343: Brian Walshe Trial: Secret Boyfriend, Diabolical Searches & an Explosive New Motive | Week 1 Trial Recap

The trial of Brian Walshe has officially begun and the courtroom is already pulsing with the kind of tension only a true crime saga can deliver. Prosecutors are unveiling a trail of chilling digital searches, suspicious errands, and a timeline they say exposes Walshe as the man behind his wife Ana’s disappearance. The defense is pushing back hard, painting a very different picture. Each witness, each exhibit, each revelation is adding new layers to a case that has captivated the nation from day one. Dive into the courtroom drama unfolding in real time…. If you’re new here, don’t forget to subscribe for weekly deep dives into the darkest true crime cases: youtube.com/@annieelise.. Evil Mastermind or Complete Moron? Brian Walshe & Ana WalsheYT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4yswRzJAqU&t=805sApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/serialously-with-annie-elise/id1519456164?i=1000719369969Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2cqphpRvh0mnfidvZ6e8bp?si=urOHz4o5SceI_szbLcW8tw.🔎 Join Our True Crime Club & Get Exclusive Content & PerksJoin The Club: patreon.com/AnnieElise..🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to both of my weekly true crime series 10 to Life & Serialously with Annie Elise wherever you get your podcasts on the Annie Elise Channel!🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3WpfSP8 Where you can also unlock access to 100+ and growing extra exclusive deep dives.💚 Spotify: bit.ly/10TLSpotify 🎙️ All Other Platforms: bit.ly/AnnieEliseAudioboom..📸 Follow Annie on Socials Instagram: instagram.com/_annieelise TikTok: tiktok.com/@_annieelise Facebook: facebook.com/@10tolifeSubstack: bit.ly/AnnieEliseSubstack..👗 Shop Annie’s Must-Haves! ShopMY: bit.ly/AnnieElise_ShopMy Amazon: bit.ly/AnnieElise_Amazon. .••••••••••••••••••🚨Disclaimers1️⃣ Some links may be affiliate links, they do not cost you anything, but I make a small percentage from the sale. Thank you so much for watching and supporting me. 2️⃣ Sources used to collect this information include various public news sites, interviews, court documents, FB groups dedicated to the case, and various news channel segments. When quoting statements made by others, they are strictly alleged until confirmed otherwise. Please remember my videos are my independent opinion and to always do your own research. 3️⃣ The views and opinions expressed in this video are personal and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Assumptions made in the analysis are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the creator(s). These views are subject to change, revision, and rethinking at any time and are not to be held in perpetuity. We make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, correctness, suitability, or validity of any information on this video and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. It is the reader’s responsibility to verify their own facts.

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• 1:32Annie Elise?

  Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialishly.

• 1:55Annie Elise?

  Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to another all-new episode of Serialishly. With me, Anna Elise. And happy Friday, first and foremost. Happy Friday. This is a little bit different of an episode than we normally do. We obviously don't normally release episodes on Friday, yet... I heard you guys in the comments on headline highlights. I like to consider myself, you know, a podcaster of the people, if you will, and so many of you are hooked on this Brian Walsh trial. Some of you who have been following the case for years, you have listened to our deep dive, have, you know, are fully just, you know, immersed in the case. But some of you who

• 2:36Annie Elise?

  are seeing clips on social media this week of the trial, because it is a wild one, and are just now starting to, you know, dip your toe in the chaos that is Brian Walsh. And so what I want to do is, first and foremost, what today's episode is, is I'm doing a recap of all of the bombshells and major takeaways that happened this week in the trial. However, if you guys like it, if you guys are into this, then we will do this throughout the course of the trial. And I think that, and don't quote me on this, but I am pretty confident that the trial is slated to be four to six weeks. So if we do that, we will do a weekly recap every Friday, giving you the breakdown of everything

• 3:16Annie Elise?

  going on. And yeah, so what I want to do for this first one, before I just like dive into everything that happened this week, and I'm going to recap it and just give you the need to know, and not the everything you could know, because I know you don't have a lot of time. You just want to know, like, what really happened this week, Annie? What do I need to know? But before we do that, for those of you who are brand new to this case, I will link the deep dive in the show notes for you. So you can go listen to that, you know, this weekend, while you're working out, while you're cleaning, whatever you want to do in the school pickup line. But I do want to just give a quick little nugget-sized recap of the case for anybody who's new, and maybe anybody who needs a little

• 3:57Annie Elise?

  bit of a refresher on the whole situation. I'm just going to tell you, you know, who Brian is, who I also refer to as Quagmire, because that's what he looks like to me. He has the most rectangle face I've ever seen, who Anna Walsh was, how we got to trial, and every unhinged revelation that came out this week. So I've got my notes here. I've got You know, my water down here and we are gonna just like dive into this. Now, first I want to talk about Anna a little bit because obviously she is the most important person in this story. She is the person that everybody wants justice for. So Anna was born in Serbia and she came to the US in 2005.

