TOMS RIVER, N.J. (AP) - A man has been sentenced to three decades in prison in the murder of a romantic rival whose remains were found last year dumped in a remote area of New Jersey.
Ocean County prosecutors said Alan McGinnis of Jackson will be required to serve the entire 30-year sentence imposed Friday without possibility of parole.
McGinnis, 27, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in December in the death of 20-year-old Cody MacPherson. Prosecutors say both men had been in relationships with the same woman.
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Authorities said McGinnis stabbed MacPherson in September 2017 in Pemberton Township, put the body in the trunk of a vehicle and dumped it in a wooded area in Colliers Mills Wildlife Management Area in Jackson, where they were found in March by the state forest fire service during a controlled burn in the area.
Ocean County Assistant Prosecutor Michael Weatherstone said witnesses acknowledged last year having heard McGinnis “announce his intent to stab the victim” and then saw him do so. The prosecutor said MacPherson was still alive when McGinnis put his body in the trunk of his car.
At an April court appearance, Weatherstone said a relative who lives about a mile from where the body was found told police that McGinnis knocked on his window around 3 a.m. “He said, ’Hey, do you have a shovel. I have a body in the trunk,’ or words to that effect,” Weatherstone said at the time.
McGinnis then went back to the Pemberton home, got its surveillance system, and burned it in the woods along with the victim’s cellphone and clothes, the prosecutor said.
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