I also just found this which appears on the Forum for Molly Bish, but appears to be a newspaper article.....
Legal tiff over evidence in Molly case
From: watcher
Date: 08 Aug 2003
Time: 19:43:46
Comments
Thursday, August 7, 2003 Legal tiff over evidence in Molly case Investigator tells of new find Bradford L. Miner TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF Timothy S. McGuigan stands recently near a memorial in East Brimfield where Holly Piirainen's remains were found in 1993. A former police patrolman who is writing a book about the killings of two Central Massachusetts girls is in the middle of a legal tug-of-war between the Worcester district attorney's office and CBS regarding a videotape showing possible evidence in one case. Timothy S. McGuigan of Auburn, an unemployed police officer who worked five years in North Brookfield and six weeks in Sturbridge, has been the object of speculation because of his investigation of the killings of Molly Anne Bish of Warren and Holly Piirainen of Grafton. Mr. McGuigan talked about his unauthorized investigation of Holly's abduction; a scrap of blue bathing suit in Molly's case found on Whiskey Hill in Palmer after state police had completed a search of the area; and a subpoena for a CBS film crew's videotape of the possible additional evidence. And at some point this fall, Mr. McGuigan will likely have an opportunity to tell his story to a national audience during a segment taped for "CBS 48 Hours Investigates." The program will look at the ongoing investigation of the Bish and Piirainen abductions.
"I really don't care what anyone says or thinks about what I've done," Mr. McGuigan. "I only want to see justice served." Others see it differently. District Attorney John J. Conte declined to comment on Mr. McGuigan's involvement in Molly's case, and told reporters as recently as Saturday that there are seven primary suspects, all of whom live in the Warren area and some of whom are convicted sex offenders. Mr. McGuigan said he has provided state police with a DNA sample but refused to take a polygraph test. On May 28, members of the Bish and Piirainen families join other families whose children were killed to mark Massachusetts Children's Day at the Statehouse in Boston. Asked why he would not take a lie detector test, Mr. McGuigan said, "The DA has made a point of the fact that 11 people have failed a polygraph test. Am I going to make it an even dozen? It's an investigative tool, and that's all it is." A CBS producer has corroborated Mr. McGuigan's assertion that the Worcester district attorney's office is trying to obtain the CBS film crew's videotape of the recovery of another piece of blue bathing suit from Whiskey Hill after the intensive June search of the wooded Palmer hillside for Molly's skeletal remains and other physical evidence had concluded. State police detectives from Hampden and Worcester counties continue to look for breaks in the two cases involving Holly, who was 10 when she was abducted Aug. 5, 1993, in Sturbridge, and Molly, who was 16 when she was abducted June 27, 2000, in Warren. A single suspect in both cases has not been ruled out by investigators. Holly was staying at her grandmother's cottage on South Pond in Sturbridge. She went for a walk with her brother, Zachary, to visit a neighbor's puppies and was abducted near the intersection of Allen Road and South Shore Drive. Hunters found her remains Oct. 23, 1993, on Five Bridge Road in East Brimfield. Molly was reporting for lifeguard duty when she disappeared from the town beach at Comins Pond in Warren. Partial skeletal remains of the teenager were found on the steep, wooded Palmer hillside in early June. Mr. McGuigan said he has had a compelling interest in the Piirainen case since November 2000. In May, he led state police detectives to the blue bathing suit Molly was likely wearing the day she vanished. That evidence spawned a search that culminated in 40 percent of Molly's remains being recovered by searchers. "It hasn't been an easy road by any means, and I've dealt with some difficult personal issues along the way, including a divorce, but I wouldn't have done anything differently," Mr. McGuigan said. Mr. McGuigan said he and Ricky Boudreau of West Hardwick led a CBS film crew to the site where the blue bathing suit was recovered. Mr. Boudreau, a hunter, first encountered the piece of clothing partially hidden beneath leaves while bow hunting for deer last November near the Nenameseck Sportmen's Club in Palmer. "When we went up there, it was no longer a crime scene. They (the film crew) wanted to see where we found the suit, and we showed them," Mr. McGuigan said. "They had been filming for a while and Ricky looked down, turning over some leaves, and came up with a 1-inch by ½-inch piece of blue material, the same material from the swimsuit, possibly a piece from the shoulder strap. They've got the whole thing on tape," he said. Mr. McGuigan said Mr. Boudreau handed the scrap of cloth to Miguel Sancho, CBS 48 Hours producer, who then gave it to the state police. "Rather than thank us, District Attorney John J. Conte issued a subpoena to CBS to secure the tape," he said. Reached at his office in New York City, Mr. Sancho confirmed that Mr. Conte has taken legal steps to obtain the tapes. "We haven't been given a reason, and he (the district attorney) hasn't come out and said McGuigan is a suspect. McGuigan has been more than willing to talk to the district attorney both before and after the discovery of the swimsuit," Mr. Sancho said. He confirmed Mr. McGuigan's account of the events about when the additional evidence was found. "We're resisting the subpoena, and we've filed a motion and a brief. There's supposed to be a hearing and oral arguments at some point in Superior Court in Worcester, but I haven't been told when," Mr. Sancho said. On May 16, Mr. McGuigan led state police detectives to a site 100 yards east of West Ware Road in Palmer to where two orange snow scrapers marked the location of a one-piece, lifeguard-style blue bathing suit. Mr. McGuigan said his introduction into Molly's case was a simple matter of responding to police instincts. He