346: Refusing to Testify? Is Brian Walshe Going to Walk Free? | Trial Week 2 Recap

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Speaker 3 Hey, True Crime Besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialist Leaf.

Speaker 3 Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialist Leaf with me, Annie Elise, bonus episode edition.
Happy Friday. I hope you are, you know, ready to kick off your weekend.

Speaker 3 Hope you had a great week. Hoping you are ready to hear about this freaking douche canoe, Brian Walsh, because I'm back.

Speaker 3 I'm here with you for another bonus episode outside of the regular release schedule. Because so many of you last week appreciated the coverage and wanted to continue following the trial and the story.

Speaker 3 So here I am am again with a recap for not only the second week, but what appears to be the final week, actually.

Speaker 3 The trial was originally supposed to, God, I can't talk, heller, the trial was originally supposed to be four to six weeks. Then we heard that it might be two to three weeks.

Speaker 3 Now it's like almost a wrap and done. And don't worry, I'm going to explain why.
and we're going to get into all of that. So I have my notes next to me.
I have my big freaking jug of water here.

Speaker 3 Let me move the microphone a little bit away from my mouth so that you don't hear all my like disgusting noises.

Speaker 3 And let's talk about what went down this week, because I would say towards the end of the week, it definitely kind of took everybody for a surprise. Now, let me just start by saying this too.

Speaker 3 If you missed last week, I will link our week one recap in the show notes where we break down all the players, how we got here, the whole situation.

Speaker 3 I also will link the deep dive that we did on this case a while back that takes you through the entire story. But here's your like mega, mega quick refresher.

Speaker 3 This loser, Brian Walsh, is accused of murdering his wife, Ana Walsh. This was after she disappeared in January of 2023, literally like New Year's Day.

Speaker 3 Now, the prosecution has already shown some pretty wild evidence, in my opinion, that Brian absolutely dismembered her body, lied to the police about it.

Speaker 3 And in my opinion, I do believe that they have illustrated that he murdered her. Now, shockingly, if you missed last week, let me just tell you this.

Speaker 3 The defense isn't even denying the part of him dismembering his wife, Ana. They're kind of like, well, yeah, he did.
He panicked. He had no other choice.
He didn't know what to do. He woke up.

Speaker 3 She was dead. And in a blind panic, he thought he had to get rid of her body because he was scared he was going to be charged with her murder.
So, yeah, he dismembered her. Yep.
Yep. Yep.

Speaker 3 That's right. I mean,

Speaker 3 again, their whole argument is that he did this in a like frenzied panic after coming to bed New Year's Eve or waking up, I should say, or in the middle of the night or whenever it was, and then finding Ana dead next to him, which actually, that's something I do want to just quickly clarify and touch on really quickly from last week's episode.

Speaker 3 I did mention it in the comments on the episode, but last week when we had talked about the defense and their explanation of Ana's death, I had mentioned that he had nudged her and that she fell off the bed.

Speaker 3 And so he said, oh, she had this unexplained medical incident and she died.

Speaker 3 And I think the way I explained it definitely made it sound like, or could have, I guess, made it sound like the fall is what killed her. But let me just clarify.

Speaker 3 What he is saying is that he nudged her a couple of times in the bed.

Speaker 3 and that she wasn't moving and then she basically like fell off the bed so that she was already deceased in the bed and that was from the unexplained medical incident. So

Speaker 3 basically what they're trying to say, or I should say what the defense is trying to lay out, is that this beautiful, healthy 39-year-old woman who had a regular New Year's Eve dinner with friend with him, with friends, then went to bed, just had this, you know, crazy, unexplained.

Speaker 3 medical situation that left her dead. And then Brian was nudging her, trying to move her, to wake her up, to do whatever he was was doing.
She, you know, fell off the bed. He realized she was dead.

Speaker 3 And then he said, you know what? Rather than calling 911,

Speaker 3 rather than hoping someone can come and save her and resuscitate her, you know what I'm going to do?

Speaker 3 I'm going to go to Home Depot and I'm going to buy myself a hatchet and a hacksaw and cleaning supplies and I'm going to get to work and dismember her. Yep.
That's what I'm going to do.

Speaker 3 I'm not going to call 911. And you know what?

Speaker 3 Before I do that, let me just make some searches on how to get away with this, how to cover up a murder, how to get rid of the smell of decomposition, how to properly dismember a body.

