Ana Walshe was 39 years old. She was a mother of three young boys. She made $220,000 a year as a managing director at Tishman Speyer in Washington, D.C., overseeing residential properties and development projects. Her coworkers described her as a good employee who was on time or early. She received her bonuses. She had a life insurance policy worth $440,000, two times her annual salary, with her husband Brian and their three children as beneficiaries.
Today, on Day 6 of her husband's murder trial, the jury heard from nine witnesses. They heard from the medical examiner who examined items recovered from trash facilities, looking for any trace of Ana's remains. They heard from her coworker who called Brian on January 4th, 2023, asking where Ana was. They heard from a former Secret Service agent who immediately sensed something was wrong. They watched surveillance footage from Walgreens, Lowe's, CVS, Stop and Shop, and a liquor store dumpster. And they heard from a forensic scientist who spent two days testing the Walshe home for blood, finding it in the basement, on tools, on carpet, on towels, on slippers, on a Tyvec suit. Blood everywhere something terrible happened. But not everywhere the prosecution says it happened.
The day began with Dr. Richard Atkinson back on the stand. He had started his testimony Friday, walking the jury through his credentials and showing them photographs of carpet pieces recovered from a trash facility. Today, he finished. And the defense made him say something the prosecution will have to overcome: "There was no evidence at all in this case of any type of death." He paused. "Or at least there was no body to autopsy."
That admission captures the central tension of this trial. The prosecution is asking a jury to convict Brian Walshe of first-degree murder without a body, without a definitive cause of death, without an autopsy. They are building their case on circumstantial evidence: Google searches about disposing of bodies, surveillance footage of Brian buying cleaning supplies and tools, biological material found in trash and on implements. The defense has conceded almost everything. They have admitted Brian disposed of Ana's remains. They have admitted he lied to police. They have admitted he bought the tarps, the cleaning supplies, the tools. What they have not admitted is that he killed her.
Dr. Atkinson walked the jury through what he found when he examined items at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner on January 10, 2023. Normally, he explained, medical examiners examine bodies. But in this case, they had no body. They had items recovered from trash facilities. His job was to determine whether any human tissue was present on those items.
He showed the jury photographs of rolled carpet pieces with red-brown staining. He identified a blood clot approximately one-quarter inch long that he saved in a jar for DNA analysis. He found hairs that he collected and sealed in an evidence envelope. He found a metal charm, possibly jewelry, tangled in the carpet debris. He found what initially appeared to be white, clumpy, powdery material mixed with the stains. But then came the critical admission on cross-examination: upon further inspection, that powdery material was not tissue at all. It was something else entirely. The defense will remind the jury of this.
Defense attorney Tracy Miner spent over thirty minutes walking Atkinson through the medical literature on sudden unexpected death. People die suddenly, she established. Young, healthy people with no prior symptoms. Cardiac causes. Pulmonary causes. Neurological causes. Asphyxial causes. The vagal reflex pathway, where pressure on the neck can cause sudden cardiac arrest. Atkinson agreed that all of these can occur without any physical injury, without any warning, without any findings at autopsy. This is the foundation of the defense theory: Ana died suddenly from natural causes, and Brian, facing federal prison for art fraud and fearing no one would believe him, panicked and disposed of her body rather than call 911.
But on redirect, the prosecutor drove home the devastating counter-argument. Without a body to autopsy, how can anyone determine cause of death? Without examining Ana's heart, her lungs, her brain, her neck, how can anyone say she died of natural causes? The medical examiner could not determine a cause or manner of death because there was nothing to examine. And whose fault is that? The prosecution's theory is clear: Brian made sure there was no body to examine because an autopsy would have revealed what he did to her.
After the morning break, Teresa Marchese took the stand. She is the managing director of human capital management at Tishman Speyer, the company where Ana worked. She had known Ana since interviewing her in November 2021. She hired her for a role in Washington, D.C., where Ana started in February 2022. Ana's desk was about two spots away from Marchese's in their open floor plan office.
Marchese's testimony established Ana's professional life in the months before she disappeared. Ana made $220,000 base salary with bonus potential. She received life insurance worth two times her annual salary through MetLife, with Brian and the three children as beneficiaries. Ana was responsible for managing the Crossing, a residential apartment building in Southeast D.C., along with oversight of other properties including a development project called Maza Galleria. The last time Marchese saw Ana was at a women's event in the office around December 15, 2022. Ana's demeanor was normal, happy, social. Marchese saw no injuries on her.
Then came January 4th, 2023. Marchese learned that morning that Ana was missing. A coworker told her that Brian had called the Crossing team looking for Ana. Marchese decided to reach out to Brian herself. She called him from her cell phone between 10 and 11 a.m., with Jeff Chod, the head of the Washington D.C. office, present.
That first call was brief. Brian said Ana had left for a work emergency. He said it was the first time she had gone without a note. He mentioned trying to track her phone. He said he was going to file a police report. His demeanor was calm and polite.
The second call changed everything. Marchese conferenced in Hugh Dunlevy, Tishman Speyer's chief security officer and a former Secret Service agent. When Marchese introduced Dunlevy as former law enforcement, Brian's demeanor shifted. He sounded like he was crying. Then, very abruptly, he returned to normal and said okay. During this call, Brian's story changed. When asked again how Ana traveled to D.C., he now said he did not know if she drove, took a train, or flew. Dunlevy told Brian to hang up and call the police immediately.
A third call around 1 p.m. Brian said he had filed a police report and called someone named Alyssa and someone named Abdullah. He mentioned his mother wanted to hire a private investigator. His demeanor was polite, calm, the same as before. There were text messages too, ending January 5th when Brian asked if there were Tishman Speyer personnel at the Maza building. Marchese never responded. That was her last communication with Brian Walshe.
