Speaker 1: Hey, that folks did. Is Friday, December twelfth. Closing arguments
Speaker 1: are underway in the trial of Brian Walsh and with that,
Speaker 1: welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Robes their part.
Speaker 1: We listened through Tipton the defense already, and it's strange
Speaker 1: to say, listening to him, we felt seen. He made
Speaker 1: some points that throughout we were having the same feeling,
Speaker 1: and he was doing it to say, the prosecution has
Speaker 1: just given you a bunch of stuff and says do
Speaker 1: with it what you will exactly.
Speaker 2: And that's what we had been complaining about as we
Speaker 2: watched the prosecution put on its case for the last
Speaker 2: two weeks, and I saw, I thought where they were headed,
Speaker 2: and then they never would bring it home. And I
Speaker 2: was asking myself as a juror, You're questioning, why am
Speaker 2: I hearing about this? What's the importance or significance of this?
Speaker 3: How are you.
Speaker 2: Tying this to intentional premeditated murder? And I was confused,
Speaker 2: and I had an idea of maybe where the prosecutors
Speaker 2: were headed, but they never told us, and I've never
Speaker 2: seen that before. I understand they get the witness to
Speaker 2: take you down a path and you're and you're you're
Speaker 2: following along, and then they bring it home with either
Speaker 2: the follow up question or just in the way they
Speaker 2: continue the line of question, you understand what they're trying
Speaker 2: to prove. I was confused for most of the prosecution's case, and.
Speaker 1: So Tipton, who from the very first word that came
Speaker 1: out of his mouth an opening statement, You and I
Speaker 1: looked at each other and said, oh boy, he's going
Speaker 1: to be a good one. And we saw that because
Speaker 1: it's not just a matter of legal there's a presentation
Speaker 1: and almost a colloquial way he talks that works that
Speaker 1: some will tell you works with jurors.
Speaker 2: You pay attention, You sit up when he speaks. He
Speaker 2: is an amazing speaker and orator. Obviously he's he knows
Speaker 2: what he's doing. But I would expect that from most
Speaker 2: trial attorneys, and I just would say it is maybe unfair,
Speaker 2: but you do compare. And when he speaks, you listen,
Speaker 2: when he tells a story, you pay attention. That hasn't
Speaker 2: been the case for me with the prosecution.
Speaker 1: All right, folks, so we'll tell you where we are
Speaker 1: right now. We are the as we speak, closing arguments continue.
Speaker 1: Tipton On the defense side has finished the prosecution as
Speaker 1: we speak. We're recording this a little before lunchtime. But
Speaker 1: court started this morning. Jurors got part of their instruction,
Speaker 1: then the closing arguments started. They are then going to
Speaker 1: get some final instructions from this judge today and so
Speaker 1: we believe she will have them start deliberating. If it
Speaker 1: gets too late, maybe she just sends them home and
Speaker 1: they start fresh on Monday, which some of them might
Speaker 1: appreciate doing that, sleep on it over the weekend, but
Speaker 1: that is where we are in the process today. So
Speaker 1: Tipton gets up robes and he it seems odd obviously
Speaker 1: we don't have a dog in the fight, but we
Speaker 1: have watched almost every second of this trial, so I
Speaker 1: feel like we have a good sense of how it's going.
Speaker 2: Yes, and look, this is and we've heard from everyone,
Speaker 2: and we've said this throughout our coverage that every attorney
Speaker 2: agrees this. This is a almost it feels like impossible
Speaker 2: case to defend because here you have a defendant who
Speaker 2: has admitted to dismembering and disposing of his wife's body,
Speaker 2: has admitted to lying to police. It's clear he manipulated
Speaker 2: investigators and everyone around him. So how is this guy
Speaker 2: believable when he says, Oopsie, I just walked in on
Speaker 2: my wife's dead body and panicked. But I am impressed
Speaker 2: and I have and we both have been impressed by
Speaker 2: Tipton's ability to cast some doubt. One of the big
Speaker 2: lines that stood out to me this morning he said
Speaker 2: one statements, and it sat with me. Nothing violent happened
Speaker 2: in that house. And then he went on in great
Speaker 2: detail to talk about the lack of.
