this is "nightline." tonight, closed case? a failing marriage, a murder. >> i believe this is a case of a wrongful conviction. >> and the new jailhouse interview. why she claims the real killer is still out there. >> there's a murderer walking around. >> even if we discount what's happened to me. >> "nightline" starts right now, with byron pitts. >> good evening. thank you for joining us. tonight, a seemingly picture perfect couple, destroyed by deception and murder. how the unspeakable acts of a mother gripped the country nearly two decades ago and why

some believe she was wrongfully convicted. >> melanie maguire was accused of killing her husband, chopping up his body and putting it in the chesapeake bay. >> melanie maguire, convicted of murdering her husband, but now, years later, a podcast raising new questions. >> you believe an innocent woman is behind bars right now? >> absolutely. i believe this is a case of a wrongful conviction. >> this whole saga begins on may 5, 2004, with an odd discovery in virginia beach. >> that morning, a couple fishermen and their kids are out on their boat in the chesapeake bay when they spot something in the water. >> they found a dark green, kenneth cole suitcase in pretty good condition that was apparently part of a luggage set of three. >> they put it on board, and there's a pair of male legs, from the knee down.

>> we kind of figured there had to be other suitcases with other parts in it. >> six days later, the student was on fisherman's island in the middle of the chesapeake bay, which is a nature preserve. and she saw a dark green kenneth cole suitcase. >> inside the suitcase would be the torso and the head of a male. the torso is still attached, with the arms and the head. >> the medical examiner is able to determine that the vick continue's been shot multiple times. there are a couple gunshot wounds in the torso area and one through the head. >> the third suitcase was found on may 16, 2004 in the water by a fisherman. >> this suitcase contained the pelvis, so, from the waist down to above the knees. >> a police sketch artist creates this image of the deceased man.

it's released to the press and recognized to be bill maguire by his friends, john and sue rice. >> soucies the picture on tv. and the only ways i thought it could be bill was his missing tooth. >> bill maguire had recently had a fight with his wife melanie and hadn't been heard from since. >> he said he was leaving and wasn't coming back. he would say things like that all the time. i didn't actually believe it was the last time i would see my husband. >> using fingerprints from an old reckless driving charge, police identify the body as bill mage maguire and notify melanie. >> and i just, i just burst into tears. >> the new jersey couple married in 1999, first child born soon after. >> what was your relationship with bill like in the beginning? >> we had a bit of a tempestuous relationship even before we got married. we would break up, get back together. >> he had a dual personality.

he could be very likeable of and then on the other hand he would be very calculating, manipulatee him. >> she truly did love him. >> he had always had issues with gambling. >> he wanted what he wanted. and he couldn't get it fast enough, and with that came frustration and eventually, that frustration became directed at me. >> melanie telling abc news in 2007 about an argument they'd had after bill got a traffic ta ticket. >> i started to argue with him, and he said when we get home i'm going to kill you. i'm going to smash your face in. it's very difficult for me to think back on it because i actually drove off in the middle of the night. >> why didn't you stay? >> i wasn't strong enough to leave.

>> did you love hip? >> i did, and at this point, i'm having an affair. >> just before giving birth to her second child she began an affair with dr. bradley miller, a doctor at the fertility clinic where she was a nurse. >> i really tried to fight it, but i couldn't. i couldn't fight it. >> despite her involvement with another man, melanie was buying a house with her husband bill. >> the marriage wasn't going well at all, so why were you buying this $500,000 house together then? >> in the past, we'd come to points where we had been in similar situations, and he would, ultimately, something would happen and we go and gamble the money away, i figured this was at least an investment. >> the couple closes on the house on april 28. that night, melanie says they had a fight that turned physical. >> there's the laundry basket and a drier sheet hanging out of one of the baby's sleeves.

he hated them. this was the type of mother i was, i would leave the sheet in there for my baby to possibly choke on. before i know it, i'm up against the wall, and the drier sheet is being shoved into my throat. and then he just smacked me. i looked down, and there's my 2-year-old. >> i grabbed the baby. and went into the bathroom right behind me and shut the door. i just wanted away from him at that point. he said he was leaving, and he wasn't coming back. and i could tell my children why they didn't have a father. >> melanie says bill took off after the fight. she says she didn't hear from him, and she didn't try calling him. >> what used to happen when we fought, you know, i'd call, whether it was to tell help off or to try to apologize or what, and we'd just end up getting back into it again. i'm done now. >> she'd retained a divorce attorney, filed for divorce

against him on april 30, the day after their fight. >> she had to go in front of a judge and give sworn statement about the incident that happened. >> did he hit you? >> not until, i don't mean to say i had absolutely no part in this. i said some not-nice things, and slapped me. >> melanie does not file a missing persons report on bill. >> what bothered me was that melanie never reached out and said hey, bill's missing. >> once bill's body is identified, virginia police ask melanie to come in for questioning. she brought her divorce attorney and a criminal lawyer from the same practice. >> she was nervous. she was visibly shaking. she made expressions like she was crying, but she never had a tear in her eye. >> she suggests police look for bill's car in atlantic city. >> did he get involved with the wrong people? that's what i would have to believe, that he had gotten himself into something.

and bill always thought he could handle everything. >> police then search the townhouse the couple had been renting before buying their house. >> the apartment was empty. she had already moved out. >> virginia beach detectives find out melanie maguire had given most of bill's belongings away to a friend's cousin. eventually, they found out that most of bill's clothing was still in black trash bag, much like the bags that contained bill maguire's body parts. >> the garbage bag, by sight, looked identical. >> the body was released to melanie on a tuesday, immediately she had him cremated. and the funeral lasted all of ten, 15 minutes at the most. >> i just told her, i said melanie, bill deserves so much more. and mel just said, i'm a single mom now, and now i've just got to get on with my life. and after i got off the phone, i

said, "john, she did it." . >> coming up. >> everything pointed to melanie magear. >> the secret recordings between melanie and her lover. >> i told them everything that i know, but they just won't. >> they want you to break.

