Texas Wine and True Crime
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Texas Wine and True Crime
Art Fraud, Digital Breadcrumbs, And The Murder Of Ana Walshe
A forged Warhol can fool a buyer, but it can’t outrun metadata. We open the year with a case where art fraud, marital strain, and a chilling digital footprint converge: the murder of Ana Walshe and the conviction of her husband, Brian. What began with forged “Shadows” and private checks morphed into a slow-burn crisis—federal charges, stalled accountability, and a family split between Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. Anna built a new life and a new home, hoping legal closure would reunite her with her children. Instead, a New Year’s dinner became the last time friends saw her alive.
We chart the full arc of the Warhol scheme: the borrowed originals, the convincing reproductions, the eBay listings under Ana’s name, and the LA gallery deal that unraveled when frames came off and stamps were missing. Then the focus shifts to January 2023—store receipts, hydrogen peroxide, a mask on camera, and a cascade of searches on household devices about decomposition, trash routes, and CCTV retention. There was no body to recover, but the tools seized carried her DNA, and the surveillance trail showed where the evidence went. Friends and a boyfriend added context: a woman pleading for accountability, longing for her kids, and trying to chart a path forward.
The defense offered a story of sudden death and panic; the jury took six hours to return a first-degree murder verdict. We lay out why: motive grounded in control, money, and exposure; method captured by timestamps and purchase histories; and a portrait of a man whose fraud spilled from galleries into a marriage. It’s a rare no-body case that underscores how search history, receipts, and cameras can replace the physical evidence we expect. Listen for a clear, human look at the choices that led here, the investigation that tied them together, and the hard questions left behind for Ana’s family.
If this resonated, share the episode with a friend, follow the show, and leave a review—your support helps more listeners find thoughtful, evidence-driven true crime stories.
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Welcome, all of you wine and true crime lovers. I'm Brandy.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm Chris.
SPEAKER_01:And this is Texas Wine and True Crime. Thank you for being here, friends, for our start of the New Year episode, The Case of Brian Walsh. Hi, Chris.
SPEAKER_00:Hey, Brandy.
SPEAKER_01:Um, happy new year to you and happy new year to all of our listeners out there. Uh, great to be back. Good start to the new year. I hope everyone is safe, healthy, and wishing you the best of 2026.
SPEAKER_00:I concur.
SPEAKER_01:All right, Chris, we're gonna jump right into this case. Um, the trial of Brian Walsh just ended in December of 2025. So we'll get to the trial and the murder of Anna Walsh, which is what he was um tried and convicted for. But I think it's always important to um, you know, I always say we never know what goes on behind closed doors. We never know what people are dealing with, or um, but in this case, we have a guy who is dealing with a federal case against him for art fraud. Um the case and the murder trial of his wife Anna Walsh um is what we're gonna kind of be talking about on the first, on the I'm sorry, on like the second half of this episode. But I kind of want to talk about this precursor because to me, this is sort of what catapulted that's where the problem started between the two of them. Yeah, I mean, um, and and and legit reasons why. Um, so I don't want to get into too much of like year by year by year, but this federal prosecute prosecution case against Brian Walsh was going on for years. Um, first he had to get the paintings, sell the fakes, then he had money that was sent to him, and then he gave them to the art dealer. And then once they realized they were fakes, um they, you know, charges were filed against him federally. But so there's mail fraud, there's wire fraud. So you've got a lot of these pieces that are being put together that you um that take a while. The whole federal prosecution case is going to take years. But I do believe this is kind of what catapulted Anna Walsh into really questioning her marriage and questioning um really her ability to grow as a family. They had three children um and they were married living in Massachusetts.
SPEAKER_00:So it's an odd crime, too, I guess. In this, I mean, you just don't hear much about art fraud that much.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and he actually had journal entries talking about this art fraud and calling the family who he had actually known, lived with. They were a family from South Korea who actually owned Andy Warhol paintings, authentic Andy Warhol paintings that they had purchased for about$240,000. So these two paintings were called the Andy Warhol Shadows. And then there was another one that I think it was called the Dollar Sign or the Dollars by Andy Warhol. I'm not um particularly experienced in Andy Warhol paintings, but um he had been given originals by this family that he knew, and he had convinced them to let him sell them. Okay. So he had basically they handed the the art over to him. Now they had a son who was basically Brian's friend. So that's how he kind of got into with this family. But the thing is, is he in his journal entries, he calls them arrogant. He says that he is going to be doing this fraud. Um, so he actually puts in paper and and handwritten notes by him, his own self, that he's going to be committing these crimes.
