She went missing after going to a gig in Manhattan – now chilling link to man whose wife vanished is revealed

Lisa Marie McBride was just 27 years old when her naked body was found four months after she mysteriously disappeared on her way home after a country music gig in Manhattan in 1990. 

Almost 36 years later an arrest has finally been made for her murder and a chilling link uncovered to another woman who vanished more than two decades after her.

Robert William McCaffrey Jr, 54, was arrested on April 10 in North Carolina and charged with McBride’s murder after technological advances exposed breakthrough DNA evidence allegedly linking him to the crime. McCaffrey’s wife has been missing since 2012.

McBride was last seen by her friends on June 22, 1990, after her shift ended and they took a trip to Manhattan to see singer Clint Black at the Beacon Theater, first assistant prosecutor Gregory Mueller told the New Jersey Herald. 

The group went on to Big John’s Pub where McBride was said to have had three beers and happily chatted to patrons before she said goodbye to friends and headed home at 1.15am.

Neighbors of her New Jersey home reported seeing her return home at around 2am, but the next day she never showed up to work at a local bank.

A concerned coworker called McBride’s brother, who went to her home at around 10.30am and noticed her car still in the driveway. 

He let himself in with his spare key but his sister was nowhere to be found. 

Lisa Marie McBride disappeared after attending a gig in Manhattan in 1990. Her body was found months later

Robert William McCaffrey Jr, 54, was arrested on Friday, April 10, in North Carolina and charged with McBride’s murder after a DNA breakthrough

McCaffrey had only been free from behind bars for around two years after he was found to have obstructed an investigation into the mysterious disappearance of his wife Gayle McCaffrey, 36, in 2012

McBride’s brother told investigators he noticed the light on her bedroom dresser was on and her kitchen light were still on, there were no sheets or blankets on her bed and the living room couch had been pulled about six inches from the wall. 

Police arrived on the scene to find McBride’s telephone wire had been cut from outside her home and two slits had been cut into a window screen to gain access to the home. 

Months of frantic searching and thousands of missing persons posters led to her body being discovered off of Old Mine Road in Sandyston, part of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area in October 1990.

Potential suspects in McBride’s murder were never charged and her case remained unsolved for years, until 2020 when it was reopened.

The breakthrough came after a piece of DNA from McBride’s bedroom was re-examined after her body was exhumed in March 2022 for additional testing, Live 5 News reported. 

‘We believed there was additional investigative step[s] needed to be taken,’ Mueller told the Herald. ‘And that additional step required us to exhume the body.’

McBride’s cause of death remains unclear, but when her body was found she had suffered a cheekbone fracture believed to be a result of blunt force trauma.

The new evidence was examined at Bode Technology, the largest private forensic DNA laboratory in the nation. In February, the lab was able to identify the DNA found on her headboard as McCaffrey’s and her cold case was reviewed again. 

American Country musician Clint Black pictured playing at the Beacon Theatre, New York, at the gig McBride attended on June 22, 1990

McBride’s body was not found until October 1990 – five months after she was last seen after the gig in Manhattan

McBride attended a Clint Black concert at Beacon Theatre with friends after work before she vanished (pictured file photo)

McCaffrey was arrested in North Carolina 

An old interview with an associate of McCaffrey’s was unearthed in which they said he had admitted to killing McBride, as well as having returned to her home to collect something that would have connected him to the crime. 

‘This decades-old cold case was solved through significant advancements in DNA technology, combined with the relentless investigative efforts in the New Jersey State Police, the Sussex County Prosecutor’s Office and the Vernon Township Police Department,’ a press release from the Sussex County Prosecutor’s Office said. 

‘McCaffrey Jr’s arrest marks a major breakthrough, bringing long-awaited progress toward justice for the family of Lisa Marie McBride.’

He was arrested in Dare County, North Carolina, and appeared in court there Tuesday morning. He will now be extradited to New Jersey to formally face charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and second-degree burglary. 

During his first court hearing, the court was told that McCaffrey confessed to murdering McBride because she would not go out with him. 

McCaffrey lived about 13 miles from McBride with his parents and brother in Franklin, New Jersey at the time of McBride’s murder. How the two knew each other is still unclear. 

