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Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Brian Walsh Trial BOMBSHELL: ‘Yes, I Chopped Up & Dumped Her Body… No, I Didn’t Kill Her.’ | Ana Walshe
00:25:35
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Hey, everyone, I'm Ashley Banfield and this is Drop Dead Serious. I'll just have to tell you off the top of the episode that we are missing a very important member of the program, and that is Atlas. And I know you probably tune in and you see the Atlas cam and you see my little best friend always at my feet in the studio, but he's not here now. Atlas, at 15 and a half, had a fall and couldn't get up. And the vet said that it was time. And so we've lost him. And I am so incredibly sad. He was such a great dog and such a great partner and my best friend. And he was at my feet at every moment he was in this studio, every podcast, every episode. Anyway, this is what we have today. Just his bowl and his collar and his leash, a couple of milk bones. And so I just wanted to let you know I've read so many of your comments and it has helped me so much in getting through this. Thank you so incredibly much. I'm going to do another episode completely to tell you some of the things that were said that I think are really helpful that I had never thought of before. And if it can help anybody else getting through the loss of a puppy dog that is as special to them as Atlas was to me, then that will be worth it. But today's episode is about Brian Walsh and Anna Walsh, because we're coming up on three years since anyone has seen Anna Walsh alive or dead. And now her husband, Brian Walsh, is finally on trial for her murder. And in the episode description, I am linking our full deep dive on this case. Everything you need to know about Brian and Anna Walsh and what happened, start to finish. It'll get you up to speed right before the trial. And don't fret if you're fuzzy on the details. Let me remind you why this case has haunted so many of us. The prosecutors in Dedham, Massachusetts, say that Brian killed his beautiful wife Anna on New Year's Day 2023, and then hacked her body into pieces and dumped those parts in trash bins scattered around the Boston area. And if that sounds like something out of a horror movie, well, the surveillance cameras caught some of it. Enough of it. And the Google searches, those pretty much filled in the rest of the blanks. Because four days before Anna Walsh vanished, Brian sat down with his son's iPad. Yeah, his son's iPad. And he typed in the following, I quote, what's the best state to divorce for a man? Four days later, he searched how long before a body Starts to smell. And then he typed this. 10 Ways to Dispose of a dead body if you really need to. What is that? If you really need to. Was that going to help the Google search in how to dispose of a dead body? Because what if you don't really need to? I mean, imagine the idiot behind the keyboard. 10 Ways to Dispose of a body if you really need to. This is the kind of person we're dealing with here. And then there's this gem. Can you throw away body parts? And I really wonder what that means. Like, is it legal? Is it legal to throw away body parts? Because that should be the least of your worries, right? And then there was dismemberment. And the best ways to dispose of a body. That's pretty clear. Then Hacksaw, best tool to dismember. And then, I have to be honest, this would be my personal favorite. How long for someone to be missing to inherit? How long can I get my money? How long do you have to be missing before I get my money? That's. That's rich, right? And listen, there was and there is physical evidence as well as all those searches. Police say that they recovered blood stained towels and rags and gloves. They also found her clothes, her purse, her leather jacket, her necklace, all with her blood on it. Right? They found Anna's stuff. They found blood in the couple's house. They found a bloody knife in the basement. They found protective coveralls and a hacksaw and a hatchet. But what they did not find was the beautiful woman named Anna Walsh. They didn't find her body, just again, some of her clothes and her personal items covered in her blood. And those were found in a dumpster near Brian's mom's condo. So what is an alleged murderer and dismemberer supposed to do when faced with airtight proof of what happened after Ana died, but not necessarily how she died? Well, in Brian Walsh's case, he decided to flip the script. On day one of jury selection in his trial, he stood up in the court and he stunned the courtroom, the superior courtroom, by pleading guilty. Guilty. Really? Wow, that was quick. He just let us all along for almost three years. Not so fast. He pled guilty to two out of three of the charges that he was facing. He pled guilty to misleading the police, and he pleaded guilty to conveying a human body in violation of the law. AKA, yeah, I cut her up and threw her out, and then I lied to the police about it, but I didn't kill her. So let's just. Let's Just ruminate on that for a minute. You want the ladies and gentlemen of the jury to believe you, to believe you that I didn't kill her? I just cut my wife. I just cut the mother of my kids into a bunch of pieces. And then I threw all her clothes in there and her driver's license and her purse and her pretty leather jacket. Yeah. Then I went out and I searched out dumpsters all over the place within, like, an hour's drive. Oh, and I went and I bought all these things at, you know, Home Depot and places where I could bleach things and clean it up, pack it away and wear a Tyvek suit. I did all that. I didn't kill her. I'm not a monster. Is. Is that. Is this Brian Walsh's game, right? Is this what he figures is gonna, you know, have the jury noodle, some reasonable doubt? Is it reasonable? That's what we're gonna have to ask the jury, right? At least the prosecutors are, ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry, do what now? I mean, I wish I could be a