the apartment four times. He did everything he could and didn't find anything because my client did not murder William McGuire." Tacopina said the state's case of circumstantial evidence adds up to a lot of zeros. "The state's reasoning why Melanie killed her husband because of her affair with another man [Dr. Bradley Miller] is speculative," he said. "They have done many things to twist and tort the marriage. The hairs found in the suitcases that matched Melanie does not mean anything. They weren't taped to the trash bags. They were married and lived together. If they did not live together, it would be another question." Tacopina said the investigation into William McGuire's murder started backward and made law enforcement rush to a judgment implicating his wife Melanie McGuire. "The Virginia Beach detectives saw what they wanted to see and heard what they wanted to hear," he said. Tacopina pointed out leads that were not pursued by detectives such as William McGuire's work laptop found in the trunk of his 2002 Nissan Maxima that was taken into evidence, but wasn't searched, the Flamingo Motel tape that the detectives were only able to save a few minutes of, the fact that the detectives did not look through William McGuire's BlackBerry, and the fact that the detectives did not investigate if William McGuire stayed at the Econo Lodge Hotel in Atlantic City, since a brochure was found on the passenger side seat of his car. "These leads were never followed up," said Tacopina. "Maybe they would be dead leads, but we will never know. What we do know is the detectives never investigated anyone else except his wife." Tacopina offered other potential suspects that were never considered. "Two guys jump out and they are Dr. Bradley Miller, who said he became furious when Melanie told him she and her husband closed on their new home, and James Finn, who was madly in love with Melanie and always felt rejected by her," Tacopina said. Tacopina asked why law enforcement did not look once at Dr. Bradley Miller or James Finn but they searched McGuire's parents house in Barnegat "20 times." Tacopina told the jury to look at Melanie McGuire's phone records the day - April 29, 2004 - that the state believes she killed her husband. "The state believes she kills her husband the early morning hours of April 29, but she drops her kids off two hours later at day care and goes to family court to file for a restraining order against her husband, but the line is too long and she's on the phone with Dr. Miller that day," said Tacopina. The defense also questioned the theory of William McGuire's gambling habits. "He was a big and heavy gambler, who gambled beyond his means," said Tacopina. "Yes, the McGuires closed on their house, but there were no efforts to see where the funds were coming from. There could have been street debt and behind payments. There is no suggestion that he was shot because of debt, but it is a reasonable possibility to be investigated." The prosecution in their three-hour closing arguments said even though their case is mostly circumstantial, Melanie McGuire's behavior should be overwhelmingly crystal clear that she participated in her husband's death. "In those days after Melanie McGuire murdered her husband, she was creating an illusion that he was still alive," said Assistant Attorney General Patricia Prezioso. "If there was a violent fight, then why did she never call the police? And if she said she was honestly terrified of her husband, since she told her friend James Finn that he was hallucinating and acting erratically, when she was filing for a temporary restraining order on April 30, 2004 [in Middlesex County Family Court], why did she not tell them about the gun she purchased for her husband three days earlier?" Prezioso said those midnight runs to Atlantic City are hard to believe. "After she files for a restraining order [on April 30, 2004], that night she drives to Atlantic City and just so happens to find her husband's car in a city of 13 casinos, and various businesses, restaurants and bars. She does admit to finding her husband's car and moving it to the Flamingo Motel parking lot. Then she said she was too tired to find her car and takes a cab ride from Atlantic City to Woodbridge and then the next day she said she takes another cab ride from Woodbridge back down to Atlantic City." Prezioso questioned the validity of McGuire's story. "It makes you wonder," Prezioso said, "how much cash did Melanie McGuire have on her? And if she was simply going to confront her husband, wouldn't she call him? There was not one single phone call made to William McGuire from the defendant." Prezioso said the murder of William McGuire was well organized, meticulously and carefully planned out, which fits the description of Melanie McGuire. Prezioso reminded jurors of testimony from various members of law enforcement suggesting that McGuire's house was in such meticulous condition, with even the spice rack alphabetized with labels facing out and a strong smell of bleach, that it could have easily been because she had attempted to clean up the crime scene. Prezioso said it was very clever of Melanie McGuire to cut William McGuire's body in the shower stall of the master bedroom in the Woodbridge apartment because the three walls would