SPEAKER_00:And he has possession of originals. They're his to do with what he pleases.
SPEAKER_01:They're not his. He is supposed to return the money and the profits to the family.
SPEAKER_00:And all the profits?
SPEAKER_01:Um, I don't know about all of them or if there was giving him up.
SPEAKER_00:That's what you wonder like, what was the uh was he um what's the word I'm a little upset? Maybe the cut he was getting was not gonna be enough, and he figured that was I mean it's a lot of money, but it's not like millions, and so what prompted him to just you know to commit the fraud?
SPEAKER_01:So writing the journal entries, not liking the family, maybe thinking they're arrogant, but well, and I kind of think that you you're you're getting I'm getting a sense of a guy who um well, first of all, he they had three children, he posed himself and told the court going through this federal prosecution case that he was the sole caretaker of these kids because of Anna's career. Um, which is is true. I mean, she you know, but again, this whole art thing really was putting a stop to her living her life at one point. And so we're gonna we're gonna kind of get into that. So he ends up getting these real pieces, he ends up finding someone, Chris, that can actually replicate them and make them and create some fakes. So he ends up um getting a couple of the shadow fakes and finding an art dealer in Los Angeles that wants to buy them. Now remember, he's got the real ones. So the authentication of the Andy Warhol, there's there's like an organization and a company that authenticates Andy Warhols. There's a stamp that they put on the back of them with a number, so that actually shows their authenticity, right? Well, he had those pieces, so he's able to take those pictures, but what is happening is he's actually selling them over eBay and using an eBay account under his wife's name on a wash. So he gets a dealer in LA who runs um an art gallery to buy these pieces. So the LA dealer flies an employee to Boston, meets Brian Walsh at a very fancy hotel, and because the owner has seen the authentication of the back of them, which he has, it was on eBay that way. Um, and maybe this is something you can, and I and I probably know the answer to this, but the deal was going to be done in a private check of$80,000 first and foremost. It was going to be$80,000 handed to him, and then the pieces were to be handed to the employee and then flown back to LA.
SPEAKER_00:Like a deposit because if they're worth$250,000, just like initial.
SPEAKER_01:Right. So, yes, but he didn't want to do this through an eBay transaction. He wanted to do this on a private check transaction, right? Where I assume somebody can't go, well, I paid for goods and services and I got ripped off, so I want my money back. It was going to be harder for him to basically get his funds back once he realizes these are fakes.
SPEAKER_00:Kind of unusual because that's kind of the um that's the buyer's protection, you know, through eBay. When you actually do make your purchase, you have a little bit of recourse if you never receive the item or something like that. And God forbid you get negative feedback for taking 80 grand.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and that, and and not only that, he has it under his wife's name. And she's actually going to be brought into this probably intentionally as an accomplice of sorts. Um, there was rumor that she had been the one to actually make contact with the dealer in LA, um, that she was actually the one who signed the contracts, that she was actually the one who had spoken to the employee that was then flying to Boston. So when this whole thing starts, before this gallery realizes that they're actually fakes, um he's kind of already putting his wife in a little bit of a hot, hot water mess by using her name, really just by using her name and credentials. So the employee takes a picture of the front of these paintings when they are at this hotel. Now, Brian Walsh had put them inside of frames and had them like these frames were like drilled in. So when the buyer employee gets to Boston, they can't see the back of the painting. They can only see the front. So they take pictures, send it to the gallery owner in LA. Gallery owner in LA says, perfect. I've actually already seen the backs from the eBay posting. So I feel comfortable with you handing over this check and flying these back here. So that's what happens. Well, once those get back there and he sees the frames, he's looking. By the way.
SPEAKER_00:I wonder why it's if it's possible to forge this painting on the front of the canvas and they're just a mere stamp on the rear. That to me is the critical portion of the forgery. Why can't you forge the stamp? I wonder.
SPEAKER_01:I th well, uh the authentication number is what I think correlates back to the actual.
SPEAKER_00:But even the number, you could you could actually put that number, I guess.
