BOSTON (AP) – Brian Walshe is expected to be sentenced Thursday in the grisly killing of his wife, whom he was found guilty of murdering.
Ana Walshe, a real estate agent who immigrated from Serbia, was last seen early Jan. 1, 2023, after a New Year’s Eve dinner at the couple’s home.
Two days after he was found guilty of first degree murder, Walshe will be back in court to hear his sentence. That charge carries a mandatory sentence of life in state prison without parole.
During the trial, prosecutors leaned heavily on digital evidence found on devices connected to Brian Walshe, including online searches such as “dismemberment and best ways to dispose of a body,” “how long before a body starts to smell” and “hacksaw best tool to dismember.”
Investigators also found searches on a laptop that included “how long for someone missing to inherit,” “how long missing to be dead,” and “can you throw away body parts,” prosecutors told the jury.
Surveillance video also showed a man resembling Walshe throwing what appeared to be heavy trash bags into a dumpster not far from the couple’s home. A subsequent search of a trash processing facility near his mother’s home uncovered bags containing a hatchet, hammer, sheers, hacksaw, towels and a protective Tyvek suit, cleaning agents, a Prada purse, boots like the ones Ana Walshe was last seen wearing and a COVID-19 vaccination card with her name.
Prosecutors told the jury that the Massachusetts State Crime Laboratory examined some of the items for DNA and found Ana and Brian Walshe’s DNA on the Tyvek suit and Ana Walshe’s DNA on the hatchet, hacksaw and other items.
There were several possible motives for the killing that were floated by prosecutors.
It could have been financial. An insurance executive testified that Brian Walshe was the sole beneficiary of Ana Walshe’s $1 million life insurance policy. But prosecutors also portrayed a marriage that was falling apart, with Brian Walshe confined at home in Massachusetts awaiting sentencing on an art fraud case while Ana Walshe worked in Washington, D.C., and commuted back home.
The year before she died, his wife had started an affair, details of which were shared in court by her boyfriend William Fastow. Brian Walshe’s attorney denied that his client knew about the affair.
In his opening, Walshe’s attorney, Larry Tipton, argued this was not a case of murder but what he called the “sudden unexplained death” of Ana Walshe. He portrayed a couple who loved each other and were planning for the future.
The couple, who have three young children now in state custody, lived in the affluent coastal community of Cohasset, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) southeast of Boston.
But Walshe’s defense never called a witness and Brian Walshe declined to testify.
When initially questioned by investigators, Walshe said his wife had been called to Washington, D.C., on New Year’s Day for a work emergency. But witnesses testified there was no evidence Ana Walshe took a ride service to the airport or boarded a flight. Walshe didn’t contact her employer until Jan. 4.
Walshe later admitted that he dismembered her body and disposed of it in dumpster, saying he did so only after panicking when he found his wife had died in bed.
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