The New York State Police just made an arrest in connection with Megan McDonald’s murder in 2003. McDonald was, at the time of her murder, the 20-year-old daughter of a New York Police Department detective.
She was found dumped on the side of the road in Orange County, New York in mid-March of 2003. She had been beaten to death in the backseat of her white Mercury Sable. Describing her murder at the time, the FBI said, in a plea for information that offered $10,000 to anyone with details:
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation in New York, New York, is seeking information regarding the murder of twenty-year-old, Orange County, New York, resident, Megan McDonald. McDonald’s body was found on March 15, 2003, in a field off Bowser Road in the town of Wallkill, New York. Her 1991 white Mercury Sable was discovered two days later in the parking lot of Kensington Manor Apartment Complex, also in Wallkill. The cause of her death was determined to be blunt force trauma. At the time of her death, McDonald worked at the Galleria Mall in Middletown and attended SUNY Orange County Community College.”
Well, the police finally made an arrest for her murder. They arrested, on Thursday, Edward V. Holley, a 42-year-old black man. Megan was white. The two had been in a romantic relationship that Megan attempted to end a few days before her murder. State police Capt. Joseph Kolek said at a news conference Thursday that the murder was connected to that relationship, saying: “We believe this crime was intimate partner violence. Additionally, Ed Holley owed Megan a substantial sum of money.”
About 30 minutes later, McDonald arrived at a house in Middletown and made multiple calls trying to find marijuana, including one call to a friend at the party where Holley was, the complaint said.
Around midnight, McDonald left the party and said she was going straight home because she had to work the next day, the complaint said. At about 12:15 a.m., McDonald arrived back at the Wallkill birthday party and told people she was going to go smoke, and two minutes later she drove away, the complaint said.
Around 12:25 a.m., McDonald arrived at “suspect 2″‘s house, and he got in her car and told McDonald he didn’t have marijuana for her, the complaint said. McDonald then told him she’d go get marijuana from Holley, according to a 2010 interview with “suspect 2,” the complaint said.
Holley was McDonald’s main marijuana supplier and police believe McDonald reached out to him as a “last resort” on the night she was killed, the complaint said.
Holley is being charged with second-degree murder. The felony complaint alleges that he “did knowingly and intentionally cause the death of Megan McDonald by striking her multiple times in the head with a blunt instrument.”
New York State Police Lt. Brad Natalizio, one of the police officers who helped lead the investigation, told Fox News Digital, “We used modern-day technology and applied it to 2003, and we were able to come up with good results to assist the case…within the past year.”
Featured image credit: Holley image from New York State Police, Megan image from Justice for Megan
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