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Lee, an NYPD criminologist, was found dead in her apartment on April 27. Her roommate, who had returned from a weekend out of town the night before, didn’t see Lee and assumed she was asleep. When Lee still hadn’t appeared in the morning, her roommate entered her bedroom and found her naked body bound to the bed, with a knife stuck in her neck.
McGurk’s attorney, Joseph Corrozo of the firm Rubinstein & Corozzo, confirmed that McGurk had been in a relationship with Lee but said the two were not dating at the time of the murder.
Corrozo didn’t say exactly when the couple broke up, and when asked about the nature of their relationship, he said, “He absolutely knew Miss Lee. He was friends with Miss Lee. And he absolutely did not harm Miss Lee.”
McGurk had convinced Lee to give him thousands of dollars, claiming he had cancer and was broke, according to the New York Daily News. When Lee recently moved out of her parents’ house and had to start paying rent for her Sunnyside apartment, money became tighter and she stopped giving so much to McGurk.
The defendant claims Lee owed him about $2,000 at the time of her death.
After Lee and McGurk stoped dating, they continued to be “friends with benefits.” McGurk said the two sometimes had violent sex, according to the Daily News.
“Sometimes when we did the bondage we did the asphyxiation,” McGurk told the police after Lee’s body was found. “I would be on top and choke her. One time, Michelle got very angry. She forgot to tap my wrist to stop choking her. We decided never to do that again.”
McGurk is said to have seen Lee around 2 a.m. on April 26 outside her apartment. The defendant said they parted amicably and added that he didn’t enter her apartment because she “had company.”
McGurk is originally from Ireland and holds dual citizenship. His father, a member of the Irish Republican Army, was caught attempting to blow up a British Army patrol in 1981, according to the Belfast Telegraph.
