Brian Walshe is sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his wife, whose body was never found

BOSTON (AP) — A Boston-area man was sentenced Thursday to life in prison for the grisly murder of his wife, who disappeared nearly three years ago and whose body has never been found.

Brian Walshe, 50, was convicted Monday of first-degree murder in the killing of Ana Walshe, 39. The sentence carries no possibility of parole.

He pleaded guilty in November to misleading police and illegally disposing of a body after admitting he had dismembered her body and disposed of it in a dumpster. He said he did so only after panicking when he found she had died in bed.

Judge Diane Freniere called Walshe’s crimes “barbaric and incomprehensible” and she chastised him for “deceitful and manipulative behavior.”

Walshe showed no emotion as the sentence was read.

Children ‘without their mother’s hand to hold’

Before the sentencing, Ana Walshe’s sister Aleksandra Dimitrijevic told the court how the death has devastated her family, especially because they have no body to bury.

“I struggle with the grief that comes without warning, hoping every morning that this is just a terrible dream,” she said. “The most painful part of this loss is knowing her children must now grow up without their mother’s hand to hold. They now face a lifetime of milestones, big and small, where her absence will be deeply and painfully felt.”

The Walshe’s were married for about six years, and their three children are in state custody.

Walshe was also sentenced to 19 to 25 years for witness intimidation and two to three years for improper disposal of a body. Those sentences are to run consecutive to his life sentence, the judge ruled.

Walshe’s lawyer, Kelli Porges, described the consecutive sentencing — which prosecutors requested due to the severity of the crimes — as “excessive.” Freniere disagreed.

“You had no regard for the lifelong mental harm that your criminal acts inflicted on your then two, four and six year old sons, not only in taking their mother, but also, as is specific to this charge, and never being able to properly grieve that loss, to say goodbye to their mom,” Freniere said to Walshe during sentencing.

Assistant District Attorney Gregory Connor defended the sentence.

“When I looked behind me after the closing arguments, I realized that was the closest day that those people had come to a wake, because they never got together to mourn her. And that happened three years later,” Connor said.