Leah Walsh, 29, Car abandoned w/Flat Tire Bethpage, NY (Body Found)

[pamomma]

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/nassau/ny-limiss1029,0,3706854.story

Bethpage schoolteacher, 29, missing
BY SOPHIA CHANG AND JOSEPH MALLIA | sophia.chang@newsday.com and joseph.mallia@newsday.com
11:47 AM EDT, October 28, 2008

PHOTO ON WEBSITE
 
Police in Nassau are seeking clues in the disappearance of a teacher, Leah Walsh, 29, last heard from at 6:30 a.m. Monday, when her husband said she sent him a text message. Her car was found abandoned with a flat tire on the Seaford- Oyster Bay Expressway on her way to work.

The husband of a missing teacher made an emotional appeal Tuesday morning for her safe return, speaking to reporters outside Leah Hirschel Walsh's family home in Rockville Centre.

The husband, William Walsh, stood in his in-laws' driveway at around 11 a.m. Tuesday, handing out copies of his wife's photo to reporters.

"Please get the picture out. We just want her back," Walsh said, his eyes red and welling with tears.

"You can have my cars. You can have everything. I just want my wife back."

In response to questions, Walsh said the last time he heard from his wife was when he got a text message from her Monday morning. Asked where she is, he said, "I got no clue."

Walsh, a tall, lean man wearing khaki pants and a Trump Taj Mahal casino bomber jacket, arrived at the parents' home at around 10 a.m. in a yellow Mustang convertible registered to the missing woman.

At first he declined to comment, but then at around 11 a.m. he emerged from the house to give out the photos.

The missing teacher's purse was found on the side of a highway near her disabled car at daybreak Monday, and the police issued an alert about 24 hours later.

The missing woman's husband has been cooperating with Nassau police detectives, said Det. Sgt. Anthony Repalone, a police spokesman. As of midday Tuesday, the Nassau police department was treating the investigation as a simple missing-person case, not an abduction, Repalone said.

Leah Walsh, 29, teaches autistic children at a Glen Cove school. She went missing sometime before 6:30 a.m. Monday when her vehicle was found with a flat tire on the shoulder of the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway, Nassau police said.

Nassau County detectives Tuesday morning asked the public's help locating her. Suffolk County police referred inquiries to the Nassau police.

After Walsh failed to report to work on Monday, school officials called her family and they notified the police, Nassau detectives said.

"She loves her job. She loves children. She wouldn't let the kids down," said her mother, Mattie Hirschel of Rockville Centre, who said she doubts that her daughter disappeared deliberately.

"Just bring her back, Hirschel said. "She's my baby,"

Hirschel, speaking before William Walsh's news conference, said her daughter's husband gave her some details on what happened. Bill Walsh said Leah contacted him and told him about the flat tire, but by the time he got there she was gone, Hirschel said. Bill Walsh said he called the police and while he and the police were looking along the side of the road they found Leah Walsh's purse, Hirschel said.

Leah Walsh's black 2005 Ford Focus, with the license plate DNU 5876 and with a large Mets sticker on the rear windshield, was found on the shoulder of northbound Route 135, police said.

Kurt Stein, who said he is the facilities coordinator at the School for Language and Communication Development where Walsh teaches, said the school would have no comment, then closed the door.

Teachers and other staff walking into the brick schoolhouse on Glen Cove Avenue waved away a reporter inquiring about Walsh.

The Missing Person Section detectives want to speak with anyone with information about Walsh's whereabouts, or anyone who may have seen her driving the car. Crime Stoppers accepts confidential tips at 800-244-TIPS.

Leah Walsh got her master's degree from Molloy College last May, and lived for a time in Florida, then moved back to Long Island, Hirschel said. Leah Walsh and her husband lived in Rockville Centre for a time, then recently got an apartment in Bethpage, Hirschel said. Leah Hirschel Walsh's MySpace page says she studied communications-sociology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, graduating in 2006, then studied special education at Molloy.

[Nut44x4]

Associated Press - October 28, 2008 2:15 PM ET

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. (AP) - Investigators are trying to locate a schoolteacher who disappeared after contacting her husband to say her car had broken down with a flat tire on the side of a Long Island highway.

