GOSHEN – Edward Holley was found not guilty in Orange County Court on Wednesday in the 2003 murder of Megan McDonald.
“It was only right. I was innocent all along,” Holley told Mid-Hudson News, shortly after being released from Orange County Jail at about 1 p.m. “It is only right for me to be a free man. I didn’t do anything. I should have never been in jail.”
Asked if he had anything to say to McDonald’s family, who were in the courtroom for the verdict, Holley said: “Not yet.”
Holley, 45, of Wawayanda, was on trial for the second time after a mistrial was declared in the first trial last April due to a hung jury. He stood accused of killing McDonald in the Town of Wallkill. Holley was arrested by State Police in April 2023 and faced a maximum sentence of 25 years to life.
The jury sent Orange County Court Judge Hyun Chin Kim a note indicating they had reached a verdict at about noon on Monday, surprising many. Jurors had been deliberating since Feb. 28 and often appeared deadlocked. On Monday, Judge Kim delivered an Allen charge, an instruction given to a deadlocked jury encouraging members to continue deliberations and attempt to reach a unanimous verdict.
After the not guilty verdict, Holley put his head on the defense table and began to cry for several minutes. His lead defense attorney, Paul Weber, was also teary-eyed. Weber and Holley’s two other defense attorneys, Eli Siems and Christopher Sevier, hugged and consoled him.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the courtroom, McDonald’s sister, Karen Whalen, wept after the verdict while being consoled by her husband, James. The couple was a constant presence in the courtroom for both trials, often accompanied by other family members and friends.
Karen Whalen has advocated for justice for her sister since she was killed. McDonald’s body was found on a narrow dirt path on March 15, 2003, on Bowser Road in Wallkill. The cause of death was blunt force trauma, with multiple fractures to the skull. Special prosecutors Julia Cornachio and Laura Murphy were gracious after the verdict but declined to comment outside the courtroom.
In a prepared statement, the prosecutors said in part: “More than two decades have passed since the murder of Megan McDonald, yet the tragic impact of her death is felt every day by her mother, sister, brothers, and other family members and friends. We are disappointed by the verdict reached by the jury, but we accept it and thank the jury members for their service.”
Cornachio and Murphy tried both cases with an allocation totaling approximately $2 million from the Orange County Legislature. The special prosecutors were needed after District Attorney David Hoovler recused himself from the case due to a conflict of interest. While in private practice, before becoming DA, Hoovler represented a client in negotiations with the district attorney’s office regarding potential information the client might provide about McDonald’s death.
That man, Andre Thurston, a suspect in the murder, died of a drug overdose in 2010. Hoovler had previously said the Holley case was weak and that more evidence was needed at the time Holley was arrested to prosecute the case. When Holley was arrested in 2023, the State Police did not give him advanced notice.
“Ed Holley is an innocent man,” Sevier said. “Justice was served today.”
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