Speaker 3 Let me get some education, then go buy the supplies, and let me get rid of my wife.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I just don't think I should call 911. Like, are you out of your mind? Is this the best that the defense could come up with? Honestly, honestly.

Speaker 3 I'm kind of surprised that they went with something so bizarre, but look, I'm not a defense attorney, so maybe there's a strategy strategy here and I'm just the loser idiot who is too dumb to keep up.

Speaker 3 I don't know. But now that we've got all of that straight, week two of the trial opened up at the top of this week with trooper Connor Keefe back on the stand.

Speaker 3 And sorry, I'm just going to grab some water too really quick. And he was showing text messages between Brian and Ana.
Now last week, God, I can't get this off. Sorry, one second, pause.

Speaker 3 Sometimes that happens. I'm talking a million miles an hour.
I'm a fast talker by nature. And then I just am like dehydrated and, you know, dying of thirst.
Like my mouth is the Sahara Desert.

Speaker 3 So anyway, he's talking about these text messages between Brian and Ana. And last week, we learned that just days before Anna died, Brian had searched William Fasto.

Speaker 3 Now, this is the guy that his wife Ana was having an affair with. He also searched Ana Walsh found dead.

Speaker 3 Not, you know, very normal searches, I would argue.

Speaker 3 Now, around that same time, he also searched the names of two buildings that were managed by Anna's real estate company, which to me, that sounds like a lot of motive.

Speaker 3 That sounds maybe like some premeditation. It sounds to me like Brian was basically deep diving into his own wife, Ana.

Speaker 3 Also looking into the man that she was cheating with, their company, their buildings. I mean, the whole kitten caboodle.
God, that really,

Speaker 3 really just aged me. Now that I said, my mom and dad used to say that to me.
Whatever, that feels like it aged me, but who cares? We're all in this together.

Speaker 3 So he has these searches into the guy she's having an affair with, her buildings, a search that says very explicitly, Anna Walsh dead before she even goes missing, which the defense had a totally and almost kind of endearing explanation for why Brian made those searches.

Speaker 3 Okay, so let me break that down.

Speaker 3 They claim that after Anna was late getting back to Massachusetts on Christmas, because remember she would go back and forth from DC to Massachusetts, they say that Brian got worried that something serious had happened to her.

Speaker 3 So to back up that point, they looked and pointed out during cross-examination that Brian also had searched Xmas Day plane crash, meaning Christmas Day plane crash.

Speaker 3 And he also had searched around the same time that he had searched William. This was also searched around the same time he had searched William's name and the search on a Walsh found dead.

Speaker 3 So they were saying basically and arguing that he was searching for her name and for her boyfriend's name because he was scared something happened.

Speaker 3 He was also searching for a plane crash, wondering if maybe she got in a plane crash on her way back to Massachusetts on Christmas.

Speaker 3 And as for Brian searching the company buildings, they pointed out that those two specific buildings had recently been tied to an outbreak of severe upper respiratory disease.

Speaker 3 So according to them, all of these searches really were just an illustration of Brian being this very loving, very thoughtful, very worried husband, just researching what Anna may have been exposed to in these buildings.

Speaker 3 A plane crash on her way back from Massachusetts. Was her boyfriend hurt too?

Speaker 3 Which it kind of made me wonder if by laying that foundation, if they were going to try and connect that mysterious mysterious illness in those buildings to the whole unexplained medical incident theory that they claim caused Ana's death, which again, if you're new to this,

Speaker 3 the cause of death can't be determined because Ana's body has not been recovered. So

Speaker 3 I thought that maybe they would try and tie those things together, but they didn't, which, well, not really, which I'll explain here in a minute.

Speaker 3 So during Trooper Keefe's cross-examination, the defense also pointed out that Brian and Anna regularly were texting with each other about plans to buy a new property, even plans to buy a new Porsche.

Speaker 3 So according to the defense, if Anna was talking about buying another home with Brian, that completely disproves the prosecution's theory that she was planning to leave him.

Speaker 3 And if Brian was talking about buying her a Porsche, then According to the defense, obviously he wasn't planning her murder. He loved her.
He wanted to buy her lavish gifts.

Speaker 3 They were looking for property.

Speaker 3 You know, nobody ever is buying somebody luxury gifts or pretending that they're going to if they're planning a murder, which if you are not seeing me right now and you're only listening, you see my face.

