Man convicted in wife’s disappearance arrested over unsolved 1990 murder

A man who was convicted in connection with his wife’s 2012 disappearance in South Carolina has been arrested over the murder of another woman in New Jersey 22 years earlier.

Bob McCaffrey Jr, 54, was apprehended in North Carolina, where he had been residing, on suspicion of the 1990 killing of Lisa Marie McBride, 27, in New Jersey, authorities said in a statement.

DNA collected by investigators examining McBride’s killing reportedly matched a sample taken from McCaffrey as he was convicted of obstructing justice after his wife’s disappearance in Charleston, South Carolina.

The dramatic circumstances surrounding McCaffrey’s arrest has captured attention across the US, prompting a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office in Charleston to tell South Carolina’s Post and Courier that “justice knows no time limit or distance”.

A hunter discovered McBride’s decomposed remains in New Jersey’s Delaware Water Gap national recreation area in October 1990. It was four months after McBride, a bank employee, reportedly disappeared from her home in the Sussex county community of Vernon Township.

She was identified through dental records and determined to be the victim of a homicide. No suspect was immediately named, but New Jersey cold-case investigators were able to enter DNA recovered from McBride into a federal database containing genetic profiles of people convicted of certain crimes.

The sample matched a profile of McCaffrey, who was convicted in 2019 of intentionally misleading an investigation into the disappearance of his wife, Gayle, in Charleston seven years earlier.

Bob McCaffrey had been charged with lying about a handwritten note he claimed Gayle wrote informing him of her having left with another man. McCaffrey was released from prison in May 2023, according to South Carolina corrections department records.

A grand jury weighed charging Bob McCaffrey with the murder of Gayle McCaffrey, who was declared presumed dead in 2018, but it declined to do so, as the Post and Courier reported.

The Charleston news outlet WCIV wrote that McCaffrey moved to North Carolina and “had a new love interest” within months of Gayle’s disappearance, attributing the information to family members and reports at the time.

Authorities obtained a warrant to arrest McCaffrey after his DNA linked him to the unsolved killing of McBride. They said they captured him in the North Carolina community of Manteo after a traffic stop on 10 April.

McCaffrey faces charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and burglary once he is transferred from North Carolina to Sussex county, New Jersey, said the top state prosecutor there, Daniel M Perez.

Public records reviewed by the Guardian show McCaffrey had a home address in Sussex in 1990.

Perez added that McCaffrey’s arrest brings “long-awaited progress toward justice for the family of Lisa Marie McBride”. He also exalted the “significant advancement in DNA technology” which led investigators to McCaffrey.

The investigative journalist and podcaster Delia D’Ambra reported that McCaffrey appeared in North Carolina court on Tuesday and agreed to be transferred to New Jersey without a hearing. D’Ambra also reported the contents of a search warrant that investigators served on his home in Manteo, saying they suspected McCaffrey may have had McBride’s missing purse, wallet, keys and a key chain with the word “Weeza” on it.

Investigators, D’Ambra said, believed those items were “trophies” her killer would have taken from her.

Meanwhile, in South Carolina, Gayle McCaffrey’s family told WCIV that they hope authorities can exact commensurate consequences on whoever is responsible for her disappearance.

Gayle McCaffrey was 36 when she went missing. Her son at the time was four, and her daughter 10, according to WCIV.

Gayle’s sister, Helen Banach, told the channel she and her loved ones were “shocked to learn that [Bob] might have killed someone before in his lifetime”.

“We are glad that her family will get some justice,” she remarked.