William Walsh pleads guilty to murdering wife, Leah Hirschel Walsh, of Rockville Centre

William Walsh, 31, pleaded guilty on May 20 to murdering his wife, Leah Hirschel Walsh, 29, a Rockville Centre native, in October 2008. In exchange for his guilty plea, he will be sentenced to 18 years to life in prison on June 23.

Walsh pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, tampering with physical evidence and criminal possession of a weapon, admitting to the entire indictment against him.

Had he gone to trial and been convicted, Walsh would have faced a maximum sentence of 25 years to life.

Police alleged that Walsh choked Leah, a special-education teacher, on Oct. 26, 2008, after the two argued in the bedroom of their Bethpage apartment. Police said that the murder took place early that Sunday, and that Walsh covered his wife's body with black trash bags and left it in the apartment. He spent the rest of the day going about his normal business, they said, visiting the gym and eating at McDonald's.

At around 10 that evening, according to police, Walsh put his wife's body in the passenger seat of her Ford Focus and drove to a wooded area off the North Service Road of the Long Island Expressway in North Hills, where he dumped her body. He then abandoned her car on the side of the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway near the Plainview Road exit, in an attempt to make her disappearance look like a carjacking, police said.

For two days, Walsh made public pleas for information on his wife's whereabouts that were covered in the local media. In a few of his appearances, he stood with his in-laws in front of their Rockville Centre home. He was arrested on Oct. 29, 2008, when his wife's body was discovered.

Police said that Walsh confessed to her murder that day, and later gave them a written seven-page confession. His attorney, William Petrillo of Rockville Centre, sought to have the confession deemed inadmissible, saying police had coerced it from him.

"This was a horrible tragedy that took a promising young life and had a terrible impact on her family and community," said Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice. “ I only hope that this defendant's admission of guilt brings some semblance of closure to the victim's family."

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