Speaker 1: Evidence, you know, and he brought it home. We listened
Speaker 1: to it all and we had to piece it together
Speaker 1: because quite frankly, the prosecution was doing this, so we
Speaker 1: had to figure out, Okay, they're saying this, so does
Speaker 1: this mean this? So we had to figure it out.
Speaker 1: He put it together today for the jurors and reminded them,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is for real. If something so violent
Speaker 1: happened in that house, you telling me he cleaned up
Speaker 1: so well that your investigators for days could find nothing
Speaker 1: in the bedroom or the living room. We watch a
Speaker 1: lot of true crime. They can't have a clean everything.
Speaker 2: And he pointed out to the fact that obviously they
Speaker 2: found some blood evidence of on a Walsh in the basement.
Speaker 2: He's like you know, he was trying to clean the
Speaker 2: basement because his searches specifically say how to clean blood
Speaker 2: out of the basement, cement floor and all of that.
Speaker 3: So he said, if he was so.
Speaker 2: Good at cleaning the bathroom and the bedroom and the
Speaker 2: other areas of the house, how is it that he
Speaker 2: wasn't as good at cleaning up the basement.
Speaker 3: Those two things don't make sense.
Speaker 1: Okay, you can take that from a legal argument of
Speaker 1: what that means. You can have lawyers argue about that,
Speaker 1: or what does that mean to adjure? When I hear that,
Speaker 1: I mean, look, Robes, the circumstances and his searches. Holy hell,
Speaker 1: I was like, how's it go to get around this?
Speaker 3: It felt insurmountable when you were hearing them.
Speaker 1: His attorney's have given doubt. There is some doubt about
Speaker 1: how this woman died. We don't know, but neither side
Speaker 1: has proven how she died. And if you didn't prove
Speaker 1: how she died, that means you didn't prove she was killed.
Speaker 1: And if you didn't prove she was killed, Robes, what
Speaker 1: is the jury going to do with this case?
Speaker 2: It's the question of how much does common sense play
Speaker 2: a role versus irrefutable evidence in facts versus what actually
Speaker 2: is reasonable doubt, and that is what the jury is
Speaker 2: going to have to figure out, and that is part
Speaker 2: of the difficulty of this case. But I'm impressed that
Speaker 2: there isn't There is even going to potentially be a
Speaker 2: difficult decision for the jurors because it seemed as though
Speaker 2: when we started this it was I know, prosecutors hate
Speaker 2: to hear this word because they don't want to jinx themselves,
Speaker 2: but it did appear to be a slam dunk case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, before reasonable doubt was created for us, I didn't
Speaker 1: have it. When they started last week on this trial,
Speaker 1: I was like, this, dude, those searches are insane. It's
Speaker 1: almost you say common sense. Somebody sits and tells you
Speaker 1: this story, Well, this is what happened on that night, Like,
Speaker 1: come on, bro, what'd you do to your wife? Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: obviously you're going to say that that feels common sensical
Speaker 1: until you get somebody like Larry Tipton to come in
Speaker 1: and give you reasonable doubt.
Speaker 2: And during the closing arguments that he made, Tipton pointed
Speaker 2: out those searches and he had to, and I'm glad
Speaker 2: he addressed them. Because to have ignored them or something
Speaker 2: like that would have been terrible. So he actually said, okay,
Speaker 2: let's talk about these awful, horrible, unthinkable searches. He asks
Speaker 2: the jurors. Then, and you appreciated this when he created
Speaker 2: this testimony. To consider the timing. The searches about murder
Speaker 2: and cleanup occurred six hours after Anna Walsh died, and
Speaker 2: he said, consider that the first search was just how
Speaker 2: to get rid of a body. And when he said,
Speaker 2: you get search results that show funeral plots and coffins
Speaker 2: and basic things when someone is about to be disposed
Speaker 2: of in a legal technical way, of course, you're just
Speaker 2: going to get those basic results. So he had to
Speaker 2: use the word murder. Six hours later, he's claiming. The
Speaker 2: defense is claiming because all the other searches weren't giving
Speaker 2: him the information he needed.
Speaker 1: Stop there is that ridiculous to think.
Speaker 3: I hadn't considered it beforehand.
Speaker 1: Because you know what he said to the jurors, he said,
Speaker 1: we've all done that before. We had to get more
Speaker 1: specific in our searches. To when he said that, like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I guess, I guess I have had to
Speaker 1: do that before. Right, he's creating something in your mind.
