Court records say DNA and old crime scene evidence now point to Robert McCaffrey.
VERNON TOWNSHIP, N.J. — Lisa Marie McBride left a local pub before dawn in June 1990 and disappeared from her Highland Lakes home, a case prosecutors now say led to murder charges against Robert William McCaffrey Jr.
The new case against McCaffrey turns on a long chain of events that started with a missed work shift, a worried family and a home that police found in disorder. McBride was 27, worked for Lakeland Bank and lived alone on Glen Road. For decades, the public facts pointed to an abduction and killing but not to a suspect who could be brought before a judge. That changed in April, when authorities arrested McCaffrey in North Carolina and brought him back to Sussex County.
McBride had spent the evening of June 22, 1990, with friends at a New York City concert, according to police reports later described in court records. On the way home, the group stopped at Big John’s Pub on Old Route 23 in Newfoundland. McBride drank three beers, gave three old friends her phone number and left around 1:15 a.m., saying she needed to be at work in the morning. Investigators said she was later seen entering her home shortly before 2 a.m. That was the last known time she was seen alive.
By later that morning, McBride was not answering the telephone. A co-worker became concerned, and her brother went to her house. Police found signs that something had happened inside and outside the home. Reports describe telephone wires cut behind the house, a backyard window screen with slits in it, a log propped below the window, a couch pulled away from a wall and McBride’s bed stripped of sheets and blankets. McBride was gone. The clues suggested an intruder, a struggle or both, but they did not produce an arrest in 1990.
The search for McBride ended in one way on Oct. 20, 1990, when a hunter found skeletal remains in Sandyston near the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. Authorities identified her through dental records. Her death was ruled a homicide, and the investigation continued through interviews, searches and public appeals. McBride’s parents died before the arrest. Her family had pushed for attention to the case for years, and local reports said the case was featured on “Missing: Reward,” a national television program that covered unsolved disappearances.
McCaffrey, now 54, was arrested April 10 in Manteo, North Carolina, by a multistate task force. Sussex County Prosecutor Daniel M. Perez said the task force included his office, the New Jersey State Police, Vernon Township police and the Dare County Sheriff’s Office. “This decades-old cold case was solved through significant advancements in DNA technology, combined with the relentless investigative efforts” of detectives, Perez said in a statement. McCaffrey was charged with first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping and second-degree burglary. He later pleaded not guilty in Sussex County Superior Court.
The forensic path to the charges appears to have moved in steps. Investigators submitted evidence from McBride’s bedroom for DNA testing in 2020. They exhumed McBride’s remains in 2022 to obtain a definitive DNA sample for modern comparison. In February 2026, authorities said a CODIS match linked DNA from the case to McCaffrey, whose profile had entered the national database after a South Carolina obstruction conviction. At a detention hearing, prosecutors said a washcloth found on the headboard of McBride’s bed contained DNA from both McBride and McCaffrey. The defense said the DNA does not show when or how contact occurred.
Prosecutors have also cited a witness who came forward years after the killing. Assistant Sussex County Prosecutor Jerome Neidhardt said in court that a witness identified by initials told investigators McCaffrey spoke on a job site in 1995 about killing McBride because she would not go out with him. Neidhardt said the witness reported that McCaffrey also said he had left behind a piece of evidence and wanted to return to the home to recover it. Defense attorney Thomas Militano questioned the strength of the state’s proof and noted that probable cause is not the same as trial proof.
McCaffrey’s past in South Carolina is now part of the pretrial record in New Jersey, though it is a separate case. His wife, Marjorie “Gayle” McCaffrey, disappeared from the Charleston area in March 2012. Investigators said he gave them false information and produced a farewell letter that prosecutors argued he wrote himself. He was convicted in 2019 of obstruction of justice and sentenced to 10 years. Gayle McCaffrey was declared dead in 2018, but her remains have not been found. A grand jury declined to indict him for murder in her case, and the charge was dropped.
Judge Janine Allen ordered McCaffrey to remain jailed pending trial, saying she was especially concerned about possible obstruction. She noted his prior obstruction conviction and the existence of a witness in the McBride case. McCaffrey is being held at the Morris County Correctional Facility. The next scheduled step is a pre-indictment conference May 18 in Sussex County Superior Court, where prosecutors and defense lawyers are expected to address the path toward indictment, discovery and future hearings.
Author note: Last updated 2026-05-05.