SPEAKER_01:Well, this guy has dealt Andy Warhol's his entire career, the guy in LA. So he took one look at these. That's how I think he knew they were the real ones were real.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's what I'm saying. But also, too, like um, if that is like say they were just this excellent reproduction, and you need this little stamp, you would think that somehow you could um somebody would forge that too. But I guess that would put a you know superb replica out there with this stamp, and that would render your originals useless with having that number too.
SPEAKER_01:Well, yeah, and I think if you're dealing Andy Warhols your entire career and have a museum of them, and you're able to, I think he probably looked at that stamp and knew it was authentic. And I think maybe there's a way to look up the number. I mean, I'm sure he probably But you never know too.
SPEAKER_00:You like you said, he has such an acute eye that when he saw the um the paintings himself, he could determine that they were well, he eventually takes the frame apart.
SPEAKER_01:Fakes, he takes the frame apart and he sees that the back has no identification. So at that point, he knows they're fakes. So now he's handed over money. Um, he tries to get a hold of Brian Walsh, they're trying to work something out. He actually ends up sending$30,000 back to the art dealer of the$80,000 check that was sent, um, basically saying the other$50 was coming, that there was a holdup in the transfer, you know, making multiple excuses. So this, and then, and then by the way, you have you have the forgers of the actual fake ones who participated in creating these. You have other dealers who remember he had originals and he also had multiple fakes that he created who he had also sold to. So now you have this big one in LA. You have another buyer that uh basically borrowed money from his father's retirement account to buy these Andy Warhol shadow paintings. So he's selling multiple fakes to multiple people. And so this guy's just really getting himself in some hot water. So I my perception of Brian Walsh right now is he is um kind of lazy. I think he is a criminal of sorts. I think he doesn't want to work a job.
SPEAKER_00:I think he's a criminal.
SPEAKER_01:He's a criminal. Uh, he's using art fraud to he's trying to get money. And um, I don't know if it's just to sustain his lifestyle. Um, I think this guy just maybe uh his wife had a more excellent career than his. Um, he was ended up in the place of taking care of the children, and maybe he just wanted, you know, money of his own or some sort of stature. I don't know, but he's a criminal. And this is kind of how I think all of this began. Because Anna Walsh's name is on that eBay account. She's then questioned. Her finances are then looked into. But because Chris, they possibly believed that she had something to do with this, they took DNA from both of them in order for the touching of the pieces to look at the financial piece of their home, all of their assets. If Brian Walsh was attached to anything and Anna's name was on it, they both were considered, I would say, suspects at the time. Okay. She's eventually cleared of all this because once the indictment comes down and they go to federal court, but and his sentencing was put off and put off and put off. But because of that, he couldn't leave Massachusetts. He was homebound. Yeah. And the federal government and federal prosecutors are making sure he doesn't go anywhere. He was a flight risk. So he's homebound, he's got kids to take care of, and his wife is like getting job offers and excelling in her life. And then she has this sort of looming over her. Um, when the federal case comes down, she is not named in the indictment. She, in fact, her name is not put anywhere in the prosecution um of this of this fraud. So they eventually, I believe, find out that she's not involved in this and that he was just basically using her name. But because her DNA had to be given along with his, this is really going to help um really find out what he did to her. Okay. So in 2023. So again, this starts, I think, in like 2013, 2014. I mean, it could be wrong on my dates, but I mean, we're talking about years of him committing this fraud, making the fakes, getting caught.
SPEAKER_00:I'm guessing she's paying all of his legal fees.