On cross-examination, the defense tried to suggest Ana faced workplace problems: a Legionnaire's disease issue at the Crossing, tenant complaints, an FBI raid at the property in April 2022. But on redirect, the prosecutor landed the final point. Despite all those issues, Ana was a good employee. She received her bonuses. The FBI raid? Ana had nothing to do with it. The workplace issues the defense raised had no impact on Ana's employment standing.
Hugh Dunlevy followed Marchese to the stand. His testimony provided perhaps the most human moment of the day. He is a former Secret Service agent who spent over twenty years protecting the President before joining Tishman Speyer as chief security officer. His job is physical security, executive protection, crisis management. His desk was about ten feet from Ana's in their open workspace. He was responsible for employee safety and security. He would be aware of any threats against employees. There were none against Ana.
On January 4th, Dunlevy heard the rumblings that no one could find Ana. He sent her a text at 10:57 a.m. asking about her health and welfare. The text did not show as delivered or read. When Marchese conferenced him into the call with Brian, Dunlevy immediately started asking questions. When was the last time Brian saw Ana? Late on December 31st or early January 1st. Why did she leave? A work emergency. How long since he had spoken to her? Three days. Is that normal? Brian said it was not atypical for them to not speak for several days, but he was now calling work to find out where she was.
Dunlevy asked how Ana got to D.C. if she was headed there for a work emergency. Did she fly? Take a train? How did she get to the airport or station? Brian said he did not know. Dunlevy asked if Brian used Find My iPhone or any technology to track his wife. Brian said no. Dunlevy told Brian it was imperative that he contact local law enforcement immediately. Brian said he had not done so yet. Dunlevy asked what department covered Cohasset. Brian did not know. Dunlevy told Brian he would call Cohasset Police himself as soon as they hung up and report Ana missing. Brian said he would do the same.
The contrast between Dunlevy's professional competence and Brian's apparent helplessness is striking. Here is a former Secret Service agent, trained to protect the most important person in the world, asking basic questions that any spouse should be able to answer. How did your wife get to the airport? I do not know. Did she drive? I do not know. Did she fly? I do not know. Do you have any way to track her phone? No. Have you called the police? No. What police department covers your town? I do not know. The prosecution wants the jury to see this as evidence that Brian was lying, that he could not answer questions because his wife had not actually left, that his ignorance was calculated to buy time while he continued disposing of evidence. The defense will argue it shows nothing more than a man in crisis who was not thinking clearly.
What happened next shows the gulf between Brian's story and the evidence. Dunlevy conducted a health and welfare check at Ana's D.C. townhouse in Friendship Heights. He brought two engineers from Tishman Speyer in case they needed to drill the locks. Metropolitan Police Department officers met them there. Brian gave verbal consent over the phone for the officers to enter. They gained access through the garage, drilled the interior garage door, and searched the residence. They found no one. They found no sign of Ana. They found no indication she had been there recently.
Later that afternoon, around 5 p.m., Brian texted Dunlevy asking if they had found Ana's car. They had not found it at the townhouse. Dunlevy began an investigation. He located the car in the garage at the Crossing, the residential building Ana managed. Video showed her entering the garage around December 30th. It was dark. She had not moved the car since. Her access card records showed the last time she entered a Tishman Speyer building was December 30th. Her last non-recurring work email was December 30th. Her last non-recurring corporate credit card charge was December 30th. Everything stopped on December 30th. And then Ana was never seen again.
After Dunlevy, the prosecution called a parade of retail employees and asset protection managers. Patricia Patterson from Walgreens in Cohasset authenticated surveillance video showing Brian at her store on January 1st, 2023, at 3:39 p.m. He bought band-aids and triple antibiotic cream. He paid with a Visa card. Total: $21.02.
Joseph Cesarz from Vinnin Liquors in Swampscott showed the jury surveillance footage from New Year's Day. His store was closed. All liquor stores in Massachusetts are closed on New Year's Day. But the cameras were rolling. And they captured Brian Walshe at the dumpster behind the store at 5:12 p.m. Cesarz recognized him. Brian. The dumpster was emptied the following Monday or Tuesday, beginning of the week.
Cade Reed from Lowe's walked the jury through surveillance footage from two stores. On January 1st at the Danvers location, a figure moved through the store at 6:05 p.m., purchasing $463.26 worth of merchandise. Cash. The receipt shows the items, though it was not read into the record during this testimony. On January 4th at the Weymouth location, another purchase at 4:24 p.m. More supplies. More cash. The prosecution is building a timeline of Brian's movements, store by store, purchase by purchase, captured on camera after camera.
Jamie Flint from CVS in Danvers showed footage from January 1st at 6:28 p.m. Self-checkout terminal 17. Five bottles of hydrogen peroxide spray. Cash. Total: $19. Gregory Denine from Stop and Shop in Swampscott showed footage from January 1st at 6:56 p.m. Self-scan register. $11.56 total. Cash. The prosecution is showing the jury that Brian Walshe spent New Year's Day buying cleaning supplies, paying in cash, moving from store to store across multiple towns.
The final witness of the day was Matthew Sheehan, a forensic scientist with the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab. He has been with the lab for over twelve years, starting as a trainee and rising to criminalistic supervisor. He has testified fifty to sixty times about evidence collection and forensic analysis. His job on January 8th and 9th, 2023, was to go to 516 Chief Justice Cushing Highway in Cohasset, the Walshe family home, and test for biological material. Specifically, blood.
Sheehan's testimony was exhaustive. He described a two-step screening test for blood: a small portion of sample goes onto a test swab, two chemicals are added, and if there is a bright pink color change, the test is positive. He described a confirmatory test that works like a pregnancy test: one line is negative, two lines is positive. He walked the jury through every room he tested, every stain he found, every sample he collected.
