William Walsh sentenced in 2008 murder of his wife, Rockville Centre native Leah Hirschel Walsh

Nassau County Court Judge David Ayres did not mince words as he sentenced William Walsh to 18 years to life on June 23 for the murder of his wife, Rockville Centre native Leah Hirschel Walsh, in October 2008. In a Mineola courtroom packed with Leah's family members and friends, Ayres described Walsh as a cold-blooded murderer who should never again be a free man, and he pledged to make sure that any future parole board considering Walsh's release would be made aware of his opinion.

As Walsh stared straight ahead, his hands handcuffed behind him, Ayres said he was extraordinarily moved by the grace, dignity and civility of Leah's family — her parents, Howard and Mattie Hirschel, and her older brother Josh. Ayres acknowledged letters he had received from them and others that gave him different perspectives on Leah, a special-education teacher who, he said, gave much and had much more to give. Ayres said the letters were unanimous in their description of Walsh as a cold, controlling, self-interested and manipulative killer.

"The physical violence you showed Leah," he told Walsh, "was echoed only by the cowardice you showed."

Walsh, 31, pleaded guilty last month to second-degree murder, tampering with physical evidence and criminal possession of a weapon. He admitted choking Leah, 29, on Oct. 26, 2008, after the two argued about his alleged infidelity in the bedroom of their Bethpage apartment. Police said that the murder took place early on a Sunday morning, 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, visiting a gym and a laundromat and eating at a McDonald's.

At around 10 that evening, Walsh stuffed his wife's body into the bags, put them 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 abandoned her car on the side of the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway near the Plainview Road exit, in an effort to make her disappearance look like a carjacking.

For two days, Walsh made impassioned public pleas for information on his wife's whereabouts that were covered extensively by the local media. In several of his appearances, he stood with his in-laws in front of their Rockville Centre home. Police arrested him on Oct. 29, when his wife's body was found.

Walsh later confessed to her murder, and police said he gave them a seven-page confession. At the sentencing, Walsh's attorney, William Petrillo, of Rockville Centre, objected to characterizations of his client as '"lacking emotion." He said there had been no premeditation, and that the crime occurred in the heat of passion. Petrillo also referred to a probation report that said that Walsh prays for Leah's family and will never be able to find peace. He described Walsh's remorse as "complete, sincere and genuine."

Walsh also spoke, reading a one-page statement in which he said he was truly sorry for the pain he had caused. Ayres denied a request to have Walsh's handcuffs removed so he could read the statement more easily.

In his victim's impact statement, Howard Hirschel spoke of how hundreds of special-needs students would be deprived of his daughter's special gifts as a teacher. He spoke of the pain and anguish her family has suffered and said that Leah's violent, brutal death and ultimate betrayal gave new meaning to the phrase "till death do us part." Calling her murder cruel, cold and premeditated, Leah's father said that Walsh had no sense of remorse. "His sole purpose was to save his own skin," he said.

A statement from Leah's mother, read by Assistant District Attorney Michael Walsh, and one from her brother followed. Josh Hirschel said that Walsh ran up debt in his sister's name, and that when she had had enough of his drugs, gambling and infidelity, he decided to end her life. "The plea agreement is for 18 years to life," Josh said, "and the emphasis should be on 'life.'"

After the court proceeding, the Hirschel family was surrounded by reporters and camera crews. Josh thanked the court for its handling of his sister's case. Of his former brother-in-law, he said, "I had hoped to see more emotion than just the crocodile tears we saw here today."

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