A Massachusetts jury found Brian Walshe guilty of first-degree murder Monday, siding with prosecutors who accused the convicted fraudster of killing his wife and dismembering her body three years ago.
The verdict came after nearly two weeks of testimony in Norfolk County Superior Court, southwest of Boston. The jury began deliberating Friday afternoon.
In closing arguments, prosecutors said that Walshe, 50, methodically cut up the body of Ana Walshe, 39, and disposed of her body in dumpsters.
“He needed her dead,” said Norfolk County Assistant District Attorney Anne Yas told the jury. "This was a marriage in crisis."
Prosecutors have alleged that Walshe was motivated by money — he was the sole beneficiary of his wife’s $2.7 million life insurance policy — and by an affair she was having with a realtor in Washington, D.C.
Walshe's attorneys rejected those allegations, calling him a loving husband and father who didn't know about the affair.
Defense attorney Larry Tipton said that Ana Walshe died a sudden, unexplained death. When Brian Walshe found her unresponsive in their bed after celebrating the holiday with a friend at their home, he panicked and began searching the internet for how best to dispose of a body, Tipton said.
Tipton said his client thought no one would believe that Ana Walshe was “alive one minute and dead the next.”
Norfolk County Superior Court Judge Diane Freniere said Thursday that Brian Walshe had planned on testifying, though moments later Tipton said he would not take the stand. Walshe’s lawyers called no witnesses to testify in his defense.
Walshe pleaded guilty last month to two lesser charges linked to his wife's death — misleading a police investigation and improper disposal of her body. He has not been sentenced for those crimes.
Walshe was previously convicted of fraud in a separate federal case.
Ana Walshe disappeared after the New Year's celebration at the couple's home. Her body has never been found.
Brian Walshe told authorities that she'd traveled that morning to Washington, D.C., for a work emergency, though his attorney conceded that he lied to police in those interviews.
And evidence presented by prosecutors at trial showed that beginning in the early morning hours of Jan. 1, 2023, Walshe scoured the internet for information related to dead bodies — "can you identify a body with broken teeth" and "how to saw a body" were among them — and bought hundreds of dollars in cleaning supplies, cutting tools and a Tyvek suit.
Days later, and miles from the couple's home, prosecutors alleged, Walshe dumped many of the products he'd bought, along with some of his wife's belongings.