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Brian Walshe Defense Rests Without Witnesses in Murder Trial

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Defense attorneys for Brian Walshe rested their case without presenting a single witness to rebut the prosecution’s assertion that he was jealous of his wife’s Ana’s new lover, and worried about going to jail in federal art fraud case, when he killed her to collect millions in life insurance

Brian Walshe had no defense. Literally.

Last month, the Massachusetts man admitted to a judge overseeing his murder trial in Massachusetts that he disposed of his wife Ana’s dismembered remains after finding her in bed, dead, but insisted he didn’t kill her.

Brian Walshe pictured with his wife
Brian Walshe is pictured with his wife, Ana, whom he allegedly dismembered on New Year’s Day 2022
Credit: Los Angeles file photo

This month, jurors heard eight days of testimony from prosecutors who argued that Walshe – while awaiting sentencing in a federal art fraud case in Los Angeles – hacked up her body at their Massachusetts mansion on New Year’s Day in 2020 so he could inherit “millions” from her life insurance policy at a time when he was negotiating a restitution settlement with the government connected to his guilty plea in an elaborate scheme to rip off the L.A. owner of Revolver Gallery on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood by selling him bogus Andy Warhol paintings.

Ron RivlinRon Rivlin
Revolver Gallery owner Ron Rivlin
Credit: Courtesy Ron Rivlin

On Wednesday, prosecutors laid out the evidence collected after Ana Walshe disappeared. The couple had hosted a friend for dinner, and then hours later, Walshe dismembered her body in the basement of their family estate in upscale Cohasset, MA, and disposed of her remains at an incinerator site, prosecutors argued in a court hearing Thursday. 

Investigators recovered bloody slippers, stained towels and a carpet splattered with her remains, prosecutors say. Ana’s Gucci necklace was broken around her neck. Witnesses described Walshe’s online searches that included: “how to dispose of a 115-pound woman’s body” and “how long for someone to be missing to inheritance (sic)?” according to the documents. 

And then the state rested its case.

On Thursday, the defense also rested – without calling a single witness, including Walshe.

Closing arguments are slated to begin Friday morning.

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Michele McPhee

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