Speaker 3 And how I think that is complete bullshit.

Speaker 3 How many times do we hear the voicemail to, and I'm thinking of Scott Peterson, we saw, hey, honey, just, you know, here thinking about you, gonna, not this, but like bake some cookies. I miss you.

Speaker 3 I love you. Like all these things.
People do this. People want to act like they're in paradise before something happens so that it gets the smoke or not smoke, gets the like stench off of them, right?

Speaker 3 So that people don't look to you and they don't think that you're involved in this. So I don't know.
The Porsche and the buying the property doesn't really sway my thought process on this.

Speaker 3 Maybe it does for you. Let me know, but I think that's probably just par for the course.
They were talking about a property. Ana was building plans allegedly to leave him.

Speaker 3 And I'm sure that that was done in secret. So maybe this property, she was just appeasing him.
Like, yeah, let's go look at it. Yeah, sure.
We'll look at the Porsche too.

Speaker 3 Ready to kind of basically be like, bro, there's no Porsche. There's no property.
I'm leaving your loser ass.

Speaker 3 And that could even be what conversation was had on New Year's Eve that made this whole thing blow up. Who knows?

Speaker 3 But then, anyways, the prosecution continued their case and they brought in Richard Atkinson. He's a medical examiner.

Speaker 3 So he gave more details about the horrifying evidence that was found in Brian's car, evidence that we had talked about in last week's episode.

Speaker 3 Now, this included a piece of rug that was covered in blood, a clump of brown hair, and a quarter inch long blood clot. A quarter inch long blood clot.
I mean, this is horrific.

Speaker 3 And so we heard more about this and just, again, The explanation is, well, yeah, he was dismembering her. He got rid of her body.
Of course, you're going to find DNA and those types of things.

Speaker 3 And I'm getting ahead of myself a bit, so I apologize, but we will get there.

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Speaker 3 Apparently like five to ten percent of all deaths are quote, you know, sudden unexpected deaths. It can happen after physical exertion, stress, long travel.
It even can happen after sex.

Speaker 3 Just a little warning for all you, you know, people listening who are sexually active.

Speaker 3 Now, of course, we know that Ana did travel a lot for work. She would go back and forth from Massachusetts to DC.

Speaker 3 She was, you know, a hustler. She would grind.

Speaker 3 I would imagine she also carried an incredible amount of stress given the situation and what she was trying to potentially leave and a new life she was trying to start, trying to get her kids to DC, but she couldn't because Brian was on house arrest for his fraud crimes.

Speaker 3 I mean, yeah, there is a lot of stress. So I could understand that being a possible argument.

Speaker 3 However, on redirect, the prosecution had Richard clarify, and Richard said, and I want to quote it, he said,

Speaker 3 it's definitely not common at all for a healthy 39-year-old woman to just drop dead out of nowhere. So there you have it.

Speaker 3 Now, the managing director at Ana's company also took the stand, and she testified that Brian had contacted her on January 4th, saying that he couldn't get a hold of Ana.

Speaker 3 And that's when the head of the company, security, had to be the one to basically be like, hey, bro, if your wife is missing, you need to call the police. Why are you calling us? Call the police.

Speaker 3 And we did talk a little bit about that last week. And we also now know that Brian admitted that this whole, I can't reach her.
Where is she? Is she at work? Have you heard from her?

Speaker 3 That whole thing was obviously a lie, which he admitted. And it kind of makes everything feel a little worse, right? Like your lie was even lazy, which you had to, you called your wife's workplace.

Speaker 3 They had to remind you to call her in as a missing person.

Speaker 3 It just seems like this guy was a complete moron every single step of the way and trying to cover this up. But I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love to see it.

Speaker 3 I love when they're big, dumb, and stupid because it makes it so much cleaner of a case for the prosecution to argue.

Speaker 3 Now, speaking of him being a complete, utter deweeby loser, We also saw footage from a liquor store on New Year's Eve, and it showed Brian walking toward a dumpster with plastic bags.

Speaker 3 Now, this is the third surveillance video that has him just on camera dropping off bags of trash at random dumpsters. Like it's a full-time hobby.
It reminds me a lot of Barry Morpheu.

Speaker 3 It also, I think I said last week, reminds me a lot of Fotus Duelos. Like, oh, I have all this trash.
So, no, I'm not going to take it to the dump.