Leah Walsh was reported missing sometime after 6:30 a.m. Monday. Her 2005 black Ford Focus was found with a flat tire on the northbound shoulder of the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway near Bethpage.

The 29-year-old woman's purse was found nearby, but little other evidence has turned up.

William Walsh made an emotional plea Tuesday outside his in-laws' home in Rockville Centre.

Said Walsh: "You can have my cars. You can have everything. I just want my wife back."
http://www.wcax.com/global/story.asp?s=9252743

[klaasend]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,444447,00.html




New York Teacher Vanishes After Getting Flat Tire on Highway
Tuesday , October 28, 2008


 Long Island police are searching for a schoolteacher who disappeared after her car broke down on the side of a highway.

Leah Walsh, 29, called her husband William on Monday to tell him about the flat tire she got while driving on the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway near Bethpage, N.Y. — but by the time he got there she was gone, Long Island's Newsday newspaper reported.

She was reported missing by her husband at about 6:30 a.m. Tuesday.

Officials at the school in Glen Cove where Walsh teaches autistic children also notified police when she failed to show up for work that morning.

William Walsh said that his wife's purse was found as he was searching the area around her abandoned 2005 Ford Focus with authorities later that day, the paper reported.

An emotional Walsh appealed to the public to help bring his wife home.

"You can have my cars," he told Newsday. "You can have everything. I just want my wife back."

Police said they were treating Walsh's disappearance as a missing persons case, not an abduction, the New York Daily News reported.

Lucas Bean, a friend of the young woman, told the Daily News that she had marital problems following a "huge fight" with her husband on Sunday.

Bean told the paper Williams texted him while she was traveling from her parents' house to her apartment in Bethpage.

A close friend of the young woman told the Daily News that she was distraught about problems in her marriage after having a "huge fight" with her husband Sunday.

Lucas Bean, who said he's known Walsh she was a freshman in college, said she texted him while she was on the way from her parents' house in Rockville Centre to her apartment in Bethpage.

"She was telling me that things are not going to work out with her and her husband and she had to tell me something very important, but she needed to wait til she got out of the car with him," Bean, 32, of Los Angeles, told the paper.

"She was in the car with him texting to me so that was Sunday night and they were in a huge fight," Bean continued.

Bean told the paper he never learned what the fight was about.


I don't have a good feeling about this.  I think the husband may have harmed her    

[San]

I THINK THE HUSBAND DID IT.

[klaasend]

I THINK THE HUSBAND DID IT.

So do I San.  I think something happened late Sunday night or early Monday morning.  It will be interresting to see if the text message he claims his wife made is true.  Hopefully LE can get those records.

[pamomma]

I THINK THE HUSBAND DID IT.

So do I San.  I think something happened late Sunday night or early Monday morning.  It will be interresting to see if the text message he claims his wife made is true.  Hopefully LE can get those records.

I agree that the husband is probably involved also.  Klaasend, I was thinking the same thing, "I wonder if LE has been able to investigate the text messages"  Even if he had her phone and texted himself a message, they should be able to tell where the phone was located and what towers it was using if a message was sent, right?  I know that have done that with calls before, but I didn't know if the same could be done with text messages. 

[Nut44x4]

from: Rockville Centre, NY to Bethpage, NY map

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Rockville+Centre+NY&oi=geocode_result&resnum=0&ct=directions-to&daddr=Rockville+Centre%2C+NY&saddr=Bethpage%2C+NY&rl=1

[dejasade]

Sad.
More than likely the husband ~ hate to say 

[klaasend]

http://wcbstv.com/local/schoolteacher.husband.body.2.851183.html

Oct 29, 2008 10:55 am US/Eastern
Body Found As Police Search For Missing LI Teacher
Discovery Made Several Miles From Where Leah Walsh's Car Was Abandoned

LEVITTOWN, L.I. (CBS) ― Police conducting a search for a schoolteacher reported missing two days ago confirmed that officers have discovered a body near the Long Island Expressway, CBS 2 HD has learned.

The discovery on the North Service Road, near Shelter Rock Road, is several miles from where Leah Walsh's car was found abandoned with a flat tire early Monday morning.