• 4:38Annie Elise?

  Now, when she arrived in the US, she started working in the hospitality industry and then she eventually met Brian while she was working at a hotel in Massachusetts. So the two of them got married in 2016. They had three sons together who are now four, six, and eight years old and seemingly had a great, you know, love story, happy family, three kids, all of the things. A few years later, Anna became a general manager of a very major real estate company. So then she started splitting her time between Massachusetts and then Washington DC where this real estate company was headquartered and she had a townhouse there as well that she would stay in whenever she traveled. So she kind of was doing it all.

• 5:22Annie Elise?

  I mean, she was raising her sons, making huge career strides in her life, all while kind of jumping back and forth between two states for home and work balance. But Brian, on the other hand, he was not doing it all. He was kind of, I don't know, I guess you could call him, I don't know what the other word would be, just a fucking loser. Because in 2021, he ended up pleading guilty in federal court to three counts of fraud. This was for selling counterfeit Andy Warhol paintings, which is very niche, I gotta say, but also who thinks they can get away with something like that, right? I mean, I get it, Andy Warhol probably is not here to defend himself, or is not, obviously is not here to defend himself, but like, how do you think you can get away with that in the art world?

• 6:07Annie Elise?

  Obviously, art people would know if something is counterfeit, right? But anyways, he thought he could get away with it, so he pleaded guilty in federal court and he was stuck on house arrest while he was waiting to be sentenced. So here you had Anna. And arguably what could and should have been this power couple, but you have this like loser on the other half of that. So fast forward to New Year's Eve 2022. Anna, Brian and a friend had a really quiet dinner at home and everything seemed relatively normal in the Walsh household. But four days later, on January 4th, Anna's boss and Brian both reported her missing.

• 6:49Annie Elise?

  Now, according to Brian, Anna left early in the morning that day for in a ride share, whether it's an Uber, a Lyft, whatever it was, to catch a flight back to DC. She left in the morning, went to the airport and was going back to DC. However, once the police started like really actually looking into that story, it quickly fell apart because they didn't find any record of a ride share receipt or, you know, history, digital trail, and also no record of any sort of flight being booked. However, what they did find early days investigation was they found footage of Brian at Home Depot right after Anna allegedly left. And what was Brian buying at Home Depot, you may be asking? Well, he was buying $450 worth of cleaning supplies.

• 7:35Annie Elise?

  Which, look, I get inflation is high, 1,000%, don't get me wrong. And this sounds cliche, but I literally had to buy a gallon of milk the other day because we were out and my kids drinking at night. And I was kind of like, uh, when did milk get so freaking expensive? But $450 of cleaning supplies? I mean, that is freaking crazy. How many Clorox wipes do you need? It's just like insane. And also, let's not discount the fact that this is such abnormal stuff for a guy to be buying when your wife just disappeared, right? It doesn't look good. And also here, I know I'm going on a little bit of a rant here, but just stay with me. This kind of just proves in my mind, and this isn't to shame any of you men listening,

• 8:17Annie Elise?

  but like, guys don't know where you get cleaning supplies. I get you can get it at Home Depot, but like, that is such a guy thing to do, to go to Home Depot to buy cleaning supplies, because that's the only store that you probably know of. Like, I don't know, and maybe that's just me, because I don't buy cleaning supplies at Home Depot, because I rarely go to Home Depot, but it's like, there's a grocery store, there's CVS, there's Target, like, so it's just like, this is such a fucking guy thing. But anyway, sorry, I mean, I know I'm going on a rant, it's Friday, and I've got so many thoughts in my head. So anyway, because of that discovery, Brian ended up being arrested on January 8th for misleading the police. Because remember, the Rideshare story fell apart, the Flight story fell apart, it was bullshit. And that's

• 9:02Annie Elise?

  when things really escalated. Because when the investigators searched the Walsh's family home, they found a bloody knife. And then, when they checked the family's electronics, they found some absolutely jaw-dropping Google searches. And we always say, the Google searches, they will get to you. And these Google searches too, arguably have been like the focal point in this case for years. And I'm, don't worry, I'm gonna break down exactly what those searches were in just a moment, I'm just trying to bring you up to speed. So roughly three weeks later, after Anna had disappeared, by January 8th, 2023, she was still missing. And Brian was ultimately charged with her murder and with improperly moving her body. This on top of

• 9:46Annie Elise?

  the initial charge of misleading police. Brian pleaded not guilty, and to this day, Anna's body has never been found. Which honestly, when you really break that down, that could be a huge problem for the prosecution. Because no body means they can't confirm time of death, cause of death, manner of death, and- All of those things, they really do open up the door for reasonable doubt. Truly. There have been a lot of cases that have been successful with no body, but it just allows more of that doubt to creep in. And so, of course, with that, people did start wondering too, if there is no body, even now, years later, could she have just left on her own? Is she even dead?

