Prosecutors and lawyers for Brian Walshe gave a preview Monday of what are likely to be the most hotly contested evidentiary issues when Walshe’s murder trial gets underway in early December.
Walshe is accused of killing and dismembering his wife, Ana, on New Year’s Day 2023 in the Cohasset home they shared with their three children. Prosecutors say he hid his wife’s remains in dumpsters in various locations across the state. Ana Walshe’s body has never been found.
Walshe has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, disinterring a body and misleading a police investigation. If convicted, he would face life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The final pretrial conference in the case held Monday morning comes just a day before the start of jury selection for Walshe’s trial on charges in connection with the death and disappearance of his wife, Ana. During the hearing, Judge Diane Freniere worked through a series of motions concerning evidence both sides want to include or exclude at the trial.
Many of the motions were either not opposed by the other side or resolved by Freniere, who ruled from the bench on several issues. But some key issues remain to be resolved as the case moves forward.
Among them: whether jurors should know that a lawyer representing Walshe in an unrelated federal art fraud case was present at two of his four interviews with police, how much jurors will know of Walshe’s federal case, and what material from Walshe’s devices can be introduced as evidence.
Internet history
From the bench Monday, Freniere revealed that, unlike prosecutors had previously represented, Walshe conducted searches for identifying human remains, decomposition of a body and dismemberment of a body from a laptop and not his eldest son’s iPad.
Prosecutors intend to introduce evidence of those searches at the trial, but are also looking to bring in new evidence found on the laptop, including a search for pornography involving a “cheating wife.” Walshe’s lawyers are objecting to the introduction of that search into evidence.
Whether Walshe knew his wife was having an affair before she died will be a major point of contention at the trial. Prosecutors say he did know and was motivated to kill her in part because of that knowledge, while his defense has claimed he didn’t.
Prosecutors are seeking to introduce several binders full of information pulled from Walshe’s laptop into evidence, meaning jurors would be able to go through them when they get the case. Assistant Norfolk District Attorney Greg Connor said Monday that he would give Freniere a list of the searches the prosecution wants to elicit testimony on. The judge asked Walshe’s lawyers to raise any objections they might have.
The federal case
Before his wife’s death, Walshe was facing potential jail time after he admitted to selling forged Andy Warhol paintings. Prosecutors want to bring in some evidence of that case into the trial, because they argue it speaks to his motive.
Prosecutors say Walshe wanted to keep his children in Massachusetts in the hopes that, as their primary caretaker, he might get a more lenient sentence. Ana Walshe wanted the children to move to Washington, D.C., where she worked.
As a condition of his release in the federal case, Brian Walshe was subject to GPS monitoring and had an allotted amount of time each day where he could leave the house to drop off his children at school and then pick them up.
Freniere said she would not let in mention of the GPS bracelet, but indicated prosecutors could use evidence of those “windows” Brian Walshe had each day. Connor, the prosecutor, argued that they show premeditation and Walshe knew he had time to cover up his crime.
Another prosecutor on the case, Tracey Cusick, said the prosecution and defense were working to agree to a stipulation, essentially a statement given to the jury about evidence in a case.
Statements of former lawyer
At the time Walshe reported his wife missing in early January 2023, he was represented by Tracy Miner in his federal case. Walshe spoke to police four times that month, including twice with Miner present.
But his lawyers in the criminal case, Larry Tipton and Kelli Porges, want to keep jurors from learning not just of Miner’s statements during the interviews but also from her presence.
Tipton likened it to the problem prosecutors face with former Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor, who was fired for misconduct in the Karen Read investigation.
“Once Proctor’s integrity was impeached, the Commonwealth moved away from him. Why? Because his impeached integrity reflected on this office, the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office,” he said.
Tipton suggested the defense’s integrity could be impeached if jurors knew Miner was present for two of the interviews, given that Walshe is accused of misleading police.
“The jury can take that to say, ‘Either he’s lying to his attorney, therefore he’s lying to us, and they can’t believe our representations during the trial, or his attorney was complicit in the misrepresentations he was making to the police … and so now we’re making misrepresentations.’”
“There is no relevance to Tracy,” he added.
Freniere did not rule on the more contentious issues Monday.
The hearing was attended by Walshe’s mother, Diana, who was briefly removed from the courtroom so both sides could discuss her potential role at trial. Prosecutors don’t have her on their witness list, but Walshe’s defense indicated they could call her.
Diana Walshe hired a private investigator to look into her son’s wife — whether her son knew she did so or not is another point of contention at trial. Prosecutors indicated they will leave it up to jurors to infer whether he knew based on his frequent contact with his mother.
Diana Walshe declined to speak to reporters leaving the courthouse.
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