Police have not yet confirmed the identity of the discovered body.

The 29-year-old special education teacher was reported missing after failing to arrive at her Glen Cove school on Monday morning.

Her car was later found -- coincidentally by her father, a bus driver who happened to be on the highway later Monday morning. But there was no sign of the woman. Her purse was found in a ditch nearby.

Early morning commuters were greeted by Nassau County police officers on Wednesday as part of the intense search effort for Walsh.

Chopper 2 HD was over the scene Wednesday morning as cars were backed up for miles on the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway near Bethpage, where the missing teacher allegedly last contacted her husband after her car suffered a flat tire.

More than 24 hours later and there are more questions than answers about 29-year-old Leah Walsh. Her car was found abandoned on the side of a highway, and police spent hours Tuesday night speaking with her husband.

Bill Walsh left the 8th precinct station house in Levittown after a seven hour routine police interview Tuesday afternoon, distraught over his wife's disappearance and because investigators, he said, had no leads.

"He's a mess, his wife is missing. How else could you be? It's tearing our family apart," her brother-in-law Tommy Walsh said.

Walsh, a teacher for autistic children in Glen Cove, disappeared Monday on her way to work. A Department of Transportation worker discovered her black Ford Focus abandoned with a flat tire on the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway.

Her parents were waiting for any word Tuesday, as friends searched along the expressway where her car was found. Police found her pocketbook nearby.

Walsh is married for just three years. "She was very close to her mother, wonderful child, played with the kids, great gal. I'm just shocked," said former neighbor Stanley Bralower.

"Praying for the best. That's all you can do at this point. Nobody knows anything, there are no answers," said Tommy.

The Walsh family said they will be on the streets putting up thousands of missing posters, hoping someone will see Leah's picture and help bring her home.

[klaasend]

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Teacher_Disappears_After_Getting_Flat_Tire.html

Body Found as Police Search for Missing Teacher
The unidentified body was found in North Hills, several miles from missing teacher's abandoned car.
Updated 11:11 AM EDT, Wed, Oct 29, 2008

Related Topics:Leah Walsh | William Walsh

Leah Walsh reportedly had a fight with her husband before disappearing.

 

Police conducting a search for a schoolteacher reported missing two days ago confirmed that officers have discovered a body near the Long Island Expressway.

The discovery on the North Service Road, near Shelter Rock Road, is several miles from where Leah Walsh's car was found abandoned with a flat tire early Monday morning.

Rush-hour traffic was stopped for miles along the northbound Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway in Bethpage Wednesday morning as police stepped up their search for Walsh.


Officers handed out a "missing persons" flyer with a photo of Walsh on Wednesday morning. The 29-year-old special education teacher was reported missing after failing to arrive at her Glen Cove school on Monday morning.


Walsh, who works at the School for Language and Communication Development in Glen Cove, was reported missing by the school Monday morning, said Lt. Kevin Smith, a spokesman for the Nassau County Police Department.

Hours later Walsh's father, school bus driver Howard Hirschel, aware that his daughter was missing, found her car, a 2005 black Ford Focus, disabled and abandoned along the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway in Bethpage.

Instead of calling police, however, he phoned the missing woman's husband, William Walsh, and summoned him to the scene and continued on to deliver the children in his bus to their school.

When Walsh arrived at the abandoned, locked car, he called 911, Smith said, and police launched an exhaustive search for the woman, whose purse was in a ditch nearby.

Police helicopters, dogs and officers on horseback searched for hours in the area, which borders the massive Bethpage State Park, but came up empty.

Detectives were questioning Walsh on Tuesday, but police emphasized it was a routine part of the investigation and noted they had no suspects.

Leah Walsh, who usually leaves her home for work between 6:15 a.m. and 6:30 a.m., sent a text message to her husband at about 6:25 a.m., telling him to "have a great day," William Walsh told a reporter for 1010 WINS radio.

"That's the last I heard from her," he added through sobs.

He later told reporters outside his in-laws' home in Rockville Centre: "You can have my cars. You can have everything. I just want my wife back."

A male close friend of the missing woman told the Daily News that she was upset bout a "huge
fight" with her husband on Saturday.

