After 20 Years, an Arrest in Murder of an N.Y.P.D. Detective’s Daughter

Megan McDonald’s body was discovered near a dirt path on the outskirts of Middletown, N. Y. , on March 15, 2003.

The cause of death, blunt force trauma, was obvious immediately. The search for her killer would last 20 years, one month, and four days. On Wednesday, Edward Holley, 42, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder in the death of Ms.

McDonald, the New York State Police announced Thursday. Mr. Holley, who had once dated Ms.

McDonald, was arrested inside Orange County Correctional Facility in Goshen, N. Y. , where he had been incarcerated on unrelated probation violation charges stemming from a narcotics arrest.

The murder charges are a dramatic step in a case that has frustrated Ms. McDonald’s family, local law enforcement and Middletown residents for two decades. Even as it lingered for so many years, the investigation was never viewed as a cold case, State Police Capt.

Joseph Kolek said Thursday. The victim’s father, Dennis McDonald, was widely known and respected as a New York Police Department detective who helped investigate the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. He died in 2002, a year before his daughter’s murder.

“The coward who killed our beloved Megan more than 20 years ago is where he belongs: in jail,” Karen Whalen, the victim’s sister, said Thursday at a news conference. Megan McDonald, 20, had been a student at Orange County Community College and worked as a waitress at the Galleria Mall in Middletown. Mr.

Holley had been Ms. McDonald’s boyfriend and her primary supplier of marijuana, which they smoked together every day, according to the criminal complaint filed Wednesday in Wallkill Town Court by Michael Corletta, a New York State Police investigator. From the beginning of the case, police had been interviewing Mr.

Holley, doing so four times over 20 years. Captain Kolek declined to say Thursday what evidence led them to finally bring charges against him. In addition to her wages as a waitress, Ms.

McDonald received $1,250 a month in pension benefits after her father’s death. She lent some of this money to help Mr. Holley buy a car, according to the complaint, but he refused to pay her back.

An argument ensued, which led Ms. McDonald to end the relationship, according to the complaint. Days later, on March 14, 2003, Ms.

McDonald’s friends saw her drive away from a friend’s birthday party shortly after midnight, according to the complaint. Ms. McDonald and Mr.

Holley were seen driving in separate cars through an apartment complex in Wallkill, according to the complaint. His vehicle was especially memorable, witnesses said — a purple Honda Civic that blasted music and was known as “the loudest car in town,” according to the complaint. Both cars stopped, and Mr.

Holley climbed into Ms. McDonald’s car, a white Mercury sedan. Twelve hours later, Ms.

McDonald still hadn’t arrived for her noon shift at the American Cafe in the Galleria Mall. Her family and friends grew anxious. Two days after her body was found, the car was discovered and towed to State Police headquarters in Middletown, where forensic evidence indicated “a vicious assault where the assailant used repeated blows to the head with a hand-held weapon,” according to the complaint.

In the weeks before her death, Ms. McDonald had been “eager to start her life as a young adult,” Major Paul M. DeQuarto, commander of the State Police office in Middletown, said Thursday.

She attended parties with friends, started a new romantic relationship and signed a lease on a new apartment. The new relationship may have angered Mr. Holley, the complaint said.

Over the course of the investigation, State Police detectives interviewed hundreds of people, some as far away as Florida, Captain Kolek said. They enlisted help from local police, county law enforcement and the F. B.

I. In 2022, the New York Police Department Detectives’ Endowment Association and the F. B.

I. together offered a $20,000 reward for anyone with information that could lead to a conviction in the case. The association also paid for a billboard, mounted along Route 17 in Middletown, with a photo of Ms.

McDonald and a phone number for tips. “In all of our homicides, we pursue justice,” Captain Kolek said. “But this is an important case for us.

” “Over the course of 20 years, Megan’s family has never given up hope that this day would come,” Karen Whalen said. .