prosecutor in this case because that is what I would say in that courtroom. I would look at all 12 of them and say, do what the fuck? Like, seriously, you want us to believe this bullshit? You are a liar inside and out. And not just in this case, because you've already. You've already pled to be a liar. You already said. You stood up in court and you said, yep, guilty is charged. I lied to the police. Guilty as charged. I conveyed a human body against the law. So you are already a liar in this case. And then there's your history. You're a scam artist. You lied and scammed your way through your. Your family's money and artwork. You scammed your own father. You lied non stop. But now you want us to think you're telling the truth about that whole little itty bitty murder part. I am so confident that prosecutors in Dedham, Massachusetts, are going to be able to pick a jury that has half a brain. Right. I really am. I'm confident they're not going to pick an OJ jury. I am confident they're going to pick somebody who sees right through this sociopath's bullshit. I chopped her up while my kids were sleeping upstairs. And then I tossed her out. And then I told my kids and everybody else who would listen, she just went off on an emergency trip, you know, to work. Nothing to see here. You don't get to have it both ways. It's called reasonable doubt. Not all shadow of a doubt. And if it's reasonable to believe that you're a piece of shit and that you are completely capable of murder, then it's reasonable for them to find you guilty. Right? You don't always have a witness who can get up on the stand and say, I saw him murder the person in the house where there was nobody else. I was there. No. And you don't have a lot of witnesses to rape either. You do have to make some leaps, you know, you do have to think what's reasonable might have happened in that quiet home while the babies were sleeping upstairs. You can infer some things in a courtroom, right? You don't have to have the atoms connecting. It's called reasonable. Not beyond all shadow. And I think that they're going to find a jury that's reasonable. I mean, I hope and I pray that this piece of gets locked up for the rest of his life. And I hope it's a short life, because I don't want to pay for feeding him. So about that business that shocked everybody, because it really did come out of left field in the courtroom, right? This is day one of jury selection. You're expecting. It's just kind of like, you know, by rote. It's normal. You know, you get the jurors in there, the jury pool, you ask them a bunch of questions and you pick them or you boost them out of the courtroom. And in he came and he stood up and he confessed to two of the charges. He just said, okay, you got me, right? Here's how it actually looked when he launched his confessions into the courtroom. Mr. Walsh, did you in fact, willfully remove or convey the body of Anna Walsh or her remains, not being lawfully authorized to do so?
- [10:58]
B
Yes, your honor.
- [10:59]
A
Mr. Walsh, did you in fact, willfully mislead various law enforcement to include members of the Classic police department and the Massachusetts State police with the intent to impede or interfere with a criminal investigation of Anna Walsh's disappearance? Yes, your honor, I should add, this was not a plea bargain. First thing I thought was, oh, you're kidding me. Another plea bargain like in Coburger? We're not going to learn what happened here? No, because I'm like, no, wait a minute. They're still in trial. They didn't drop the murder charge so that he would plead guilty. These two other charges. Right. They had too much on him anyway to offer a plea bargain. But no, this was not a plea bargain. He was not given any. Anything special to cop to those charges. He just. He just did it. So he's still charged with murder. He's still facing a murder trial. But don't go anywhere because there's method. There's a method to this madness. And it took me a bit, but then I got it. I totally got it. I know why he did it. And after everything we heard today, the stakes on this case just got a whole lot higher. Earlier today on my News Nation show, Banfield shout out to News Nation. I'm on every night, 10pm Eastern, Monday to Friday on News. I talked with somebody who was inside the courtroom from the moment that the judge walked in. Somebody who has covered this story since the very beginning. If you do not know Bob Ward, you need to know Bob Ward. He is a top investigative reporter for the Boston area. He's with Boston 25 News. He is a legend in Beantown. Here is my conversation with Bob Ward. And don't forget, he was in the courtroom when it all happened. Did you? I said, you didn't have it on your bingo card, did you?
- [12:49]
B
No. No one in the courtroom, maybe the prosecution, knew this was coming, but none of us, the observers, the reporters that I was with, none of us saw this one coming. You know, I was stunned. Way back at the beginning when we first heard about all those searches that were found on the iPad, that was a stunning moment. And I'd have to say this was right up there with it. I couldn't believe that he was actually pleading guilty to these two charges. And for me, actually, you know, for three years, been wonder what happened to Anna Walsh. You know, it doesn't look good with all these things that they've found, but they never found her body. Well, today, for the first time, we know that Anna Walsh for sure is no longer with us. And I think it struck me during the hearing today when he had to confirm that he is no longer lawfully married to Anna Walsh. You know, I've thrown questions at him coming in and out of court. I've asked him if he killed his wife. And he kind of rolled his eyes. He shakes his head no. But today was a much different story. He wouldn't even look at me when he left the courtroom today. It was. It's just, you know, he admitted Anna Walsh is gone and he is the person that took her out of that home and disposed of her body. He admitted it today and then.