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six months after bill maguire's bullet-riddled, dismembered body washed up in suitcases on virginia beach, investigators turned their attention to new jersey where he and his wife had last lived and he was last seen alive. >> the task force had local police, state police, the attorney general's office. they decided to treat this case with top priority. >> police searched for a record of the gun used in bill's murder, turns up, a purchase made by melanie in pennsylvania. >> because bill maguire had a felony conviction stemming from his horrendous driving record,

he was barred from purchasing firearms. >> you say your husband asked you to purchase the gun. but you purchased the gun just two days before your husband went missing. >> of course it's a coincidence. he was on me for a while about that. if he was in some sort of trouble, that may very well been the reason why he was so intent on getting it. >> as police hone in on melanie, they begin wiretapping her phones, discovering her affair, providing a possible motive for the murder. eager to prove his innocence, dr. miller agrees to wear a wire. >> you swear you had nothing to do with this? >> yes. >> on your children's lives? because i'm standing by you. >> yes. >> investigators also focus on melanie's highway toll records, trying to track her movements in the days surrounding bill's disappearance. on april 30, 2004, the day after

the couple's alleged fight and the day melanie filed for a restraining order, she says she goes to atlantic city looking for bill's car. >> absolutely not rational, but get in the car and go down there. and lo and behold, there it is. >> she decides she's going to move his car. melanie says in the past, when they're angry at each other, it's a way of messing with each other i guess you could say. >> we believe she was planting his car in atlantic city. she was trying to create an illusion that bill maguire was still alive. >> investigators also find that five days after bill went missing, melanie took a trip to delaware. she says she was furniture shopping. >> we believe that that was when she took the suitcases with bill's remains and got rid of them in the chesapeake bay. and the first suitcase turned up

the very next day. >> the circumstantial evidence against melanie is piling up. but investigators need physical evidence to link her to bill's murder. so they scour the couple's townhouse. >> they couldn't find any forensic evidence whatsoever to establish this was a crime scene. >> i don't know how you would dismember a body and effectively clean that up. >> still, investigators decide to arrest melanie on the circumstantial evidence, more than a year after bill's murder. her 2007 trial becomes a media circus. >> the evidence in this case points to a well-organized, meticulously-planned, execution of a murder. >> were you somebody if you were going to do something you were going to do it all the way? >> correct. if that's the case then i would have been sure not to include my own luggage. i don't get to be an evil genius and an idiot at the same time.

>> prosecutors present evidence they say was key to melanie's claim, including a forensic examination of the home computer searches. >> how to purchase guns illegally. how to commit murder, and undetectable poisons was searched. >> i was a nurse. if i wanted to look for something like that, i have a book that i can look in that doesn't leave an internet history. >> and then the evidence that was referred to as human sawdust. microscopic pieces of bill maguire's flesh investigators had found in his car. >> that theory was that this nurse, who was kind of so maparticularless accidently tracked these human sawdust particles of bill's body from the house to the car. >> the prosecution's star witness, dr. bradley miller and the secret recordings he'd made for investigators. >> after you tape recorded her,

sir, you then had additional intimate relations with her, correct? >> yes, sir. >> i think that was damaging to his character. it was a very big turnoff to the jury. >> we looked very closely at dr. miller. there was no evidence connecting him with this crime. >> how do you find as to the count of the indictment charging melanie maguire with the murder of william maguire? >> guilty. >> melanie maguire is now serving a life sentence at a correctional facility in new jersey. having exhausted her appeals, she reached out to criminology professor megan sacks. >> she had done poorly in the justice system and was frustrated. after visiting with her the first time, i was like, this is a story, this is important. >> in 2019, zasacks and her frid decided to make a podcast. >> this was the first time someone was basically saying "we

hear you." the series looked into the gun that was used to kill bill, which was never found, and the trash bags the prosecutor said matched the trash bags melanie used to throw out bill's clothes. >> he ran tests, but he didn't do all the tests that you actually need to definitively say whether these bags matched. they put on a really good show. when you have props, two garbage bags, oh, wow, those do look alike. >> based on the testing we conducted and results i observed i felt confident at the time to believe that those bags were created at the same run. >> and questions about animal hair inside the suitcases. >> they looked high and low to connect melanie to some pet, and once they found out that there was no way to connect melanie to these pet hairs, it became not of evidentiary value. >> you mentioned that you found some animal hairs. did you find anything that you considered of evidential value? >> no. >> melanie did not incapacitate,

shoot, use a saw to dismember her husband, and also, if the crime scene didn't happen there, and she's home with her children all night, where is this happening? there are just too many holes in this story. >> this was a murder trial. it wasn't a contest to see who could outsmart the investigators and if someone is smart enough to successfully hide a crime scene that they win. >> did you find any evident that exonerates melanie? >> i wished we did, i had hoped we would. i still think we might get a tip-in that direction. >> what do you say to the people at home who watch this and say how dare she talk from prison and bring this all up again? >> the killer is out there, and it's not me. >> there are times when podcasts and media can shine a light where what the government did was not right. this is not one of those cases.

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tomorrow, president trump intends to nominate federal judge amy coney barrett to the supreme court, filling the seat of justice ruth bader ginsburg who became the first woman and first jewish person to lie in state at the capitol today. tune in tomorrow for the expected announcement tomorrow afternoon. we'll see you right back here,