Remember Caroline from Vampire Diaries? Well, now she’s The Suitcase Killer, allegedly.
The movie opens with a random girl scouring the beach with a metal detector. What she comes across next not only makes her gag but also scream at the top of her lungs.
The main character, Melanie, meets her future husband, Bill, while waitressing at a local restaurant. The two hit it off despite warnings from her best friend and ended up getting married and having two kids over a period of 4-5 years. During this time, Melanie is not only confronted by Bill’s ex-wife pleading with her to come to her senses and leave, but also by Bill’s increasingly problematic gambling problem.
Before we get into this, I will say this film made it incredibly difficult to figure out what REALLY happened to Bill McGuire (because this is based on a true story). Although there is a ton of solid incriminating evidence against Melanie, Nicole L. Thompson (director) did a wonderful job telling her story in a way that had viewers questioning their own thoughts.
Over time, during their marriage, Melanie starts to question exactly what Bill’s ex told her. That he was a serial cheater with a gambling problem. Signs of him cheating start to pop up: a girl’s name and number on a napkin, him staying out all hours of the night, and lying about work meetings he’s supposed to be at. This is where things get interesting. Instead of confronting Bill about his infidelity, Melanie decides to pick up a side piece of her own, as well as mess with Bill while he’s out with his mistress.
Eventually, Bill winds up missing, and Melanie is the main suspect, of course. The film flips back and forth between showing us what lawyers allege happened to Bill at the hands of the mother of his children, as well as the string of events leading up to Bill’s disappearance, according to Melanie. This is where the movie got interesting for me. I wanted so badly to feel for Melanie and her children because they were not only dealing with an absent father and husband, but with his infidelity and draining all of their savings. BUT the lawyers made a very convincing argument considering all the evidence they had.
Being that this is based on a true story, the real Melanie McGuire currently sits behind bars with a life sentence, possibility of parole after 66 years, plus five years. Her children were taken from her parents at a young age and raised by her late husband’s sister, but are now young men living on their own. Melanie, to this day, still maintains her innocence, and I’m still teetering on the edge of whether she really murdered her husband and stuffed him in a suitcase. Was it out of malice because she was being cheated on? Or was it out of fear because he was a cheating, gambling monster who was also beating her and scaring their children? Did she do it at all? Because there were a ton of scenes showing Bill exchanging money with some strange individuals, allowing him to continue to gamble. Maybe one of them got him? I guess the world will never really know.
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