SPEAKER_01:A lot of it, she's writing letters to the court. I mean, because I mean, she is, she's writing letters to the court. She is um, you know, saying that her that Brian Walsh is a good guy and that her mother is a diabetic. And when she comes to visit, he makes meals that she can eat, and she's he's the caretaker of our children. But it during all of this, she is offered a job by a big high-end real estate firm in Washington, D.C. Well, the family's living in Massachusetts, and because of this indictment, he can't move. So she wants to take this job. I believe she was gonna be making around$250,000 a year if she took this job. So the decision was made for Anna to then move to Washington, D.C. Now she was gonna be going back and forth, of course, because her kids are in Massachusetts, but Anna left the kids there with him. She did. Um uh and here's another thing that we find out. He put he had told the court because he was the primary caretaker, it wasn't gonna be right for him just to be sitting in prison. He had to take care of the kids and that his wife worked and traveled. But they f we find out like they had a nanny. They and two of the kids were actually in preschool. So they were young. And was he home with three kids all day? No, he wasn't. Um, but yes, that's what he tells the court. And Anna moves on with her life in regard to her job, going and buying a new place in a state. Now, she didn't go buy a one-bedroom condo, she bought an entire place for all of them. She bought a four-bedroom house, decorated it, got the kids' rooms ready. I mean, she was really hoping that once this federal prosecution case was out of the way, that her family could finally all be together in Washington, D.C. So that was her plan. Um, her friends testified at this trial that that's really all she talked about leading up to, you know, her murder was that um she just wished he would take accountability. She wished that he would take accountability. And even if that meant spending jail time and pleading guilty to what he had done. And I think that was a big piece of this for for her, was the fact that because he wouldn't admit some of these things that they were asking him, and this was just going on and on and on, it was really inhibiting her from seeing her kids, from them being a family. And she just thought it was very unfair. So on January the 1st of 2023, the couple is together at their home in Massachusetts. Anna actually invites her old boss over um for like a dinner. Okay. I think there's a couple of other people over there, but this is really the last time she is seen was January 1st of 2023. Um he will tell police that everything seemed fine when he left. But as again, now that what we know was happening in her life up to this point of 2023, um, I think she probably demanded a few things that night. Um there, I think she was ready for him to admit guilt. I think she was ready to be living with her kids again. I think that she probably thought he was a little bit selfish for not doing the right thing and for her to be missing out on the family life. Um, so you know, you have this, you have this battle, and we also know she was having an affair. And he actually testifies at this trial, and we're gonna talk about him.
SPEAKER_00:Perhaps she brought up if she was, you know, with the affair, not if she was, but she was, that perhaps it was over.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I think he knew about the affair. I think he knew about because he we know now that he called the boyfriend after she went missing, um, asking if he had seen her.
SPEAKER_00:Like, I mean, and you gotta wonder too, like, why not just um get divorced and get on with her life and he could get on with his prison sentence and his life as well, too.
SPEAKER_01:It could be the$2.4 million of life insurance she had that he was going to get if she died.
SPEAKER_00:I'm saying her, not him. Um, I mean, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:It's maybe she did. Maybe she did. That maybe that's what she did that night. Maybe she told him she wanted a divorce.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, it just it seems like if he knew and that was the final straw, and that the decision had been made.
SPEAKER_01:Well, um January 4th, a few days after she last known to be seen, she's reported missing by her work. She did not show up for work, um, and they were concerned. Now, Brian Walsh actually calls the work that same morning, same day, and says, Hey, have you seen Anna? Like she had to go back to Washington, D.C. She told me for an emergency for work. They said, No, no emergency. Um, okay, well, thank you. So he eventually tells out to police that she had left, um, I think the January the second, the the day after the first, and or even maybe she had told them that night that she had to go back to DC for a work emergency. So she got in an Uber, went to the airport, and then took a flight. So this is what he ends up telling investigators. Well, on January 4th, the company reports her missing. Um, and because of that, they want a welfare check on her house. And so this is when he tells investigators, nope, well, she went back to Washington, DC. Now he was actually initially arrested four days later. Um, For for basically misleading investigators on where she actually was. So they end up arresting him and um he which I found very interesting and great on them for just only taking a few days to do this. But what we know now is that he, in those days after the first, he was visiting Lowe's, he was going to different stores, he was buying buckets, rags. Um, I think he bought 10 different types of hydrogen peroxide from CVS. And not only that, he tells investigators he had lost his phone, but they know now on January 1st it was actually plugged in at the house. He's using the children's phones and the children's iPads to do these searches. How long does it take for a body to decompose? Um, how do they track, how do they track trash and trash bins? Um how long do camera, how long does CVS and Lowe's keep their camera footage? These very, very detailed searches that they will eventually find on on these electronics. But he didn't lose his phone. He had his phone. He um is then traveling around with one of the kids' phones.
SPEAKER_00:It's still interesting to think that he would have used um I mean we discussed it earlier, like I mean, just still so easily trackable. You know, I mean, like, I don't know. In this day and age, you can get a burner phone. I mean, that has all that stuff.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I think he's very arrogant, and I think he is not very particularly smart. I think this art fraud was a total debacle, and he absolutely had um I just don't think he's a very smart guy, uh in my opinion. I think he's got some some loose screws when it comes to actually like thinking about what he's doing, what he's about. He had no problem. He did wear like a face mask, you know, like a COVID mask when he was in the store. Like there is one footage of him with that on. So maybe that was his way of like covering up um him being there, but we know he was by himself because they see him go in and out from the CCT.