Speaker 3 I'm not going to use my big bins that I wheel out on Fridays. I'm not even going to go to one location that has a big dumpster.

Speaker 3 I think all of this McDonald's trash and all of this paper and garbage in my car, you know what? I'm going to scatter it. That's what I'm going to do.
I'm not going to go to one dumpster.

Speaker 3 I'm going to scatter it, even though it's nothing that I'm scared of people finding.

Speaker 3 I just feel like it wouldn't be a waste of my time to drive to three different dump sites and dispose of my garbage. Like,

Speaker 3 guys, come on, come on.

Speaker 3 And the creepiest part of all of this too is this liquor store wasn't even open. He was just cruising by in the dark trying to dump his stuff, you know, into this dumpster.

Speaker 3 So obviously he had no reason to even be at this liquor store unless he was there trying to ditch evidence.

Speaker 3 The employee also from this liquor store testified that he easily could identify Brian because Brian apparently hung out at this liquor store more than any other customer.

Speaker 3 He said it seemed like Brian really had nothing better to do on his weekends than just loiter in his liquor store, which How embarrassing, how embarrassing and pathetic, which look, I get he was on house arrest or whatever, so he couldn't really go a lot of places.

Speaker 3 He could go to the grocery store, apparently, the liquor store. He had, you know, a certain list of approved places.
So it limits your options of what you can do and where you can go.

Speaker 3 But just being the local idiot hanging out at a liquor, at a liquor store to where

Speaker 3 this owner or manager or employee or whatever isn't even saying, like,

Speaker 3 yeah, we had.

Speaker 3 homeless people come here a lot or we have, you know, the town alcoholic who comes in a lot.

Speaker 3 They identified Brian as being this guy, this guy who had nothing better to do than just loiter in this liquor store.

Speaker 3 And it's so pathetic when you really think about it, because here Ana was, this beautiful 39-year-old woman with this, you know, 50-year-old garbage pail man.

Speaker 3 And she's out there making six figures a year, hustling, grinding, doing whatever she could do. And Brian was just this

Speaker 3 counterfeit art fraud wannabe now just hanging out and boozing it up in a local liquor store. It's just beyond.
And

Speaker 3 I don't know. I don't know.
This guy is just like, he gets under my skin for so many different reasons. And I just think he is like such a loser.
And look, I get it. I'm not trying to say that Ana

Speaker 3 is the best model citizen. Obviously, there are some things that I wish.
she probably had done differently and choices she made that were different in regards to the affair and all of that.

Speaker 3 Not to say that any of that is justifies murder or means she had it come in, obviously not, but she was doing her best. She was doing her best with the cards that she was dealt.

Speaker 3 She got this job, met this guy who was arguably way more handsome than Brian, successful, wasn't trying to make a quick buck selling fake Andy Warhols. And did she handle it the right way?

Speaker 3 Maybe not, but certainly did not deserve to be murdered over it. And this guy, Brian, just looks like a freaking loser dweeb twerp from every lens you go, you look through.

Speaker 3 We also saw more footage of Brian wearing the blue latex gloves and the black mask while he was buying all of his cleaning supplies. Now, get this.

Speaker 3 So we already talked about how he was at Lowe's, caught on camera buying $400 worth of cleaning supplies.

Speaker 3 He also bought hydrogen peroxide at CVS, ammonia at stop-in shop, and another $400 spent at Home Depot on even more cleaning supplies.

Speaker 3 But what was finally confirmed and is one of the more devastating parts of this is that Brian and Ana's young son was with him at Lowe's when he was buying this, which imagine bringing your child with you to pick up supplies to clean up their dead mother's body.

Speaker 3 Regardless of how she died, whether it was murder, like the prosecution says, or sudden, unexplained death, like the defense wants us to believe.

Speaker 3 I mean, dragging your kid to the store to get cleanup supplies to dismember their mother's body is truly sick. And I don't know, I may have said this in last week's episode.
I'm not sure.

Speaker 3 I can't recall.

Speaker 3 Where we don't know, at least it hasn't been said that I have seen, where Brian actually did dismember Ana's body. We know he bought a tarp, he bought like a hazmat type suit, he bought the tools.

Speaker 3 I would argue that it probably happened inside their garage or a basement, meaning that not only did he take their young son along for this, you know, trip to the store to buy all of this cleaning supplies, but he may have dismembered Ana's body and stored her body and literally dismantled her entire body in the house while her sons were sleeping and where they would wake up every day.

