Jury hears testimony about anonymous letters Prosecution alleges McGuire sent letters to attorneys, newspaper BY KATHY CHANG Staff Writer NEW BRUNSWICK - A year following William McGuire's death, several anonymous letters were sent to people directly involved with investigating the McGuire case and to the media, according to authorities. One of the charges that Melanie McGuire is accused of is allegedly sending Federal Express packages containing letters allegedly written by her to mislead authorities. A package was sent to then-Attorney General Peter Harvey, Assistant Attorney General Patricia Prezioso, the Trentonian newspaper, and her former lawyer between Oct. 9 and Oct. 11, 2005, authorities said. The package also included a "Set her [Melanie] up" list, a "Final Stages" list, a man's wedding ring and bracelet, a key to William McGuire's old Nissan Maxima, and a key to the lock box in the storage bin in Edison, where McGuire moved her belongings after she moved out of the Woodbridge apartment. The jury heard previous testimony that all items were processed for fingerprints and the results were negative. Fingerprints and a partial palm print were found inside the lock box, but did not match Melanie McGuire or her parents, Michael and Linda Cappararo. McGuire, 34, a former fertility clinic nurse, is on trial for killing her husband, William McGuire, in their Woodbridge Center Plaza apartment and later dismembering his body between April 28 and May 5, 2004. McGuire, who resides in Brick Township, remains free on $2.1 million bail. A typewritten letter addressed to then-Attorney General Peter Harvey in August 2005, accused investigators of not doing a thorough investigation and characterizes William McGuire as a greedy person with a big ego, who loved to gamble in Atlantic City. The letter writer wrote several times that Melanie McGuire did not kill her husband. The letter writer also provided facts of the case that only investigators knew at the time and also details of William and Melanie McGuire's marriage and McGuire's job at New Jersey Institute of Technology. A handwritten letter addressed to Madame Assistant Attorney General [Prezioso], suggested that it was written by Cindy Ligosh's [William McGurie's sister] colleague at Weichert Realtors in Franklin Lakes and that Ligosh wrote the "Set her Up" and "Final Stages" list, which authorities allege Melanie McGuire wrote to mislead authorities. Ligosh testified last week that she saw the items for the first time when she testified at the grand jury in 2005. Tamar Joffe, Ligosh's boss at Weichert Realtors, testified that she did not recognize the handwriting to be Ligosh's or any of her employees. The Fed Ex package had a return address of Weichert Realtors in Franklin Lakes where Ligosh is a Realtor. However, Ligosh and her boss testified that the address and phone number were wrong. On March 28, 2004, Ligosh went over to her brother's apartment in Woodbridge. Ligosh said it was the last time she saw her brother. As the two were sitting on the couch watching TV and drinking wine, they were complaining about their sister Nancy because she was complicating things over their mother Ruth's estate in Florida. Their mother passed away in the summer of 2003. "Bill and I were up here, and Nancy, who did live in Florida, was still eight hours away from our mother's estate," said Ligosh, who said Melanie was in and out of the room. "So I picked up a pad that was next to the phone and started doodling since I always like to write things down. We came up with a list [three items] to get back at her. It was a joke between Bill and I, and we never intended to do any of the items on the list. We love our sister; we just were venting our frustrations. My brother fell asleep, so I wrote a note on the bottom of the paper that I would talk to him tomorrow." The prosecution displayed the list to the jury. Prezioso asked Ligosh what she expected would happen to the list and how she felt about the list being displayed to the jury. "I just expected that it would be thrown in the garbage," said Ligosh. "I'm mortified." The 12-woman and four-man jury learned that the Fed Ex package was paid for by a $50 American Express gift card at a Rite Aid in Passaic County. New Jersey State Police were able to obtain video tape from a United Check Cashing surveillance camera, which caught a glimpse of a woman walking into the Rite Aid minutes before someone paid for the postage for the package. Authorities were not able to conclusively identify that the woman was or was not Melanie McGuire. In July 2005, an anonymous phone call was made to the Wycoff Police