On March 15, 2003, 20-year-old Megan McDonald was murdered in Wallkill, New York. Megan’s younger sister, Karen Whalen said that she thinks of her sister when she hears the Maya Angelou quote that says, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Karen feels that this sums her sister up to a T, she always made people feel comfortable, like they’d known her forever. She was the life of the party, a force of nature, fierce & loyal & loved to laugh.
Karen & Megan McDonald grew up in Middletown, New York to parents Dennis & Elizabeth, moving to the area when Megan was only 7 months old. The sisters were close & always had fun together, always spending time together going to little league games, playing outside or going to the movies. The sisters also had two younger half-brothers on their father’s side. Karen describes Megan as an extremely compassionate person; their family cats had all previously been stray cats.
Karen met her husband, James Whalen, while in college & James remembers coming back to meet the family & 16-year-old Megan. He said that she made him feel like part of the family right away. When it was time for Megan to go to college, she stayed very close to home, going to SUNY Orange right in Middletown. Karen believes that her sister would have chosen a career that allowed her compassion to come through & done something right for the world, possibly working with young children.
In the beginning of March of 2003, Megan signed a lease for a new apartment in Middletown, in the town of Wallkill, New York; she was looking to start her life as a young adult. At around 10 am on Thursday, March 13, 2003, Megan started her shift at American Cafe in the Galleria Mall where she worked as a waitress, clocking out about 3 pm. When she finished her shift, she went to a nearby bank to withdraw some money. It was determined that she was next in the area of Greenway Terrace in the town of Wallkill at 7 pm & detectives revealed that she had a short conversation outside with two individuals she knew who were throwing a birthday party there. The two people she spoke with encouraged Megan to come inside the party but she declined.
Witnesses at the party say that the two individuals returned to the party & told them that Megan planned to hang out with other friends in Middletown. New York State Police investigator Brad Natalizio stresses that this particular party is very significant to the case. From there, Megan went to one of her best friend’s houses in Middletown from about 7:30 pm to midnight. They hung out & watched Friends until Megan told her friend she was going to be leaving & going straight home since she had to wake up early for work the next morning. This was the last time her friend ever saw Megan.
For whatever reason, instead of going straight home, Megan stopped back at the birthday party; two friends observed Megan driving her car; they had a short conversation with her & she insinuated that she was going to be meeting up with someone. It was 12:30 am when those two friends watched Megan pull away & drive down Cindy Lane & that was the last time anyone saw her alive.
The next day, Friday, March 14, Megan’s family & friends became concerned when they didn’t hear from her & she missed her shift at work which she was supposed to start at noon. They began calling her cell phone & leaving her voice messages asking her where she was. Megan’s sister Karen & her husband James Whalen lived two hours away from the Wallkill area where Megan was last seen. When they were told that their mom wasn’t able to reach Megan, they began to worry. As the day continued on without word from Megan, worry only grew, her mom, frantic by this time.
The next day, Saturday, March 15, a man who lived on the property & his nephew of 229 Bowser Road in Wallkill found a young, female’s body at 1 pm & immediately contacted the state police in Middletown. The New York State Police responded to the scene & identified the body as Megan’s from the driver’s license she carried. The area she was found is a narrow dirt path that leads to a small dirt cul-de-sac in the middle of a field in a very desolate area where local kids would often hang out, drink beer & smoke weed. Detectives are convinced that Megan must have trusted whoever she was there with since she would have likely been scared to drive there otherwise. Investigators believe that Megan was killed at this location. It’s an area that the killer knew since it’s so remote that you’d miss the entrance to the turn if you didn’t know where it was.
Megan’s family was absolutely devastated by the news but felt thankful that her body was located so quickly. During the investigation, authorities learned that Megan drove a 1991 Mercury Sable & a couple of days later, on March 17, someone at Kensington Manor apartment complex in Wallkill contacted state police that Megan’s car was parked at the complex. It was discovered that the car had been parked there since about 8 am on Friday, March 14. By the way it was parked, investigators could see that someone left it in a hurry.
