{"id":171744,"date":"2026-03-23T06:44:56","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T06:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/171744\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T06:44:56","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T06:44:56","slug":"news-12-the-bronx-496","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/171744\/","title":{"rendered":"News 12 | The Bronx"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some legal experts are criticizing New York State Police investigators whose top suspect in the Megan McDonald murder case, Edward Holley, 45, of Wawayanda, was <a href=\"https:\/\/westchester.news12.com\/not-guilty-verdict-jurors-say-there-were-a-lot-of-holes-in-prosecutions-case-against-ed-holley\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">just acquitted<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The outcome raises a question: Where does the investigation into McDonald\u2019s murder go from here?<\/p>\n<p>State Police have stayed silent, though Megan\u2019s family has suggested they consider the investigation effectively closed.<\/p>\n<p>News 12 spoke with several attorneys who followed the first and second murder trials of Holley. One common opinion is that special prosecutors Julia Cornachio and Laura Murphy did not present a coherent case that Holley murdered McDonald in 2003 in the Town of Wallkill. Some jurors voiced similar criticisms.<\/p>\n<p>Former Onondaga prosecutor Rick Trunfio went further Friday in a Zoom interview. He said State Police arrested and charged Holley based on insufficient evidence.<\/p>\n<p>Police have contended Holley attacked Megan in her car and bludgeoned her several times with a blunt object, caving in her face and head. No murder weapon was recovered. Prosecutors presented little physical evidence, and there was no clarity on where the murder happened or who else may have been involved. Those are the makings of a weak case, Trunfio said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think that gave false hope to a grieving family,\u201d he said. \u201cUnfortunately now there\u2019s nowhere to go in this &#8230; After this debacle, I\u2019m not sure they\u2019ll ever get justice for their daughter, and that\u2019s a shame.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Megan\u2019s family posted on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/share\/p\/18C1fAENA4\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a> on Thursday that they view the outcome positively and thanked State Police.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is a significant difference between being found \u2018not guilty\u2019 and \u2018innocent,\u2019\u201d the post read. \u201cOur family understands this distinction. After decades of seeking the truth, we now have the answer to who took Megan from us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>News 12 reached out to State Police to ask where the murder investigation goes from here, whether they will revisit the case and whether new investigators will be assigned.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson eventually responded, saying the agency \u201cwill not be providing any comment on this matter.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some legal experts are criticizing New York State Police investigators whose top suspect in the Megan McDonald murder&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[5552,128,68416,70082,70081,30638,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-171744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-acquitted","tag-bronx","tag-edward-holley","tag-goshen","tag-megan-mcdonald","tag-murder-trial","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}