In the kitchen, he found a knife above the refrigerator. The screening test on the blade was positive for blood. He found bottles of hydrogen peroxide. The screening test on the bottles was negative. The sink knobs, basin, and drain were all negative. He did not test inside the dishwasher because the nature of dishwashers is to sanitize with extreme temperature, chemicals, and water.
In the basement, everything changed. Sheehan found purple stains in a back corner. The crime scene services section had used a chemical called LCV earlier in the investigation, which leaves a purple residue and turns potential blood stains purple. Sheehan identified and tested stains A through G in the basement. Every single one screened positive for blood. Stain A on the floor. Stains B, C, D, and E clustered together. Stain F on a broken bottom step. Stain G on the base of a support beam near the stairs. All positive. He returned the next day and found stain K on a different area of the basement floor. Positive. The confirmatory test on swab K from the basement floor was positive, confirming the presence of blood.
At the crime lab, Sheehan examined items submitted by investigators. The tin snips: screening test positive for blood on the blades. The hacksaw: three areas tested, all three confirmed positive for blood on areas A, B, and C. The hammer: screening test positive on the hammer face. The hatchet: screening test positive on the head. Sheehan noted something else on the hatchet, a greasy, oily substance. In his experience, when a cutting instrument is used on an individual, it can leave behind this type of substance, which is indicative of fatty tissues. The prosecutor did not ask him to elaborate. The implication hung in the air.
The carpet pieces recovered from the trash facility told the same story. Rug number one: confirmed positive for blood. Rug number two: stain A confirmed positive. Rug number three: confirmed positive on a large area of red-brown staining. Rug number four: confirmed positive. Rug number five: confirmed positive. Rug number six: confirmed positive. Rug number seven: two stains, both confirmed positive. Sheehan also collected a sample of white powdery substance from rug seven to send to another unit for identification.
The towels and cleaning materials followed the same pattern. A white towel with red-brown stains throughout: confirmed positive for blood. A second towel: confirmed positive. Tissue paper or paper towels with red-brown staining: two areas, both confirmed positive. Dark gray slippers: two areas, both confirmed positive, with additional samples taken from the unstained interior to collect potential skin cells for identification of who wore them. A Tyvec suit: four areas confirmed positive for blood, two on the exterior front pant legs, one on the back right ankle, one on the interior right sleeve. Samples were also taken from the interior sleeve cuffs to identify who may have worn the suit.
Sheehan examined hair samples from the evidence. He pulled five random hairs from a clump and examined them under a microscope, classifying all five as consistent with human hair. From another sample, he examined two hairs. One was consistent with human hair. One was consistent with animal hair. The human hair classification is significant because it suggests the debris recovered from trash facilities contained hair from a person, though hair analysis alone cannot identify whose hair it is. DNA testing on hair roots can provide identification if the roots are present and suitable for analysis.
The prosecution had built its forensic case. Blood in the basement. Blood on tools. Blood on carpet. Blood on towels. Blood on slippers. Blood on a protective suit. Hair consistent with human hair tangled in debris recovered from trash facilities. The physical evidence pointed toward something horrible happening and then being cleaned up, disposed of, hidden. The jury has now seen photographs of stained carpet, of hacksaws, of hatchets. They have heard a forensic scientist describe positive test after positive test. The cumulative weight of this evidence is substantial.
And then the defense began its cross-examination. And the picture became far more complicated.
Defense attorney Tracy Miner established that multiple officers had been in and out of the Walshe home for days before Sheehan arrived on January 8th. They had not worn protective garments. They had not worn booties. They had walked through rooms, inspected areas, potentially contaminated the scene. Sheehan conceded he cannot tell the jury how certain biological samples were first deposited in certain areas of the home. He cannot establish when the blood got where it was found. He cannot rule out that samples were moved or transferred during the days of investigation before his testing.
Then Miner walked Sheehan through the second floor of the house. The prosecution's theory suggests something happened to Ana in the master bedroom or nearby. If Brian killed his wife, the murder scene should show evidence of violence. Blood. Biological material. Signs of struggle or trauma.
Sheehan tested the second floor. He examined both bathrooms. He tested the faucet handles, the logical place to find blood if someone washed their hands after violence. He tested the drains, where blood would flow if someone cleaned up. He tested the shower areas. Every test was negative. No blood in either bathroom on the second floor.
In the front left bedroom, Sheehan noticed white residue on the floor and an area where the varnish appeared to have been removed. This was on January 9th. He had not noticed it on January 8th. Crime scene services removed a portion of the flooring in that room. Sheehan examined the subfloor underneath. He found nothing. No blood. No biological substance. Nothing forensically significant. The flooring planks themselves showed nothing. The joints between the planks showed nothing. The subfloor showed nothing.
The same bedroom had a hole in the ceiling. Sheehan did not test around the hole. He looked at the insulation above it. It appeared undisturbed, as if no one had been up in the attic. The pieces of ceiling that had been removed were kept in a drawer in the room. Sheehan visualized them. No staining. No forensic significance. There was a bed in the room with sheets and bedding still intact. Sheehan did not test the bedding. There were no visible stains.
The defense pressed on occult blood, meaning non-visible blood that can be detected with special testing. Sheehan confirmed they have the capability to test for occult blood. They did not use it in that bedroom. They saw no reason to. There was nothing that made them think blood was present that they could not see.
The stairs from the second floor to the first floor were hardwood. Sheehan examined them visually. Nothing. The walls along the stairs. Nothing. The railings. Nothing. The defense delivered its summary with devastating clarity: from the second floor bedroom with the hole in the ceiling, to both bathrooms, down the stairs to the first floor, Sheehan found nothing whatsoever forensically significant. No blood. No biological evidence. Nothing to suggest a murder occurred in those spaces.