Speaker 1: That doesn't make you abandon common sense. It just gives
Speaker 1: you some kind of reasonable doubt. A big part several lines.
Speaker 1: We're going to go through a few of the things
Speaker 1: he said, but wrote the passion, sympathy and anger. When
Speaker 1: he told them you cannot convict this man because you
Speaker 1: have sympathy for Annawash, or because you have anger at
Speaker 1: Brian Walsh. That was effective because you do leave this
Speaker 1: whole thing like, Wow, what a jerk he did this,
Speaker 1: He did this, he's convicted of this crime, and just
Speaker 1: be mad at him. You can't convictim because you're mad,
Speaker 1: And you can't convictim because you've learned about her, how
Speaker 1: hard she worked, how great of a mother she was.
Speaker 1: You heard all these wonderful things, and you're sympathetic. I
Speaker 1: thought that was effective.
Speaker 3: I did too.
Speaker 2: And he also really brought home this idea that the
Speaker 2: prosecution did not prove motive, so they don't have a body.
Speaker 2: They can't tell you how Anna Walsh died, but they
Speaker 2: also cannot give you a actual reason that is provable
Speaker 2: as to why Brian walshkeilter. And of course they were
Speaker 2: trying to say that Brian Walsh, and they have been
Speaker 2: saying that Brian Walsh knew about Anna Walsh's affair with
Speaker 2: her lover and real fasto, and they claim that everything
Speaker 2: he did, including saying he left his lost his cell phone,
Speaker 2: was all premeditated. But I have to say Larry Tipton
Speaker 2: did a great job saying they have not proven premeditation,
Speaker 2: they have not proven a motive, And I kind of
Speaker 2: have to agree with him on that.
Speaker 1: Because right, it was supposed to be the affair or
Speaker 1: it was money, right, I haven't seen Look, I watched this.
Speaker 1: I'm putting myself in the position of a juror. Do
Speaker 1: I know for sure that he knew about the affair?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: I do not. Do I know for sure that they
Speaker 1: had some financial money issue and that was the reason
Speaker 1: he killed her? No I those two things are off
Speaker 1: the table. So now it was a juror, I'm looking, well,
Speaker 1: why did he kill her? Like I want to believe
Speaker 1: he killed her. I even if you believe he killed her,
Speaker 1: why did he kill her? That's gonna that's gonna trip
Speaker 1: them up, since they trip up, but that has gotta
Speaker 1: be a point of even internal contention for each juror,
Speaker 1: much less twelve sitting around a table.
Speaker 2: And it was interesting to that point about having the
Speaker 2: twelve people who are now going to have to deliberate
Speaker 2: with one another and get on the same page. You
Speaker 2: heard La Tipton tell the jury very early on in
Speaker 2: his statement, like, don't be swayed basically if you believe that.
Speaker 2: You know, he was literally talking to the individual juror
Speaker 2: that if you have any doubt or you don't think
Speaker 2: that makes sense, or you don't think this was proven,
Speaker 2: you cannot be swayed by others. I mean, he really
Speaker 2: he needs one juror, and it was very obvious he
Speaker 2: knows he needs one juror, and he was trying to
Speaker 2: reach out to maybe whoever that one juror is to
Speaker 2: hold true to your convictions, to believe what you feel
Speaker 2: in your heart, to not be swayed into thinking something
Speaker 2: other than what you feel is correct.
Speaker 1: He might already even know who the one is. They
Speaker 1: pay attention to that jury box, how they're reacting, how
Speaker 1: they're moving, who's taking the most notes, who gets emotional.
Speaker 1: We always hear about that. You're right, he only needs one.
Speaker 1: If I had to make a prediction, I am mistrial
Speaker 1: in this thing right.
Speaker 4: Now, Hungary, absolutely, I absolutely would say that because it's creed.
Speaker 4: I cannot believe I'm saying it. But if they came
Speaker 4: back not guilty, I don't know about that. They came
Speaker 4: back guilty, I would say, I don't know about that.
