Solved: Cold Case of NY Policeman’s Daughter

Megan McDonald was the 20-year-old daughter of a New York police detective. On March 14, 2003, she was beaten to death in the backseat of her white Mercury Sable. Her body was then dumped onto the road in Orange County, NY.

On Thursday, Edward V. Holley, 42, was arrested for her murder. He is being charged with second-degree murder in a case that is two decades old.

“We used modern-day technology and applied it to 2003, and we were able to come up with good results to assist the case…within the past year,” New York State Police Lt. Brad Natalizio, who helped lead the investigation, told Fox News Digital.

Natalizio added that McDonald’s family “never gave up,” and authorities are “very grateful” for their help with solving the case.

A felony complaint filed in Orange County alleges Holley “did knowingly and intentionally cause the death of Megan McDonald by striking her multiple times in the head with a blunt instrument.”

McDonald and Holley had been in a “romantic relationship” that McDonald apparently tried to end just days prior to her murder. They got into an argument on March 10, 2003, according to the complaint. Holley also “owed the victim a substantial amount of money that was causing hostility between the two leading up to the homicide,” the document states.

Natalizio previously described her murder as a “crime of passion” and “intimate partner violence” in an interview with Fox News Digital.

The lieutenant was the same age as McDonald, grew up in Orange County, and worked for the NYPD in 2006 before he eventually moved back upstate. He described Thursday’s arrest as “emotional,” but there is still “a lot of work to be done,” so police are “taking it day by day.”

Natalizio on Thursday thanked various law enforcement agencies and McDonald’s family for their effort in helping to track down and arrest Holley.

McDonald’s father died in 2002, a year before she was killed.

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