The court ended for the day on that point. The jury will return to hear more. But the question now hanging over this trial is profound. The prosecution has shown blood throughout the basement, on tools found in trash, on carpet recovered from a transfer station. But they have not shown blood in the spaces where you would expect to find evidence of a violent death. If Ana was killed in her home, where is the murder scene? If there was a struggle, where are the signs? If Brian Walshe beat his wife to death, why is there blood in the basement and on disposal implements but nothing on the second floor where the family slept?
The defense has an answer. Ana died of natural causes, possibly sudden unexplained death. Brian found her, panicked, and made the worst decisions imaginable. He researched how to dispose of a body. He bought supplies. He dismembered her remains. He put them in trash bags and drove them to dumpsters across the South Shore. Everything the prosecution has shown is consistent with disposal. But disposal is not murder. Disposal happens after death. The question is what caused the death.
The prosecution has an answer too. Brian cleaned up. He used hydrogen peroxide, which can destroy DNA evidence. He sanitized the murder scene while the basement, which was not the murder scene, retained evidence. The absence of blood upstairs shows how thoroughly he cleaned, not that nothing happened there. And the medical examiner cannot determine cause of death because Brian made sure there was no body to examine.
Both theories explain the evidence. Both are internally consistent. The jury will have to decide which one they believe beyond a reasonable doubt.
Day 6 was a tale of two cases being tried simultaneously. The prosecution presented a methodical, exhaustive accumulation of evidence: surveillance footage from six different retail locations, forensic testing that found blood on nearly everything associated with disposal, and testimony establishing that Ana Walshe effectively vanished from the digital world on December 30th, 2022.
The story the prosecution is telling is straightforward. Brian Walshe killed his wife sometime around New Year's Day. He then spent days covering his tracks. On January 1st, he bought cleaning supplies at multiple stores, paying cash to avoid leaving a trail. He visited the dumpster behind a closed liquor store. Over subsequent days, he continued buying supplies, disposing of evidence, and lying to everyone who asked where Ana was. The biological evidence found on tools and in trash facilities proves that Ana's remains were dismembered and discarded.
Consider what the jury watched today. They saw Brian Walshe captured on surveillance cameras at Walgreens buying band-aids and antibiotic cream. Why would someone need band-aids and antibiotic cream on New Year's Day? The prosecution wants the jury to infer he injured himself during the alleged killing or disposal. They saw him at Lowe's spending over $450 in cash. Cash leaves no trail. Self-checkout leaves no clerk to remember your face. They saw him at CVS buying hydrogen peroxide. Five bottles. Hydrogen peroxide can clean blood. It can destroy DNA evidence. It can sanitize a crime scene. They saw him at a liquor store dumpster on a day every liquor store in Massachusetts was closed. What was he doing there if not disposing of something he did not want found?
The timeline the prosecution has constructed is damning. December 30th: Ana last accesses a Tishman Speyer building, last uses her work email for a non-recurring message, last uses her corporate credit card. December 31st or January 1st: According to Brian's own statements, the last time he saw Ana alive. January 1st starting at 4:52 a.m.: Google searches on the family iPad about body disposal, decomposition, dismemberment, how long before a body smells. January 1st throughout the day: Brian on camera at multiple stores buying supplies, visiting dumpsters. January 2nd and beyond: More purchases, more trips, more lies. January 4th: Brian calls Ana's workplace asking if anyone has seen her, triggering the investigation that would ultimately lead to his arrest.
The surveillance footage is particularly powerful because it is silent and objective. There is no witness to cross-examine, no memory to challenge, no bias to expose. The camera captured what it captured. Brian was there. He bought those items. He paid cash. The timestamps are what they are. The prosecution does not need to argue about what the footage shows. They need only play it and let the jury draw conclusions.
But footage of purchasing supplies is not footage of murder. The prosecution must bridge the gap between what the cameras captured, which is a man buying things, and what they claim happened, which is a man killing his wife. That bridge is built from inference and circumstantial reasoning. Why would an innocent man buy five bottles of hydrogen peroxide? Why would he visit a dumpster behind a closed store? Why would he pay cash for hundreds of dollars of supplies at multiple locations? The prosecution says the answers are obvious. The defense says the answers could be many things, including desperate cover-up of a death Brian did not cause.
The defense is telling a different story. Ana died suddenly, unexpectedly, for reasons that will never be known because there is no body to autopsy. Brian, already facing federal prison for art fraud and knowing how suspicious it would look for his wife to die while he was under house arrest, panicked. He made catastrophic decisions. He disposed of her body instead of calling 911. Everything the prosecution has shown proves the disposal, not the murder. And proof of disposal is not proof of killing.
Think about what the defense is asking the jury to believe. A healthy 39-year-old woman dies in her sleep or suddenly without warning. Her husband, who is already facing years in federal prison for an art fraud conviction, finds her dead. He knows that if he calls 911, he will be the prime suspect. He knows his house arrest ankle monitor will show he was home. He knows police will look at him first, last, and always. In a moment of absolute panic, he makes a decision that will haunt him forever: he will make the body disappear rather than face an investigation he is convinced will blame him for a death he did not cause.
Is this believable? The defense does not need the jury to find it likely. They need the jury to find it possible. They need the jury to conclude that this explanation cannot be ruled out beyond a reasonable doubt. If even one juror thinks there is a reasonable possibility that Ana died naturally and Brian only covered it up, they cannot convict him of murder.
The jury heard both narratives today. They watched the medical examiner admit that sudden unexplained death happens in healthy adults without any physical injury, without any warning, without any findings at autopsy. Dr. Atkinson was careful to call it rare. He emphasized that in a healthy adult female age 39, such deaths are very uncommon. But he did not say impossible. He could not. Because they happen. Medical literature documents them. The defense has planted that seed.
They also watched the forensic scientist describe blood confirmed positive on hacksaws and hatchets and hammers. They saw surveillance footage of Brian moving through stores on New Year's Day, buying hydrogen peroxide and cleaning supplies. They heard that Ana's car sat untouched in a garage since December 30th, that her email and credit cards went silent, that her access to buildings stopped. All of that is consistent with murder. It is also consistent with death followed by disposal. The question is whether the prosecution has proven which one occurred.