It was 2021 & 19 years had passed as detectives continued to interview & reinterview people that could help in solving the case. They spoke with a person who had been previously interviewed from the Kensington Manor apartment complex & said that at approximately 12:30 am on the night of the murder, she observed Megan’s car which was distinct with a white body with a black stripe down the side. The car was behind her own & it caught her attention because it had an extremely loud sound system that caused her to look out the window. When she looked, she saw a dark-colored hatchback car as either a Honda Civic hatchback or just a general hatchback, behind Megan’s car. The apartment complex has a loop & shortly thereafter, the cars came back around, appearing to do a full loop in the parking lot & she saw the same hatchback behind Megan’s car with the radio system still extremely loud.
New York State police were asking anyone with information about this car to come forward. Investigators believe that Megan was killed sometime between 12:30 am & 8 am on March 14. The window closes at 8 am since another person from the apartment complex saw Megan’s car parked there & took note of it. Authorities believe that Megan picked up the front seat passenger after leaving the Greenway Terrace party & was then followed by the person driving the dark hatchback car who got into Megan’s backseat & they then drove in her car to the location where her body was found on Bowser Road.It’s likely that Megan was there to end the relationship with the manipulative man who sat in the backseat. This person, upset by her words, would have lashed out over & over with a blunt object as the passenger in the car watched in horror.This person died years later & was likely eaten up by what they witnessed that night. It’s believed that there were two people that drove her car back to the Kensington Manor apartment complex & at least one of them got into the Honda Civic & drove away.
When Megan’s car was found, it was processed for evidence. The crime scene shows that she was ultimately killed with a blunt object as she sat in the driver’s seat of her car, the killer bludgeoned her in the head while sitting in the back seat. She was then dumped out of the car. Over 700 items of evidence were gathered in this case & as the years went by, detectives utilized a private lab Cybergenetics to re-examine the DNA. Detectives remained hopeful that improvements in DNA testing & technology will bring more leads. A new puzzle piece was the discovery of the dark hatchback car with the loud sound system & with that, authorities had two suspects in the case.
One suspect is believed to have a clear motive of an intimate partner’s violence; the FBI, including the Behavioral Analysis Unit which agreed to take on the case in 2018 to profile their suspect & develop a theory. They believe the murder was a crime of passion with overkill from an intimate partner that had an extreme level of rage & that the killer showed all the signs of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. When someone challenges a narcissist’s sense of superiority, violence can be sparked in an over-the-top reaction & this is what investigators believe happened on the night that Megan was murdered. Megan’s sister Karen said that her sister was anything but a wallflower & had no issues standing up for herself & voicing her opinion & described her as a “spitfire.”x Karen assumes that Megan said something to make her killer angry, “And this person beat up this little tiny 5’2”, 100# nothing little girl.” James feels that the family can take pride in knowing that Megan was standing up for herself which is in direct contrast to the cowardly actions of the person who killed her.
When detectives spoke about the case to Dateline, they wouldn’t reveal the names of either suspect & indicated that the second suspect in the case is dead & was at the scene of the crime based on circumstances. They stressed that Megan’s former boyfriend who was a person of interest early in the investigation had been eliminated as a suspect. Megan’s dad, Dennis worked for the NYPD for twenty years & had retired in 2000; the family saw how various cases affected him personally & the care he brought to his cases. The family feels for the police officers that have worked Megan’s case throughout the years. Sadly, Megan’s dad died of a sudden heart attack just over a year before Megan was killed; he was only 47-years-old. The family, still heartbroken from their unexpected loss, spent the last Christmas they would celebrate with Megan together, only months before she was viciously killed.
When interviewed in March of 2022, Karen said she couldn’t believe 19 years had passed since her sister was killed, thinking about how life changing & devastating the loss has been. Karen thinks of all of the little things her sister has missed, something like not being able to see the Friends finale; while Karen watched, she thought, “My sister would have loved this.