Speaker 3 And it was the holiday break, remember? They weren't back in school yet, I'm sure.

Speaker 3 So like, it's so sick when you really break it down and think about what, how sinister this all is and I just truly hope that these three kids are getting every bit of love and support that they possibly can and that they are with a loving family member and

Speaker 3 it just you if you are watching the video version of this episode right now you can see I have goosebumps it just gives me the chills it really does

Speaker 3 okay so then Matthew Sheehan from the Massachusetts State Police

Speaker 3 Crime Lab testified sorry and he tested areas around the Walsh home plus some of the evidence that was found in Brian's car and in the dumpsters that Brian was seen at.

Speaker 3 And he ended up finding stains all over the place that tested positive for blood.

Speaker 3 This included the basement floor, the basement stairs, two towels, pieces of carpet, a rug, a piece of tissue paper, a pair of slippers, a sponge, and even a clump of human hair that was matted with blood.

Speaker 3 And like I said, it looks like this all went down in the basement.

Speaker 3 Now, what's even scarier scarier is all of the weapons and the tools that we had mentioned last week, the knife, the hammer, the hacksaw,

Speaker 3 the hatchet, the wire cutters, all of those also tested positive for blood, which you would think that, actually, I'm not even going to get into that of like what tools would be used on what body part.

Speaker 3 You can do the math and figure that out. But

Speaker 3 as we know, the defense admitted Brian did dispose of Ana's body. So none of this information that there's blood on all of these tools, none of that is exactly shocking.

Speaker 3 However, hearing how extensive and gruesome the evidence is, that is shocking. It's a lot.

Speaker 3 Plus, you have to remember that even though we know that Brian has pleaded guilty to moving Ana's body and lying to the police, the jury doesn't know anything about him pleading guilty.

Speaker 3 So this is all totally new to them. They don't know that he has admitted guilt for moving her body, which

Speaker 3 I think that it's my opinion, there's enough clear clear evidence that they wouldn't need to know that in order to reach their verdict, but we can talk more on that later.

Speaker 3 And I'm curious to know your thoughts on that.

Speaker 3 So the defense pointed out that for all of the blood that was found inside the house, none of it showed a splatter pattern, that it was basically just puddles and stains.

Speaker 3 And Matthew agreed that there were no splatters, which you would normally expect if there had been some sort of extreme violent incident, something like a stabbing or blunt force trauma or something like that.

Speaker 3 So this was once again now the defense trying to support their argument that, yeah, there is a ton of evidence that Brian cut up his wife's body and disposed of her, but there's no actual proof that he killed her in the first place.

Speaker 3 The prosecution though brought up that any splatters could have easily been cleaned up.

Speaker 3 And Matthew also said that cleaning solutions such as hydrogen peroxide, ammonia, and bleach, they can all clean up bloodstains so much so to the point that they are undetectable.

Speaker 3 And those are all things that we know that Brian purchased shortly after Ana's death. So basically,

Speaker 3 they are saying, okay, just because there aren't any violent blood spatters or splatters, that doesn't mean that there weren't any to begin with. They could have just been cleaned up.

Speaker 3 Whereas meanwhile, the defense is saying, well, you can't find any splatters. All you have are little pools and drips.
And that is, you know, that does tie back to the dismemberment.

Speaker 3 So prove that there was a crime here that happened though, a crime, you know, a homicide crime. Another thing that I found really interesting just in regards to the whole supplies, cleanup, you know,

Speaker 3 Google search kind of of it all is Matthew also testified that a bunch of the items that he tested were covered in a white powder.

Speaker 3 It was later confirmed that it was baking powder, which This is where it kind of gets interesting.

Speaker 3 It goes back to them being dumb and stupid, and by them I mean Brian, because where have we heard baking powder before?

Speaker 3 In Brian's Google search history, he had searched, can baking soda make a dead body smell good?

Speaker 3 But apparently, in all of those errands that Brian ran across the entire freaking state picking up supplies, he couldn't even manage to grab the right item. He was supposed to be getting baking.

Speaker 3 I'm sorry, I'm like having a stroke. He was supposed to be getting baking soda, not baking powder.
And he got the wrong thing.

Speaker 3 So not to be rude, but he doesn't doesn't exactly scream genius criminal mastermind. Sorry, guys, I need to take another break.

