A jury in Loudoun County, Virginia, will resume deliberating Friday morning in the trial of a man charged with killing a woman and her adult son in their Aldie house in 2018.
Brian Welsh, of Herndon, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the January 2018 shooting deaths of 65-year-old Mala Manwani and her 32-year-old son, Rishi Manwani.
Prosecutors said during the trial that Welsh killed the two in an effort to steal $3,000 from Rishi Manwani, who had been dealing drugs from the Aldie home he shared with his mother.
Defense lawyer Thomas Walsh argued that prosecutors never proved the bullets recovered from the victims were from Welsh’s gun. Prosecutors argued he changed the barrel after the shooting.
Walsh said phone and other records showed that Welsh had left the Manwani home to pick up his children from his mother-in-law’s house, had a calm phone conversation with his mother while driving and fielded a call from a headhunter about a job opportunity.
This is Loudoun County‘s first jury trial since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Jurors began deliberating Thursday, and can convict Welsh on first- or second-degree murder and gun charges, or they could clear him.
