MANASSAS, Va. — A Prince William County jury found Naresh Bhatt guilty on Tuesday of murdering his wife, Mamta Kafle Bhatt, deciding in a little more than four hours of deliberation that the suicide story he told from the witness stand was not true. Jurors convicted him of first-degree murder, and also of concealing a dead body and defiling a dead body — guilty on all three counts, WJLA reported.
Deliberations began at 12:56 p.m., once closing arguments had ended, with a panel of eight women and four men. Irving had told them they could deliberate as long into the evening as they wanted. The verdicts were announced around 5 p.m. Under a ruling Irving made on Friday, second-degree murder was open to the jury as a lesser option on the murder count; the jurors chose first-degree, which under Virginia law means they found the killing deliberate and premeditated.
On the murder count, Bhatt, 39, faces 20 years to life in prison. He has been held since his arrest on August 22, 2024, and Irving denied him bond pending sentencing. Sentencing is scheduled for March 12, 2027, InsideNoVa reported.
Mamta Kafle Bhatt was 28 and worked as a nurse at UVA Health Prince William Medical Center. She and Bhatt have a young daughter. She was last seen in late July 2024; she was reported missing on August 5. No one has ever found her body.
The trial opened on October 5. By the time the Commonwealth rested, it had called nearly 100 witnesses and put almost 500 exhibits before the jury — blood evidence from the couple’s Manassas Park home, Bhatt’s internet searches, surveillance footage, and what prosecutors described as lies told again and again to police, family and neighbors.
Everything changed last week. Bhatt took the stand in his own defense and told jurors he had found his wife dead on the morning of July 30, 2024. She had taken her own life, he said. He panicked. Then he cut up her body with a reciprocating saw and put her remains in the trash. On cross-examination he admitted lying to a long list of people and answered “Yes” when asked whether he concealed her body, but denied the killing itself: “No, not even imagination.”
Don’t let him control the last memory of Mamta. Don’t let him do that.
In closing arguments on Tuesday, Senior Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Sarah Sami told jurors, “Don’t let him control the last memory of Mamta. Don’t let him do that.” Chief Public Defender Tracey Lenox answered that the Commonwealth had never proved a homicide at all, and that a reasonable doubt about what happened in that house required an acquittal.
The verdict ends the question Bhatt’s testimony put at the center of the trial. The jury did not believe him.
Also Read: Defense Rests in Bhatt Murder Trial as Prosecutors Plan Rebuttal
Also Read: Bhatt Says He Was ‘One of the Factors’ in Mamta’s Suicide
Also Read: ‘No, Not Even Imagination’: Bhatt Denies Killing Mamta on Cross
Sources. This report draws on the following coverage; quotes are reproduced as those outlets printed them: FOX 5 DC, NBC4 Washington, WJLA, WUSA9, InsideNoVa and CNN.