Jury to hear secret phone conversations Judge rules secret tapes admissible with slight paring for language BY KATHY CHANG Staff Writer A Middlesex County jury will get a chance to hear secretly taped telephone conversations between a 34-year-old former fertility clinic nurse accused of murder and her close relatives and friends. Melanie McGuire is accused of killing her husband in their Woodbridge Center Plaza apartment two years ago and later dismembering his body. Middlesex County Superior Court Judge Frederick P. DeVesa made the ruling to play portions of the 39 tapes for the trial during a Jan. 31 pretrial hearing. The conversations were secretly taped by the New Jersey State Police, which was authorized by the court. State police arrested Melanie McGuire, who resides in Brick Township, on June 2, 2005, and charged her with first-degree murder of her husband. McGuire has pleaded not guilty on all charges against her and remains free on $2.1 million bail. The prosecution and defense attorneys argued over the admissibility of certain portions of the conversations in a series of pre-trial hearings last month. The defense has said they would like all the obscenities taken out of the conversations; however, the prosecution said taking out the obscenities would downplay the defendant's state of mind after her husband's killing. The judge removed most of the profanity in the conversations, but agreed with the prosecution to keep some profanities in certain portions, to not "sanitize" the meaning of those portions. The prosecution asked to take out portions of a conversation where McGuire denies killing her husband to her friend James Finn. The judge ruled against the prosecution, citing unfairness to the defense. "It is fundamentally unfair for the prosecution to redact certain denials that [Melanie] makes to [her friend James] Finn on her involvement with [her husband's death]," said DeVesa. Assistant Attorney General Patricia Prezioso said it was never the intent for the state to redact McGuire's denials. "We would prefer that if that was going to come out it, would come out from the defendant herself," said Prezioso. "Obviously she denies killing her husband, because she has pleaded not guilty." DeVesa has stressed throughout the pre-trial hearings to the prosecution and the defense attorneys that this trial is a search for the truth to find who killed 39-year-old William T. McGuire on or about April 29, 2004. The state has not ruled out the idea of a conspiracy where they believe that more than one person killed William McGuire. McGuire, a Woodbridge resident at the time of his death, was an adjunct professor and senior programmer analyst with the information resource development department at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He had graduated from NJIT in 2001. Details of the grisly murder surfaced when a local fisherman discovered a small piece of luggage floating in the water between the fourth island and the high-rise bridge near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel in Virginia at 11:30 a.m. on May 5, 2004. A second suitcase was discovered almost a week later on May 11 and the third suitcase was found on May 16. The investigation was coordinated by the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice and the New Jersey State Police. It also included the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office, the Woodbridge Police Department, and the Virginia Beach Police Department. Authorities allege Melanie McGuire shot her husband on or about April 29, 2004, chopped up his body and put them in black plastic trash bags inside three suitcases, which were later deposited in the Chesapeake Bay. William McGuire's Nissan Maxima was towed and impounded on May 8, 2004, after it had sat idle for several days at the Flamingo Motel on Pacific Avenue in Atlantic City, local authorities said last June. The Virginia medical examiner determined McGuire sustained at least two gunshot wounds - one to the head and a second to the chest, authorities said. A paint chip found on the tape used to seal one of the trash bags containing William McGuire's remains was determined to be consistent with red nail polish, authorities said. The nail polishes that were seized from McGuire's home did not match the nail polish found on the tape, authorities said. The taped conversations have not been played in court, however, the attorneys read snippets of the conversations on which they argued were admissible or not. The tapes include two conversations between McGuire and Dr. Bradley Miller, who was McGuire's boss at the fertility clinic in Morristown and whom she had an affair with, four conversations between McGuire and her friend James Finn and conversations between McGuire and her cousin Leslie. The state focused on portions, which they claim link McGuire to the murder of her husband. In one of the conversations between McGuire and Miller, she speaks of a person's principles. "Principles don't mean a lot when you care about someone," said McGuire in the taped conversation. "Because you're caring for that individual overrides those principles. It's a discussion for the ages." The state said they believed McGuire was rationalizing her affair in the conversation and said they believed the affair was one of the primary motives that led her to kill her husband. McGuire's attorneys Joseph Tacopina, Stephen Turano and Chad Seigel have argued since they started representing McGuire that she did not kill her husband. Tacopina has called the Attorney General's new evidence "laughable" and has called the new charges a "last ditch effort to salvage their [the Attorney General's Office] otherwise failing case." In one of the conversations between McGuire and her friend James Finn, she talks about the gun that she bought for her husband. The state has alleged on April 26, 2004, three days before the murder, McGuire purchased a .38 caliber handgun from John's Gun and Tackle in Easton, Penn. The state contends the quote she uses "the gift that keeps on giving" in the conversation shows the animosity she has towards her husband. Turano argued that the quote is irrelevant and putting his client's character in a wrong light. In another conversation, McGuire addresses Prezioso as Patty and calls her "Madame Assistant Deputy Attorney General." Prezioso said it was not a common way to address her position in that way. "The letter that was sent to me anonymously was also addressed in the same way "Dear Madame Assistant Deputy Attorney General," said Prezioso. "This is a physical piece of evidence." McGuire is suspected of sending and writing anonymous letters to authorities to throw them off her trail. The prosecution alleges that McGuire used an American Express gift card that was purchased at a store in Passaic County to ship a package via FedEx containing one of the letters, authorities have said. The jury will hear testimony from Special FBI Agent James R. Fitzgerald, a forensic linguist, who analyzed the anonymous letters and Thomas Lesniak of the New Jersey State Police Office of Forensic Science, who specializes in trace evidence. Lesniak analyzed the garbage bags that the deceased body parts were found in. The jury will also hear testimony from Frank Ruiz, of Texas, an expert on plastic bag manufacturing. The trial is set to start on March 5 and is expected to last five to six weeks. The court has issued between 3,000 to 6,000 summonses for jury selection, which began on Feb. 2.