#77 - Melanie McGuire *

You’re on a beach and find a suitcase washed up onto the shore. What would you do? Would you open it?

In this particular case, no less than 3 people did just that. And in doing so, they found one suitcase with legs, another with arms, and a third with a head and torso. 

For the last one, police identified 3 bullet holes, one in the head and two in the torso. They then used the decaying head to produce a facial reconstruction sketch, which was in turn identified by a friend of the victim, one Bill McGuire.

Bill was a navy vet and computer programmer, and was married to Melanie, a fertility nurse. The couple had been married for 5 years, had 2 sons, and had just bought a new home.

Suspicion, of course, fell on the spouse. Indeed, Melanie managed to leave enough circumstantial evidence to make the cops’ jobs pretty easy. I’m talking a gun & ammo purchased just before the shooting, incriminating Internet queries, missing designer luggage, fiber evidence, and E-Zpass evidence to the location where the body parts had been dumped.

Motive? Well, it turns out Melanie was having an affair with a coworker, the doctor who ran the fertility clinic where she worked. She, though, claimed that Bill was a compulsive gambler, and had probably run afoul of the mob. 

The jury wasn’t buying it, however, and would find Melanie guilty. She would receive a life sentence, but with a possibility of parole at age 100.

Media have eaten this one right up, with a book by well-known true-crime author John Glatt, a Lifetime movie, and appearances on Snapped, 48 Hours, Forensic Files, & more.

2004, New Jersey

#78 - Megan Martzen

I really debated including this one. First of all, it’s just so sad. Megan Martzen was accused of killing her 17-month-old babysitting charge, Ella VanLeeuwen. Megan herself was all of 19 at the time.

Second, she did get off, with her trial resulting in a hung jury. As you can probably imagine, the trial itself was a circus of battling doctors, with one side arguing deliberation on Megan’s part, and the other that it was all just an accident. Megan did, subsequently, take a plea deal for involuntary manslaughter, resulting in 3 years probation (she had already spent 52 days in jail).

Third, Megan gave birth in prison, with her baby, of course, being immediately taken away from her. And we can’t, of course, forget the fact that Megan was actually forgiven, very publicly, by the family.

Finally, that prison baby, who was reunited with Megan later, was killed in a crash with a drunken driver. The crash occurred 10 years to the day that Ella VanLeeuwen died. Sheesh!

All in all, not our typical killer babe. 

2009, California

#79 - Patricia Columbo *

It certainly wasn’t what the cop was expecting. Going to the Columbo home to investigate a car theft, he found the door open, and the family sprawled dead inside. Father Frank, mother Mary, and 13-year-old son Michael were all shot, bludgeoned, and stabbed to death, laying in their own blood.

There was one family member who was missing, 19-year-old daughter Patricia, but she lived with her boyfriend, 39-year-old Frank DeLuca. The pair had actually started their affair 4 years earlier, when Patricia was all of 15 years old. At the time, DeLuca, who managed a drug store, was married with 5 kids. Patricia’s family was none too happy about the relationship, and Patricia’s dad had actually assaulted DeLuca and threatened to kill him. 

The case broke when a former lover of Patricia’s, Lanyon Mitchell, told cops she had solicited him for the murder of her family. He had refused, and it seemed that Patricia and DeLuca had carried out the hit themselves. It sounds like a little insurance money was involved as well.

Both were convicted, getting sentences of 200 to 300 years. In some ways, though, the fun was only starting. Patricia became something of a prison madam, organizing sex parties between the guards and inmates in exchange for privileges. Though the killings occurred in 1976, Patricia stays in the news by getting denied for parole year after year after year. DeLuca died in prison just a couple of years ago.

The lovers’ story has appeared on Deadly Women, been a popular topic with podcasters, and has been the subject of 2 books.

1976, Illinois

#80 - Christina Marcum

Christina Marcum and Jason Singleton were quite the pair.

She was a spoiled & rebellious 25-year-old, with expensive tastes. He was a slightly older man, a successful computer exec who had already been married & divorced twice. Both were passionate and spontaneous.

When the Richmond, KY natives met, the sparks flew. I’m talking passion, obsession, jealousy, fights, and violence. A fight that landed Jason in the hospital and Christina in jail convinced him to call off their recent engagement.

Both immediately went into rebound relationships, with Christina marrying an old high-school sweetheart and Jason tying the knot with Angela Frazier, a single mom with 2 kids who he had only known for 2 weeks.

The two, though, simply couldn’t quit each other. Christina was soon showing up regularly at Jason and Angela’s house. She also harassed Angela – calling her, throwing rocks through her window, peeing on the front steps (!?!?) & attacking Angela’s car. After the last incident, Jason took Christina’s side (!?!?), deciding to ditch Angela for his old fiancee.

And then came a series of odd events:

• First, some cops found Angela’s car abandoned on the Interstate, on fire, and with someone running from it into the woods
• Angela’s mother reported her missing
• A nearby farmer found 6 garbage bags tossed in his field, with different body parts in each one (tattoos would later help identify them as Angela’s)
• Finally, Jason was caught shoplifting, pulled a gun on a security guard, ran, took some employees in a nearby office hostage, then got himself tazed

Questioned afterwards, Jason spilled the beans about the murder, saying Christina had strangled Angela when Jason stepped outside while the two were arguing.

When confronted, Christina – not too surprisingly – turned the tables and blamed Jason. Unable to pin the murder on either one for sure, the state agreed to 30 years for both, for complicity to commit murder.

Their tale would appear on Killer Couples.

2011, Kentucky