SPEAKER_00:I guess his Google search was incorrect that they were able to see him and it wasn't hidden enough. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:So he's eventually charged with murder. Okay. Um, prosecutors argued that Walsh, by the way, her body has never been found. Um, her body parts have never been found. Prosecutors argued that he had killed Anna around New Year's Day, of that last night she was seen and then dismembered and disposed of her body, scattering it in multiple dumpsters. Why do we know this? Because he is seen on multiple cameras dropping things into trash bins. Um, there is that digital evidence I talked about of how to dispose of a body, how long before a body starts to smell. Dismemberment is another word that he um that was searched on the family's electronics. And they recovered a few things: a hatchet, a hacksaw, some shears, cleaning materials. And again, they trace it back to what he had bought in the stores. Um, DNA from Anna was actually found on some of those items, the hatchet and the hacksaw.
SPEAKER_00:Uh testimony that Walsh had like none of this guy's Google searches yielded any good information.
SPEAKER_01:Nothing. Yeah, he's all uh, I mean, and it and then you get like real specific like CVS, CCTV, how long did they keep their video camera footage? I mean, it's just so um the digital evidence is is unbelievable in this case. So the defense's argument um was that Anna had suddenly died in her sleep. She had suddenly the sudden unexplained death, and claiming that he found her dead in the bed after New Year's Day and panicked. So which is crazy. So then you just go dismember her. So he didn't want people to think that he did this. So he was gonna basically cut her up and get rid of her, um, just so they weren't gonna pin it on him, but that she had just died of natural causes or just died in of natural death in her sleep. 39 years old, by the way. That's that's how old this woman is. He's 50 years old at this time. Um so throughout the case, you have multiple people testifying. Okay. You have honest friends who tell the court that she was very vocal about her um and you know what, you know, what really kind of tugged on my heartstrings a little bit was that she wasn't necessarily saying, like, oh, I'm gonna divorce this man. I'm so, you know, even though she was having the affair, I think she wanted her family together. And I in the the complaint and what her friends testified to was her really wanting him to own up to what he had done. And that he that because he would not do that, she was suffering and not being able to see her.
SPEAKER_00:Because if he's awaiting a sentencing phase, yep, he's found guilty. What is he not owning up to? He has no choice but there was no trial.
SPEAKER_01:There was no the sentencing was based on the federal investigation, but then you had the second victim come forward in the art fraud, which again extended, right? And so that's a whole nother investigation.
SPEAKER_00:Because I mean, there is a certain like you mentioned, all the wire frauds and all those things. I mean, that's that's one of the big reasons it makes it a federal case, but also there a certain amount of money of fraud will also cue it to be federal as well, too. So if he's awaiting um because it's to me, it's regardless of a um at that point if a victim wants to press charges, the government's press charges on the well and they're not gonna be on your timeline.
SPEAKER_01:They're going to they're going to make sure that they get all of their ducks in a row.
SPEAKER_00:No, I want to do that.
SPEAKER_01:To get these people's money restitution back.
SPEAKER_00:Well, but I mean as far as w awaiting the sentencing phase um for him to go to jail or serve any time, um, or if it's a you know commun commuted sentence, I think is the well I don't know if he ever admitted to still having the real ones.