Speaker 1: So if there's if you're hung up only as a
Speaker 1: legal matter, we have no dog in this fight. This
Speaker 1: has been a fascinating one to watch tropes. But folks,
Speaker 1: stay with us when we come back. We are going
Speaker 1: to share with you. The other very powerful line that
Speaker 1: Larry Tipton used at the end of his closing argument,
Speaker 1: and his other most effective argument he made was based
Speaker 1: around the word cherry picking. Stay here, all right, folks,
Speaker 1: we continue here now in the Brian Walsh trial, which
Speaker 1: robes I think pretty surprisingly. I don't want to go
Speaker 1: as far as say shockingly, but maybe it's wrapping up
Speaker 1: today closing arguments. We did not expect to be two
Speaker 1: weeks in and this thing be wrapping up.
Speaker 2: There have been a lot of shocking elements of this case. Yes,
Speaker 2: how quickly they've gotten through everything. Also the fact that
Speaker 2: the defense has made such a strong argument on behalf
Speaker 2: of Brian Walsh that was completely shocking to me. And
Speaker 2: the fact that they chose not to put on one witness,
Speaker 2: not one person. We understand why they didn't put on
Speaker 2: Brian Walsh, but I was shocked and so were a
Speaker 2: lot of other legal experts that no one they called
Speaker 2: no one Allah Sean Diddy Combe style, like, we feel
Speaker 2: so good about our case and the prosecution we think
Speaker 2: did such a poor job.
Speaker 3: We don't even need to put anybody up. That was shocking.
Speaker 2: So yeah, there have been a lot of surprising elements
Speaker 2: of this case throughout.
Speaker 1: That was very a very confident move. I think we
Speaker 1: were shocked. Our jaws dropped when Diddy didn't put on
Speaker 1: any witnesses and it worked out beautifully for him. And
Speaker 1: like our friends, our legal friends told us, you do
Speaker 1: that because you think you've already won. There's nothing else
Speaker 1: for them to do. So I don't know how confident
Speaker 1: they feel. I started at the top about us feeling seen, right,
Speaker 1: this is something you have been absolutely screaming about during
Speaker 1: the entire prosecution case. Is that they're giving you, you
Speaker 1: know what, all the searches even right, she had this
Speaker 1: witness up there, she was in very monotone and said,
Speaker 1: look at file two nine, da da da da, Will
Speaker 1: you read that entry, he would read the search and
Speaker 1: then she'd move on to the next one. These were
Speaker 1: some of the most devastating lines and searches, blood on
Speaker 1: a knife, DNA cleaning up, blood cleaning up after a murder,
Speaker 1: hacksaw a body, all these things, and it was delivered
Speaker 1: in such a monotone way, and then when it was over,
Speaker 1: it was just over. And you had a feeling about
Speaker 1: this throughout, And Larry Tipton pointed it out today, is
Speaker 1: that they are just throwing thousands of points of data
Speaker 1: at you and here's the word telling you but not
Speaker 1: telling you what to think about it.
Speaker 3: That was crazy to me.
Speaker 2: They it was as if the execution didn't want to
Speaker 2: lead the jury, like that's your job. You can't lead
Speaker 2: a witness, but you're actually supposed to lead the jury
Speaker 2: and tell them what to think and show them why
Speaker 2: they should think this.
Speaker 3: And she didn't do that.
Speaker 2: Yes there was information, Yes there was evidence, Yes there
Speaker 2: was really compelling testimony.
Speaker 3: But when you don't.
Speaker 2: Connect the dots for the jurors and expect them to
Speaker 2: do that on their own, to.
Speaker 3: Me, that made no sense.
Speaker 1: And again we are not in any way, shape or
Speaker 1: form critical of these career lawyers, prosecutors, they do this
Speaker 1: for a living. They know what they're doing. What all
Speaker 1: we can speak on as observers putting ourselves in the
Speaker 1: position of a juror. That's yeah, it's our observation in
Speaker 1: watching this is that we are walking away not really
Speaker 1: sure of the prosecution case. I don't know what is
Speaker 1: the theory of how she died? She died violently? What's
Speaker 1: the n I see your mouth you could think, you
Speaker 1: know what.
Speaker 2: Larry Tipton even made a point to say that knife
Speaker 2: they talk so much.
Speaker 3: About, they didn't even care about it.
