Police make arrest in 20-year-old NY cold case after DNA links suspect to death of Megan McDonald

MIDDLETOWN, N.Y. – They were tears 20 years in the making, and Karen McDonald Whalen let them flow.

The sister of Megan McDonald stood outside the State Police Troop F barracks beside her mother, Elizabeth, and her husband, James, and cried as she thanked the New York State Police for never stopping their search for her sister's killer.

It took 20 years, but State Police officials on Thursday arrested Edward V. Holley. They said it was Holley who bludgeoned Megan McDonald to death on March 14, 2003, and left her in a field in the town of Wallkill. The killing became one of Orange County's stubbornest cold cases.

Until Thursday.

"On April 20, 2023, the New York State Police arrested Edward V. Holley, age 42, of Wawayanda, N.Y., with Murder 2nd degree in connection with the March 2003 murder of Megan McDonald," the news release read. "McDonald was discovered deceased in the town of Wallkill, Orange County, on March 15, 2003, from blunt force trauma."

Karen Whalen thanked the police for never giving up.

"For them, it was always a matter of when, not if, this day would come," she said. "We have always stood with the police, and we will always stand with them," said Whalen, whose father, Dennis, was a retired NYPD detective.

James Whalen, Karen's husband, said: "Today, the police gave us an answer that we have been searching for for over 20 years. The monster who violently and senselessly took Megan's life now has a name and a face. The person arrested today will never be anything but a coward to our family."

A defiant man in handcuffs

Moments before a mid-afternoon press conference to announce the major break in the case, Holley was wheeled out of the front of the barracks in a wheelchair, flanked by two troopers. Peppered with questions by the media, Holley was defiant.

"They're parading me out here like some freaking monkey out here, but it's all good," he said, wearing a jail jumpsuit. (He had been in the county jail on narcotics charges.) Asked what he had to say, he offered "I'm definitely not guilty."

Two young women skirted to the edge of the media crush to say, "I love you, Dad," then bolted away as the handcuffed Holley was lifted into the back of a police vehicle. Holley said: "I didn't do it. I loved Megan."

When a friend of the McDonald family came forward to shout, "Justice for Megan," as the doors to the police vehicle closed, Holley replied: "Right. Justice for Megan."

A 17-page complaint

The news was accompanied by a 17-page felony complaint by State Police Investigator Michael Corletta, a narrative describing the night that cost Megan McDonald her life.

"The defendant, Edward V. Holley, did knowingly and intentionally cause the death of Megan McDonald by striking her multiple times about the head with a blunt instrument," Corletta wrote, adding that murder in the second degree is a class A-1 felony.

Megan McDonald: State Police never closer to an arrest than now

Megan McDonald's final hours

McDonald, a 2000 graduate of Burke Catholic High School, was 20 years old when she left her job at American Cafe restaurant in the Galleria mall in the Town of Wallkill on March 13, 2003. She was with friends that night in Middletown, was seen twice outside a party in her old Town of Wallkill neighborhood of Greenway Terrace, the last time at about midnight.

Then she vanished.

Her beaten body was found in a field off Bowser Road on March 15, 2003. That's the official date of her death, etched on her heart-shaped gravestone in the St. Joseph's Church cemetery in Middletown.

Her Mercury Sable was found on March 17, at the Kensington Manor apartment complex. Police conducted dozens of interviews and followed more than 800 leads in the 20 years since her death. Their work filled entire file-cabinet drawers in the Troop F barracks in Middletown.

Family awaits answers

McDonald's father, Dennis, a retired NYPD homicide detective, had died unexpectedly at 47, months before his daughter.

For years, her mother, Elizabeth, has awaited answers, as police built their case, interviewing and re-interviewing witnesses and friends of the vivacious 20-year-old. Billboards on Route 17 have asked anyone with information to contact investigators. Rewards were offered.

State Police Capt. Joe Kolek, Troop F investigations commander, credited the many agencies and officers for never giving up the investigation. The first investigators wisely kept custody of evidence that would play a role in Holley's arrest, he said, as forensic analysis tools became more sensitive.

Investigators conducted new DNA tests and brought in the FBI's "Criminal Minds" division to build a profile of the suspect. They called him "the individual" or "the suspect." The McDonalds called him "The Coward."

After arraignment in the City of Middletown Court on Thursday, the world knows the prime suspect as Edward Holley.

Read the Felony Complaint against Edward V. Holley

This story is developing.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: Police make arrest in 20-year-old cold case, murder of Megan McDonald