The panel deliberated for around six hours before returning its decision. Walshe is expected to be sentenced on Wednesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole – the mandatory punishment for first-degree murder in Massachusetts.
Walshe was accused of killing his wife, Ana, on January 1, 2023, hours after ringing in the new year and with their three young children still in the house. Prosecutors said Walshe dismembered her body and disposed of her remains in area dumpsters near their home in Cohasset, Massachusetts.
Before the trial, Walshe pleaded guilty to misleading police and illegally disposing of his wife’s body, so he’s expected to face additional prison time for those convictions.
Because he’s been convicted of first-degree murder, the most serious homicide charge available in Massachusetts, that means the jurors believed the murder was deliberately premeditated.
Walshe now faces up to 20 years for misleading police – an enhancement triggered by the murder conviction – and can be sentenced to another three years for pleading guilty to the illegal conveyance of a body.
Walshe has denied killing his wife, and his attorneys have said he found her inexplicably dead in their bed that morning.
Ana Walshe wasn’t reported missing until January 4, 2023, when Brian Walshe called her employer in Washington, DC, where she worked and lived part time. Walshe told investigators he hadn’t seen his wife since New Year’s Day, when he said she left around 6 a.m. to travel back to DC to handle a work emergency.
The prosecution called about 50 witnesses over eight days, including two of Ana’s close friends and others who described their interactions with her in the final days of her life. Walshe ultimately chose not to testify, and the defense rested its case without presenting any evidence.
Jurors’ question centered on photo of a rug from Walshe home
The attorneys for Walshe and the commonwealth gave their closing arguments Friday morning before the jury received the case.
The commonwealth has not offered the jury a theory of how Walshe killed his wife, but prosecutors say it’s fair to infer she met a violent death in her family home.
During deliberations Friday, the jury sent a note asking to see a photo of Ana Walshe lying on a rug in the living room of their Cohasset home that prosecutors had submitted as trial evidence.
Norfolk County Assistant District Attorney Anne Yas in her closing argument pointed to that rug as evidence of the murder: Investigators recovered pieces of a rug from a dumpster at the apartment complex where Brian Walshe’s mother lived. The rug was cut up and covered in Ana’s blood, prosecutors say, with a piece of necklace stuck in the fibers.
The commonwealth asserts the bloody rug is the same rug in the photo of Ana before her death. Prosecutors say Brian Walshe threw away that rug, which was covered in blood, and bought a new one at HomeGoods on January 2, 2023.
Walshe’s defense says no evidence of premeditated murder
Prosecutors have suggested Walshe was motivated to kill his wife after learning of her monthslong affair with a man she met in DC.
Walshe’s defense team, however, says he panicked after discovering her dead in their bed, thinking no one would believe he had nothing to do with her death.
And while defense attorney Larry Tipton argued there’s no evidence Walshe knew about his wife’s affair before her death, he acknowledged to the jury there’s evidence he disposed of Ana’s body and then lied to police about it.
Unbeknownst to the jury, Walshe pleaded guilty on the first day of jury selection to the improper conveyance of a body and misleading police – a decision that allowed his attorneys to admit those factors to the panel during the trial.
The defense strategy to admit Walshe disposed of his wife’s body and then misled police could effectively take the sting out of the commonwealth’s strongest evidence for a first-degree murder conviction, Boston defense attorney J.W. Carney Jr. told CNN.
During the commonwealth’s case, the jury saw digital data revealing extensive internet searches made on Brian Walshe’s devices about how to dispose of a body and how to clean up blood – searches his attorney admitted were “dark” and “troubling.”
“They began at 4:52 a.m. on January 1st of 2023, and the first one is, ‘how do you dispose of a body?’ It causes chills. It causes disgust,” Tipton said Friday.
But there’s no evidence Walshe planned to kill his wife, the defense attorney said – only evidence he reacted after her death.
“Why is the man searching now if he had planned to kill his wife?” Tipton asked. “Where is the evidence of premeditation in thousands of pages of records?”
First-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. The jury could have considered second-degree murder, which would have given Walshe parole eligibility.
He faces up to three years for pleading guilty to the conveyance charge and up to 10 years in prison for misleading police – though that could be enhanced up to 20 years now that he has been convicted of murder.
Separately, Walshe is serving a 37-month prison sentence tied to a federal case from 2018, in which he pleaded guilty to charges connected to selling forged Andy Warhol artwork. That sentence is set to run concurrently with his prison time for the state case connected to his wife’s death.
This story has been updated with additional information.
