Crime

Defense rests in Brian Walshe murder trial without calling any witnesses

Closing arguments are set for Friday.

Brian Walshe is escorted into the courtroom Wednesday. Suzanne Kreiter / The Boston Globe

updated on December 11, 2025

2 minutes to read

Brian Walshe’s defense team rested Thursday morning before calling a single witness to take the stand.

Judge Diane Freniere then sent the jury home for the day, saying closing arguments will take place Friday morning before deliberations begin. Prosecutors had rested their case Wednesday afternoon, after a day of emotional testimony.

Walshe is standing trial for allegedly killing his wife, Ana, on New Year’s Day 2023. Prosecutors say he then dismembered her body and tossed her remains in dumpsters around the region, including one near his mother’s home. Investigators never found her body.

In the days after her disappearance, they say Walshe repeatedly misled police as searches stretched from the couple’s Cohasset neighborhood to Washington, D.C., where Ana worked.

During opening statements, defense attorney Larry Tipton argued that Walshe found Ana suddenly dead after a night of New Year’s celebrations — and then spiraled into a panic.

On Nov. 18, just before jury selection began, Walshe pleaded guilty to two charges — misleading police and improperly removing or concealing a body. He is still facing a first-degree murder charge. Sentencing on the lesser charges will come after the trial, and the jury won’t be aware of his guilty pleas.

During the first eight days of trial, prosecutors laid out evidence they argued points to Walshe as Ana’s killer.

On Wednesday afternoon, after Tipton argued in a motion that the commonwealth had failed to present sufficient evidence of first-degree murder, prosecutor Tracey Cusick walked the judge through their case. Freniere ultimately denied the motion.

Cusick said Walshe was the only adult home on Jan. 1, 2023, after the couple’s friend, Gem Mutlu, left in the early morning hours. Ana, a fit 39-year-old who completed a “vigorous” workout the day before, had no known medical issues, she said. Prosecutors pointed to bloody slippers, towels, and carpet; Ana’s broken Gucci necklace; Walshe’s numerous internet searches; and his large purchases of cleaning supplies as evidence that Ana had met a “violent death” inside the Cohasset home.

Prosecutors also noted a cut on Walshe’s thumb and that he bought bandages and antibiotic cream on Jan. 1.

Cusick argued that Walshe knew Ana was involved with another man. She cited his statements from a police interview, and she said he monitored Ana’s Chase credit card activity, including a plane ticket purchased for a Thanksgiving trip to Dublin with the other man, William Fastow. He also searched Fastow’s name on Christmas day.

Cusick said Walshe falsely claimed his phone went missing on Dec. 31, even though it repeatedly unlocked and connected to power. “The evidence indicates the defendant used that phone to create an alibi for himself,” she said, noting that he later showed police texts he sent to Ana as proof he wasn’t using the supposedly missing phone during trips to Vinnin Liquors, Lowe’s, and other locations.

Prosecutors also argued motive: Ana’s potential move to D.C. with their three children could have impacted his federal art fraud case, and Walshe was the beneficiary of her life insurance and financial accounts. Cusick said he spun an “elaborate web of lies” about Ana leaving for a work emergency and misled friends, relatives, and police.

The defense countered that Walshe lacked a financial motive, pointing to an expensive diamond ring he bought Ana and online searches for Porsches. They also argued there’s no evidence he knew about the affair, saying Ana never disclosed it even to her closest friends.