With the introduction into evidence of the tools Brian Walshe allegedly used to dismember his wife, including a hatchet and a hacksaw, the judge has shortened her estimate of how long his murder trial will take.
“The case has been moving quite efficiently,” Judge Diane Freniere, who originally estimated up to four and a half weeks for the trial’s length, told Norfolk Superior Court jurors before releasing them for the week on Friday.
“My best estimate at this point is that the evidence in this case will be concluded within a total timeframe of three weeks,” she continued. “So we just put one week in the bank, so to speak, and I don’t think the evidence will go any further than two additional weeks.”
The hatchet and hacksaw — as well as a hammer, garden shears, and garden snippers — were removed from brown paper evidence bags by witness Heather Sullivan, a retired Massachusetts State Police trooper who worked at the crime scene services unit in Danvers in January 2023, when Walshe is accused of murdering and dismembering his wife Ana Walshe.
Walshe faces a charge of murder in the trial that began in Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham on Monday. He pleaded guilty ahead of jury selection last month to other charges of lying to investigators when Ana Walshe first disappeared and mishandling her remains.
Prosecutors say he dismembered his wife and made several trips to dumpsters around Greater Boston to dispose of her body and any physical evidence.
Central to the case are a series of grisly internet searches in the first days of January 2023 as Ana Walshe was missing that include “best way to dispose of a body” and “best way to dispose of body parts after murder.”
But on Friday, defense attorney Larry Tipton had witness MSP Trooper Connor Keefe — returning to the stand from Thursday — go through lengthy text messages and phone calls exchanged by the couple in December 2022 that indicated normalcy in their relationship just before Walshe allegedly murdered her.
While the contents of the numerous phone calls are unknown, communications included text messages about selling property in Massachusetts and possibly purchasing property in the Washington D.C. area, where Ana Walshe worked most of the time. Ana Walshe expressed her desire for a new Porsche and Walshe texted her “looking good” when she sent him a photo of herself.
Sullivan, the MSP crime services trooper, testified that she was dispatched to an apartment complex in Swampscott the afternoon of Jan. 9, 2023, to photograph a dumpster and trash compactor. She was then directed to a garbage transfer station in Peabody where she and others sorted through garbage looking for evidence. This is allegedly where the implements of dismemberment were found.
At the end of the half-day in court, Dr. Richard Atkinson, of the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, took the stand and testified that his office received those items. While he said the office normally doesn’t examine “items,” but instead examines bodies, he was directed to examine the items for evidence of human remains. Photos of carpet with possible evidence were also admitted during his time on the stand.
The trial returns on Monday.
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