Jurors are deliberating in murder trial of Brian Walshe, whose wife disappeared 2 years ago

BOSTON (AP) — Jurors began deliberating Friday in the murder trial of Brian Walshe, the Massachusetts man accused of killing and dismembering his wife more than two years ago.

Ana Walshe’s body has never been found since she disappeared on New Year’s Day 2023. The same day his wife was last seen alive, Walshe went to multiple pharmacies and hardware stores to buy heavy-duty cleaning supplies, a Tyvek protective suit and a utility knife, according to prosecutors.

He made the trips after early morning internet searches including, “How long before a body starts to smell?” and “Dismemberment and best ways to dispose of a body.” Over the next several days, prosecutors said, he looked for information online about how to cut apart a body into pieces with a hacksaw, not reporting his wife missing until one of her colleagues noticed her absence from work and contacted police.

On the day jury selection had been set to begin last month, Walshe pleaded guilty to misleading police and dismembering his wife's body, but hopes to convince jurors that he didn’t kill her. His attorneys have tried to put reasonable doubt in jurors' minds, acknowledging that Walshe lied to investigators while arguing he panicked after discovering Ana dead at their home following a New Year’s Eve gathering.

His attorneys rested Thursday without calling any witnesses, despite speculation that Walshe might testify. Jurors deliberated for several hours Friday before stopping work until Monday.

When questioned by authorities after Ana was reported missing, Walshe told police his wife had left Massachusetts on New Year’s Day for a work emergency in Washington, D.C., though witnesses testified there was no record of her booking a ride or boarding a flight. He did not contact her employer until Jan. 4.

He later admitted that he dismembered her body and disposed of it in dumpster, saying that he did so only after panicking when he found his wife had died in bed.

At the time, Brian Walshe was at home awaiting sentencing in an unrelated art fraud case involving the sale of two fake Andy Warhol paintings and owed about $475,000 in restitution. Investigators testified that Ana Walshe had taken out a $2.7 million life insurance policy naming him as beneficiary.

With no body ever recovered, investigators have been unable to determine a cause of death — something the defense has tried to use to their advantage.

“There’s evidence that he lied to police, there’s evidence that he searched the internet, there’s evidence that he disposed of the body, but there is no proof in all of the evidence that you’ve heard and been presented that he ever once thought about harming the woman he loved,” defense attorney Larry Tipton told jurors during closing arguments.

Tipton urged jurors not to base their decision about whether Walshe killed his wife on the “upsetting and terrifying and at times, disgusting" acts he admitted to doing to her remains after she was dead. Instead, he said, they should focus on the evidence that he was not the one who caused her death.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, have pointed to Walshe’s actions as evidence of premeditation. In addition to other internet searches, Walshe specifically looked for “ways to dispose of body parts after murder."

Jurors were shown surveillance footage of him at stores like CVS, Walgreens and Lowe’s, where he purchased items including hydrogen peroxide and ammonia. They reviewed photos of tools that investigators testified tested positive for blood, including a hacksaw and a hatchet.

Prosecutors also connected him to items found at a trash processing facility near his mother’s home, including towels, a Tyvek suit, cleaning agents, a Prada purse, boots like those his wife was last seen wearing and her COVID-19 vaccination card.

Prosecutor Anne Yas argued during her closing statements that it was extremely unlikely that Ana Walshe, a 39-year-old in good health, would have dropped dead out of nowhere. She had a home gym at her Washington, D.C., home and regularly attended yoga and exercise classes, including on the morning of Dec. 31, 2022 — likely the last full day she was alive.

Yas said the only motivation Walshe could have for disposing of his wife’s body, as prosecutors allege, would be to hide evidence of what he did to her.

“The defendant didn’t want anyone to find Ana Walshe’s body and to know how she died, so the defendant cut up Ana’s body — the woman that he claimed to love — and he threw her in dumpsters,” she said.

Friends described Ana’s final weeks as emotionally strained. Gem Mutlu, who spent New Year’s Eve with the couple, said they appeared “very much in love,” though he later learned Ana and another man had exchanged messages that night.

Another friend, Alissa Kirby, told jurors Ana seemed exhausted by travel and stressed about her marriage. The two had recently grown close, walking together and going to karaoke; Kirby teared up when shown photos of them. She testified that Ana considered moving her family to Washington and said Brian often questioned whether she loved him.

Kirby also recounted two messages from Brian shortly before Ana was reported missing — one on Christmas, when he asked if she knew where Ana was, and another on Jan. 3: “I know we did this a week ago but have you heard from Ana?”

