[9] The couple had two sons and lived in a Woodbridge Township, New Jersey apartment, but planned to move that month to a larger home in Warren County.

[9] On May 5, 2004, the first suitcase, containing human legs, was found floating near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel's fourth artificial island by two fishermen and two children, and a murder investigation was launched.

[9] On May 11, a second larger suitcase was found on the beach of Fisherman Island National Wildlife Refuge, by a graduate student cleaning up litter.

Melanie's receipt for the gun also listed an unspecified purchase of $9.95; there were only two items in the store for that amount, and one of them was a box of wadcutter bullets.

[9] Melanie later claimed she had moved the car as a "prank",[8] even though she had applied for a protection from abuse order days earlier after allegedly being slapped by her husband.

[9] Similarly, a medical grade towel found with Bill's body matched those stocked at the clinic where Melanie worked.

After exiting the older child's school, Melanie started walking toward her vehicle when law enforcement emerged from the bushes, taking her into custody without incident.

She was immediately booked into the Middlesex County Adult Correctional Center on first-degree murder charges, but made her $750,000 bail ($1.17 million today).

More than a year later, on October 26, 2006, McGuire was charged with two counts of hindering apprehension for allegedly writing letters to police aimed at getting them off her trail.

Almost three years after the crime, McGuire's murder trial commenced at the Middlesex County Courthouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey on March 5, 2007.

[14] Shortly after her conviction, but before sentencing, McGuire appealed for a new trial on the basis of the story of jailhouse informant Christopher Thieme that her husband was deeply in debt and may have been killed by Atlantic City mobsters.

[24][25] On April 29, 2014, McGuire filed a motion for post-conviction relief, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel and newly discovered evidence.

[26] On September 25, 2014, McGuire appeared in court with her new attorney Lois DeJulio, a public defender, to try to get a hearing that could overturn her 2007 murder conviction, on the grounds that her previous legal representation by Joe Tacopina was inadequate or ineffective.