VERNON TOWNSHIP, New Jersey (WABC) — New details have been revealed in the murder of a woman in New Jersey 35 years ago after a man in South Carolina was arrested last week.
Authorities say that new DNA evidence links Robert McCaffrey, 54, to the death of Lisa Marie McBride in 1990.
McCaffrey, 54, has waived extradition and is waiting to be brought back to New Jersey to face charges.
Court papers just released contain never-before-seen pictures from the murder scene and details on what police found in the home and car of the accused killer.
The grainy black and white crime scene photos from McBride’s home are providing some answers in the 27-year-old’s disappearance and murder.
The photos and new details are in the 40-page search warrant for McCaffrey, who is now charged with McBride’s murder.
There is a troubling photo of McBride’s bed taken the day she vanished in June 1990 where all bedding had been removed. Another photo shows her living room sofa – suspiciously pulled from against the living room wall.
And outside of McBride’s home on Glen Road in Highland Lakes had even more disturbing images.
Court documents say a backyard window screen had slits in it with a log propped underneath and the telephone wires in the back of her home had been cut.
But the bombshell is court documents show that when the cold case was reopened in 2019, a review of the files found back in “1995, McCaffrey confessed to killing Lisa McBride” because she refused to go out with him. And that he “attempted to return to the McBride residence the following days to recover ‘something’ that would connect him to the homicide.”
The 27-year-old was a bank teller and investigators believe that is how McCaffrey knew her.
And just a year prior, McCaffrey was “deemed unfit for service in the Navy due to impulse control issues” – “Dishonorably Discharged on September 28, 1989” – and “Diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder” that same year.
In 1996, McCaffrey moved to South Carolina where he married Marjorie McCaffrey who disappeared in 2012. Her body was never found.
The 54-year-old was convicted of obstruction of justice in that case, requiring him to submit a DNA sample for the FBI database, and in late February, Sussex County investigators say they got a match on McBride’s murder.
During an extensive search of his North Carolina home after his arrest last week, investigators oddly found “A laptop located in crawl space” – “2 hatchets black in color located in vehicle” – and three guns.
But what investigators are really looking for in the haunting cold case are McBride’s “wallet, purse, brass WEEZA key chain, NJDL, Credit Cards” that investigators believe McCaffrey kept as “trophies of his skill and power.”
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