said that in May he was dating Shelley Boudreau, sister of the hunter who had found the bathing suit. "She suggested we go to her brother's house. While we were sitting, talking at the kitchen table, Ricky happened to mention a blue bathing suit he'd found in the woods in Warren while deer hunting last November. That was May 14. "I told him it might be significant to the Bish case, and he said he thought lifeguard bathing suits were orange. I asked him to show me the next day where he found the suit," Mr. McGuigan said. Mr. McGuigan said he, Mr. Boudreau and a friend, Jay Harrington, met the next day, went to the Nenameseck Sportsmen's Club, parked and walked up into the woods on the other side of West Ware Road. "We were about 100 yards off the road, and Jay and I were ahead. Ricky shouted, "I found it,' and we turned around. He picked up the suit and put it down," he said. Mr. McGuigan said he used a cell phone to try to call his friend Trooper Robert E. Benoit of Oakham. Trooper Benoit, a 29-year state police veteran, is assigned to the Brookfield barracks. "He wasn't home, but his wife suggested I call Troop C headquarters in Holden. Two hours later, we're being eaten alive by bugs, and it was getting late, and no one had shown up," Mr. McGuigan said. He said he drove to Ware and asked for assistance from the first officer he encountered, Patrolman Paul Skutnik. "I told him what I had, and he came up to the scene. I asked him if he had any crime scene tape, and he said no, just the orange snow scrapers that we used to mark the site," he said. "The officer also informed us that we weren't in Ware or Warren, but in Palmer," he said. Mr. McGuigan said that the next day, May 16, he spoke to Trooper Benoit, who assured him that state police detectives and state police crime scene services were on their way to the scene. "I took pictures that morning of the bathing suit, before they arrived, just to protect myself. I suspected then, based on what I had found on the Internet describing what Molly was wearing when she disappeared, that this was her bathing suit," Mr. McGuigan said. "We walked up into the woods, and I was surprised they (police) didn't have a shovel. They had to borrow a knife to cut away some of the roots. They put the bathing suit into a bag, gathered up some leaves and left," he said. Asked what sparked his interest in the Piirainen case, Mr. McGuigan said he looks back on Nov. 30, 2000, as a day that would change his life. He was working then as a North Brookfield patrolman. According to retired Police Chief Peter C. Fullam, Mr. McGuigan was "an exemplary officer." Mr. McGuigan said a woman, whose identity he withheld, told him she was referred to him by a part-time West Brookfield patrolman. "The gist of this woman's story was that she had overheard a conversation her boyfriend was having, during which he admitted direct involvement in Holly's abduction and murder, as well as the destruction of evidence," he said. "I was stunned by what she told me, but I tried not to show it. This is the kind of tip that some guys in law enforcement go 30 years and never get," he said. At that time, the 7-year-old investigation into Holly Piirainen's killing was still an active case under the Hampden County district attorney's office. Lt. Peter J. Higgins has confirmed that Mr. McGuigan had provided information to the Hampden County district attorney's office and that detectives had followed up on it. "Because of the politics of police work, I knew if I started poking around I was going to step on toes. I knew I couldn't do it alone, so I called Bobby Benoit," Mr. McGuigan said. "Trooper Benoit and I knew each other, and more importantly, trusted each other. Based on the woman's story, we started interviewing people together," he said. Less than three months later, Mr. McGuigan said, Trooper Benoit received an order from a superior officer instructing him to cease any on- or off-duty investigation of either case. "When Bob received the letter, that's when he stopped, but I continued to poke around," he said. Mr. McGuigan has two primary suspects in the Holly Piirainen case who may have been working together and discounts speculation Holly's death might have been the result of a traffic accident. The former patrolman said he investigated scores of traffic accidents while working as a patrolman and there was no evidence at Allen Road and South Shore Drive to suggest Holly was hit by a car. "If someone had hit the child, why would they have bothered to stop and pick her up? That's why these accidents are called hit and run. Assuming someone did hit her by accident, why wouldn't they have brought her to the nearest hospital for medical attention?" he said. Mr. McGuigan said his compulsion with the Holly Piirainen case ultimately cost him his job on the Sturbridge police force. "I was spending a lot of time on the Holly case and Chief (Thomas R.) Button and I didn't see eye to eye," he said. "I handed over the entire investigation I had been working on since North Brookfield and after six weeks resigned." Chief Button could not be reached for comment. As for similarities between the cases, Mr. McGuigan stated, "In both cases you have a person smart enough to leave no evidence at the crime scene. You have a victim that's consistent in appearance, despite the age difference, and profilers will tell you that many times, as a predator ages, his victims are older as well." Continuing, he said, "In both cases, the bodies of the victims were found within five miles of the point where they were abducted. The person or persons who committed these crimes didn't want to be seen and certainly didn't want the victims to be seen, so on instinct each was taken to a wooded area, indicating a person who is comfortable in the woods." "I have no knowledge of how these children were killed, but there are similarities in the two cases, and I believe they both were sex crimes," Mr. McGuigan said. The clear differences in the case, Mr. McGuigan said, is that Holly's abduction had to be chance, while there is some indication that Molly was stalked before she was abducted.
http://www.mollybish.org/forum5/disc3_frm.htm