• 10:29Annie Elise?

  Some even early on referred to it as another, you know, quote, "gone girl" case, which I don't like that because I feel like so many times people will jump to that. They did that with the Jennifer Dulles case in Connecticut. It was dubbed the "gone girl" case. We obviously know what happened with that case. If you don't, it's a horrible one and her coward-ass husband ended up taking his own life. But like was seen on CCTV footage dumping things all throughout the city with his girlfriend. It's horrible. I'll link the deep dive to that as well if I remember. But anyway, my point is, a lot of the times in situations like this, when, and it's only when a female goes missing, never when a male goes missing, which, let's be honest, it usually is the female who goes missing at the spouse's hands.

• 11:12Annie Elise?

  But anyway, they, people so quickly in the media are jumping on it as the "gone girl" case, right? So, I don't think she did these Google searches herself. I don't think Anna did, but there was, of course, speculation of, could she have just disappeared on her own accord? Because it appeared, based on, we'll get into more of these details soon, it appeared that she was planning on potentially leaving Brian, that she already had a new relationship brewing. So, there, and it kind, you know what? Again, another rant, I'm sorry, but it also reminds me of Drew Peterson, not to be confused with Scott Peterson. Remember when Stacy disappeared, his wife? And he's like, "Oh, she just probably packed a bikini and went off with her guy, da-da-da-da-da." It's like, get a grip, be original for a second here.

• 11:57Annie Elise?

  So, anyway. Years passed as we're building up to trial and then right before his trial was set to begin on November 18th, 2025, Brian suddenly changed his plea for the lesser two charges. He admitted that he was guilty of misleading the police and also in he no, I'm sorry, can't talk and also improperly moving Anna's body, which that's really huge when you think about it because it kind of means that Brian will at least face some sort of punishment because the defense is basically admitting like, yeah, there was a body, Anna did die and he did move it. So not only does it shut down the whole like she just ran away theory,

• 12:39Annie Elise?

  it immediately shuts it down, but it also starts to make you wonder like, okay, he is starting to assume some guilt, some responsibility. But I don't know, thinking through that, it is good that he will face some sort of punishment for pleading guilty to those, don't get me wrong, but based on so many cases I've covered, even when people are found guilty, whether they admit guilt or they're just found guilty of concealing a body, moving a body, unlawful disposal of a body, the punishment is obviously not nearly as severe as it would be for a guilty verdict on a murder charge. So it's like, yeah, maybe you're serving a couple of years. I think I even saw one case where it was like 18

• 13:23Annie Elise?

  months for that, which seems so crazy, right? But it's obviously not what you would be serving for the actual murder charge. And so that's where it starts to get a little bit sticky with all of this. But so even though he admitted to guilt with those two things, he really dug his heels in and maintained that he was not guilty of murder. So his murder trial officially kicked off this week on December 1st. And here's the thing, Brian's trial is a massive deal in Massachusetts. I mean, it's a massive deal everywhere and I'm seeing it go viral all over the place for many reasons, but In Massachusetts, it's huge because several of the investigators and the witnesses in

• 14:04Annie Elise?

  this case were literally just in the hot seat because they were involved in the Karen Reed trial that was also in Massachusetts. He's actually, Brian Walsh is in the same county and courthouse and all of these things, which if you're not familiar, obviously Karen Reed, I'm sure you are familiar, she was accused of killing her boyfriend by hitting him with her car. However, her defense had argued that she was actually the victim because it was this huge, massive police cover-up. She eventually was found not guilty of murder or manslaughter, and ever since then, people have wondered how that case may ultimately affect Brian's outcome because a bunch of the same investigators are involved in it. So that means that everybody has a ton at stake here, right? Anna's justice, Brian's

• 14:49Annie Elise?

  freedom, the reputation of the entire Massachusetts State Police Force, I mean, they're all hanging in the balance. And something else, and I mentioned this on headline highlights this week, Thursday's episode, Michael Proctor, I know most of you know that name if you followed Karen Reed, he was the lead investigator in the Anna Walsh case. So it seems as though the defense is going to use that to their advantage to be like, hey, he was, he's been disgraced and fired and all of these things from the state police force, but they can now use that because he's such a sleaze bag to be like, he doesn't do thorough investigations. There was shoddy police work, all of these different things because his name literally