McCaffrey had been behind bars until two years ago. He was jailed after he was found to have obstructed an investigation into the mysterious disappearance of his wife. 

Gayle McCaffrey was 36 when she vanished on March 17, 2012, from Charleston, South Carolina. 

Police arrived at McBride’s home to find that her telephone wire had been cut and two slits had been sliced into a window screen

It remains unclear how McBride knew McCaffrey (pictured). McBride’s parents died before her killer could be brought to justice

McCaffrey insisted Gayle walked away from their marriage and claimed she left a note 10 days earlier dated March 7 to explain why. 

McCaffrey claimed he found the note that said Gayle had run off with another man, after returning from spending time with his mistress,

However, investigators eventually determined that the letter, which was typed and included profanities that Gayle’s family insisted she would never use, was forged. 

He was arrested on June 21, 2014, and charged with obstruction of justice. McCaffrey then spent ten years behind bars, while a grand jury declined to indict him on a murder charge in April of that same year. Gayle is still missing.

Debbie Pearson, one of Gayle’s siblings, told ABC News 4: ‘We would like to know where Gayle is. We have no doubt that [McCaffrey] killed her back in 2012.’

To her older sister, Gayle was quiet and gentle, as well as an avid reader, church choir member and dedicated to her work at The Citadel.  

‘She’s the one who would be hiding behind the pillar so that she wasn’t in the spotlight in the front seat,’ Pearson said of her sister. 

Pearson said they would often go for lunch between work and her children, while McCaffrey would frequently be out-of-town for odd jobs.  

McCaffrey was arrested on June 21, 2014, and charged with obstruction of justice in relation to his wife’s disappearance. he was jailed for 10 years

McCaffrey said he was visiting his mistress Brandy Lee in North Carolina, and claimed he returned home to find an angry farewell letter which said Gayle had run off with another man

‘[McCaffrey] wasn’t home a lot,’ she recalled. ‘So she was the consistent figure in their family.’

Pearson, however, is certain that Gayle would ‘never have left her family, ever’ and still believes that McCaffrey ended her life.  

‘She knew she had our support in whatever she chose to do. She would’ve never left,’ Pearson said. 

‘Bob (Robert) could be fun. My boys loved it because he was just that young uncle who could go shoot guns and do all sorts of things. But my mother was afraid of him, and he would be mean,’ she recalled.

 Pearson described how McCaffrey allegedly would unlock doors and, on one occasion, purposefully leave a window pane displaced ‘for months’ to make her feel uneasy.

‘He had a temper,’ she said. ‘You know, he goes back and forth. We loved the man, he was part of our family.’

Gayle’s son was four when she vanished and her daughter turned 11 the week after. Pearson was granted custody of the two children and eventually adopted them. 

Initially, their family didn’t immediately believe that McCaffrey had committed any wrongdoing in Gayle’s disappearance. But that quickly changed. 

Gayle’s son was four when she vanished and her daughter turned 11 the week after. Pearson was granted custody of the children and eventually adopted them

Debbie Pearson (pictured) said her sister Gayle would never leave her two children

Gayle is pictured with her daughter who was 10 when her mother vanished 

When McCaffrey (left) was arrested for McBride’s murder, Pearson said she was looking forward to seeing some amount of justice served – even if not on behalf of her sister

Gayle’s family continue to hope that she will eventually be found, and that McCaffrey will confess what really happened

‘After the first week when more details came out and he had just left his children alone in that house, we stopped,’ she said.

‘He never did anything. He didn’t ever come to any court hearings for his children, he never said goodbye to his children. I can’t imagine a dad that doesn’t say goodbye.’

When McCaffrey was arrested last week, Pearson said she was pleased some justice was finally being served.

‘We are very glad for this other family to get some closure,’ she told the outlet.

‘We were shocked that he had killed somebody else and now it makes me wonder if he’s killed two, are there more out there?’

Now, their family continues to hold onto hope that Gayle will be found, either dead or alive, and hope that McCaffrey will eventually confess what really happened.

Pearson added: ‘We have accepted that we might never know the answer… we know she’s dead. She was a believer, we know she’s in heaven, we know at some point we will see her again.’