On Thursday, April 27, 2023, police arrested 42-year-old Edward Holley of Wawayanda in Orange County New York & charged him with second-degree murder. At the time of Megan’s murder, he would have been in his twenties & he had previously dated her. He professed his innocence, stating, “I loved her with all my heart..They’re framing me like some monkey, but it’s all good.” Police say that Holley has long been considered the prime suspect & was interviewed by police numerous times before his arrest in April. It’s believed he murdered Megan because he owed her a substantial amount of money & she was dating someone else & alleged that the couple broke up days before her murder. A felony complaint filed on April 27 indicated that there was hostility between Holley & Megan. In May of 2002, Megan began receiving money from her deceased father’s pension & that Megan was known to be financially responsible, but on March 10, 2003, only five days before she was murdered, her bank account was overdrawn by nearly $1000, something that had never happened before. In his police interviews, Holley admitted that he owed Megan money, but claimed it was only $300 & he planned to pay the money back that he used for a car he purchased. The complaint indicates that at the time of Megan’s murder, Holley drove a 1990 purple Honda Civic hatchback that was registered to his mother.
Another witness indicated that Megan told him that Holley owed her $3000 & he wasn’t paying her back. She ended the relationship days before she was killed & she was currently involved with suspect #2 who was not named publicly & who died in 2010. Holley admitted that he’d argued with Megan several days before she was killed & says the day that they had the argument was the last time he’d seen Megan. However, authorities say that both witness statements & cell phone tower records from Megan’s phone establish that the two were in the same general area on the night she was murdered. The complaint notes that in January of 2023, New York State Police began receiving assistance from a private company called CyberCheck who was able to place the cellular devices of Megan with Edward Holley & suspect #2 together at key locations on the night of the murder. In 2021, the New York State Police received a computer analysis of DNA evidence that revealed that Megan & Holley’s DNA were associated in a “inclusionary manner” with swabs from Megan’s phone that indicated that Holley went through her phone & saw that she’d called her ex-boyfriend. In March of 2023 police received additional information that DNA from the rear driver’s seat of Megan’s car & Holley’s DNA are associated in an inclusionary manner. Holley also provided numerous contradictory stories & alibis & each was disproved by several witnesses.
Holley ended up being released when the district attorney failed to get an indictment within six days of arrest as required by law. The arrest created turmoil between police & the Orange County district attorney who says his office wasn’t consulted. Orange County DA, David Hoovler said, “Complicated cases are normally at least partially presented to a grand jury before an arrest is made.” He said that cold homicide cases involving complicated fact patterns can rarely be commenced & completed within six days.
Before his arrest, Holley was already in jail for violating probation on a drug possession charge & was scheduled to be released April 27, 2023 but would have been held longer if he’d been indicted.
Holley’s attorney claims that there are no connections between him & what happened to Megan, “No phone calls, no nothing.” With Holley no longer in custody, the special prosecutor has six months to decide whether to present the case to a grand jury or drop the charges. The FBI completed a behavioral profile of Holley & concluded he is a manipulative narcissist who is very controlling & that’s why police believe they haven’t gotten the cooperation from the community. He’s likely been intimidating members of his inner circle for years, keeping them quiet about what they might know. He also spread rumors about the original suspect which was how he was able to stay off the radar for so long.
Karen says that the family refuses to continue to let this coward remain free for longer than Megan was alive; she hopes that the 20th anniversary of Megan’s murder brings a new headline that the coward is in jail. Edward Holley is confined to a wheelchair & Karen’s husband, James makes sure to point, “Do not let his current appearance fool you, this is a vile human being capable of brutally murdering a beautiful, lively 20-year-old woman.”
References:
- abc 7: Special prosecutor appointed after Wallkill cold case murder suspect released
- CBS News: Suspect just arrested in two-decade old cold case murder to be released
- NBC 4 New York: Megan McDonald Murder: Arrest Made in 20-Year Cold Case Killing of NYPD Detective’s Daughter
- NBC News: “We never gave up & we are all on Megan’s team,” authorities say after arrest made in 2003 murder of Megan McDonald in Wallkill, New York
- NBC News: New York State Police reveal new lead in 2003 murder of SUNY Orange student
- PIX 11: NY State police closer to arrest in ‘vicious’ cold case killing of NYPD cop’s daughter
- Recordonline.com: Megan McDonald: FBI goes inside the criminal mind of her suspected killer