• 15:31Annie Elise?

  taints anything that he touches, you know? And also, little fun fact, just some trivia here, Beverly Canoni, the judge over the Karen Reed case, was supposed to be the judge over Brian Walsh's trial. However, they ended up switching that out, so she's not, but just kind of shows you how closely intertwined these players are, right? So with all of that in mind, and now, you know, the quick backstory to bring you up to speed, let's get into all of the unhinged bombshells that happened this week in the first few days of this trial. During opening statements, prosecutors had laid out evidence that they really do plan to present in this. They admit that, yes, it is circumstantial, but it still paints

• 16:14Annie Elise?

  a pretty vivid picture of what may have happened to Anna. They talked not only about Brian's trip to Home Depot right after her disappearance and all of that cleaning supplies, where he also was caught on surveillance camera buying, get this, a hatchet and a hacksaw, which, tell me why you need that, right after your wife disappeared. But he was also caught on camera showing him tossing trash bags into a dumpster around the same time as she was missing. And when investigators searched trash bags that were found near his mother's home, they found several weapons. They also found Anna's shoes and her COVID vaccination card. So then we start to shift into not only the evidence of what they saw

• 16:57Annie Elise?

  him buying, what was on surveillance, what was being disposed of, but we get into the motive of it. And according to the prosecution, there are no less than three separate reasons that Brian wanted Anna dead. First, Anna had millions of dollars in life insurance policies. And as we know, Brian was the sole beneficiary of those policies. And that matters a lot, not in just like the general grand scheme of things. We know that money is oftentimes a huge motivator for people to take the lives of their spouses. But remember, Brian owed hundreds of thousands of dollars because of his art fraud case. So, how was he gonna pay that? He was on house arrest. He was kind of a loser deadbeat. She meanwhile

• 17:42Annie Elise?

  had all of this money. He was gonna be the one who would get all of that money. So, definitely a financial motivation there. Second, we learned for the very first time during this trial, there was some rumblings in the past few years, but now it has officially been brought into play. We know that Anna was allegedly having an affair with a man, specifically the man who sold her that townhouse in Washington DC. So... Retaliation, anger, control, jealousy, all of these things, or couple them together, right? He's mad that she's having an affair and he wants her money. Third possible motive is that, like I said earlier and alluded, I alluded to, the couple was apparently headed for divorce.

• 18:26Annie Elise?

  Anna was planning to move herself and their sons all the way to Washington DC and just get away from Brian entirely. So I think honestly, if you look at all three of those separate motives, I mean, looking at them separately, they all are strong enough to, you know, independently be enough for a motive for murder. But they also all layer over top one another. Affair, money, taking the cut boys away and custody. It feels almost like a recipe for this catalyst that could just end up ultimately being this huge motive in all of it, right? Not to say that they couldn't, again, stand independently from one another, but combined, it's like, it is massive.

• 19:08Annie Elise?

  So then came the defense's opening statement, which I have to say, it honestly shocked a lot of people because they didn't claim, obviously, that Anna ran away. They couldn't, based on him admitting that he disposed of her body. And they also didn't suggest that she ended her own life, which kind of was a surprise. I would feel like, okay, well, if they're admitting that he disposed of her body and lied to the police, how would he have come across her body? It seems like not the obvious choice or the smart choice, but like, a good argument would be that she took her own life and that he panicked. But they didn't even try to suggest that she took her own life.

• 19:50Annie Elise?

  They also didn't blame some mystery killer, somebody who came in in the night and killed her in her sleep. They didn't accuse the police of corruption, like in the Karen Reed case, like so many people thought that they were gonna do. But instead, they said something that absolutely nobody saw coming. They said that Brian came to bed after their New Year's Eve dinner with their friend, that he nudged Anna so hard that she fell directly off the bed. And because of that fall off the bed, she quote, "succumbed to her injuries," or I'm sorry, a quote, "sudden and unexplained death." All right, I feel like we need to just have an honest conversation here in the circle of trust. Can we talk about how literally everything seems to be getting more expensive?

• 20:34Annie Elise?

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• 21:17Annie Elise?

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• 22:02Annie Elise?

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• 22:47Annie Elise?

