Dateline NBC
An accused killer pleads guilty, but not to murder. The next chapter in the Dulos case. Plus, a NXIVM story.
20 Nov 2025
Chapter 1: What are the latest developments in the Brian Walshe case?
Hey, there we go. You're listening in to the Dateline story meeting. We will just dive in. Our team is catching up on breaking crime news.
I'm curious about the rest of the investigation. You know, everybody's talking about mom blowing him a kiss in the courtroom.
The cops are like, why were you acting so strange? You were there the whole time. Welcome to Dateline True Crime Weekly. I'm Blayne Alexander. It's November 20th, and here's what's on our docket. In Connecticut, Michelle Traconis wants a new trial. The woman convicted of conspiring with her boyfriend to murder his estranged wife filed a 1,000-page appeal. We'll boil it all down.
The defense claims that those police interviews should have never been let in.
In Dateline Roundup, we've got details on Karen Reid's explosive new lawsuit. And we'll bring you the latest in the murder of the Last Chance U football coach.
The two men were aware of each other in some capacity, but they were not closely connected.
Plus, Smallville actress Allison Mack breaks her silence on the sex cult NXIVM.
I feel like I at least have to say it out loud for myself, like once, you know?
But before all of that, we're heading to the Norfolk County Courthouse in Massachusetts, where there has been a stunning development in the case of Brian Walsh. 39-year-old mother of three, Anna Walsh, has been missing since New Year's Day 2023.
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Chapter 2: How did Michelle Troconis file her appeal in the Jennifer Dulos case?
Brian did not plead guilty to Ana's murder, but he did plead guilty to all the rest. Joining us now is Dateline producer Dorothy Newell, who has been following this case. Dorothy, thanks so much for joining us. Happy to be here. Dorothy, did you get any sense that something was brewing, or did all of this come as a complete surprise to you?
Absolutely no idea that this was brewing. Yeah, it was a complete surprise. But I have to think that this was in the works for a while.
Now, quickly remind us, who was Anna Walsh? Tell us a little bit more about her.
So Anna was an immigrant from Serbia, and she came to the United States in her early 20s. She was talented, ambitious, charming by all accounts. She met Brian. They had three young kids. She started working in real estate. She worked in Washington, D.C. during the week while Brian took care of their three kids in their home in a Boston suburb.
Now, the reason he could take full-time care of the kids is because he was on house arrest awaiting sentencing for art fraud. He pleaded guilty to selling some fake Andy Warhols.
How did investigators start piecing together this case against Brian Walsh?
It all sort of started when her employer reported her missing when she didn't show up for work. So police went to the home to do a welfare check, and they met with Brian. And according to prosecutors, Brian seemed cooperative at first. He handed over his cell phone and his electronic devices for them to check out.
That's when the missing persons case became a murder investigation because right there on one of the kids' iPads, there were some strange Google searches with titles like 10 ways to dispose of a body and how to stop a body from decomposing.
Oh, gosh. And those searches were on the kids' iPad? Mm-hmm.
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Chapter 3: What evidence links Fotis Dulos to Jennifer Farber Dulos's disappearance?
They also learned from Brian's phone that he had visited some places that he had not told them about in the days after Ana's disappearance, right?
Yeah. On the day after she disappeared, his GPS data on his phone showed that Brian had made a visit to Home Depot where he bought cleaning supplies, a mop, goggles, a hatchet, and baking soda. Prosecutors also say that a man who looked like Brian was caught on camera throwing a heavy garbage bag into a dumpster.
And they didn't find that garbage bag, but they did find others at a dump in the town where Brian's mom lived. And those bags contained some of her belongings. And some of those items were covered in blood.
Ana's body has never been found. Dorothy, do prosecutors have an alleged motive here?
So prosecutors have a few theories. They say she told a friend that her marriage was in trouble and that she was thinking about moving the kids to Washington, D.C., They also say that Brian's mother hired a private investigator to follow her around to see if she was having an affair.
Another theory is that prosecutors say Brian was the beneficiary of her $2.7 million life insurance policy, and he owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in his federal art fraud case. So was money a motive? His defense says he was already paying back the money that he owed in that case. And as far as the alleged infidelity, they say Brian didn't know anything about that.