Speaker 3 I'm talking so much and usually I cut these little like water moments out so that it's a cleaner episode, but we're just getting into it. We're just hanging together.
So hold on.

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Speaker 3 Okay, let's continue.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 The prosecution then called several DNA experts, including Simon Salim.

Speaker 3 This is, he was from the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab, and they testified that the inside of those bloody slippers and the Tyvek suit that was found in the dumpster, which the Tyvek suit is basically like the hazmat suit, they both contained DNA consistent with both Anna and Brian.

Speaker 3 The sample of human tissue that was found in the dumpster was also consistent with belonging to Anna.

Speaker 3 Anna's DNA was also all over the basement floor, the blade of the hacksaw, the blade of the hatchet as well.

Speaker 3 Which the defense fired back that everything that was found in those trash bags could have easily been cross-contaminated, either by items in the same bag or from other bags.

Speaker 3 So because of that, there's really no way to know what the evidence looked like before it got tossed in all together and just compacted together, which, yes, is technically possible, but also, I mean, come on, like, come on, how else would blood and Ana's DNA end up in that dumpster?

Speaker 3 It does not make sense. It kind of feels like a weak argument, if you ask me.

Speaker 3 So, midweek was a huge day for the prosecution because in this part of the trial, they called Jem Mutlu to the stand or Mutlu. Sorry, I'm pronouncing things wrong.

Speaker 3 Now, Jem was, oh, sorry, what my notes here are going off screen.

Speaker 3 Okay, so Jem was Anna's boss and had also been at that New Year's Eve dinner with Brian and Ana, meaning he was basically the last person to see Anna alive aside from Brian.

Speaker 3 And Jem wasn't just Anna's boss. He was also a really close friend to the whole family.
He said that Anna was like a sister to him. He even thought of the Walsh kids as his own.

Speaker 3 And he actually got very emotional as he told the jury about the last time that he saw Anna at this New Year's Eve party, saying that she was in a great mood. She was wearing a brand new ring.

Speaker 3 Brian seemed totally normal and happy. And he knew that Anna had been stressed about work and also stressed about not seeing her kids enough.

Speaker 3 He admitted he also knew about some marital issues that were going on between Brian and Ana, but he also said that he had never seen Brian act jealous.

Speaker 3 He also didn't know about any plans for Ana to leave Brian, and he said he couldn't even recall ever seeing the two of them argue. He also added, and I want to quote this,

Speaker 3 I always thought that there was a lot of love between them and that she was very much in love with Brian.

Speaker 3 Now we got a very different perspective when the prosecution called Anna's other close friend, Alyssa Kirby. Now, Alyssa said that Ana called her very upset on December 29th, 2022.

Speaker 3 So just a couple of days before her death and before the New Year's Eve party or dinner,

Speaker 3 whatever you want to call it.

Speaker 3 And she described Ana as at a quote breaking point in her marriage, especially with Brian's art fraud case dragging just everything down, where they could live, their expenses, what they owed, all of these things.

Speaker 3 Anna also felt like Brian wasn't taking any responsibility, that he kept trying to delay his sentencing.

Speaker 3 And according to Alyssa, Brian was so depressed over the case that the two of them, Brian and Anna, hadn't even been intimate with one another in over a year.

Speaker 3 She also said that Brian would constantly ask Anna how much she loved him, just kind of needing that reassurance, but then not saying, I love you back to Anna.

Speaker 3 So asking for that reassurance from her, tell me you love me. Do you still love me? How much? How much? And then not reciprocating it, which it's kind of given desperado, if you ask me.
And

Speaker 3 I know every, you know, marriages always ebb and flow with intimacy, with,

Speaker 3 you know, being head over heels in love with each other or showing that love and PDA and all that. It's always going to ebb and flow.

Speaker 3 They had been married at this point for, what, they got married in 2015, so seven years.

Speaker 3 Seven year itch, I guess you could argue in there. But I don't know, for him to, for them to not be intimate with one another for over a year, then for him to constantly need this reassurance.

Speaker 3 It's just kind of given.

Speaker 3 I don't know. Don't love it.
Now, Alyssa also said that not only did Ana admit to her that she had a crush on William, she apparently also admitted it to Brian.

Speaker 3 And Alyssa said that Brian was actually pretty cool about it, or at least he acted that way on the outside, which I don't know what would drive Ana.

Speaker 3 to tell Brian, her husband, that she had a crush on somebody that she's working with, unless you're really trying to make him insecure.

