The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office on Wednesday charged a 45-year-old woman with stabbing to death 72-year-old Richard Scott MacFarland in his Wrightstown home last October.
Police said they believe Meghan Macklin, of Northeast Philadelphia, killed MacFarland, stole his Mercedes, drove it about 600 miles to a Tennessee convenience store where she was picked up by police for eating food without paying for it.
When approached, police said Macklin identified herself as MacFarland’s wife, who had died in 2019.
According to court documents, MacFarland’s DNA was found on a pair of Crocs Macklin was seen wearing and her DNA was on a pair of latex gloves recovered from the house on Apple Hill Road where the man’s body was found.
Court documents reported that MacFarland characterized Macklin as “his friend” during one of two domestic disturbance calls at the home on Oct. 4, three days before MacFarland was found dead.
During one of those calls, MacFarland told police that he believed Macklin “was angry over a friendship” he had with another woman and that she had struck him.
The following day, a neighbor reported hearing a disturbance coming from the house at about 4:30 p.m. Less than an hour later, a Realtor arrived at the house to show it to clients but was turned away by a woman who claimed she and MacFarland were in the house and sick with COVID-19.
On the afternoon of Oct. 7, a potential home buyer arrived at the house and saw a man lying on the floor inside on the first floor. Police were called. Officers identified the man as MacFarland and determined he was dead. Court documents say investigators believe MacFarland was stabbed to death in an upstairs bedroom, cleaned up and moved to the first floor of the home. A search yielded bloody bedding and clothing that’d been hidden in various locations inside the home and prescription pill bottles bearing Macklin’s name.
MacFarland’s 2013 Mercedes was missing from the home and entered into the National Crime Information Center as a stolen vehicle. Camera footage from a Wawa in Pipersville reportedly showed Macklin in possession of the vehicle — and wearing the Crocs — on the morning of Oct. 6.
The following evening, Macklin was taken into custody in White Pine, Tenn., reportedly for operating a stolen vehicle and giving police there a false identity after she allegedly showed officers MacFarland’s wife’s Social Security card and a blank check with her name on it.
A subsequent search of the vehicle reportedly turned up clothing and Crocs matching those that the Mercedes’ driver wore in the Wawa surveillance video, jewelry and coins similar to what was seen at MacFarland’s home plus bank checks and deposit slips in the name of his wife.
Court documents filed Wednesday list the following charges against Macklin: first degree murder, second degree murder, robbery, theft, abuse of a corpse and other violations.
Macklin is reportedly still in custody in Tennessee and awaiting extradition to Pennsylvania.
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