  How on earth does somebody fall off of the bed, get injured so badly that it kills them and that they succumb to their injuries in this sudden and unexplained death? I just, I feel like I'm rolling my eyes so hard that I can see my brain. It makes no sense. But then, that was their story. And according to them, Brian panicked and he tried to cover it up so that he could protect their kids. They claimed that Brian was so terrified of being accused of killing Anna and going to jail, that he thought that disposing her body and lying about everything was a better idea. And the other surprising part of the defense's opening, I have to say, they told the jury

• 23:32Annie Elise?

  that they would hear all about this story, which, as far as I can tell, the only person who can really tell that story for the jury to hear firsthand is Brian himself, which kind of has everybody wondering, I mean, especially me, is he actually going to take the stand and is he going to testify in his own defense? That feels extremely ballsy, but at the same time, I kind of feel like all of the evidence is stacked against him that maybe it's just a hail mary. I don't know. It's also, though, incredibly rare in these very high-profile murder trials, so everybody is definitely on edge waiting for that. So after opening statements, the prosecution's first witness was the police sergeant Harrison

• 24:13Annie Elise?

  Schmidt, and he was the lead investigator for the case. Now Harrison testified that about four of the interviews that he did with Brian in the days after Anna's disappearance were a little bit odd. See, in those interviews, Brian insisted that Anna had flown to DC for that work emergency and that he hadn't seen her since. He also stated that she left wearing a dress, a black jacket, hunter boots, and carrying her Prada bag. He said that he loved her, that he of course would never hurt her. He denied that they had any serious financial problems, but he did admit that he was frustrated about how little time Anna was spending with the family because of her busy job. So a little bit of like resentment

• 24:58Annie Elise?

  brewing underneath. Now, the other big moment in those interviews actually had nothing to do with Brian and everything to do with another one of the state troopers who was present along with Sergeant Schmidt, and that was none other than Michael Proctor. Which honestly, every time I hear Proctor's name, it's like, red flags go up. If you watch Stranger Things, you know, when Will gets like the goosebumps on the back of his neck, I feel like that's what I feel like is, what's his, is Vecna, is his name Vecna? Is he coming? Is that Michael Proctor? Which is like, honestly, kinda same. But yeah, he was the lead investigator in Karen Reed, as I mentioned. And so, it came out that he was sending his coworkers those absolutely horrible vulgar texts about Karen during

• 25:43Annie Elise?

  that whole investigation. And it really showed just how biased he was with the defense, right? Or against the defense, I should say. So, exposing Proctor's conduct really did, in Karen's case, help convince the jury that she wasn't guilty. And like I said, it got him fired. But this case is different because it's not the defense necessarily who's like, arguing everything. They're not even claiming police corruption or cover up. They even admitted that Brian lied in those initial interviews, but... I don't know. It's just, again, too close of ties. So as much of a complete loser douche canoe proctor may be, and as vecna as he may be, it may not end up even mattering here in the

• 26:25Annie Elise?

  grand scheme of things. But next up for the prosecution was Trooper Nick Guarino, and he's an expert in phone data, which, again, close players, close area. That name may also ring a bell because he also testified in the Karen Reed trial. He's also tied to a big murder case in Massachusetts, a third one, the death of Sandra Birchmore. We've covered that case extensively as well. Again, a lot of intertwined players in that case. So he claimed that he, I actually, I'm not going to talk too really about the Sandra case, just because I don't want to get too far off on that, and I know I'll go off on a rant. So I just want to kind of talk with you a little bit about what he had to do

• 27:08Annie Elise?

  with Brian's case. But he talked about the Google searches that were found on devices in Brian's house, which I'm going to get to the full list of everything that was searched in just a minute. But for now, I do want to note that it was previously reported that those searches were actually made on the kids iPads, which kind of brought this whole, like sinister element to it. People are like, he's searching these things on his own children's devices? Like, what kind of sick freak does that? However, in court, we learned that that rumor was not true. The searches were actually made on Brian's personal computer. But because of that, they happened to sync to his son's iPad, which I know I've mentioned these Google searches a lot without saying what they were. So I bet you're like, okay,

• 27:52Annie Elise?