Dorothy, of course, this week we saw this unexpected plea, but there was drama in this trial even before we got to this week. I mean, a few weeks ago, the entire thing came to a halt.
That's right. So Brian Walsh was stabbed in jail this past September, and he recovered. But following that attack, his attorneys were concerned that he may not be mentally or emotionally capable of participating in his own defense. So they stopped everything, and he spent about 40 days undergoing psych evaluation and was only just last week declared competent to stand trial.
And so that led us to this week. Tell me what happened there. It felt like it was all steam ahead. There was a hearing on Monday. The attorneys were sparring over opening statements and about what the jury could hear. Reporters noticed that Brian's mom was in the courtroom. She even blew a kiss to her son. The very next day, though, that Tuesday, everything changed.
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of Brian Walshe's guilty plea?
Right. Jury selection was supposed to start. Brian came in, then the judge. And then similar to the Kohlberger plea hearing, for those who watched that, the judge made extra sure that Brian was sound of mind and understood what... was about to happen. And then it became clear that he was pleading guilty to something.
Mr. Walsh, did you in fact willfully mislead various law enforcement with the intent to impede or interfere with a criminal investigation of Anna Walsh's disappearance? Yes, Your Honor. And you were pleading guilty to willfully conveying away a human body in violation of Massachusetts general laws. Do you understand that?
Yes, Your Honor. So it's the two lesser charges, misleading the investigators and improper conveyance to the moving of a body.
So just to be super clear here, he is not pleading guilty to murder. What happens with that charge? Will that trial still get underway?
Yeah, he's still heading to trial at this moment. On the murder charge. In fact, not long after he entered the plea, jury selection got underway.
Is that jury going to be hearing about these pleas that Brian just entered? And how will all of this work, Dorothy?
Yes, they will hear about the pleas that Brian entered. And some experts are saying that by taking responsibility for some of his actions, Walsh could be trying to establish some goodwill with the jurors and hope they find him guilty of a lesser charge like second-degree murder or manslaughter. Then he might have a chance of parole way down the road.
You know, listening to that, some could say that that sounds risky, right? Brian is basically admitting that he, in fact, got rid of his wife's body. How will he try and convince a jury then that it wasn't murder?
That's the question on everybody's mind. You know, the fact is, if his defense is going to be that it was an accident or self-defense or suicide, Brian would have to tell that story on the stand because he's the only one who was there. And if he testifies, he faces cross-examination, and that could certainly be brutal. So jury selection, of course, is still proceeding.
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Chapter 5: How did Karen Reid's lawsuit claim she was framed for murder?
Have they made any progress? The crazy thing is they made a lot of progress on the day that everything blew up. On the day that Brian pled, they actually sat nine jurors.
Wow. Well, Dorothy, there is a lot to follow there. Thanks so much for joining us to break it down today. Thank you. Coming up, a lengthy appeal from the woman at the center of the Jennifer Dulos case. But is it enough to overturn her conviction? Seven years ago, Connecticut mom of five, Jennifer Farber Dulos, was in the middle of a bitter divorce and custody battle when she disappeared.
The search for this missing mother. It's a story that has captured national attention.
Jennifer Dulos was last seen taking her kids to school.
She's never been found. Investigators quickly suspected that her estranged husband, Fotis, might have killed her. They tracked down security camera video showing him dumping garbage bags in the hours after Jennifer's disappearance. Inside those bags, they found zip ties, a razor blade, and bloody clothes. DNA on the items matched back to Jennifer.
Fotis was eventually charged with his wife's murder, but before he ever went to trial, he died by suicide. That might have been the end of the investigation, except according to prosecutors, Fotis wasn't the only person involved in Jennifer's death.
Almost overnight, she went from a possible witness to a person of interest in the case of a missing mom of five,
Prosecutors accused Fotis' live-in girlfriend, Michelle Traconis, of conspiring with him to commit the murder. Last year, she was convicted after a seven-week trial and sentenced to serve more than 14 years in prison. But outside the courtroom, her family insisted that she was innocent and vowed to fight on.
My sister will eventually come out. She has to because she's innocent of everything that she's been charged for.
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Chapter 6: What happened in the tragic killing of coach John Beam?
Thank you guys for having me.
