My name is Meghan Sacks criminologist at Fairleigh Dickinson University. In simplest terms criminology is the scientific study of what causes crime and how the criminal justice system. Response. To crime. Ridden about twenty, five true crime books over the years and I think many maguire is perhaps one of the most interesting ones and baffling. This is Melanie. McGuire arrested today minutes after dropping offer children in daycare. Melanie, McGuire a New Jersey nurse was accused of killing her husband cutting up his body and throwing it into the Chesapeake Bay. In two thousand, seven, what was being called? The suitcase murder trial was generating an enormous amount of media attention, not just in New Jersey, but all across the country three bazaar discoveries, three separate suitcases, all containing human remains the woman who is on trial for her very life. She says the real truth behind the crime has never been revealed with no history of violence and no apparent motive for murder. Could she really have done it? She was this beautiful young nurse and they were the seemingly normal middle class couple and the murder happened in such a grisly way. The idea that this beautiful nurse could have actually killed her husband and then cut him up is just incredible. Of course, they were salacious aspects. Maguire is a nurse and prosecutors say she had an affair with a doctor. She didn't fit the profile I. Guess of a murderer over the years and colleagues of ours have come to me and said, you know Melanie McGuire proclaims her innocence and to tell her story I started thinking Oh maybe there is a little more to this case than what you see on the surface and then the idea podcast came up and I was all in on direct appeal examined the murder conviction of Melanie, McGuire him following a highly publicized trial looking at the evidence that was presented and the evidence that may have seemed insignificant at the time before own conclusion about Melanie's guilt. We hear at ABC have our own history with the Melanie. McGuire case back in two thousand, seven ABC's Cynthia McFadden had the first on camera interview at the mother of two on trial for murdering her husband. Who was the Melanie? McGuire you hope to jury. knows. The one who tried to take care of everybody. Who didn't make the smartest decisions but admitted to those mistakes? To the people she trusted most. But. Did Not admit what what she's acute stuff. I have been incarcerated for twelve and a half going on thirteen years now. Do. You still insist that you're innocent. Absolutely. You're sitting here. A wrongfully convicted person. Correct. Absolutely and what have those years spend like? I tell people. It's not as bad as you think in some ways and it's so much worse than I could ever articulate in others. After all these years I. Still feel her I still feel bothered. I still feel like how could somebody think? That I did that. This whole saga begins on May. Fifth two thousand four with an odd discovery in Virginia Beach. Early morning a couple of fishermen and the kids are out on a boat by the Chesapeake Bay. Me and my friend Don Connors was going to go out fishing and we both had days off D. or Don. We Call Them D. said, keep his kids out of school. We're GONNA take him fishing. Everybody was excited. We went right out this bridge here. and to keep on going you run right in the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. In the Chesapeake Bay Bridge tunnel is seventeen and a half miles long. It really is quite astonishing. It connects the eastern shore of Virginia to Virginia Beach has two tunnels, two shipping channels, and then once you get on the other side, you go North into Maryland Delaware New Jersey.