Grisly online searches take center stage in Brian Walshe’s murder trial. Here are takeaways from Day 2

By Lauren del Valle, CNN

Dedham, Massachusetts (CNN) — Jurors in the murder trial of Brian Walshe on Tuesday saw evidence of dozens of online searches recovered from his laptop, which prosecutors say shows the defendant was researching the best ways to dispose of a body and clean bloodstains around the time his wife vanished.

Walshe’s attorneys say he found his wife, Ana, dead in their bed in the early hours of New Year’s Day 2023 and panicked, resulting in the grisly searches, which were made in the hours and days immediately after Walshe claims to have discovered her body.

On Tuesday, the jury in a Dedham, Massachusetts, courtroom also heard a recorded law enforcement interview taped the day before Walshe’s arrest, in which he insisted to investigators he loved his wife and would never hurt her.

Trial exhibits also showed items belonging to Ana Walshe that investigators recovered from a dumpster. Prosecutors say Walshe tossed those items in an attempt to cover his tracks.

Walshe faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted of first-degree murder for Ana’s death.

Here are the takeaways from the second day of witness testimony in Walshe’s trial.

Walshe allegedly searched online for tips to dispose of a body

Days after his wife was reported missing on January 4, 2023, Brian Walshe voluntarily gave investigators his phone and his sons’ iPads. On the tablet belonging to Walshe’s young son, investigators found internet searches about disposing of a body, cleaning blood and wiping electronic devices, according to testimony Tuesday.

Investigators later realized the searches were made on Walshe’s laptop, which was synced with his son’s tablet because they shared an Apple account, Massachusetts State Trooper Nicholas Guarino testified.

When investigators confronted Walshe on January 8 about their discovery, he said, “I don’t use that iPad, so that’s really weird,” according to an audio recording played in court.

The evidence showed that, on January 1, a series of searches were made from Walshe’s laptop, Guarino said. They included:

• 4:52 a.m. ET: Best way to dispose of a body
• 4:55 a.m. ET: How long before a body starts to smell
• 9:33 a.m. ET: How long does DNA last
• 9:35 a.m. ET: Can identification be made on partial human remains
• 9:59 a.m. ET: How to dispose of a cell phone
• 10:29 a.m. ET: My wife is missing what should I do
• 11:30 a.m. ET: The laptop reflected a Google search for “Patrick Kearney,” a notorious serial killer. Over defense objections, Trooper Guarino testified that Kearney was known as the “trash bag killer” – a fact he learned from Kearney’s Wikipedia page, which had been viewed on Walshe’s laptop, according to the data shown in court Tuesday.
• 11:50 a.m. ET: Can I use bleach to clean my wood floors from blood stains

More searches were made on January 2. Among them, according to Guarino’s testimony:

• 2:01 p.m. ET: How to remove a hard drive from apple laptop
• 12:27 p.m. ET: How to saw a body
• 12:33 p.m. ET: Hack saw the best tool for dismembering a body
• 12:47 p.m. ET: Can you be charged with murder without a body
• 1:12 p.m. ET: Can you identify a body with broken teeth
• 1:14 p.m. ET: Disposing of a body in the trash
• 2:01 p.m. ET: How to remove a hard drive from apple laptop

On January 3, Guarino said, more searches were made, including:

• 1:05 p.m. ET: Body found at trash station
• 1:12 p.m. ET: Can a body decompose in a plastic bag
• 7:30 p.m. ET: Can police get your search history without your computer

Walshe called his wife’s employer on the morning of January 4, 2023, setting off a search for her. But after that morning, no other searches were made on his laptop until January 7 at 3:58 p.m. ET, the trooper said Tuesday.

On cross-examination, defense attorney Larry Tipton confirmed “dark searches” like those read in court weren’t found on Walshe’s devices before January 1, 2023. Law enforcement searched several devices, including the laptop seized from his home, extracting data between December 25, 2022, through January 8, 2023, per a search warrant.

Additional searches were raised during direct testimony that prosecutors suggested could speak to Walshe’s motive to kill his wife. The internet history on his laptop revealed it accessed pornography related to a “cheating wife” on December 27, 2022 – days before Ana’s disappearance – as well as research on divorce.

Prosecutors have said Ana Walshe was involved in a romantic relationship with a man in Washington, DC, where she worked.

These searches are key to the prosecution’s case: A conviction on first-degree murder requires the commonwealth to prove Walshe planned to kill his wife.

Tipton, the defense attorney, has said Brian and Ana Walshe discussed divorce as a way to protect their assets amid his ongoing federal fraud case, in which Brian Walshe pleaded guilty to charges connected to selling forged Andy Warhol artwork.

Tipton also said the internet history did not prove Walshe searched for pornography related to a “cheating wife,” and suggested whoever was using the laptop at that time could have stumbled on it while searching for a preferred actress’s content.

Brian Walshe said he would never hurt his wife before his arrest

Jurors on Tuesday also heard the end of an audio recording of an interview law enforcement conducted with Walshe on January 7, 2023, in which an investigator directly asked him, “Did you do anything to hurt your wife?”

“No,” Walshe said without hesitation, “I would never do that.”

An investigator then asked him if a fight with his wife ever escalated to physical violence.

No, Walshe said, adding, “The family doesn’t work without my wife.”

“I would never hurt my wife,” he continued, according to the recording. “I mean, I loved her and I think about my kids too. She’s a wonderful mother on top of being a wonderful wife. And to take that away from them, I mean, I just couldn’t even imagine something like that.”

“I wanted to spend the rest of my life with my wife,” he said. “I’m still going to, and we were apart because of the job and my legal problems.”

Ana Walshe’s belongings were found among the contents of two dumpsters

While Ana’s body has never been found, testimony by Sgt. Harrison Schmidt of the Cohasset Police on Tuesday showed police had found evidence that her belongings had been thrown away.

On January 9, 2023, investigators searched the contents of dumpsters near Walshe’s mother’s apartment complex, where they believed he had thrown away evidence days earlier.

The jury saw photos of the search, which was conducted at a trash transfer station in Peabody, Massachusetts.

“We had dumped the contents of the dumpsters in the warehouse, and we began searching the bags, bag by bag,” Schmidt said, describing how police spread the contents across the ground and searched for items they believed were significant.

They also saw photos of the items recovered, including a photo of a pair of Hunter boots, a purse, a black coat and a Covid-19 vaccination card bearing Ana Walshe’s name.

Schmidt didn’t say on the stand Tuesday that all the items belonged to Ana. But prosecutors have previously said her belongings were recovered in the dumpster search, including those listed in court and her Prada purse and a necklace.

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