Jurors must weigh whether or not the absence of Ana Walshe’s physique leaves sufficient affordable doubt to acquit her husband, Brian Walshe, of murdering her.
In closing arguments at Norfolk Superior Courtroom Friday morning, protection lawyer Larry Tipton and prosecutor Anne Yas gave jurors wildly divergent interpretations of the proof offered over the 10-day trial.
Tipton advised jurors that Brian Walshe was a “loving father and loving husband” who was offered with Ana Walshe’s sudden loss of life on Jan. 1, 2025, resulting in “confusion, panic, and fear.”
Brian Walshe pleaded responsible earlier than the trial started to mendacity to police about his spouse’s disappearance and mishandling her physique after she was already lifeless however maintains that he’s harmless of killing his spouse. Jurors will determine if he’s responsible of first-degree homicide, which requires premeditation, or a lesser cost of second-degree homicide, or whether or not he’s harmless.
“Mr. Walshe loved Ana Walshe, the mother of his children. There is no evidence that he premeditated murder, there is no evidence that he killed his wife,” Tipton advised jurors. “None whatsoever.”
Yas stated it was “extremely unlikely” for Ana Walshe, 39, and in “excellent health,” to have died of pure causes. As a substitute, she was the sufferer of a person who “needed her dead” to resolve his personal monetary issues.
He was going through jail resulting from conviction in a federal artwork fraud case, must forfeit greater than $400,000 in the identical case, had no property of his personal, and had his mother paying his lease, Yas stated. All of the couple’s property had been in Ana Walshe’s identify to guard them from his authorized troubles.
“No autopsy can be done. The defendant deliberately got rid of Ana’s body,” Yas stated. “He cut up Ana’s body, the woman he claimed to love, and he threw her into dumpsters. He was hiding her body.”
The case largely boils all the way down to how the jurors will interpret a collection of web searches Walshe made following Ana Walshe’s loss of life.
Tipton stated {that a} evaluation of Walshe’s Macbook search historical past confirmed no searches previous to Ana Walshe’s loss of life that might point out he had any intention or plan to kill his spouse. The grisly searches on the coronary heart of the case, on tips on how to eliminate and dismember a physique, had been carried out after her sudden loss of life and out of “confusion and fear.”
Yas stated there was loads of proof that Brian Walshe wanted Ana Walshe gone. He was trying into her lover in Washington, D.C., investigating divorce methods, and had gotten into common arguments along with her, together with a giant one on Christmas Eve, in keeping with a recording of Brian Walshe talking with police in the course of the investigation.
Yas described the scene on New Yr’s Day 2023: Ana Walshe was alone with the person she was dishonest on, who she was telling to take duty for his actions, who had her kids. “He killed her that morning.”
“The defendant set up a place in the basement, covered it with plastic sheeting, put on a Tyvek suit, and dismembered his wife, the love of his life,” Yas stated.
She stated that his web searches had been solely about disposing of a physique and didn’t embrace any about pure causes of loss of life, or tips on how to information kids by the lack of a mum or dad. She stated there was no indication he was unhappy: “Look at his demeanor in surveillance videos — he’s cool and calculating, he’s calm. He had a plan.”
“Ana was dead, the defendant killed her, and he began searching for how to get her money … He may have gotten away with it, but he didn’t know his Macbook was syncing with his child’s iPad, the same Apple ID,” Yas stated, describing how investigators discovered his web searches. “He was caught.”
It is a growing story.