What will the jury remember when they deliberate? The prosecutor hopes they remember the hacksaw with three areas positive for blood. The hatchet with greasy, oily substance indicative of fatty tissue. The Tyvec suit with blood on the exterior and samples taken from the interior sleeves to identify who wore it. The defense hopes they remember that from the second floor bedroom down through both bathrooms and the stairs, there was nothing forensically significant. That the prosecution's own expert could not determine cause or manner of death. That without a body, no one can prove murder.
Deliberation psychology tells us that jurors tend to remember vivid details and emotional moments more than dry recitations of evidence. The surveillance footage is vivid. Brian moving through a Lowe's. Brian at a dumpster behind a closed store. The forensic testimony is less vivid but more damning. Blood on the hacksaw blade. Blood on the hatchet head. Greasy substance indicative of fatty tissue. Those phrases will stick with some jurors. The defense's point about the missing murder scene evidence is logical and important, but it requires the jury to think abstractly about what should be there rather than respond emotionally to what is there.
The prosecution benefits from the sheer accumulation of evidence. Surveillance video after surveillance video. Receipt after receipt. Blood sample after blood sample. The weight of it is overwhelming. The defense benefits from the focused nature of reasonable doubt. They do not need to explain everything. They only need to create doubt about one essential element: whether Brian caused Ana's death.
The emotional weight of the day came not from dramatic testimony but from the accumulation of small details. Teresa Marchese describing how Brian's demeanor shifted when a former Secret Service agent joined the call. Hugh Dunlevy asking basic questions that Brian could not answer. The liquor store manager recognizing Brian at the dumpster on a day the store was closed. The forensic scientist methodically documenting blood on item after item, sample after sample, stain A through stain K. The prosecution is burying the defense in evidence. The question is whether any of it proves the actual killing.
There is also the question of sympathy. Who does the jury feel for? Ana is dead. Her children have lost their mother. Her family in Serbia follows the trial from afar. Brian, whatever else he may be, is the father of those same children. He is a man who was already facing years in federal prison before this happened. He is a man who, if the defense theory is believed, made the worst possible decision in a moment of absolute crisis. The prosecution wants the jury to see him as a calculated killer. The defense wants them to see him as a desperate man who panicked. Neither portrait is sympathetic. But one leads to life in prison and the other does not.
This trial raises fundamental questions about burden of proof in cases where no body is recovered. The prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Brian Walshe murdered Ana. That means proving she is dead, that he caused her death, and that he acted with deliberate premeditation. Without a body, they cannot point to wounds, cannot identify a cause of death through autopsy, cannot show the mechanism of killing. They must build their case entirely on circumstantial evidence.
No-body murder cases have a long and complicated history in American jurisprudence. For centuries, the common law presumed that without a body, murder could not be proven. The phrase corpus delicti, Latin for "body of the crime," was interpreted literally: no body, no crime. This changed gradually as courts recognized that requiring a body would allow murderers to escape justice simply by disposing of their victims effectively enough. Today, prosecutors can and do win murder convictions without recovering remains. But the burden of proof remains high, and the challenges are significant.
The first challenge is proving death itself. Without a body, how does the prosecution prove Ana Walshe is dead rather than missing? They do so through circumstantial evidence. Ana had no reason to disappear. She had a successful career, three children, family who loved her. She stopped using her email, her phone, her credit cards, her access credentials. She has not been seen by anyone in nearly three years. Her biological material was found on implements of dismemberment recovered from trash facilities. The totality of this evidence supports the conclusion that Ana is dead. But the defense could theoretically argue she is merely missing, though they have not taken that approach.
The second challenge is proving the defendant caused the death. This is where the prosecution's case faces its greatest vulnerability. They have substantial evidence that Brian disposed of Ana's remains. The surveillance footage, the receipts, the biological evidence on tools, the Google searches about body disposal, all of it points to Brian as the person who dismembered and discarded his wife's body. But disposal is a separate crime from murder. One can dispose of a body without having killed the person. The question is whether the disposal evidence proves the killing.
The prosecution argues it does. Their theory is that consciousness of guilt connects the disposal to the murder. If Brian were innocent, why would he dismember his wife and throw her remains in dumpsters? Why not call 911? Why not report her death? The answer, they argue, is obvious: he killed her and knew he would be caught if her body were examined. The disposal proves the murder because only a killer would have reason to prevent an autopsy.
The defense has a response to this. Brian had reason to fear investigation even if he did not kill Ana. He was already facing years in federal prison for art fraud. He was under house arrest. His ankle monitor would show he was home when Ana died. He knew police would suspect him immediately. In a moment of absolute panic, believing he would be blamed for something he did not do, he made the catastrophic decision to hide her death rather than report it. This explanation is not flattering to Brian. It portrays him as someone capable of dismembering his wife's body rather than face police questioning. But it is not murder.
Circumstantial evidence can absolutely support a murder conviction. Courts have long held that circumstantial evidence is not inherently less valuable than direct evidence. A fingerprint at a crime scene is circumstantial. DNA on a weapon is circumstantial. Flight from jurisdiction is circumstantial. Juries evaluate circumstantial evidence every day and reach verdicts based on it.
But the burden of proof does not change. The prosecution must prove every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. If the jury believes there is a reasonable possibility that Ana died of natural causes and Brian only disposed of her body afterward, they cannot convict him of murder. They might convict him of improper conveyance of human remains. They might convict him of misleading investigators. But he has already pleaded guilty to those charges. The only question before this jury is murder.
