The Brian Walshe murder trial continued Friday with a Massachusetts State Police investigator on the stand who looked at Walshe's iPhone and text messages about his dead wife Ana.

Prosecutors showed the jury texts they say Walshe sent to his wife after he had dismembered her body. The defense countered with messages from around Christmas that appeared to show a happy couple that was planning for the future.

"Where are you"

Testimony started Friday with Trooper Connor Keefe reading a series of text messages between Brian and Ana Walshe.

"I haven't heard from you at all," Brian Walshe texted his wife on Christmas morning. She responded that her flight was canceled and she's driving up to Massachusetts from Washington, D.C.

Keefe then testified about texts Brian Walshe sent to his wife's phone after her death. He had originally told police that she left for D.C. on New Year's Day for a work emergency.

"Hello Where are you," Brian Walshe texted on the night of Jan. 2. "I still love you!!! Haha"

"Where are you" he messaged on the morning on Jan. 3, following up later with, "I'm worried, please call, or email."

"If I don't hear from you this morning I am going to report you missing," he also texted on Jan. 3.

Walshe defense seeks to put evidence "in context"

During cross-examination, the defense argued that phone data and online searches were not presented "in context" with the full scope of communication between the couple.

For example, the defense said Walshe made a search for "Ana Walshe found dead" and "Christmas Day plane crash" on Dec. 25 because he was unable to reach her and hadn't yet learned that her flight had been canceled because of a storm. The defense also shared numerous texts and searches about restaurant reservations, expensive champagne, Zillow listings and messages where the couple told each other "Love you."

"They help frame a picture of communications about buying property and selling property, shopping for a Porsche, trading pictures between each other, all in the time period encompassing Dec. 25, leading up to Dec. 31 of 2022," attorney Larry Tipton said.

Items recovered from dumpster

After Keefe finished testifying, retired Trooper Heather Sullivan took the stand. She responded to a Swampscott dumpster and trash compactor on Jan. 9, 2023, where items connected to the case were recovered.

One-by-one she pulled those items out of evidence bags, showing the jury a hacksaw, hammer, hatchet, shears and pliers.

The final witness was was Richard Atkinson from the Medical Examiner's office. He was asked by prosecutor Greg Connor what happens to the human body in the first hour of death, and also testified that he examined items taken from the trash to look for human tissue. The jury was shown a picture of pieces of carpet with stains.

William Fastow testifies about affair with Ana Walshe

Trooper Connor Keefe testified Thursday that cell phone location data places Walshe outside an apartment building in Abington, where a man with a trash bag was seen on surveillance footage walking toward the dumpsters where Ana Walshe's clothing was later found. 

Keefe testified that Walshe texted with people who were worried about Ana Walshe, including her sister, who told him "I think that you need to report this ASAP."

Keefe also testified that Brian Walshe searched "William Fastow DC real estate" on Christmas Day of 2022, days before Ana Walshe's death. Fastow testified earlier on Thursday that he was having an "intimate" affair with her.

On Thursday, Fastow testified that he helped the Walshe family buy a townhouse near D.C., and soon became intimate with Ana Walshe. Fastow said she spoke highly of her husband and wanted to be the one to tell him about the affair.

"Ana felt it was really important that when Brian was to find out about the relationship that he would hear it from her," Fastow said. "She had expressed great concern and I think she felt it would be a strike against her integrity to find out a different way."  

Fastow and Walshe spent holidays together, traveling to Ireland together for Thanksgiving and celebrating Christmas Eve in the D.C. area. Fastow said that he knew that missing holiday time together was becoming an issue for Brian and Ana Walshe.

"She told me they had had an argument about it and there were some points of contention," he said.

Fastow said that after his calls to Ana Walshe went unreturned in the new year, Brian Walshe called him and left a voicemail saying his wife was missing.

Who is Brian Walshe?

Brian Walshe, 50, has pleaded guilty to charges of misleading police and improperly disposing of a body, but denies that he killed his wife. The defense argues he panicked when he found her dead in bed after a New Year's Eve party.

The prosecution's case has focused on gruesome online searches Walshe allegedly made around the time of her death, including "10 ways to dispose of a dead body (if you really need to)."

Ana Walshe's body has never been found.

Court ended at 1 p.m. on Friday. Judge Diane Freniere told the jury that they likely have two weeks left of evidence to hear.