NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — A former co-worker of a nurse standing trial for murder testified Thursday that she visited the woman's home after her husband went missing and detected an overwhelming, unpleasant odor, "like a morgue," in the couple's master bathroom.

"[T]here was just this horrible smell, this strong smell of bleach [and] must," the witness told jurors at the trial of Melanie McGuire.

Prosecutors contend the 34-year-old fertility clinic nurse shot her husband of five years, William, and then dismembered his body with a power saw before disposing of his remains in the Chesapeake Bay.

But lawyers for McGuire have repeatedly noted that police found no blood in the McGuires' apartment, despite extensive forensic tests which included the removal of part of the residence's plumbing system.

The testimony of Lori Thomas, who worked with McGuire as an in vitro fertilization nurse, appeared to be an attempt to explain the lack of evidence.

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She said that, when she went to the home in late May 2004, about a month after William McGuire was last seen alive, Melanie McGuire and a female friend were cleaning the three-story townhouse in advance of her moving out. The house smelled of cleanser and both women were wearing surgical gloves, she testified.

Thomas, who had gone to the apartment to pick up a living room set she had purchased from McGuire, said she asked if she could look around, because she and her boyfriend were searching for a new place to live. McGuire agreed to let her tour the main floor and the upstairs, but refused her request to see the basement.

"She said she had a lot of disorganized stuff down there. She said, 'You know, I'd rather not,'" Thomas testified.

Thomas told jurors that she closely inspected the bathrooms "because I like bathrooms" and recalled that while the downstairs bathroom smelled moderately of bleach, the upstairs one had an offensive odor.

"Horrible, just horrible," she said. Asked by a prosecutor to elaborate, Thomas said it reminded her of the morgue in the hospice where she now works.

She said the grouting around the shower in the bathroom also caught her attention because it was "very chalky," as if it had been scrubbed.

McGuire also gave her blankets stamped with a medical supply company logo to protect the furniture she was moving, she said. One such blanket was found wrapped around William McGuire's head when his remains were pulled from the bay.

On cross-examination, a lawyer for McGuire accused Thomas of embellishing her story. He confronted her with grand jury testimony taken in 2005 in which she described a bleach odor, but did not say it was "horrible" or compare it to a morgue.