Department telling them that Cindy and Max Ligosh [William McGuire's sister and nephew] were stashing drugs outside in the bushes of their home. Since March 2005, the state police had run wiretaps on Melanie McGuire and her close family and friends and had become familiar with their voices. Detective John Pizzuro of the state police identified the voice of the anonymous phone call as McGuire's stepfather, Michael Cappararo. The defense argued that the phone call was strictly made because the Cappararos were upset that Cindy Ligosh had custody over McGuire's two young sons. In November 2005, a can, which contained various items including an Ultramax ammunition box, a few empty plastic bags, and drugs, were found outside in the bushes of the Ligosh home. Detective Dan Kellogg of the Wycoff Police Department testified that he searched the interior and exterior of the Ligosh home in July after the anonymous call was made and found nothing. The jury heard previous testimony that all items, including the can, were processed for fingerprints and the results were negative. Ligosh testified that her husband discovered the can and said she did not place the can there. Ligosh also testified that she had a close relationship with her brother. "We would talk to each other on the phone like 10 times a day," said Ligosh. "We were best friends. I would see Billy maybe once a month. I lived in Franklin Lakes and my husband worked in Teanek as a pharmacist, which was closer to where Billy and his wife, Melanie, lived." Ligosh told the jury she was aware that her brother was looking to buy a new home and gave her brother and his wife access to her code at work to research homes. "On April 28, 2004, I knew they were going to find out if they had closed on the house in Asbury or not," she said. "Melanie called my cell phone at work and told me that they had closed on the house and also told me a funny story she had. I didn't speak to my brother that day or after." By May 1, 2004, Ligosh told the jury that she had become more worried and frantic when her brother didn't answer her phone calls. "My brother was a chatterbox," said Ligosh. "Like I said, we would talk on the phone almost every day. He was always on his phone. When he'd travel from state to state for his job, he'd just pick up his phone." Ligosh's phone calls went unanswered until early May. "I started calling his numbers and then on May 2, 2004, I called Melanie's parents [Cappararos'] house [in Barnegat]. Melanie called me back from her parents and told me that Bill had left. She told me they had come home from the closing and fell asleep on the couch. When they woke up around 1 or 2 a.m., they started an argument and as they went upstairs, she told me my brother had stuck a dryer sheet in her mouth. She went into the bathroom with her son who emerged from the bedroom and he said that she would never see him again and left." Ligosh said she had contact with her sister-in-law a few times a week after that. "I was calling his friends and his job," said Ligosh. "No one said they had seen or heard from him." Joseph Joraskie, a detective sergeant for the Woodbridge Police Department at the time, testified previously that he received phone calls at least twice a week from Ligosh. On May 25, 2004, Ligosh said she visited Melanie at her job at the fertility clinic in Morristown. "I asked her for the keys for the new house in Asbury just to see if maybe Billy went to stay there," said Ligosh. "I went over to the new house with my husband, but no one was there. I also asked Melanie for the mail. There was a credit card bill in the mail with no charges to it. She had told me that Bill taught her how to pay the bills online on their home computer. She also had told me that she found soiled underwear among his clothes. I had asked her if she knew what Bill's license plate number was, so I could go down to Atlantic City to see if I could find his car. She had told me she didn't remember what his license plate number was." On May 27, 2004, Ligosh received a call from John Rice, McGuire's best friend from Virginia, and told her Billy had been found in the water. Prezioso asked Ligosh to see if she recognized the man's wedding ring and bracelet that were in the Fed Ex package. Ligosh, who had to compose herself when she looked at the wedding ring and bracelet, could not positively identify the wedding ring or the bracelet as her brother's. Rice, who was the best man at William and Melanie McGuire's wedding in 1999, had testified that he also could not positively identify the wedding ring to be his best friend's. "It's similar, but I'm not certain," said Ligosh.