The defense strategy of conceding everything except the murder itself is high-risk but potentially brilliant. By admitting that Brian disposed of Ana's remains, the defense has taken away the prosecution's ability to argue consciousness of guilt from the cover-up. The cover-up is admitted. The disposal is admitted. The lies are admitted. But none of that proves Brian killed Ana. It only proves he hid her death.
This strategy has historical precedent. There have been cases, rare but documented, where defendants admitted to disposing of bodies but were acquitted of murder because the prosecution could not prove the cause of death. The reasoning is straightforward: disposal after death is not the same as causing death. A person who finds a body and panics, who makes terrible decisions about what to do, who lies and covers up and destroys evidence, has committed crimes. But those crimes are not murder unless the person also caused the death they are covering up.
My father, Steven M. Askin, would have understood this strategy immediately. He spent his career defending people the system had already decided were guilty. He knew that the prosecution's job is to prove its case, not to have the defense prove innocence. He knew that admitting lesser wrongdoing can sometimes save a client from greater consequences. The defense is not arguing Brian is a good person. They are arguing the state cannot prove he is a murderer.
The forensic testimony today illustrated both the strength and weakness of the prosecution's case. They have blood evidence everywhere Brian allegedly disposed of remains. The basement. The tools. The carpet. The towels. But they have no blood evidence where the murder allegedly occurred. The second floor. The bedrooms. The bathrooms. The stairs. If Brian beat his wife to death violently enough to require a hacksaw and hatchet for disposal, where is the evidence of that violence in the living spaces?
This gap matters more than the prosecution might like. Violent deaths leave evidence. Blood spray. Impact spatter. Transfer stains. Hair and tissue. Unless the victim is killed elsewhere and brought to the disposal location, there should be evidence of violence at the scene of the killing. The prosecution's theory is that Brian killed Ana in their home and then cleaned up so thoroughly that no evidence remains upstairs while the basement retained multiple areas positive for blood. Is that plausible?
The prosecution will argue Brian cleaned up. He bought hydrogen peroxide. He sanitized the murder scene. The absence of evidence upstairs shows how thoroughly he destroyed it, not that nothing happened. But this argument asks the jury to infer that evidence once existed based on its absence. That is a logical leap some jurors may not be willing to make. The defense will counter that if Brian were capable of cleaning the murder scene so completely, why did he leave blood evidence throughout the basement? Why was the basement missed in the cleaning while the upstairs was sanitized perfectly?
The Fourth Amendment protections that govern evidence collection were not at issue today, but they loom over this case. The defense has already challenged the scope of consent Brian gave when he turned over his devices during the missing person investigation. The judge ruled against the defense on that motion, finding the incriminating Google searches were in plain view during an authorized search. But the defense established today that the crime scene itself may have been compromised by officers moving through without protective gear. Chain of custody matters. Scene integrity matters. When the defense can show that evidence handling was imperfect, they create doubt about what the evidence proves.
There is a deeper constitutional principle at work here, one my father understood in his bones. The prosecution bears the burden of proof because the consequences of conviction are severe. We do not send people to prison for life based on suspicion, on probability, on the balance of evidence. We require proof beyond a reasonable doubt because liberty is precious and because the state's power to take it must be constrained. This principle protects the guilty sometimes. That is the price we pay for a system that also protects the innocent. The question in every trial is whether the evidence crosses that high threshold. In this case, the answer is not yet clear.
Six days into this trial, the prosecution has presented its forensic foundation. The jury has seen the Google searches. They have heard from the detective who interviewed Brian. They have watched the medical examiner examine items from trash facilities. They have seen surveillance footage and receipts and access records. They have heard a forensic scientist describe blood confirmed positive on tool after tool.
The shape of the case is becoming clear. The prosecution is building a wall of evidence, brick by brick, witness by witness. Each piece alone might not prove murder. But together, they argue, the pieces form an inescapable picture. Brian Walshe researched how to dispose of a body before anyone knew Ana was dead. He bought supplies consistent with cleaning up a crime scene and disposing of remains. He lied to everyone about where Ana was. Biological material matching disposal was found on implements of dismemberment. The totality points to murder.
The defense is looking for holes in that wall. They found a significant one today. The murder scene evidence is missing. From the second floor bedroom down through both bathrooms and the stairs, the forensic scientist found nothing. If the prosecution's theory is that Brian killed Ana in their home, beat her violently enough that dismemberment was necessary, where is the evidence of that violence? Blood spray? Gone. Impact spatter? Gone. Transfer stains? Gone. The prosecution says Brian cleaned up. The defense says there was nothing to clean up because the murder did not happen.
What remains? DNA evidence will be critical. The forensic scientist testified today about samples prepared for DNA analysis. Samples from the hacksaw. Samples from the hatchet. Samples from the carpet. Samples from the towels. Samples from the slippers with material from inside to identify who wore them. Samples from the Tyvec suit with material from the interior sleeve cuffs. The jury will eventually hear whether that DNA matches Ana Walshe. If it does, the prosecution has scientific proof that Ana's biological material was on the tools and carpet recovered from trash. If the DNA is inconclusive or does not match, the defense has a powerful argument that the prosecution cannot even prove whose blood was found.
The DNA testimony will also address the identity question in another way. The samples from inside the slippers and the Tyvec suit interior were taken to identify who wore those items. If Brian's DNA is found on the interior of the Tyvec suit, the prosecution has proof he wore the protective gear while doing something that got blood on the exterior. That is powerful evidence of involvement in the disposal. The defense will have to explain why Brian would wear a Tyvec suit to dispose of a body if he had nothing to do with the death.
The defense has not yet presented its case. When they do, expect to hear more about sudden unexplained death. Expect medical experts to testify that healthy 39-year-old women can die without warning from cardiac arrhythmia, pulmonary embolism, or other causes that leave no trace. Expect arguments about the impossibility of proving murder without a body, without an autopsy, without definitive cause of death.
