Judge orders McBride murder suspect to remain locked up pending trial

The suspect in the 1990 murder of Vernon resident Lisa McBride will remain in custody pending trial, a judge ruled at a hearing on Monday.

Sussex County Superior Court Judge Janine Allen ordered that Robert McCaffrey, 54, of Manteo, N.C., remain at Morris County Correctional Facility while he faces murder, kidnapping and burglary charges.

After hearing arguments from Assistant Sussex County Prosecutor Jerome Neidhardt and defense attorney Thomas Militano as to why McCaffrey should and should not continue to be held in custody, Allen said the purpose of the pretrial detention hearing was to “reasonably assure the defendant’s appearance in court, the safety of persons in the community and that the defendant won’t obstruct the criminal justice process.”

Allen said the defense must prove those three assurances would be covered if McCaffrey were released.

“I understand [Mr. Militano’s] argument that [Mr. McCaffrey] has a family member he could stay with in New Jersey but that’s not enough to cover the one factor that I’m most concerned about and that’s attempting to obstruct the criminal justice process,” she said.

Allen said she used McCaffrey’s obstruction of justice conviction in South Carolina to make her decision. McCaffrey was convicted of obstructing justice in South Carolina for faking a farewell letter from his wife, Gayle McCaffrey, after she went missing in 2012 in the Palmetto State, where the couple was living at the time. She has not been found.

“The fact he was convicted of such a charge is concerning in that he has obstructed a criminal justice process,” said. “I am also concerned about whether he would try to obstruct by speaking to witnesses, especially the witness identified by the initials ‘R.I.’”

Allen also said she was concerned, though less so, about a potential threat to the safety of the witness if McCaffrey were to be released. She added a pretrial services report recommended McCaffrey remain in jail.

Judge finds probable cause for charges to remain

In making the state’s case for the charges, Neidhardt cited a washcloth found on the headboard of McBride’s bed containing both McBride’s and McCaffrey’s DNA. McCaffrey allegedly confessed to the crime, a witness referred to as “R.I.,” who came forward in 2019. Crime scene findings included a cut window screen, cut phone lines outside the house and a lack of sheets and blankets on McBride’s bed.

“According to witness, R.I., on a job site in 1995 the defendant told him that he murdered Lisa McBride,” Neidhardt told the court. “He said that he murdered her because she wouldn’t go out with him and that he had left a piece of evidence behind at the crime scene that he was concerned about.”

Militano downplayed the washcloth issue and questioned the validity of a medical report deeming McBride’s death a homicide.

“We’re not conceding that the DNA test is accurate,” Militano told the court. “However, assume for the sake of argument that it is. It does not even show a place where this contact took place, how that DNA got on that washcloth. It does not show a time that it got on that washcloth. It does not show any other indications of how that washcloth and Mr. McCaffrey’s alleged DNA on that washcloth is connected to this case other than its presence at the house.”

Militano also cited the lack of a signature on amended medical examiner’s report to cast doubt on its finding that McBride’s death was a homicide caused by external violence based on severe fractures to the left side of her face.

Judge Allen found the state met the “lower burden” of probable cause, meaning there is a “well-grounded suspicion an offense was committed.”

McCaffrey, who pleaded not guilty April 20 to murder, kidnapping and burglary, faces life without parole on the murder charge. A pre-indictment conference is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on May 18 in Sussex County Superior Court.

Background

A 1981 graduate of West Milford High School, McBride was working as an executive secretary at Lakeland Bank in Newfoundland and living alone at 118 Glen Road in the Highland Lakes section of Vernon prior to her murder.

After work on June 22, 1990, McBride and some friends attended a concert in New York City before stopping at Big John’s Pub on Old Route 23 in Newfoundland on the way home. Police reports said McBride drank three beers, gave three old friends her phone number and left at 1:15 a.m., saying she had to be at work in the morning.

She did not show up at work the next day and went missing. At approximately 9:30 a.m. on Oct. 20, 1990, four months after she disappeared, a hunter found McBride’s remains in Sandyston. Ruled a homicide, investigators ran into dead end after dead end for nearly 36 years.

According to court documents, evidence from the headboard of McBride’s bed was submitted for DNA testing in 2020. In 2022, McBride’s DNA was obtained when her remains were exhumed.

In February of this year, through advancements in DNA testing, court documents show McBride’s DNA and McCaffrey’s DNA were identified on the headboard evidence.

McCaffrey’s DNA was in the national DNA database for criminal defenders after he was convicted of obstruction of justice after the 2012 disappearance of his wife in South Carolina.

The complaint warrant and affidavit of probable cause were submitted by the state police and signed by Vernon Township Judge Peter Laemers on April 6. McCaffrey was arrested in North Carolina on April 10 and extradited to New Jersey.