Speaker 3 But it at least does prove that Brian knew about Anna's attraction to William, which prosecution, of course, is arguing is a huge motive for why Brian would want her dead.

Speaker 3 That's also, who knows when that timing all lined up, but we know he searched William's name as well.

Speaker 3 According to Alyssa, Brian's mom had gone and seen a psychic and the psychic told her that Anna was having an affair.

Speaker 3 And that really upset Anna because I don't know if she was just mad that the mother was meddling and getting involved or because she was getting exposed because, of course, it turned out to be true.

Speaker 3 But Ana was upset that her mother-in-law would kind of go out of her way to figure out if Ana was being faithful and go see a psychic over it.

Speaker 3 And apparently, this had all been building for quite some time. Ana felt like Brian's mom never really liked her, always wanted her out of the picture.

Speaker 3 And so now she was kind of finding a way to make that reality.

Speaker 3 Which, again,

Speaker 3 I'd be curious to know if, I mean, if Ana really was having plans to leave Brian and wanted to build build a future with William,

Speaker 3 I guess you still would be upset that your mother-in-law is meddling and that she's trying to get you out of the picture because you would want to handle it on your own and you wouldn't want to make things messier, but it just feels like a very toxic and messy situation.

Speaker 3 So after hearing from Ana's friends, at the very end of the day on Wednesday, we got very surprising news that the prosecution was arresting their case. This was after only eight days of testimony.

Speaker 3 And honestly, this not only surprised me guys, it surprised everyone because originally the trial was supposed to go four to six weeks.

Speaker 3 Then we know it was scaled back a little bit, but this still seemed really quick. And a lot of people are wondering if the prosecution has done enough to convict Brian of murder.

Speaker 3 Now, personally, I completely agree that they have shown a ton of evidence that Brian dismembered Anna, that he dumped her body.

Speaker 3 I think they also have shown a ton of evidence that he lied to the police and quite honestly, a ton of evidence that he's just like an asshole.

Speaker 3 And I think that there is indication of motive and premeditation, especially for the Google searches before Anna disappeared.

Speaker 3 But at this point, there isn't a lot of truly rock-solid proof that he actually murdered her.

Speaker 3 I mean, the prosecution did establish, like I said, some strong motives for why Brian would want Anna dead. We also know that he was the last person to see her alive.

Speaker 3 But in terms of actual

Speaker 3 non-circumstantial proof, it's difficult to say that they have presented that.

Speaker 3 They do have the Google searches from before she disappeared of the boyfriend, of best place to divorce, the porn search as well that I mentioned last week that said like cheating wife gets impregnated, things like that.

Speaker 3 But they also have the Google searches, if you remember, the ones that happened after she disappeared that had the word murder explicitly in them. How to get away with murder.

Speaker 3 Can you get charged with murder with no body?

Speaker 3 Things like that to where if this was a cover-up, would he have actually thrown murder into the search engine the way he did or into the actual search he made? Probably not, but I don't know.

Speaker 3 I mean, the truth is that without Anna's body, it could be really difficult to convince any jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Absolutely.
And

Speaker 3 I think it's pretty obvious, but I also... Think I know more than the jury probably knows because I know about the other two charges he admitted guilt to.
I

Speaker 3 feel like, I mean, there isn't, I guess, a whole lot, but I mean, there's enough to where I feel like I have a bigger picture of the case as a whole than probably the jury does of just this one lens of, did he murder her?

Speaker 3 Yes or no? Is there enough proof to say that he murdered her? Yes or no.

Speaker 3 But personally, I'm hoping that the jury uses some common sense and says, you know, like, hey, if she really did die of some unexplained medical event, any reasonable person would have called for help immediately.

Speaker 3 They wouldn't have jumped to the solution of, oop, got to get get rid of her body, got to get dismember her, got to cover my ass, got to Google all of these things.

Speaker 3 Any reasonable person would have been like, oh my God, Anna, you're not waking up. 911, call for help,

Speaker 3 help me, help me. That's not at all what happened.

Speaker 3 Instead, there was plotting, there was scheming, there were sinister Google searches, there were trips to buy cleaning supplies where he tried to hide and disguise with

Speaker 3 face masks and latex gloves.

Speaker 3 There was the fake alibi. There was the lie about her going in the rideshare and the taxi.
But again, we don't, we, I don't think the jury knows all of the intricacies in this case. So I don't know.