The defense may also address the motive evidence more directly. The prosecution has alleged multiple motives: avoiding federal prison, life insurance, the alleged affair. But each motive has weaknesses. Brian would need Ana declared dead to collect life insurance, a process that can take seven years in Massachusetts without a body. If his goal was financial gain, disposing of the body makes collection nearly impossible. The affair motive assumes Brian cared enough about his marriage to kill over it, but also hated Ana enough to dismember her. These are not necessarily contradictory, but they are not obviously consistent either.
The prosecution's closing argument will likely focus on the totality of the evidence. No single piece proves murder alone. But taken together, they will argue, the evidence tells a story that admits no other interpretation. Brian researched body disposal starting at 4:52 a.m. on January 1st. He bought supplies. He disposed of remains. He lied to everyone. The biological evidence matches the disposal timeline. The motive was there: avoiding prison, the alleged affair, the life insurance. The means were there: blunt force trauma followed by dismemberment. The opportunity was there: alone with Ana in their home while under house arrest.
The defense's closing will focus on reasonable doubt. They will remind the jury that the prosecution must prove its case, not require the defense to disprove it. They will point to the missing murder scene evidence on the second floor. They will emphasize the medical examiner's admission that sudden death can occur without any physical findings. They will argue that disposal is not murder, that panic is not premeditation, that the worst decision of Brian's life was covering up a death he did not cause.
They will likely ask the jury to consider what they would do in Brian's position. Imagine you are under house arrest facing years in federal prison. Your wife dies suddenly in the night. You call 911 and the police arrive. What do they see? A man already convicted of fraud, alone with his dead wife, with an ankle monitor proving he was home. Will they believe you? Will anyone believe you? Or will they assume the worst and charge you with murder? Some people, facing that calculation, would tell the truth and trust the system. Others might make a different choice.
This argument does not make Brian sympathetic. It does not excuse what he did. It does not suggest he is a good person. But it does suggest an alternative explanation for the evidence. And alternative explanations are what reasonable doubt is made of.
For Ana's family watching from the gallery or following from Serbia, every day of this trial must be agonizing. They lost Ana. They may never know exactly how or why. If Brian is convicted, they will have legal closure but perhaps not emotional closure. If he is acquitted of murder, they will have to live with the knowledge that the system could not prove what happened to their daughter, their sister, their mother.
For Brian's three sons, the situation is almost impossible to comprehend. Their mother is gone. Their father is accused of killing her. Whatever the verdict, their lives are shattered. If their father is convicted, they grow up knowing he murdered their mother. If he is acquitted, they grow up with questions that will never have answers. Either way, both of their parents have been taken from them. Ana is dead. Brian is either going to prison for life or returning to a world where everyone believes he killed his wife even if the jury could not convict him.
The children are the true victims of this tragedy regardless of what the verdict is. Three boys who lost their mother in circumstances so horrific that the details have been broadcast across the nation. Three boys whose father either killed their mother or dismembered her body after finding her dead. There is no version of this story that gives those children a normal life. There is no verdict that restores what they have lost.
The DNA evidence will be pivotal. When the DNA analyst testifies, listen for whether the samples match Ana Walshe. If the DNA on the hacksaw, the hatchet, the carpet, the towels is confirmed to be Ana's, the prosecution has scientific proof of her remains on implements of dismemberment. If the DNA is mixed, degraded, or inconclusive, the defense will argue the state cannot prove whose blood was found.
Pay particular attention to the DNA results from the interior of the Tyvec suit and the slippers. These samples were taken specifically to identify who wore those items. If Brian's DNA is found inside the suit, the prosecution has proof he wore protective gear while engaging in activity that got blood on the outside. That is circumstantial evidence of involvement in disposal that is very difficult to explain away. Similarly, if Ana's DNA is found inside the slippers along with blood on the exterior, the prosecution can argue she was wearing them when she was harmed.
Watch for how the prosecution addresses the missing forensic evidence on the second floor. They need to explain why the alleged murder scene shows no blood while the basement and disposal implements are covered in it. Their theory will likely be thorough cleaning with hydrogen peroxide, but they need to make that theory persuasive. The defense will counter that if Brian could clean one area so thoroughly, why did he leave evidence elsewhere?
The prosecution may address this by arguing the basement was the processing location, not the murder scene. Perhaps Brian killed Ana elsewhere in the house, then brought her body to the basement for dismemberment. The blood in the basement would then be from the disposal process rather than the killing itself. This theory would explain why the upstairs is clean (no dismemberment there) while the basement has evidence (dismemberment occurred there). But it still requires the jury to accept that the murder scene itself was cleaned perfectly.
Watch for the defense's medical expert testimony when their case begins. The sudden unexplained death theory requires scientific support. Dr. Atkinson acknowledged such deaths occur but called them rare in healthy adult females. The defense needs an expert who will say it is not just possible but plausible that Ana died naturally. They need testimony about specific conditions that cause sudden death without warning and without autopsy findings. They need to give the jury a medical framework for believing their theory.
The defense may also call experts to challenge the forensic evidence. Chain of custody issues, scene contamination from officers moving through without protective gear, the LCV chemical that complicates confirmatory testing. Every weakness in the prosecution's forensic case is an opportunity for the defense to create doubt.
Watch for how both sides address motive. The prosecution has alleged multiple motives: avoiding federal prison, life insurance, the alleged affair. The defense has challenged each one, noting that Brian would need Ana declared dead to collect insurance (a process that takes years) and that he seemed to be planning a future with her based on the dinner reservations and Porsche shopping in the days before New Year's. Motive is not an element the prosecution must prove, but juries expect it. A senseless killing is harder to believe than one with clear motivation.
The prosecution will likely argue the motives are cumulative rather than singular. Brian was not driven by one thing. He faced prison. His wife was allegedly having an affair. They had argued. He saw an opportunity to solve multiple problems at once. This theory does not require any single motive to be overwhelming. It requires only that Brian had reasons, plural, to want Ana gone.
