The man who was initially charged in the 2018 deaths of an Aldie woman and her adult son, before Loudoun County prosecutors had to drop charges more than a year ago, was indicted for the crimes last week.
WTOP has learned a Loudoun County grand jury has indicted Brian Kuang-Ming Welsh, 38, of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of use of a gun in the commission of a felony in the deaths of Mala Manwani, 65, and Rishi Manwani, 32.
Court records show Welsh was indicted last week, but the indictments were sealed until Welsh, who lived in Herndon, was taken into custody. Records now list Welsh’s address as Locust Grove, Virginia.
Welsh was initially arrested in March 2018 in the deaths of the Manwanis, who were found dead with multiple gunshot wounds on Jan. 31, 2018, in their house in the 25000 block of Tomey Court, in Aldie.
On Aug. 23, 2018, prosecutors dropped the charges, after forensic testing showed bullets recovered from the victims’ bodies didn’t match the barrel of Welsh’s handgun. Investigators believed Welsh’s brother or father modified his handgun after the Manwanis were killed.
Asked why prosecutors are now convinced Welsh was the killer, given the earlier gun analysis, spokeswoman Heather Williamson declined to comment, citing the ongoing case.
Court records now indicate the murders happened sometime Jan. 29, more than a day before the bodies were found.
Earlier, prosecutors said Welsh told detectives he had been buying oxycodone from Rishi Manwani, had amassed a lot of debt and was distributing drugs he bought from the younger Manwani.
Even after initial charges were dropped, prosecutors and investigators had never named any suspect other than Welsh.
Welsh is in custody at the Loudoun County Adult Detention Center; he’ll be arraigned Monday.
