Opening statements in the murder trial of a convicted fraudster accused of killing his wife and dismembering her body are set to begin in a Massachusetts courtroom on Monday.
Brian Walshe, 50, pleaded guilty in mid-November to two lesser charges related to the 2023 disappearance and death of Anna Walshe, 39 – misleading a police investigation and improperly transporting a body.
The trial in Norfolk County Superior Court is expected to last two to three weeks.
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 believed she was having an affair when she disappeared on New Year’s Day nearly three years ago. His body was never found.
A lawyer for Brian Walshe has denied the allegations.
Anna Walshe, a mother of three, was reported missing after her employer called police in Massachusetts to perform a wellness check at the family’s Cohasset home on January 4, 2023.
According to an affidavit in support of the arrest warrant, during an interview with authorities that day, Brian Walshe said his wife had left their home between 6 and 7 a.m. on Jan. 1 for a work emergency. She told police he kissed her and told her to go back to sleep, the affidavit says.
Prosecutors allege that by the time officers spoke to Brian Walshe, Anna Walshe was dead.
Evidence presented at the pre-trial hearing included detailed Internet searches Walshe conducted on January 1 and January 2 – “hacksaw best tool for dismemberment” and “what happens when you put body parts in ammonia” were among them – and purchases she made at Home Depot on January 2.
Wearing a surgical mask and gloves, he paid $450 for a Tyvek suit, bucket, a hat, goggles, baking soda and other cleaning products, prosecutors said.
Authorities later found a bloodstained knife and a hacksaw, an axe, a Tyvek suit and other items in his basement, which prosecutors accused him of dumping in a field south of Boston.
Walshe’s attorney, Tracy Miner, has cast doubt on the state’s physical evidence and suggested that Anna Walshe may have voluntarily disappeared. Minor accused the media of attempting to incriminate his client.
“It’s easy to charge a crime and even easier to say that a person committed that crime,” he said. “It’s a much more difficult task to prove, which we’ll see if the prosecution can do.”
Walshe changed his plea to two lesser charges on November 18, the day jury selection was scheduled to begin. Documents filed by his lawyers admitted that he “did and did dispose of Anna Walshe’s body after her death” and knowingly made false statements to police officers during four interviews in January 2023.
In a separate case, Walshe was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison last year after he pleaded guilty to charges stemming from what federal prosecutors described as a “year-long, multi-faceted art fraud scheme.”
Prosecutors said Walshe sold two fake Andy Warhol paintings that he claimed were originals for $80,000. He pleaded guilty in 2021 to one count each of wire fraud, scheme to defraud by means of interstate transportation and unlawful monetary transaction.
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