Lucas Bean, 32, who told the paper he'd known Walsh since they were in college, said she texted him on the way from her parents' house in Rockville Centre to her apartment in Bethpage.

"She was telling me that things are not going to work out with her and her husband and she had to tell me something very important, but she needed to wait 'til she got out of the car with him," the News quoted Bean as saying  "That was Saturday around 7 p.m. They were in a huge fight."


Police also noted that a state Department of Transportation HELP vehicle, which assists motorists with car trouble, left a sticker on the side of Leah Walsh's abandoned car at about 6:30 a.m. The stickers are used to notify police that a vehicle was undergoing some kind of mechanical difficulty.

The Walshes, who live in Bethpage, have been married for three years; they have no children, Lt. Smith said.

[pamomma]

I pray that this is not the missing teacher, but it sounds as though it probably is. 

This story gets more and more confusing...this last article seems to describe an entirely different series of events than the previous articles.

[pamomma]

http://www.1010wins.com/Body-Found-in-Wooded-Area/3214776

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. (AP/1010 WINS)  -- A worker found a body in a wooded area inside the North Hills Country Club near the Long Island Expressway Wednesday, 1010 WINS' Mona Rivera reported. There is speculation that it could be that of missing teacher Leah Walsh, but Nassau County police have not confirmed that it is Walsh, but did say it was the body of a white female....(there is more to the article on the website, but it is mostly just the same info as in the previous post)

[klaasend]

http://wcbstv.com/breakingnewsalerts/schoolteacher.husband.body.2.852015.html

 Oct 29, 2008 8:47 pm US/Eastern
Body Identified As Missing L.I. Teacher
Leah Walsh Found 2 Days After Being Reported Missing, Husband Charged With Murder

LEVITTOWN, L.I. (CBS) ― Police have positively identified the body of the woman found in a wooded area in Long Island as Leah Walsh, the teacher reported missing on Monday morning, and her husband has been charged with murder.

Nassau County Police Lt. Kevin Smith says a worker at the North Hills Country Club found Walsh's body around 8 a.m. Wednesday. It's believed the body had been there for more than 24 hours.

The discovery is about 13 miles from where Walsh's car was found abandoned with a flat tire early Monday. The 29-year-old special education teacher was reported missing after failing to arrive at her Glen Cove school.

Her car was found -- coincidentally by her father, a bus driver who happened to be on the highway later Monday morning. Her purse was found in a ditch nearby.

[2NJSons_Mom]

Was just going to check for updates....I told my husband, earlier, that I thought the husband did it.  My DH was shocked.  When I watched the news with the husband...several times...all the distress/tears seemed fake.....poor Leah....she knew she was in trouble....    

[MuffyBee]

Body of missing Long Island teacher found; husband arrested

BY SARAH ARMAGHAN, HENRICK KAROLISZYN and TRACY CONNOR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Updated Wednesday, October 29th 2008, 9:06 PM


Two days after the disappearance of Long Island teacher Leah Walsh, police confirmed they've discovered a woman's body near the Long Island Expressway.

Long Island teacher Leah Walsh's husband was arrested in her murder Wednesday night - hours after the missing woman's naked body was found in a ditch 13 miles from home, police said.

Nassau County police spokesman confirmed Bill Walsh was in custody, but declined to give details of his arrest or specific charges.

Before his wife's body was found, Walsh, again tearfully appealed for information about what happened to his wife, then took off to hang up posters.
RELATED: TEACHER DISAPPEARS AFTER FLAT TIRE, FIGHT WITH HUSBAND

The gruesome discovery was made several miles from where Walsh's car was found - locked, with a flat tire - on Monday morning.

The 29-year-old teacher of autistic children disappeared soon after having what a close friend called a "huge fight" with her husband of three years.

"I still don't know what do to," Walsh, a rangy mortgage broker, said early yesterday after he was questioned by cops but not named a suspect.

"I miss her more than anything. I need everybody's help. Anybody that could have seen anything, just let us know," he said.

He said he didn't believe his wife, who taught autistic kids, disappeared of her own accord.

"She loves her children. She wouldn't just leave them. Something had to have happened," he said.

