Cop: Wife googled 'How to commit murder'
BY RICK MALWITZ
STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
At exactly 5:45:34 on April 18, 2004 a computer taken from the office of the attorney of Melanie McGuire, did a search on the words "How To Commit Murder."
That same day searches on Google and MSN search engines, were conducted on such topics as `instant poisons,` `undetectable poisons,' 'fatal digoxin doses,' and gun laws in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Ten days later, according to allegations by the state of New Jersey, McGuire murdered her husband, William T. McGuire, at their Woodbridge apartment, using a gun obtained in Pennsylvania, one day after obtaining a prescription for a sedative known as the "date rape" drug.
Jennifer Seymour, who worked for the State Police digital technology unit, testified thismorning how she examined the digital contents of computers and hand held devices obtained as part of the investigation.
Her testimony was the strongest evidence yet in the state's circumstantial evidence case against the 34-year-old McGuire, who allegedly murdered her husband with a .38 caliber weapon, dismembered his body and placed body parts in three suitcases found in the Chesapeake Bay in May of 2004.
While the jury has yet to see any fingerprint, blood or DNA evidence in the case, the evidence presented by Seymour illustrated how computers can be a valuable investigation tool.
Seymour was still being questioned by Assistant Attorney General Patricia Prezioso when Superior Court Judge Frederick De Vesa gave the jury its lunch break. Testimony was scheduled to resume at 1:45 p.m.
Seymour, now employed by the U.S. Department of Defense, testified how digital investigators can trace activity on a computer, including information the user has deleted.
She testified that she isolated data that was accessed in the weeks leading up to the murder, by inserting the keyword "search," which showed activity by Google and MSN search engines, with the searches center-ing on poisons and gun laws.
The murder took place the same day, according to allegations by the state, that a two-ounce prescription of chloral hydrate was purchased at a Walgreen's in Edison.
A search on April 26, 2004 of the computer seized by the state found that the user accessed the site
www.walgreens.com/storelocator.
On Monday Yan Kim Lee, a pharmacist at the Walgreen's on New Durham Road in Edison, testified that on the morning of April 28 she filled a prescription for chloral hydrate for a woman named Tiffany Bain, on script signed by Dr. Bradley Miller of Reproductive Medicine Associates in Morristown.
Melanie McGuire worked at the RMA office as a nurse, and at the time of her husband's death she was having an affair with Miller.
Lee testified that she typically fills only about three or four prescriptions annually for chloral hydrate.
In her testimony Seymour said she was able to trace e-mails on Hotmail accounts allegedly used by McGuire and Miller. She said the e-mails seemed to indicate the two had a romantic relation-ship, with such phrases as "I love you," and "I miss you."