Speaker 3 I mean, the fact that he did all of this, to me, it definitely points to murder, in my opinion. And I'm hoping that the jury sees it that way too.

Speaker 3 But as we all know, it's always difficult to know what they're thinking. So the prosecution rested.
So then as of Friday, or sorry. Today's Friday.

Speaker 3 As of Thursday, the defense was going to present their case. And I mentioned last week, it's kind of been interesting because we've all been wondering, is Brian going to testify?

Speaker 3 The defense alluded that he may testify early on, saying, we just are really excited for the jury to hear his side of the story and things like that.

Speaker 3 So we're like, whoa, does that mean he's going to throw a Hail Mary and he's going to actually testify here? And not only is Brian Walsh not testifying, but the defense didn't call any witnesses.

Speaker 3 They rested their case almost immediately. And I think that the judge was kind of pissed because the jury came in for court on Thursday.
They rested their case.

Speaker 3 They could have, had they known they weren't going to call any witnesses, they could have gone to closing arguments right away. And then the jury could go out and be, you know, do go for the verdict.

Speaker 3 But essentially, it was a big waste of the jury's time, which the court hates to do. Like the judge absolutely does not like wasting the jury's time.

Speaker 3 So for them to be called in, brought in only to be told, oh, there's no witnesses. Now we're not even going to move forward with closing statements until tomorrow.
You guys all have to go home.

Speaker 3 I think the judge was probably pissed, but there is a possibility that things weren't planned that way, that they didn't know that they weren't going to call any witnesses until the morning of.

Speaker 3 And what I mean by that is very, it very well is possible that Brian was going to testify. And then the morning of just decided, I'm not going to testify for whatever reason.

Speaker 3 Either he's too scared, he's too nervous, they feel like it wouldn't be a good strategy anymore, whatever the reason is. And he could have just like flipped it on a dime.
Who knows?

Speaker 3 But the point is the defense rested, no witnesses, Brian not testifying, and it's going directly to closings. So today, right now, closing arguments are happening.

Speaker 3 And so my question is, will the jury get it right? How long are these closings going to be? How long will the jury take to reach a verdict? And I think we probably will have a verdict.

Speaker 3 by the end of the day. That's my guess.
I really do. And so because I'm putting this out right now, obviously the verdict is not included in this episode.

Speaker 3 However, I will be updating all of you in real time as these closings are happening right now on my Instagram. So if you're not following already, go search, do a quick follow.

Speaker 3 It's at underscore Annie Elise. And I'm going to post on there anything crazy or wild that happens during closings, which I don't anticipate there to be anything super out of the ordinary.

Speaker 3 But I also will then post as soon as we have the verdict. So we'll see if they get it right.
Do you think that there is enough evidence to prove that he is guilty of murder?

Speaker 3 Or do you think that there is enough reasonable doubt for the jury? I think it's a pretty slam dunk case, but I don't know. I've thought that before.

Speaker 3 And look where we got with Barry Morphew, even though he didn't go to trial, but like, then he was, you know, charges were dropped, then it was re, you know, refiled and now he is going to be going to trial.

Speaker 3 Casey Anthony, we all know what that shitbag situation ended up like. So I have definitely been surprised before.
So I hope they get it right, but we will see. All right.

Speaker 3 Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Seriously.

Speaker 3 It was a bonus episode, as you know. So we do do these episodes from time to time because there's something really important I want to talk with you about.

Speaker 3 So make sure you're following the podcast if you're not already so that you don't miss those episodes. It's free.
Just, you know, open your podcast app and press the follow button.

Speaker 3 And then on YouTube, hit the subscribe button so that you don't miss these episodes. And YouTube has been like really finicky lately unsubscribing people.
They do this like twice a year.

Speaker 3 And I always see in the comments like, I thought I was subscribed. I had to resubscribe again.
So maybe just double check that you are subscribed. All right, guys, that's what I've got for you today.

Speaker 3 Let me know what you think. I will keep you updated on Verdict Watch on all of the things over on Instagram at underscore Annie Elise.
Until the next one, be nice. Don't kill people.

Speaker 3 Don't join any cults.

Speaker 3 Maybe stay away from people named Brian. I mean, Brian Laundry, Brian Coburg, or Brian Walsh.
It's not looking very good. And

Speaker 3 be careful what you search on Google. All right.

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