SPEAKER_01:I I couldn't really find maybe one of our listeners knows the answer to that, but they were basically wanting him to give up the originals, and I don't think he was doing that. And I think that to me was part of her problem was that she did not think he was being fully 100% cooperative and admitting to what he did and moving this forward because I don't think he just pled guilty. I think he had they he they were hoping he would get no jail sentence and just have to pay for the city.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean that's why they just as you know, like attorney keep stalling, you know, motioning for um extensions or whatever of the sentencing. I don't know, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, either way, it was taking a really long time. They he was not allowed to leave Massachusetts, and she's kind of going on with her life. And one of the people who actually testifies in court was Anna Walsh's boyfriend. So she had a boyfriend, William Fasto, and he testified, he was actually a key witness for the prosecution. He was identified as the man who was having an intimate relationship with her, you know, prior to her disappearance. He would he was actually the one who showed her the home in Washington, D.C. He was also a real estate guy. So she ends up buying the home, they end up just getting romantically involved. But I think because of, and he also was going through a divorce at the time, um, in his own life, William Fasto was. And so I think this combination of like, I'm going through divorce, you're dealing with this with your husband, they kind of connected in a communicative way to be able to share those thoughts. Okay. So William Fasto um basically tells the court that he met Anna in March of 2022 when he did help her buy that house in DC. He said they spent time together socially, they went to dinners, sailing, they ended up doing overnight stays together. Um, they even traveled together, including that Thanksgiving trip to Ireland. She ends up going, so she tells Brian Walsh, her husband, that she's going to visit her mother in Serbia, which she does, but she ends up spending um, you know, time with her boyfriend in Dublin before she heads to Serbia to see her mother. Um he testifies that the relationship was not hidden from people, that they both, I mean, both of them, uh basically people who worked with her knew about this relationship. Some of her friends knew about this relationship. And that Anna had expressed to him that if Brian were to find out, she wanted him to hear it from her first. So this was something interesting, too. That I do wonder if maybe he did not know about this until that New Year's Day. Now remember, because they've only really have seen each other less than a year that this affair has been going on because he met her in 2022 and she is killed and dismembered in 2023. So I'm thinking that maybe she told him that she was done with this and she's fed up, and then she admits to the name, who he is, you know, or she just goes to him and says, I want a divorce. Something triggered him that night to murder his wife.
SPEAKER_00:Um and all the search history was like right around that time, correct?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the search history was in between like the first and the fifth of January. I mean, he's arrested on the eighth. So this is when they really find out all the digital information. Um, this is what he says about her marriage. Fasto told jurors that Anna had spoken to him about stressors in her marriage, including frustrations about Brian's ongoing federal legal troubles and the fact she couldn't be with her children in Washington because of it. So I kind of picked this up already when I was looking into this case. She was a little bitter. I mean, she was really upset that he was not going to do the right thing in order for her to have a good life. And I think she felt very bitter about that and was not quiet about that. He also recounted discussions they had about future plans and what a life together might look like, although he emphasized that they had not made firm decisions and that Anna said she needed to figure out her situation with Brian first. So, again, whether she asked for a divorce that night and that was the end of that, um, I don't know. But I do believe when Anna's friends testified at this trial that her want of him taking accountability and getting her kids was actually probably maybe even more important in the beginning when this affair started. I don't think she had any intention of maybe deserting the family for this guy. And this guy doesn't, I mean, he's a good guy. So I don't think she, I think maybe she wanted her kids back and that he could stay home in Massachusetts and deal with his legal troubles, and that she and the kids were moving on with their life. I mean, I can just from a woman's perspective, I feel like this is maybe where the conversation went, you know, the night the night of her murder. Um, the last contact he says he has with her, um, Fasto testified that he last heard from Anna just around midnight on New Year's Eve of 2022, um, when she sent him um a happy new year's message. So, and I'm sorry, I said 2023, I meant 2022. So again, we're talking about six to 12 months that she was having this affair. So, do I think like they were um making plans to have this big life and she was divorcing? I don't think they were there yet. I think that she probably confided in her frustrations, and same with what this guy was doing about his, you know, upcoming divorce, current divorce. He said he sent her texts over the next couple of days that went unanswered, which was very unusual. Now, Brian contacts him after she vanishes. So Fast now testifies that Brian Walsh called him on January 4th of 2023 after she goes missing. Fasto said he did not answer the first call because he was concerned Brian might have found out about the affair and wanted to confront him. On the second call, Walsh left a voicemail saying Anna hadn't been in touch and asked if Fasto had spoken to her. Now on cross-examination, Fasto was asked about deleted messages he had with Anna. He said he sometimes deleted them if he found them embarrassing, though he did not, you know, he didn't voluntarily basically to give them to police. So they thought maybe the guy was hiding something. I mean, it could have been her lover. I mean, who's to say that he didn't do something to her? So they're looking, they probably looked at his phone and looked at different things like that when she went missing. The defense probed him and whether Anna had spoken positively about Brian and whether Walsh even knew about the affair. But Fasto uh said Anna had always spoken about her husband in a positive light and that she never told him directly that Brian knew about the relationship. I don't think he knew. I think if he did know, she told him that night that he ends up killing her. Um, but I I don't believe that. I think Brian Walsh would have taken more action earlier if he would have known about it, but we're not talking about very long. I mean, the affair started the same, you know. I mean, she's killed, we think, around the first, but it goes into the new year, right? So um, so he was very concerned. And again, she talked about him in a positive light, which again tells me, just like the friends testified to, that she wanted her life back. Like she wanted her marriage, she wanted her kids, she wanted everybody under one roof. Um, but this is proving to be very difficult. Now, the testimony was so important, really, why he was the key prosecutor's um witness, um, really was to help the jury more understand that Anna was in a meaningful, romantic relationship outside of her marriage, and that this relationship and the strain in Anna and Brian's marriage could point to motive or context, right? I'm gonna kill my wife because she's having an affair.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:So again, we don't really know what was said to him from her after everyone left their house and their party, but um we do know that he, when they got to trial, the the defense's stance was that she had died in her sleep, that he had dismembered her, and because he basically didn't want think people that that he had done this. On December 15, 2025, um, a jury found Brian Walsh guilty of first-degree murder in the death of his wife. Um, they were only in deliberation for about six hours, so we know that's never um a good sign for our plaintiffs. Um, or excuse me, our um uh for the defense. So Massachusetts law mandates that life in prison without parole for first degree murder. So he gets life in prison without parole for this.