Family and fiends listen during listen during Brian Walshe's murder trial, Friday, Dec. 12, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (Stuart Cahill/The Boston Herald via AP, Pool)

Defendant Brian Walshe, left, listens during his murder trial, Friday, Dec. 12, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (Stuart Cahill/The Boston Herald via AP, Pool)

Defense attorney Larry Tipton gives his final statement during Brian Walshe's murder trial, Friday, Dec. 12, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (Stuart Cahill/The Boston Herald via AP, Pool)

Prosecutor Anne Yas gives her final statement during Brian Walshe's murder trial, Friday, Dec. 12, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (Stuart Cahill/The Boston Herald via AP, Pool)

Defendant Brian Walshe, left, chats with his lawyer Kelli Porges during his murder trial, Friday, Dec. 12, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (Stuart Cahill/The Boston Herald via AP, Pool)

Diana Walshe listens to testimony as a photo of Brian Walshe's kitchen is projected on a monitor during his murder trial, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (Mark Stockwell/The Boston Herald via AP, Pool)

A snapshot of Alissa Kirby, right, a friend of murder victim Ana Walshe, at left, is shown on a monitor during Brian Walshe's murder trial, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (Mark Stockwell/The Boston Herald via AP, Pool)

Brian Walshe listens to testimony during his murder trial, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (Mark Stockwell /The Boston Herald via AP, Pool)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran responded to U.S. President Donald Trump’s address to Americans on the war with new missile attacks targeting Israel and the Gulf Arab states Thursday, underlining Tehran’s insistence that it rejected Washington’s outreach for a ceasefire while maintaining its grip on the Strait of Hormuz.

Britain planned to hold a call Thursday with nearly three dozen countries about how to reopen the strait, through which 20% of all oil and natural gas traded passes in peacetime. The 35 countries, including all G7 industrialized democracies except the U.S., as well as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, signed a declaration last month demanding Iran stop blocking the strait. The call will discuss “diplomatic and political measures” that could restore shipping once the fighting is over.

Washington has insisted that Iran allow ships to freely transit the strait, but Trump this week has said it is not up to the U.S. to force it, and in his address encouraged countries that receive oil through Hormuz to “build some delayed courage” and go “take it.”

In his address, Trump said the U.S. would hit Iran “extremely hard over the next two to three weeks,” while also insisting American “core strategic objectives are nearing completion.”

Iran's military said defiantly on Thursday that its armament facilities are hidden and will never be reached by Israeli or American attacks.

“The centers you think you have targeted are insignificant,” said Lt. Col. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, a spokesman for the Iranian military’s Khatam Al-Anbiya Central Headquarters.

Just before Trump began his nearly 20-minute address on Wednesday, explosions were heard in Dubai as air defenses worked to intercept an Iranian missile barrage. Less than a half hour after the president was done, Israel said its military was working to intercept incoming missiles.

Sirens sounded in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, immediately after the speech.

Following a joint statement in March condemning Iranian attacks on unarmed commercial vessels that called upon Iran to “cease immediately its threats, laying of mines, drone and missile attacks and other attempts to block the strait,” the 35 signatories were to hold a virtual meeting Thursday hosted by British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper.

Though the oil and gas that typically transits the Strait of Hormuz primarily is sold to Asian nations, Japan and South Korea were the only two countries from the region that were joining.

“Trump’s message was that the United States can sustain its own economic and energy ecosystem, while countries dependent on regional exports will either have to buy from the United States or manage the Strait themselves,” the New York-based Soufan Center think tank wrote after the address.

“While Trump explicitly thanked U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf for their cooperation and allyship, an expedited U.S. withdrawal without securing the strait will leave many of these countries, whose economies are dependent on energy exports, in the lurch.”

No country appears willing to try and open the strait by force while the war is raging. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the group “will assess all viable diplomatic and political measures we can take to restore freedom of navigation, guarantee the safety of trapped ships and seafarers and to resume the movement of vital commodities.”

Bahrain, which now holds the presidency of the United Nations Security Council, has been working to get the world body to address the crisis as well.

Though Iran has allowed a trickle of ships through the strait, it remains largely closed. Iran has also been repeatedly attacking Gulf Arab energy infrastructure, sending oil prices skyrocketing and giving rise to broader economic problems worldwide.

Following Trump's speech, Brent crude, the international standard, rose again and was at $108 in early spot trading, up nearly 50% from Feb. 28 when Israel and the U.S. started the war with their attacks on Iran.

The rising energy prices and stock market jitters have been putting increasing domestic pressure on Trump, who used his address to offer a defense of the war while also suggesting it was close to winding down.

He acknowledged American service members who had been killed and said: “We are going to finish the job, and we’re going to finish it very fast. We’re getting very close.”

The U.S. has presented Iran with a 15-point plan for a ceasefire, but Trump didn’t say anything about the diplomatic efforts or bring up his April 6 deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face severe retaliation from the U.S.

More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran during the war, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel. More than two dozen people have died in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank, while 13 U.S. service members have been killed.

More than 1,200 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 1 million displaced, according to authorities. Ten Israeli soldiers have also died there.

Weissert reported from Washington and Rising reported from Bangkok.

The Indian flagged LPG carrier Jag Vasant transporting liquefied petroleum gas, is seen at the Mumbai Port in Mumbai, India, after it arrived clearing the Strait of Hormuz, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

President Donald Trump walks from the Blue Room to speak about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)