A few hours after Bill Walsh left their rented home in Bethpage, cops showed up to sift through some leaves near the curb. They refused to say what they were looking for.

Meanwhile, Leah Walsh's parents, Howard and Mattie Hirschel, kept vigil at their home in Rockville Centre with friends and neighbors.

"We're holding out hope that she's alive," a friend named Eva said after visiting the shaken couple. "I don't want to think of any other alternative."

The body was found in a wooded area off a service road of the Long Island Expressway around 8 a.m., about 13 miles from where Leah Walsh's 2005 Ford Focus was found Monday.

A country club worker spotted the body and called police. They believe it had been there more than 24 hours.

Leah Walsh disappeared after a blowup with her husband over the weekend.

Close friend Lucas Bean told the Daily News she text-messaged him on Saturday evening, telling him that Bill Walsh "went berserk" and that their marriage was over.

She was supposed to call him with details of the argument - she was in the car with her husband when she sent the text messages - but never did, Bean said.

Bill Walsh said the last time he heard from his wife was just before 6:30 a.m. Monday, when she sent him a text message - "Have a great day" - while on her way to work.

His wife, a graduate of University of Massachusetts and Molloy College, never arrived at her Glen Cove special education school.

Her father, a school bus driver, spotted her broken-down car along his route a few hours later and called his son-in-law, who called cops. Her purse was found in a nearby ditch.

Bill Walsh's brother, Thomas Walsh, said the family doesn't believe the body is that of Leah Walsh.

"I think it's gonna be all right," he said.

He also scoffed at Bean's account of marital discord.

"A guy who's 3,000 miles away - what does he know?" Thomas Walsh said, adding that he had been trying to reach his brother all afternoon to no avail.

"Whether they disagreed or not, that has nothing to do with anything. Let's just stick to the facts."
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/10/29/2008-10-29_body_of_missing_long_island_teacher_foun.html

[MuffyBee]

Leah Walsh's husband charged with murder

This story was reported by staff writers SOPHIA CHANG, MATTHEW CHAYES, BILL MASON, LAURA RIVERA and JENNIFER SMITH. It was written by SMITH.
    11:39 PM EDT, October 29, 2008

The husband of missing Bethpage schoolteacher Leah Walsh was arrested and charged with her murder yesterday after the 29-year-old woman's body was found in a wooded area in North Hills, Nassau County Police said last night.

"The medical examiner's office and the Nassau County Police Department have confirmed that the body found in North Hills today is that of Leah Walsh," Det. Lt. Kevin Smith said, reading a brief statement at police headquarters in Mineola.

"William Walsh, age 29, her husband, is in police custody at this time," Smith said. "He's being charged with murder."

The exact cause of her death remains under investigation, Smith said.

Police said they would discuss the case in more detail at a news conference scheduled for this morning.Confirmation last night that the body found was Leah Walsh and the prime suspect in her death was her husband capped a dramatic series of events that began early Monday morning when her abandoned car was found on the shoulder of the Seaford- Oyster Bay Expressway.

Her body was found by a worker at the North Hills Country Club just before 8 a.m. yesterday near the Long Island Expressway's north service road between Shelter Rock Road and New Hyde Park Road.

William Walsh Jr. had been visibly emotional since his wife's disappearance, pleading with any witnesses to come forward and passing out missing persons fliers bearing an image of a beaming Leah Walsh on her wedding day.

Earlier in the week, Walsh told police that his wife, a special-education teacher who worked with autistic children, left for work early Monday morning for her job at the School for Language and Communication Development in Glen Cove.

Walsh said in interviews that he last heard from his wife early Monday morning, when she sent him a text message.

Yesterday, police said they were interested in speaking with a Los Angeles man who reportedly text-messaged with Leah Walsh on Saturday night. In the exchange, she mentioned having a fight with her husband, according to media reports.

William Walsh Jr.'s stepmother said he was distraught Tuesday night when he came by the family's Farmingdale home. The visit followed an hours-long meeting with Nassau detectives at a Levittown police station.

"He was just crying," said Madelyn Harper-Walsh in an interview before police announced Walsh's arrest. "He would look at the TV and go under the blanket and cry. I was holding him," she said, her eyes welling with tears.