Speaker 2: Enough to even do a follow up test on whether
Speaker 2: or not it actually was blood, and they didn't confirm
Speaker 2: whose DNA was on the blood. That's how little they
Speaker 2: cared about that knife that they kept throwing in your face.
Speaker 3: So he made excellent points.
Speaker 2: And look we are and look we've made it very
Speaker 2: clear we're not legal experts, but we have sat through
Speaker 2: many trials, Babe. I have sat through so many murder cases,
Speaker 2: so have you in local news, cable news, network news.
Speaker 3: So we do have some perspective.
Speaker 2: And it was shocking, at least from our perspective, what
Speaker 2: the prosecutors chose to leave to the discretion of jurors.
Speaker 3: That was confusing.
Speaker 1: This might be a part of their strategy and it
Speaker 1: did exactly what they wanted to do. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but this is where we're left. He wraps with this,
Speaker 1: and you know, he's being very good and punching his
Speaker 1: words and punching his lines when needed. But he made
Speaker 1: a point at the end that there's no evidence. You
Speaker 1: don't have evidence. You got evidence that he lied to belief,
Speaker 1: you got evidence that he disposed of a.
Speaker 3: Bible, and he acknowledged all of that.
Speaker 1: I love it. There's no evidence of a murder. And
Speaker 1: what he said was there's no evidence of anything but love.
Speaker 1: And when he said it, it was it worked on
Speaker 1: me in the moment because he had just framed robes
Speaker 1: all these other things that Brian Walsh did that seemingly
Speaker 1: were of a guy who loved his wife and was
Speaker 1: planning for a future with his wife. Now, was it
Speaker 1: all just to set up an alibi or something possible?
Speaker 1: I don't know, but the evidence and things he was
Speaker 1: doing way before January one, the day she died, I
Speaker 1: mean the dinner they talked about that he set up
Speaker 1: and he lied to his parole officer about where he
Speaker 1: was going to because he wanted to take his wife
Speaker 1: to dinner. It was important enough for that.
Speaker 2: That was and that was the first time I actually
Speaker 2: heard that DOT connected because I was confused why the
Speaker 2: prosecution had his parole officer or whoever was supposed to
Speaker 2: be monitoring him and detailing clearly he said he was
Speaker 2: doing something that he wasn't going to do.
Speaker 3: Why would he do that?
Speaker 2: She didn't offer a reason and other than he was
Speaker 2: not being truthful. But I needed to understand why he
Speaker 2: wasn't being truthful. And so then when the defense filled
Speaker 2: in the leg he was wanting to take his wife
Speaker 2: out to dinner, which he isn't allowed to do while
Speaker 2: under house arrest. Now you're the first person who's given
Speaker 2: me a reason why he was untruthful. And yes, we
Speaker 2: heard from Tipton saying there is no evidence in all
Speaker 2: of the digital data. And obviously this is a man
Speaker 2: who wasn't thinking about his digital footprint, because he wouldn't
Speaker 2: have made all those searches if he was thinking about
Speaker 2: his digital footprint. But nowhere in any of that did
Speaker 2: it show that he saw anything between Anna Walsh and
Speaker 2: William Fasto.
Speaker 3: He said there's no.
Speaker 2: Evidence that he intended to kill his wife, there is
Speaker 2: no evidence that he premeditated this murder whatsoever, And he said,
Speaker 2: mister Walsh is not guilty.
Speaker 1: Well, folks, this is how it goes right. Good lawyering
Speaker 1: has us in this place. We're going to listen to
Speaker 1: the protect We might come back and say who they
Speaker 1: got them, They really brought it home. We will follow
Speaker 1: up and we will be letting you all know what happens.
Speaker 1: Later in the day. We will give you an episode
Speaker 1: having to do with the prosecution closing statement, and we
Speaker 1: expect the jury to get the case today. This is fascinating.
Speaker 1: I can't believe two weeks. Well, folk, we appreciate you
Speaker 1: being long the way with us on this trial, and
Speaker 1: stay with us our updates top right corner of that
Speaker 1: Apple podcast app our show page. It says follow click
Speaker 1: that button and the updates will come to you automatically,
Speaker 1: don't have to go searching for them. We always appreciate
Speaker 1: you spending some time with us. For my dear Amy Robot,
Speaker 1: I'm TJ. Holmes. We'll talk to y'all soon.