Jurors will have to weigh whether the absence of Ana Walshe’s body leaves enough reasonable doubt to acquit her husband, Brian Walshe, of murdering her.

In closing arguments at Norfolk Superior Court Friday morning, defense attorney Larry Tipton and prosecutor Anne Yas gave jurors wildly divergent interpretations of the evidence presented over the 10-day trial.

Tipton told jurors that Brian Walshe was a “loving father and loving husband” who was presented with Ana Walshe’s sudden death on Jan. 1, 2025, leading to “confusion, panic, and fear.”

Brian Walshe pleaded guilty before the trial began to lying to police about his wife’s disappearance and mishandling her body after she was already dead but maintains that he is innocent of killing his wife. Jurors will decide if he is guilty of first-degree murder, which requires premeditation, or a lesser charge of second-degree murder, or whether he is innocent.

“Mr. Walshe loved Ana Walshe, the mother of his children. There is no evidence that he premeditated murder, there is no evidence that he killed his wife,” Tipton told jurors. “None whatsoever.”

Yas said it was “extremely unlikely” for Ana Walshe, 39, and in “excellent health,” to have died of natural causes. Instead, she was the victim of a man who “needed her dead” to solve his own financial problems.

He was facing prison due to conviction in a federal art fraud case, would have to forfeit more than $400,000 in the same case, had no assets of his own, and had his mom paying his rent, Yas said. All the couple’s assets were in Ana Walshe’s name to protect them from his legal troubles.

“No autopsy can be done. The defendant deliberately got rid of Ana’s body,” Yas said. “He cut up Ana’s body, the woman he claimed to love, and he threw her into dumpsters. He was hiding her body.”

The case largely boils down to how the jurors will interpret a series of internet searches Walshe made following Ana Walshe’s death.

Tipton said that a review of Walshe’s Macbook search history showed no searches prior to Ana Walshe’s death that would indicate he had any intention or plan to kill his wife. The grisly searches at the heart of the case, on how to dispose of and dismember a body, were done after her sudden death and out of “confusion and fear.”

Yas said there was plenty of evidence that Brian Walshe needed Ana Walshe gone. He was looking into her lover in Washington, D.C., investigating divorce strategies, and had gotten into regular arguments with her, including a big one on Christmas Eve, according to a recording of Brian Walshe speaking with police during the investigation.

Yas described the scene on New Year’s Day 2023: Ana Walshe was alone with the man she was cheating on, who she was telling to take responsibility for his actions, who had her children. “He killed her that morning.”

“The defendant set up a place in the basement, covered it with plastic sheeting, put on a Tyvek suit, and dismembered his wife, the love of his life,” Yas said.

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She said that his internet searches were only about disposing of a body and did not include any about natural causes of death, or how to guide children through the loss of a parent. She said there was no indication he was sad: “Look at his demeanor in surveillance videos — he’s cool and calculating, he’s calm. He had a plan.”

“Ana was dead, the defendant killed her, and he began searching for how to get her money … He may have gotten away with it, but he didn’t know his Macbook was syncing with his child’s iPad, the same Apple ID,” Yas said, describing how investigators found his internet searches. “He was caught.”

This is a developing story.