Of course. So, Kevin, before we dig into the appeal itself, we'll certainly get to that. But let's just remind all of our listeners of the main points that prosecutors made against Michelle during this trial. So how does she fit into this case?
Absolutely. So they were able to weave together a narrative around Fotis being the individual who physically did the act of murder. Michelle was essentially an agent to help in the cover-up. So prosecutors alleged that she was in charge of things like manipulating Fotis Doulos' phone. She was
Involved with him in the disposal of evidence, she helped come up with what were referred to as these alibi scripts, a rundown that they came up with and they wrote down in the event that they would be questioned about where they were.
Now, the problem with those so-called alibi scripts was they would catch photos on closed-circuit television or security cam footage that told a completely different story than what was written down in those scripts.
Well, speaking of security cam footage, I mean, that's another piece of evidence right there, right? We mentioned that up top, that Fotis was caught dumping bags. The prosecutor said that you can see Michelle on it, too.
You can. And at one point, you watch her lean out of the truck. She says she was just in the truck with Fotis on that afternoon. She didn't know what was going on, but... You watch her at one point lean out of the truck. The defense says she was trying to scrape gum off of her hand onto the sidewalk.
But when police investigators went back, they actually found some falsified Connecticut license plates that were dumped into a storm drain right in that area. And the state, again, sort of rolls that as, you know, we have you on security camera disposing of physical evidence. Whether you knew what you were doing or not, that's still disposal of evidence.
Talk to me about some of the interviews, because I understand that when she was interviewed by investigators, her story changed, her story changed again.
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Chapter 7: What insights does Allison Mack share about her time in NXIVM?
Walk us through what Michelle's defense was at trial.
Yeah. So throughout the entire trial, the defense attorney, John Schoenhorn, sort of said, you don't have any concrete evidence tying her to the case. You don't have any sort of smoking gun, so to speak. And they also leaned pretty hard on the idea that Fotis Doulos was a manipulator.
Fotis Doulos was someone that, you know, may have done it, but she was just sort of caught up in this love triangle.
So that was her trial. But last week, Michelle filed her appeal with the Connecticut Supreme Court. I mean, we talked about it earlier, a thousand pages.
Yeah, it's a long document.
Boil it down for us, though, Kevin. What's the argument here?
The main arguments that she makes is that there was insufficient evidence as well as, you know, rulings on the police interviews. So the defense claims that those police interviews should have never been let in.
Yeah. At one point, Michelle and her team say those interviews were coerced, that she was only there because investigators threatened to charge her with murder if she didn't talk, right? Let's listen to a clip of that interview.
This is your chance. If you want to see your family and your daughter and your mother and not get charged with murder, this is your chance. It's your one and only chance.
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Chapter 8: How are criminology students solving cold cases in Texas?
Every defense attorney I have been able to contact about this says this is going to be a long appeal. We're looking at potentially a year.
OK, well, Kevin, we'll continue to talk to you as we follow this. Thank you so much.
Yeah, thank you.
Up next, it's time for Dateline Roundup. We've got the latest on Karen Reid and the shooting of Last Chance U coach John Bean. Plus, the story of Allison Mack, actress and former member of the sex cult NXIVM, in her own words. Welcome back. Joining me for this week's roundup is Dateline producer Marissa Meyer. Hi, Marissa. Hi, Blaine. How are you doing? I'm good. It's so good to see you.
Thanks for joining us today. We've got a lot to talk about. Our first story is a big update in the Karen Reid saga. She's filed a major lawsuit in Massachusetts claiming she was framed for the death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe. So, Marissa, just walk us through all of this. What is she alleging here?
Yeah, so in this civil lawsuit, she lays out a long list of accusations. You know, of course, you remember, a lot of people remember, Reed was acquitted earlier this year. Prosecutors had tried and failed to convince the jury to convict her of murdering O'Keefe by backing her SUV into him.
And now she is suing the investigators that were on the case, along with several people who were inside the Canton home where she says she last saw O'Keefe alive.
So, of course, the big question here has been what actually happened that night. What is she saying happened that night?
Yeah, so it's very similar to what she alleged at her criminal trial, too. The lawsuit claims O'Keefe got into an altercation at the Canton home. He suffered a head wound and was attacked by the homeowner's German shepherd. Reed points to the state medical examiner's autopsy, which did note scratches and what the suit calls dog bite wounds.
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