- [14:09]
A
And then lied and lied and lied and lied and lied and twisted everybody. Yeah, I remember being in that courtroom when all of the searches were announced. I was writing so fast, I couldn't even write Them all down. They just kept coming one after another after another. And I thought, oh, boy, on your kid's iPad. How foul. Now, they haven't proven that he did that necessarily yet. What's your theory? Why do you think he stood up and did that?
- [14:35]
B
I think this is a defense strategy because they're whittling everything down, and it all now rests on the homicide charge. He is, you know, now charged with murder, with first degree murder. And if he's found guilty in Massachusetts, a mandatory life, no parole. So I think what they're trying to do is get all the bad stuff out of the way, say that, okay, yes, he did cut up her body. Yes, he did do those Internet searches. Yes, he did lie to police, but he's not going to admit that he did anything to his wife. And I think that is the whole thing. What is the evidence that he actually murdered on a Walsh? And that is what they're trying to do here. All you need is one or two jurors to have reasonable doubt. And he may. This may work.
- [15:25]
A
I've seen it happen. I've seen it happen many times. I was in the Casey Anthony courtroom, and the jurors just could not get over the big leap because there wasn't a body. Right. There were some skeletal remains, but there was no forensic clue there as to who really did this. Right. And it really sure felt like Casey did it. She sure acted awfully. She lied like a sidewalk. But ultimately, the jurors couldn't leap over the chasm of she really put tape over her daughter's nose and mouth and kill her. And so it can happen. I get it. Here's the thing, though. He's so repulsive, right? He's so repulsive in the way he would have conducted all of this, especially with two little kids in the home, especially using the child's iPad. What was the mood inside the courtroom when all of this happened? I'm sure everybody was trying to figure it out quickly, but were there a lot of sort of eyes being rolled, like, nice try, it'll never work?
- [16:21]
B
I think maybe a little bit later we were kind of doing that and we all kind of talked about it, but in the moment, we were all just trying to figure out, did we just hear that correctly? Did he really plead guilty to these two charges? Because like I said, for three years, he's been just kind of a rock. I did nothing wrong. I don't know what happened to her. And now all of a sudden, things started changing. Another thing, Ashley. Some people in the legal Community told me is that they suspect. I'm not sure I agree with this, but they say the foundation is laid for Brian Walsh to take the stand because how else are they going to be able to explain what may have happened? His version of events in the house on that New Year's Eve going into New Year's Day. If the idea is that, you know, he left the room and came back and, and she passed out and died and he freaked out and this is what he did because he lost his mind or they had some kind of argument, he pushed her and she hit her head and he just again freaked out and went psychotic. But I didn't kill her. It was an accident or it was natur causes and I didn't know what to do. I'm already facing sentencing on the federal side, so I didn't know what to do. How else is that information going to get to a jury if Brian Walsh isn't the one to tell him that? Because he was the only one in the house, the kids were asleep. So there is a theory that perhaps this is setting the stage for Brian Walsh to take the stand. If that is the case, then this is high risk because he has a lot of explaining to do, a lot to talk about here. And the prosecutor in this case is very skilled. It'll be must see TV if he actually does take the stand.
- [18:00]
A
That's exactly what I was gonna say. I wish I were the prosecutor because I would have a field day with cross examination on that. Starting with I'm sorry, you want us to believe your story, whatever it is, whether you got into an argument or she fell, hit her head, or you're saying it's self defense. I'm sure that's what it's gonna be, Bob. I'm sure he's gonna say, she came at me, what was I supposed to do? And then I would say, and you want us to believe this? And you're telling us you lied to the police for years. I want us to believe you now. So I can't wait for that moment, Bob. And I'm gonna sit beside you in court so that we can pass notes back and forth about it.
- [18:36]
B
You know, and another thing too is that I reported way back when this was first unfolding that police found in Washington D.C. a complaint that she took out. She called Metro D.C. police saying that he threatened to kill her way back when they were dating. So that is, just remember that's something that's in his past, that who knows, I would expect that, that if he tries to Claim self, then this is going to. Something like that is going to come back out his way and I don't know how he can explain it.