  Annie, come on, like, let's get to it. Tell me what the freaking searches were. So here we go, okay? And buckle up, because what he searched and clicked on around the time of Anna's disappearance, it is nothing short of absolutely diabolical and mind blowing. And there are a ton of them, so I can't read all of them for you, or we would literally be here all day. But here are some of the more crazy ones, okay? On the morning of January 1st, so the day after that New Year's Eve dinner, Brian searched 10 ways to dispose of a dead body, quote, or in parentheses, not quote, if you really need to. How long before a body starts to smell? How long for someone to be missing to inherit? Is it

• 28:37Annie Elise?

  possible to clean DNA off of a knife? Can identification be made on partial human remains? Best ways to dispose of body parts after murder? Six ways to dispose of a body, murder, murder, murder? How to clean blood from a wood floor? Want to get away with murder? Question mark. Is it better to throw away crime scene clothes or wash them? Can the FBI tell when you accessed your phone? I mean, pretty diabolical, but one of the main things that sticks out to me is if you're trying

• 29:18Annie Elise?

  to say that you nudged her off the bed and she fell and died of this sudden, unexplained death, their quote and exact words, not mine, then why, even if you are then searching frantically how to clean up, you know, and how to dispose of a body and all of that, that would explain those searches, but it wouldn't explain the search of best ways to dispose of body parts after murder? Why would you even be throwing the word murder in those searches? And it wasn't just that search, it was six ways to dispose of a body, murder, murder, murder, want to get away with murder? Question mark. So why would you be throwing the word murder in those searches? Right? Right, Brian? Right, Brian?

• 29:59Annie Elise?

  So the next day on January 2nd, Brian searched, how long do stores keep security footage? How to dismember a body? Hacksaw, the best tool to dismember a body? Details of dismemberment discussed in murder trial? Can you be charged with murder without a body? No corpse? Question mark? No problem. Notable murder convictions without a body? Can you identify a body with broken teeth? Disposing of a body in the trash? And there was another one, and I should have actually mentioned it with the teeth. One search he also had made that I remember stuck out to me, and I mentioned it yesterday in Thursday's episode.

• 30:43Annie Elise?

  He also said, can you identify a body with partially broken teeth? Like, which makes me just think he was probably pulling out her teeth and maybe the root stuck, I don't know, and he was wondering if that could still lead to identification, just sick. So then the day after that, on January 3rd, Brian searched, "Can baking soda make a dead body smell good? Cleaning up blood without leaving a trace, five tips. How long for a dismembered body to decompose?" I mean, seriously, guys, you cannot make this stuff up. This is basically a list of things not to Google, okay? If you don't want people to ever suspect you of murder.

• 31:27Annie Elise?

  Definitely don't Google these things, which, again, I get that the prosecution doesn't have a body, but like, honestly, hello, heller, the writing is on the wall. These searches are literally the next best thing to having a body. They kind of just point this big neon flashing sign saying, "Uh, guilty, uh, murderer." Like, especially when you remember the defense's whole strategy was that she died of this unexplained medical event and he panicked and had to cover it up. Which, why wouldn't you see him Googling things then? Like, "Help my, help, my wife is unresponsive." Or, "Fall caused death, best hospital's near me. How did you CPR when somebody won't wake up?" You're not Googling things with the word "murder" in them.

• 32:11Annie Elise?

  So, I don't know, you, we also saw murder literally typed out three times in a row in black and white, murder, murder, murder. So, the defense, it obviously doesn't look good for Brian, but the defense insisted that these searches do totally make sense for somebody who's panicking and just trying to understand his wife's unexplained death. I get the defense has to defend, but like, come on. They also claimed that he started with that more general search term about death and then only added the word "murder" because the search engine suggested it to him. Which, I'm curious if the jury is gonna buy any of that because it feels pretty freaking far-fetched to me.

• 32:52Annie Elise?

  Now, Trooper Guarino also read some of Brian's searches from before Anna disappeared, which this really kind of gives us more of a glimpse into possible motive and maybe even narrowing it in a little bit. On December 26th, the day after Christmas and five days before the New Year's Eve dinner, Brian searched on an adult video site. And he searched, and this kind of makes me laugh, because it's just like, what a freaking loser. But he searched cheating wife seduces another man to impregnate her. Which, look, everybody's gonna have their own kink and their own thing that they're into, but like, this just screams desperado and loserville to me.

• 33:36Annie Elise?

  Sorry, it does. He also searched best state to divorce for a man. And then he also searched Washington DC divorce lawyers. So I mean, it definitely seems like divorce was on Brian's mind, whether he was thinking of divorce, or he knew that she was going to divorce him, so he was trying to search to get ahead of it. And he lived in Massachusetts. She was in DC. So part of me is wondering, did he search Washington DC divorce lawyers? Because you know, if you hire a divorce lawyer, they cannot work for your spouse after that. And that's what a lot of people do in high-profile divorces, actually. They, like, if I were gonna divorce my husband tomorrow, not that we're high-profile, but just gonna walk you

• 34:16Annie Elise?

  through the technique, I would search all of the best divorce attorneys in the Orange County and LA area. And I don't know if it, if just a consultation is enough, or if you actually have to like, pay them a dollar, or what it is. But then I would go to all of them. I would have the consultation, pay them if required. Again, I don't know the exact regulation. And then I would only go with the one that I want. But because I already had met with all those other best attorneys, Jeremiah wouldn't be able to hire them. So the fact that he was looking at DC divorce lawyers kind of makes me wonder if that could have been a strategy here, knowing, him knowing that she was going to be filing. I don't know. But anyway.

