Explained: After Bhatt’s testimony, the Mamta Kafle murder trial turns on one question: how she died

Editor’s note: This story contains graphic details from courtroom testimony, including descriptions of a death and the dismemberment of a body. Some readers may find it distressing. Naresh Bhatt, a Virginia man on trial for murder, admitted on Thursday that he dismembered his wife Mamta Kafle’s body with a saw and disposed of it in trash bags, but denied killing her, telling jurors she died by suicide.

Bhatt, 39, testified in Prince William County Circuit Court that he found Kafle dead in their Manassas Park home in July 2024 and hid her death because he feared being blamed. His account contradicts what he told police at the time: that she had left home and was likely in New York or Texas. Her body has never been found, and the cause of her death has not been established in court.

Prosecutors, who rested their case on Monday, say Bhatt killed Kafle on or about July 30, 2024, dismembered her and discarded her remains in trash bags across Northern Virginia. He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, defiling a dead body and concealing a dead body.