Watch for whether Brian Walshe testifies. The defense does not have to put their client on the stand. The prosecution cannot comment on the defendant's failure to testify. But jurors often want to hear from the accused. If Brian testifies, he will have to explain his actions. Why the Google searches? Why the purchases? Why the disposal? Why the lies? His answers could save him or destroy him. If he does not testify, the jury will have only the prosecution's narrative about his mental state and motivations.
Watch the jury. They have now heard six days of testimony. They have seen graphic evidence and heard emotional testimony. They have been asked to hold two competing narratives in their minds. As the trial continues, watch for signs of which narrative is resonating. Body language, attention levels, note-taking patterns can all provide clues, though ultimately we will not know what they are thinking until they render a verdict.
Pay attention to how the jury responds to technical forensic testimony versus emotional human testimony. Some jurors respond more strongly to scientific evidence, finding it objective and reliable. Others respond more to human stories, finding the emotional truth more compelling than technical details. The prosecution needs both types of jurors to convict. The defense needs only to connect with one or two who have doubts.
The defense ended Day 6 on a powerful point: from the second floor bedroom down through both bathrooms and the stairs, the forensic scientist found nothing. No blood. No biological evidence. Nothing forensically significant. If Brian murdered Ana in their home, where is the murder scene?
This is not a rhetorical question. It is the central challenge the prosecution faces in this case. They have mountains of evidence about what happened after Ana died. The Google searches. The purchases. The surveillance footage. The biological material on tools. The carpet in the trash. But they have precious little evidence about what happened at the moment of death. No eyewitness. No confession. No murder weapon definitively identified. No crime scene with evidence of violence.
Here is what I want you to consider:
If someone told you they dismembered a body using a hacksaw and hatchet, would you believe them capable of murder? Or would you need separate proof that they caused the death before disposing of it? The defense is asking the jury to separate those two acts. The disposal is admitted. But disposal after death is different from causing the death.
This is not an abstract legal question. It goes to the heart of how we think about guilt. If you learned that your neighbor had dismembered and disposed of a body, would you assume they had killed the person? Most people would. The defense is betting that jurors can resist that assumption and focus solely on what the evidence proves. The evidence proves disposal. Does it prove murder?
Can you hold those two thoughts simultaneously? Brian Walshe did terrible things after Ana died. But that does not prove he killed her. Is that a distinction that matters to you? Or does the disposal tell you everything you need to know about what happened before?
Think about it from Brian's perspective, assuming for a moment the defense theory is true. Your wife dies suddenly. You have no idea why. You are already facing federal prison. You know you will be blamed. You know police will assume the worst. In a moment of absolute panic and terrible judgment, you decide to hide the death rather than report it. You research how to do it. You buy supplies. You do things no sane, innocent person would do. But you do them because you are not sane in that moment. You are terrified and making catastrophic decisions under extreme stress. Is that believable? Is it possible?
Now think about it from the prosecution's perspective. A man researches body disposal starting at 4:52 a.m. on January 1st. His wife was alive the day before. Within hours, he is searching for how long before a body smells, what happens to a body in garbage, how to dismember a body. He spends the day buying cleaning supplies and visiting dumpsters. Over the next several days, he continues buying, disposing, lying. Blood is found on hacksaws and hatchets. Carpet with blood stains is found in trash facilities. And you want the jury to believe this man did not kill his wife? That she just happened to die and he just happened to research disposal and execute it with this level of planning and efficiency?
The prosecution says the clean second floor proves how thoroughly Brian covered his tracks. The defense says it proves no murder happened there. Both interpretations fit the evidence. Which one do you find more persuasive, and why?
Consider this: if Brian killed Ana violently enough that dismemberment was necessary, would that violence leave no trace in the bedroom, the bathroom, the stairs? The prosecution says he cleaned it all. The defense says there was nothing to clean. Which is more plausible to you?
And consider this: if Ana died naturally and Brian only disposed of her body, why did he not simply report her death? He had no criminal record related to violence. He had no history of domestic abuse. Yes, he was facing prison for art fraud, but adding murder charges to that situation makes everything worse, not better. Would a rational person facing federal prison for fraud decide that the solution is to dismember their wife's body and risk a first-degree murder charge?
The answer, the defense will argue, is that Brian was not rational. He was panicked. He was terrified. He made terrible decisions in a moment of crisis. Panic does not make someone a murderer. Bad judgment does not make someone a killer. The defense does not need to prove Brian was smart or rational. They need to prove reasonable doubt about whether he committed murder.
Watch the moment the defense establishes nothing was found from the second floor down. Watch the jury if you can see them. This is the heart of the defense case: the state cannot prove where or how Ana died, only that Brian disposed of her afterward. Is that enough reasonable doubt to acquit? Or does the totality of the evidence overcome it?
Justice is a process. That process requires us to watch, to question, to hold the system accountable for proving its case before taking someone's freedom. Whether Brian Walshe is guilty or innocent, he is entitled to that process. Ana Walshe, wherever her remains may be, deserves a process that finds the truth. Those goals are not always compatible. But pursuing both is what makes our system worthy of the name justice.
The trial continues. The evidence accumulates. The jury listens. And somewhere in that courtroom, truth is waiting to be found. Whether the system finds it is up to the witnesses, the lawyers, the judge, and ultimately twelve people who will have to decide what they believe happened in that house on New Year's Day 2023.
What do you believe? Watch the evidence. Consider the arguments. And remember that in our system, believing someone probably did something is not enough. We require proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That standard exists to protect the innocent, even if it sometimes protects the guilty. It is the foundation of American criminal justice. And it is the question this jury must answer: Has the prosecution proven, beyond reasonable doubt, that Brian Walshe murdered Ana?