• 34:58Annie Elise?

  It just seemed odd. Another piece of this, though, could be the complete opposite. It could be because he just wanted out of the marriage, or maybe not. I don't know. Who really knows? But according to the defense, the divorce was going to be mutual. And actually, they said that it was going to be a strategy to protect their assets because of all of the money that Brian owed from that art fraud case. They even tried to support that argument by pointing out that Brian was also searching for expensive rings and luxury cars around the same time that he made those divorce searches, basically implying that if he was shopping for fancy gifts for Anna, he definitely wasn't trying to divorce her.

• 35:38Annie Elise?

  Which, my argument to that would be, who's looking for luxury cars? For your spouse, really. It feels more midlife crisis to me. It seems more like you're searching at these fancy cars because you know you're about to come into a lot of money and you are someone who clearly is motivated by money, which is why you tried to sell counterfeit paintings of Andy Warhol artwork. Like, I get, again, that the defense needs to defend, but hopefully the jury is seeing through this.

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• 36:39Speaker 05

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• 37:09Annie Elise?

  Now, after all of those absolutely wild searches, the next key witnesses were from Uber and Lyft, the rideshare companies. And both of them confirmed that Anna never called for a rideshare to the airport, not at any point between January 1st or all the way to January 8th, 2023. Another witness confirmed that Anna had two different life insurance policies that were worth over a million dollars. And like I said, Brian was the sole beneficiary. And we already kind of knew this, but what we didn't know is that it was Brian who originally wanted to take out a policy on himself. And when he was denied because of his federal art fraud case,

• 37:53Annie Elise?

  the insurer kind of said, I guess that he suggested applying under Anna's name instead. We also learned that Anna had to undergo extensive health testing to qualify for these policies, and she got the absolute best possible rating, the healthiest that you can be. Which begs the question, can somebody who is incredibly healthy just drop dead from some sort of unexpected medical event and fall to the ground just a few years after all of this testing was done? I mean, I suppose we have seen healthy people suffer from heart attacks that are unexplained, aneurysms, things like that. But I don't know, I'm no doctor. It just kind of seems like all of this evidence is making a very clear picture.

• 38:36Annie Elise?

  So then Davis Gould from the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab testified about what he had found in Brian's car on January 9th. He found red stains on both front visors. The driver side, he also found red stains on the driver's side controls and in the mats in the trunk area, all of which tested positive for blood. He also found more than a dozen exam-style gloves, so think like latex gloves. But Davis wasn't just in charge of the car. Shortly after analyzing the car, he was also called to help at a recycling plant. And there, he found what prosecutors say were Anna's belongings: her green boots,

• 39:20Annie Elise?

  her jacket, and a black Prada handbag, all of which just so happened to perfectly match the outfit that Brian described to the detectives that she was wearing when she supposedly left for the airport. They also found towels, tape, gauze, a robe, and slippers, all of which was covered in reddish-brown stains. And if that's not horrifying enough, they also discovered a hammer, wire cutters, a hatchet, a hacksaw, and a tarp. Basically, it is an entire dismemberment starter kit. And the worst of all, Davis and his team found what appeared to be hair, human tissue,

• 40:05Annie Elise?

  and skin. Which, I mean, how absolutely sickening, because if this is all true, not only did Brian murder his wife, but he dismembered her, he tossed her personal belongings, he tossed pieces of her body, just all of it, in the trash in this recycling plant like they were nothing? And it also begs the question, where did he perform this dismemberment? Was it at their family home while their children were upstairs sleeping or playing video games, like, or at school and then they came home from school? It's so sick. So, later in the week, on Thursday, we got another bombshell. William Fausto took the stand, and this is the guy that Anna was allegedly having this affair with.

• 40:50Annie Elise?

