Brian Walshe murder trial: Day 2 continues with more audio of police interviews
The Brian Walshe murder trial continues with the second day of testimony on Tuesday.
Opening statements took place Monday morning when his lawyers claimed that his wife died suddenly and unexpectedly while in bed on Jan. 1, 2023 — a sharply different theory presented by Norfolk County prosecutors.
Officials say Brian Walshe killed his wife and dismembered her body. She was reported missing to the Cohasset Police Department by her employer in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 4, 2023, and her body was never recovered. She was 39 at the time.
Investigators recovered a trash compactor near Brian Walshe’s mother’s apartment in Swampscott, where they found boots, a black coat, a vaccination card belonging to Ana Walshe, a hazmat suit, rugs, a hammer, a hatchet and a hacksaw, according to Norfolk County Assistant District Attorney Gregory Connor.
Prosecutors say that Brian Walshe lied to investigators in the initial days of Ana Walshe’s disappearance. They then discovered Google searches on an iPad belonging to the couple’s son about divorce, how to dispose of body parts after a murder and about accessing a credit card for a missing person, among other similar searches.
Brian Walshe, 50, is on trial on a single count of first-degree murder. He pleaded guilty to counts of witness intimidation as well as disinterment of a body at the start of jury selection last month.
Cohasset police Sgt. Harrison Schmidt took the stand as the trial’s first witness and prosecutors played audio from police interviews with Brian Walshe.
In his first interview with law enforcement , he opened up about the stressors in his and his wife’s lives, including the federal fraud case he was awaiting sentencing for when she disappeared.
“The only problems that we had in our marriage were that we weren’t spending time together,” Brian Walshe said.
The trial continues on Tuesday. More audio from law enforcement interviews is expected to be played for jurors.
Judge Diane Freniere told jurors that a snowstorm forecasted for Tuesday could affect the day’s schedule.
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