By: Judy Rattner
A missing person case that has riveted Long Islanders this week turned into a homicide on Wednesday, after police found the body of Rockville Centre native Leah Hirschel Walsh, 29, and charged her husband, William Walsh Jr., also 29, with her murder.
At a news briefing Thursday morning, John Azzata, Commanding Officer of Nassau County's Homicide Squad said that police believe William Walsh choked his wife to death in their Bethpage home when he returned from a trip to Atlantic City in the early hours of Sunday morning, during an argument with her over his possible infidelity. Police allege that he dumped her body Sunday night in a ditch off the Long Island Expressway in North Hills, and then staged her disappearance Monday morning.
"Walsh should not enjoy one nanosecond of freedom for the rest of his life," Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey said at the briefing.
Police say Walsh was taken into custody after they stopped his car around 9:30 Wednesday morning. They said he made an verbal admission shortly before 4 that afternoon and later gave them a seven-page written confession, which his lawyer says was coerced. Police also say they have gathered physical evidence of the crime. Walsh, who is employed as a stock broker trainee, pleaded not guilty at his Thursday morning arraignment on a 2nd degree murder charge. He is being held without bail.
According to authorities, Walsh, who they believe acted alone, staged an elaborate hoax that included making it appear as if Leah Walsh's car had been hijacked on her way to work as a special education teacher at the School for Language and Communication Disorders in Glen Cove, where she has taught autistic children since September. Police also said that William Walsh actually sent himself the text message he claimed he received from his wife on Monday morning, as part of the hoax. And they said that on Sunday, hours after he allegedly killed her, Walsh went about his business, doing a wash in a laundromat and eating in McDonalds to make everything seem normal. After darkness police allege he removed her body from their home and drove with it in the passenger side of her black Ford Focus, eventually backing the car into the woods and dragging the body to the ditch where it was found Wednesday morning by a worker at a neighboring country club.
Police say that sometime between 5 and 6 a.m. Monday, Walsh drove the car his wife normally operates and placed it on the northbound shoulder of the Seaford Oyster Bay Expressway, a route her father, Howard Hirschel, regularly takes in his job as a bus driver. Detectives said there was no evidence of any damage to a front right tire that was flat, and that they suspect Walsh let the air out purposely, as part of the cover up. They also said they believe Walsh returned to the scene with his own car at about 6:30 a.m. to continue staging the rouse, and was spotted by a Department of Transportation HELP truck employee. Later that day, standing in his in-law's Rockville Centre driveway, Walsh's tearful and well-publicized pleas for the safe return of his wife, detectives said, were also part of his cover up.
Police said the couple, married three years, had no prior domestic incidents but that they had been separated about a year ago before they reconciled. They had no children.
If convicted, William Walsh faces 25 years to life.
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