Days after Mamta Kafle Bhatt was last seen, police conducted a welfare check on the mother from Manassas Park, Virginia. Body camera footage from the officers’ visit is one focus of the case against her husband.
Naresh Bhatt is charged with concealing her body, although police and prosecutors haven’t said they have located it.
His attorney will argue in court Friday that the judge should quash the arrest warrant and any evidence that was obtained after his arrest. Senior assistant public defender Shalev Ben-Avraham said police used false information to convince a magistrate to issue the arrest warrant.
Ben-Avraham referred to police body camera video recorded Aug. 2, when two Manassas Park police officers knocked on the couple’s door. The welfare check was conducted after Mamta Kafle Bhatt’s employer, UVA Health Prince William Medical Center, expressed concern that she hadn’t reported to work.
The defense argued that in two prior hearings, the Commonwealth asserted Naresh Bhatt didn’t want to file a missing person’s report.
During the 14-minute video, the officers said, “We’re looking for Miss Mamta Kafle.”
While holding the couple’s child, Naresh Bhatt said, “Yeah, on Tuesday, uh, Wednesday, she left and said she was going to either New York or Texas, and she had a phone, and she destroyed that phone, and then she left.”
The officers asked Naresh Bhatt why she left: “We’re about to separate,” and he said home inspectors were coming since he intended to sell the home. “This is not the first time that she’s disappeared and come back,” Naresh Bhatt said.
Several times during the welfare check, the officers asked him to contact them when his wife returned.
Other evidence submitted included a follow-up text exchange from Aug. 5, in which he informs an officer his wife had not returned and that he was not in contact with her.
The officer responded: “OK, sir, thank you for the update. If you have exhausted all methods of figuring out her whereabouts and believe she has gone missing, please dial 911.”
In a detailed timeline, Prince William County prosecutors have said Mamta Kafle Bhatt’s last video call with her mother was on July 29.
The next day, July 30, prosecutors said Naresh Bhatt dropped the couple’s daughter at a babysitter’s apartment early in the morning. Moments later, he was seen on camera dumping several plastic and trash bags into a dumpster at the babysitter’s apartment complex.
Later that morning, he went shopping at Home Depot and Walmart, buying a set of knives. That evening he bought a “40-pack of extra strong black trash bags,” according to senior assistant commonwealth’s attorney Sarah Sami.
On July 31, at 1:30 a.m., Naresh Bhatt was captured on video in Falls Church retrieving bags from his Tesla and putting them into a trash compactor. His Tesla tracks him to that location, but his phone was inactive and not with him at the time.
Later that morning, over 150 gallons of water were consumed by the Bhatt residence — far more than the typical three or four gallons, according to prosecutors.
Naresh Bhatt and his attorney were in the Prince William County courtroom with the only the judge on Tuesday during an ex parte hearing. After the hearing, his attorney Ben-Avraham declined to comment on what was discussed and who requested the closed-door hearing.
Prosecutors, the defense and Naresh Bhatt are expected in court Friday morning for arguments over the defense motion to quash the arrest warrant.
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