A state investigator said in a murder trial in New Jersey Wednesday that a pattern of similarities between E-ZPass toll passes and telephone call records made him suspicious about Melanie McGuire, 34, the woman now on trial for the murder of her husband William in May 2004.

McGuire, a nurse who was having an affair with a doctor at the clinic where she worked, is accused of shooting her husband, then using a power saw to dismember his body, the parts of which were loaded into three separate suitcases, and dumped in Chesapeake Bay. They floated, and were retrieved by Virginia police.

When police reckoned the crime took place in New Jersey the case was transferred there.

Mobile phone records of the accused show calls to gunshops in Pennsylvania. They also showed calls by the couple followed soon after by movements on tollroads that were inconsistent with her story that they had split up.

E-ZPass records like telephone records can be obtained by subpoena in criminal cases, but are not usually surrendered in civil court cases.

TOLLROADSnews 2007-03-22