Walsh stayed at the house past midnight, and family members said yesterday they had not seen him since.

Before his arrest, Walsh sobbed yesterday morning as he walked from the couple's Bethpage apartment to his car, where a stack of missing persons posters sat in the passenger seat.

"I miss her more than anything," Walsh said. He urged any witnesses who may have seen something to "just let us know, call the cops," adding before he drove away, "I just wanna know where she is. I want my wife."

Homicide detectives delivered the news of Leah Walsh's death to her parents last night at their home in Rockville Centre, where the family had been waiting in anguish for news of their daughter.

Earlier yesterday afternoon, her father, Howard Hirschel, emerged briefly from the house to hug a neighbor who dropped off a plate of food.

Hirschel "seems very broken up," said the neighbor, who gave her name only as Eva. Calling Leah Walsh "the sweetest girl," the neighbor said she had watched her grow up. "We're holding out hope that she's alive," she said.

Efforts to reach William Walsh Jr.'s family after his arrest were unsuccessful. Yesterday afternoon his younger brother, Stephen Walsh, said: "The only thing we know right now is he's missing, a body's been found, we don't know if it's hers. We want answers."

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/ny-lileah1030,0,3990585.story

[pamomma]

The Long Island man charged with killing his teacher wife had been "very abusive" before her disappearance and murder and lied to detectives about his marital problems, the New York Post reported.

Nassau County Police said they arrested William Walsh because of inconsistencies in his alibi and his story about what had happened to 29-year-old Leah Walsh, who vanished Monday, sources told the Post.

Leah Walsh — who friends say was planning to divorce her husband — appeared to have been strangled, but autopsy results had not yet been completed Thursday, according to the sources.


A neighbor of Leah Walsh's parents in Rockville Centre, N.Y., said the couple fought constantly when they lived there.

"I heard him being very abusive to her verbally, cursing," the neighbor, who asked not to be identified, told the Post. "Cursing, 'F- - - you!', screaming at the top of his lungs, and she was just very distraught."

A news conference will be held Thursday at 11 a.m. EDT.

...more of the article at the website, but all repeated info from above posts

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,445184,00.html

[2NJSons_Mom]

 
Police: Husband choked missing NY teacher
By FRANK ELTMAN, Associated Press Writer Frank Eltman, Associated Press Writer 31 mins ago
MINEOLA, N.Y. – Police say the husband of a special education teacher who failed to show up for work has confessed to choking her and dumping her body in the woods.

William Walsh is accused of killing his wife, Leah, during a fight in their home after he returned from a trip to Atlantic City last weekend. Walsh was ordered held without bail after pleading not guilty to second-degree murder charges Thursday.

According to police, Walsh choked his wife inside their apartment on Long Island and then staged an elaborate hoax to make it appear as if she was carjacked and killed on her way to work Monday.

Walsh's attorney insisted at his client's arraignment that police made a "rush to judgment."

But the chief of the Nassau County homicide squad says Walsh has given verbal and written confessions.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081030/ap_on_re_us/teacher_killed/print;_ylt=AnE5eLHOic65ll0enf3PvCPLLJ94

[2NJSons_Mom]

Story was updated while I was posting the last one.
*****
 
Police: Husband strangled missing NY teacherBy FRANK ELTMAN, Associated Press Writer Frank Eltman, Associated Press Writer 3 mins ago
MINEOLA, N.Y. – A man confessed to strangling his wife during a fight over his alleged cheating, dumping her body near a highway and then making it appear as if she had been a victim of random roadside violence, police said Thursday.

William Walsh, 29, is accused of strangling his wife, Leah, during a fight in their Long Island home after he returned from a trip to Atlantic City last weekend. He was ordered held without bail after pleading not guilty to a second-degree murder charge Thursday.

Walsh's attorney insisted at his client's arraignment that police made a "rush to judgment."

But the chief of the Nassau County homicide squad says Walsh has given verbal and written confessions admitting to the crime.

The mystery began Monday morning when Leah Walsh, 29, failed to arrive for her job as a special education teacher and her abandoned car was found on the side of the road. Suspicion quickly fell on the husband, who made two days of tearful appeals to the media in asking for help in finding his wife.

