Brian Walshe’s trial is coming to an end. Here’s what you need to know about the unusual court proceedings
Jurors entered deliberations on Walshe’s murder trial after the defense declined to call Walshe to the stand as they originally intended.
Ana Walshe, a 39-year-old mother of three and real estate executive living in a suburb south of Boston, was reported missing in the early days of 2023. Her husband, Brian, 50, says he found her dead in their bed on New Year’s Day and, in a panic, disposed of her body and lied to police about it. Prosecutors say Brian Walshe killed his wife.
Walshe pleaded guilty to charges of misleading the police and improper conveyance of a human body last month. Now, jurors are deliberating a first-degree murder charge.
The case captured national media attention in part due to the shocking evidence. The prosecution presented video and a receipt from Walshe buying items like a hacksaw, hatchet, mop and bucket. They also showed his search history, which had inquiries into the best way to dispose of a body and a cellphone, and how to clean blood stains from a hardwood floor.
Daniel Medwed, a distinguished professor of law and criminal justice at Northeastern University, said the trial had other interesting twists as it unfolded over the last two weeks, and he broke down what to know and what to expect. Answers have been edited for length and clarity.
Jurors are currently in deliberation. How long do you think it’ll take for them to come to a decision and what do you think will be the outcome?
A rule of thumb for jury deliberations is the sooner they come back, the greater the likelihood it’s a guilty verdict. It suggests unanimity. The longer it drags on, it suggests that one or more of the jurors are struggling. There are two possibilities: murder in the first degree and murder in the second degree. Even if this drags on, it’s possible that they’re just trying to figure out which of those charges is appropriate.
In terms of predictions, in law school we learn this Latin phrase: res ipsa loquitur, the thing speaks for itself. You chop up and discard the body parts of your wife, that suggests you killed her. This idea that he panicked because of some sudden death does not comport with common sense. I would be shocked if it were not a guilty verdict.
Last month, Brian Walshe changed his plea on the lesser charges in the case and pleaded guilty to misleading police and improperly disposing of his wife’s body. Why do you think that is?
You’re trained in law school, especially as a defense lawyer, to concede what you can and challenge what you can’t. The evidence was overwhelming against him for misleading the police and for improperly conveying the body. The video evidence, the digital evidence, the interviews were overwhelming. He was pretty much a certainty to go down on those charges.
By pleading guilty to those two, it meant that the entirety of the trial was about the toughest element for the government to prove, that he caused her death. If you know you’re going to lose, it makes sense to plead guilty. It will make the trial more focused on the prosecution’s weakest element.
The defense said they were going to call witnesses to the stand, including Walshe himself, but shocked everyone by not calling any witnesses. What do you make of this decision?
On one hand, it’s not unusual. The defense is not compelled to call any witnesses. The defense is not even required to put on a case at all because the burden in a criminal case is entirely borne by the prosecution.
On the other hand, the defense’s opening statement promised a defense case and then failed to deliver on it. They may have decided to preserve the option by intimating that he would testify. Maybe they were uncertain all along. But it’s possible over the course of the trial, they realized that he wouldn’t fare that well on the stand.
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In addition, he would get destroyed on cross-examination. It would have been a very risky move. Not only could he be impeached with his art fraud conviction, which goes to his character for truthfulness as a witness, but he could be impeached with lots of prior, inconsistent statements that he had made to the police.
Jurors saw some pretty graphic evidence over the course of the trial, including Walshe shopping for items that could be used to dismember a body. What role do you think this will play in the jury’s decision and will they be able to use this to prove he committed the murder?
Emotion is almost always an inherent part of a murder trial. Rules of evidence try to mitigate the potential risk through instructions and admonitions about looking at the evidence and trying to use your common sense, but it’s human nature. That’s going to be a part of it.
But the rules are pretty clear that the government has to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. You can’t fill in those gaps with an assumption that he did this. I think jurors will struggle with it. But there’s a lot of circumstantial evidence pointing to the fact that he killed her. Jurors might be able to overcome the absence of direct evidence by focusing on the circumstantial evidence that creates an inference of murder.
The prosecutors also presented Walshe’s Google searches. Internet search histories also came up in the Karen Read trial. How much weight can and should be given to these?
It’s very damning evidence because it essentially goes to state of mind. We all make Google searches, and to some extent, that reflects what we’re thinking. It’s a way of getting access to people’s desires, thoughts and predilections. It’s an interesting issue and no doubt will crop up again and again.
The fact that he made (so many) very precise and harrowing Google searches was really harmful to him and his case. It may have also been one of the reasons that he didn’t testify. On cross-examination, he could be asked about those searches.
It’s very compelling here because without the body, the government couldn’t determine cause of death. There was no evidence about premeditation. All the prosecution could point to was the pre-incident evidence (Ana Walshe’s alleged boyfriend was called to the stand to testify about the state of the couple’s marriage) to establish motive and his post-incident behavior to suggest his state of mind. The Google searches suggested he was acting in a relatively cool and calculating fashion. He’s thinking about how to do this, how to dismember her, how to dispose of her body. He didn’t just go to the hardware store a mile from his house. He went to the Lowe’s an hour away. All of these searches indicated not a man who was panicking, which was the defense’s theory. It’s someone who’s trying to get away with murder.