- [19:07]
A
Okay, so here's what I think. I think that Brian Walsh's attorneys got a stinker of a case. Thud. That landed on their desk and they thought, what the hell do we do now? And they saw some of the things that I've seen in my decades of doing this job. There were a couple of outs in the case. Right. Did anybody see Brian Walsh murdering Anna Walsh? No. They were in the house probably, and the kids were sleeping and the guest had long left the dinner on New Year's Eve. Right. There was a guest in the house on New Year's Eve and he left. So Brian Walsh could come up with anything. She came at me with a knife and I was defending myself. He could say that I turned around and I hit her and she fell and hit her head and. Okay, I got it. Bob said that? Sure. I still. Why didn't you call 91 1? Why didn't you do anything? The kids are in the house, for God's sake. Anything would have been better than cutting her into pieces and throwing her out all over town. Here's what I do believe he's gonna do. I think he's gonna say she came at me. I think he's going to try to get this jury to believe that this itty bitty sweetheart of a girl came at him. Meanwhile, four days ago, he's searching how he can divorce her. Right. Idiot. And then he's going to say it was self defense. And you know what? There's reasonable doubt because you don't know. You don't know what happened. Sure, I freaked out and I cut her up and hid her. And the reason I say all this, and I know it sounds far fetched, I know, is because I've seen it before, like real specifically before in the early 90s. And you probably are going to say, when I tell you the name of this guy, you're going to say, oh, you got the case wrong. Robert Durst. Yeah, I know. You're thinking about his wife in Connecticut from decades ago who was never found and he wasn't prosecuted for her. Or I know you're going to say his best friend out in California, you know who he was charged with murdering? No. No. He had a roommate down in Galveston. This really super ultra rich but really kooky guy from New York was down in Galveston in Texas and had a room, had a next door neighbor. Not a roommate, a next Door neighbor. And that next door neighbor's name was Morris Black. And in 2001, Morris Black and Robert Durst got into a fight, and Morris Black was shot to death. And then Robert Durst cut him into 10 pieces and tied up each of those 10 pieces neatly in garbage bags and tossed those garbage bags into the Galveston Bay. But Dum dum, Robert Durst didn't realize they'd float back to shore, and they did. So 10 pieces of Morris Black floated back to shore, and the police were called, and Robert Durst was arrested. And what do you think Robert Durst said? Or at least his attorneys devised with him? Yeah, I cut him up and I threw his bits and pieces out into Galveston Bay, but I didn't kill him. Right. You, You, You're. You would think the jury would say you're crazy. That's ridiculous bullshit. And you're guilty. And they did not. So this is why I'm nervous about Dead of Massachusetts, because it worked for Robert Durst. He got canned for the offering the indignity to a human corpse. It's a different. Different name in every jurisdiction, but basically the same. If you around with a human corpse, it's a charge, but not that much. You only go away for like two years or so. So Robert Durst, he beat the rap on the murder. It's unbelievable. I know, I know. I can hear you because I feel the same way. He beat the rap on the murder charge and was free to walk about the country and murder at will. Right? So, and listen, don't get me started on Casey Anthony, okay? The jurors even told me after that case, because I sat in that courtroom, that they believed she did something, but that there was too much reasonable doubt in what happened in the actual moment of the murder of the child. Prosecutors were making up a whole story that had no evidence to support it, that Casey put tape over her baby's nose and mouth and then, ah, watched her die. Yeah, well, there was no evidence to support that. And the jurors were like, you're making us a little freaked out here. Prosecutors, you're asking us to jump over Grand Canyon here. We know she did something, do something better than this. Could you give us some evidence or something better than this whole, I want you to believe this happened? And they said no. The jury said, it's too big of a chasm to jump, but they believe she did something. So depending on how good Brian Walsh's lawyers are, maybe they'll do a Robert Durst playbook. Yeah, I cut her up. Yeah. I went to Home Depot and I got all the accoutrements and the Tyvek suit and the bleach and the bags and everything. And yeah, I went undercover of darkness in the nighttime, pinging, ponging from, you know, dumpster to dumpster, making sure that I use dumpsters where they incinerate. Right. Because most of the evidence of Anna Walsh was incinerated. The dumpsters went right to the incinerator, not to a landfill. So, yeah, maybe he'll be able to convince a jury that, yeah, I did all that, but I'm not a monster. I didn't kill her. But I don't know, I just feel like we're getting too smart for that. I'm just going to cross my fingers and hold my breath on it and I'm going to hope for the best. But this case is far from over. And if today was any indication, the road ahead, I think it's going to be brutal for Mr. Brian Walsh. I think the piper has come for payment. But stay tuned, and by the way, stay subscribed as well because I'm going to bring you every little detail as it unfolds. And I'm going to start doing some little shorts as well. And I don't want you to miss them, especially about my little baby. Atlas us. I'm going to do a short that tells the story of my little guy. I'm Ashley Banfield. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for watching. And remember, the truth isn't just serious, it's drop dead seriously.