Homicide detectives believe he killed his wife Sunday after returning from a trip to Atlantic City. Lt. John Azzata, commander of the Nassau County homicide squad, said the couple fought over William Walsh's alleged infidelity, eventually choking her to death as the dispute escalated.

With his wife dead inside their Bethpage apartment, Walsh then went about his business on Sunday, doing laundry at a nearby coin laundry and eating at a McDonald's. After darkness on Sunday, Walsh loaded his wife's body into her car and dumped her remains in an embankment, 50 feet off the Long Island Expressway, police said.

He apparently took the air out of the right front tire, making it appear that the vehicle had broken down, police said. Walsh then walked home, but returned to the side of the highway in a second vehicle, and threw his wife's purse into a nearby ditch.

He was seen leaving the scene by a driver in a state Transportation Department vehicle.

On Wednesday morning, a motorist reported seeing the body. Walsh was arrested a short time later and admitted to the crime after several hours of questioning, police said.

Ellenmorris Tiegerman, the founder and executive director of the school where Leah worked, said in a statement Thursday that Leah Walsh was an "extraordinary" teacher who "loved her students and ... was extremely dedicated to their families."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081030/ap_on_re_us/teacher_killed/print;_ylt=AnE5eLHOic65ll0enf3PvCPLLJ94

[Nut44x4]

Was just going to check for updates....I told my husband, earlier, that I thought the husband did it.  My DH was shocked.  When I watched the news with the husband...several times...all the distress/tears seemed fake.....poor Leah....she knew she was in trouble....    

October 31, 2008 Friday
 
In missing cases, similar tell-tale signs
 
Susan Smith pleaded to television cameras to find the man she claimed kidnapped her two sons in 1994 in South Carolina.

Charles Stuart did the same in Boston in 1989, spinning an elaborate tale about how he and his pregnant wife were abducted and shot - she, fatally - after leaving the hospital.

And this week in Bethpage, William Walsh Jr., with red eyes and trembling voice, begged for the public's help to find his missing wife, Leah.

All were eventually charged in the deaths of their family members, fitting into a criminal profile in which the defendant stages dramatic and public expressions of grief and composes detailed stories that, in the end, just don't add up.

"You'd think if you perpetrated something you'd want to keep a low profile and give as few details as possible," said Stephanie Lake, a professor in the Sociology Department and Criminal Justice Program at Adelphi University. "But some of these people almost enter into some kind of psychological state where they try to believe it themselves, convince themselves that there were some outside perpetrators."

Walsh is charged with killing his 29-year-old wife, a special-education teacher in Glen Cove, whose car was found Monday morning on the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway. Her body was found Wednesday morning in North Hills.

Yesterday police said Walsh strangled his wife, hid her body in the woods and staged her disappearance, complete with a fake text message and a flat tire.

Forensic psychologists who watched video tapes of Walsh's displays of grief said that though you can't convict him on his mannerisms in the tapes, in retrospect there are some signs of less-than-truthful behavior.

"He seems to be not looking anybody in the eye," said Lawrence Kobilinsky, chairman of the Department of Sciences at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "And I didn't see a single tear."

Jennifer Duffy, a Rockville Centre and Centerport clinical psychologist specializing in forensics, agreed, saying that, although everyone responds to trauma differently, Walsh appeared nervous and with a flat expression on his face.

"The things that he was saying and the voice that he was using was inconsistent with the affect he displayed on his face," said Duffy. "His eyes and forehead were really expressionless, flat."

Experts said the public expects to see grieving family members in missing-person or homicide cases and not doing so can raise suspicions. But in Walsh's case, his apparent sorrow seemed overdone, they said.

"A public display of grief, that's part of the staging," said Louis B. Schlesinger, a forensic psychology professor at John Jay. "He wants to redirect the investigation away from him."

But, he added, "If you look at grieving people, they don't usually behave that way."

Still, experts said no matter how Walsh reacted, authorities would still look at him as the prime suspect.

"The husband of a dead woman is always the primary suspect until proven otherwise," said Schlesinger. "And statistically, it's because they're almost always the one who did it." 
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