SPEAKER_00:How do you defend that to you? Like um, yeah, for my I just found my wife dead, didn't want to get caught, and think it was me. I dismember. So, like, what was there? Like he's guilty of dismembering her, like, where's the body? Like, you know, produce a body. I mean, it just seems like a hard case to um Well, you have no physical evidence, right?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, well, besides the DNA that are found on some of the the things that were used to actually dismember her, they have never found any body.
SPEAKER_00:Um He did that. Okay, well, let's find the cause of death. Oh, okay. Well, let's go find go back and retrace your steps and retrieve the loss.
SPEAKER_01:So you're saying why did the defense take that stance?
SPEAKER_00:No, I just said it's difficult to defend. Like, what is the ration? Like, how does that even make any sense? You know? Like, was he being some sort of a good husband by it? Well, I think I just think I'm just gonna be able to do that.
SPEAKER_01:I think it was a lower sentencing. I think that's what they were going for. I think that they were trying to get him life in prison.
SPEAKER_00:It's not like murder or manslaughter, it's just um dismemberment. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Well, they weren't going to buy it. So on December 18th, he is then sentenced um by Judge Diane Frenier. Described the crimes as barbaric and incomprehensible. Um, again, he is sentenced to life without parole um for the murder of Anna Walsh. And he also received additional consecutive sentences for witness intimidation, improper disposal of a body totaling decades beyond the life sentence. Um, they did give Honest Family um did give some impact statements of really um not having a body to bury, not having um, you know, her kids, now not having a mother. I mean, the woman was 39 years old, had just landed an amazing job and was moving on with her life. And, you know, it's just sad. And they just said it just took a big piece of them um away.
SPEAKER_00:And um Chris, I want to talk about not finding the body because Well, I was about to say, um, he put him in dumpsters. Yeah, all the trash picked up.
SPEAKER_01:That's right.
SPEAKER_00:There's it's impossible to find. So it's not like he buried in one location.
SPEAKER_01:So I recamp my well, and usually it's kind of hard to get a conviction of life when you don't have a body. I mean, you have to you're relying on circumstantial evidence, you're relying on forensic evidence, but you you don't have any eyewitnesses, right?
SPEAKER_00:And you don't have a body, and so it proves to be very difficult um to one, to be able to uh say that he did it and even even for them to bring up the charges, because usually prosecuting uh a case without having all that physical evidence and just the circumstantial, you know, not often do they prosecute.
SPEAKER_01:So um, you know, I uh again, it's we don't know what is actually was actually said on um, you know, after the party, but my my gut feeling was that she was probably coming clean about a few things. I'm sure that she even maybe even made an attempt to get him to be accountable for the fraud to come forward um and and give specific details that she knew he was probably withholding from prosecutors, so he would not have to spend any jail time. So I think she was probably thinking he was being very selfish about this, not thinking about her, not thinking about the children. And she probably was trying to end the marriage that night. But like I said, she had about$2.4 million in life insurance, which was going to go all directly to Brian Walsh. And one of the other things that he had Googled on the child's iPad was um basically, how long does it take to get a payout after someone has died?