The Bethpage man who made sobbing pleas to the media while seeking help finding his wife, who he had reported missing after covering up her murder, confessed Thursday.
William Walsh Jr.
William Walsh, 31, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, tampering with physical evidence, and criminal possession of a weapon.
Walsh admitted to strangling his wife, Leah, to death in the bedroom of their apartment and dumping her body in a wooded area in North Hills in the early morning hours of Oct. 26, 2008. In exchange for his guilty plea, he will be sentenced to 18 years to life in prison on June 23.
Walsh covered his wife with black trash bags and spent the rest of the morning at the gym, Nassau County prosecutors said. Then at around 10 p.m. that evening, he put his wife’s body in the passenger seat of her Ford Focus and drove to a wooded area off the Long Island Expressway, where he dumped her body. He then parked and abandoned her car on the shoulder of the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway near the exit 10.
Before his arrest three days later when Leah’s body was discovered, Walsh pleaded for information on his wife’s disappearance in the media.
Leah Walsh
Leah Walsh was a special education teacher at the School for Language and Communication Development (SLCD) in Glen Cove.