  So he admitted that he and Anna became really close after he sold her that townhouse in DC, and then they eventually did start an intimate relationship. According to William, they went out on a ton of dates, she regularly would spend the night over at his house, they spent the holidays together away from Brian and the kids, and they even traveled to Ireland together. So apparently, they were so serious that they even considered themselves exclusive, except, you know, the tiny detail that not only was Anna still married, but he was still married as well. So naturally, this caused some tension in Anna and Brian's relationship because remember, she almost missed Christmas Day with the boys and she was spending holidays with this guy,

• 41:34Annie Elise?

  almost kind of starting this brand-new family, which certainly I don't agree with. I think that if you want to get out of a relationship, like I always say, just get a divorce, but also, it's not, it's not an excuse for murder, right? Now, you have to think too, it might seem a little bit weird for the prosecution to call a witness who makes Anna, let's just be honest, look a little bit bad. But remember, one of their big goals in all of this, the primary goal, is to show that Brian had a motive for wanting Anna dead. And this long-term, physical, intimate, emotional affair with a guy in another state, someone that she was prioritizing above her family, I mean,

• 42:15Annie Elise?

  that absolutely could be motive. And William's testimony also dropped a little bit of a second hint at motive too. He said that in the months leading up to her disappearance, Anna spent a ton of time decking out her DC townhouse with furniture, kids' toys, kids' furniture, just getting ready to move her sons there and move them away from Brian. So could that have been what finally set him off? She was going to literally start a new life with William. She was going to bring her kids there, replace Brian entirely. So did he just spiral and lose it because his life was, William was gonna like step into the shoes of his life? I don't, I don't know.

• 42:59Annie Elise?

  Later in the day, Massachusetts State Trooper Connor Keefe took the stand and he testified that Anna's phone last pinged at a tower, and last pinged near a tower at the Walsh home around 3:00 AM on January 2nd, 2023. So this is again, just more proof and another reminder that she definitely was not already on a flight or in DC like Brian had said. And it wasn't just Anna's phone that he had tracked. He was also keeping an eye on Brian as well. And on January 5th, Brian's phone pinged at his mom's apartment, which, okay, it's not a problem, until you realize that it pinged specifically at the far corner of the complex, right next to a giant trash compactor.

• 43:45Annie Elise?

  After that, Brian's phone hit a ton of different locations, including Lowe's, the hardware store, of course, the infamous Home Depot trip. And as if we hadn't heard enough from Brian's unhinged Google searches, he also testified about two more. Brian searched William Fausto and Anna Walsh found dead. Those two searches in quotes, which isn't, I guess, that wild under the defenses, like he found her dead theory, except for a tiny, tiny problem in all of this. He made those searches on December 25th, six days before the New Year's Eve dinner. So why would he be Googling about his wife dying

• 44:30Annie Elise?

  days before she even went missing, not even confirmed dead? I mean, to me, it screams premeditation. Also, why are you searching William Fausto? The boyfriend? It seems like he found out about it. Maybe he found out about it because it was the holiday and remember who she was splitting time with became a point of contention? He discovered the boyfriend's name? I don't know, but screams premeditation to me. So it's only been one week so far, but honestly, it has been absolutely wild. And to me, still, the most shocking part in all of this are those Google searches. I had heard some of them, obviously, before,

• 45:12Annie Elise?

  but hearing the entire list read out loud in court? I don't know, it just hits different. It's insane. I can't imagine being that jury and just sitting there, hearing all of this and think, you know, what's going through their brains as they're listening? I feel like my jaw would be on the floor. I'd be wearing my face and would not have a poker face. I just, that's why it's a good thing I'm never on a jury. So I don't know. I don't, I'm curious. I'm really curious. Do you, do any of you listening buy the entire unexplained medical death event story that the defense is trying to spin? Or do you think that they're just throwing whatever will stick, hoping that a Hail Mary happens? I don't know. And I'm wondering if you think that the prosecution is going to lean into

• 45:56Annie Elise?

  one of the three possible motives or all of them as like this giant motive? And what, what do we think about Brian? Is he going to testify? I don't know. That will be wild. What do you think? So that's it for the recap for week one. I will, if you guys like this, let me know in the comments. Just say yes, yes, yes. And let me know on Spotify, Q and A, Apple reviews. And we can do these every Friday and where I just give you like a nugget sized recap of like the need to know. So yeah, we'll see where this goes. I'm confident that the jury is going to get it right, but I have been wrong before. Casey Anthony. So let me know what you guys think. All right. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of Serialistically.

• 46:38Annie Elise?

  I will be back on the mic with you first thing Monday morning with an all new deep dive into a case. Don't forget, subscribe to the YouTube channel. Hit the subscribe button if you haven't yet. That way you won't miss these updates as we do them or future episodes. And if you're listening on the podcast, make sure you're following the podcast so that you also don't miss these bonus episodes since they aren't in our regular release calendar. All right, guys. Thank you so much and until the next one. Be nice, don't kill people, just get a divorce, don't go to Home Depot for cleaning supplies, and definitely stay the heck off Google. All right. Bye.

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