Most people hear "they never found a body" and assume there is no case. That is not the law, and it never has been. Since 1843, there have been more than six hundred no-body murder trials in this country, and the ones that reach a jury end in conviction more often than murder cases generally do.

On October 5, Naresh Bhatt goes on trial in Prince William County, Virginia, charged with first-degree murder. His wife, Mamta Kafle Bhatt, has not been seen since July of 2024. Her body has never been found. He has pleaded not guilty.

So this week I sat down and worked through how the law actually handles a case like that. Including the people involved, the law that governs, and the four categories prosecutors build proof out of, including the one nobody talks about. And what a defense even looks like when you cannot say where somebody is. Plain English the whole way. No law degree required.

I am covering every day of this trial with a written recap, free. Subscribe and you will not miss one.

Naresh Bhatt has pleaded not guilty and has not been convicted of anything. Where something here is a prosecution allegation or a court filing, I say so.

***This is an audio version of my YouTube video.

Watch the video version: Here!

Trial recaps by email: Here!

Threads: @htownlawyer

Bhatt arrest video:

Get full access to Trial and Error with Simone R. Bray at htownlawyer.substack.com/subscribe

Same Commonwealth. Same county. Same judge. Same defense.

Nowhere near the same amount of attention.

Last month a Massachusetts court threw out Latarsha Sanders’ murder convictions and ordered a new trial, over the judge’s ruling to keep out all of her post-arrest mental health records. The original jury that convicted her of first degree murder was never shown the records documenting her severe mental illness.

The facts of the case, what happened at trial, what the appeals court actually held, and why a conversation about maternal mental health that only reaches some mothers is not really about mental health at all.

All in plain English. No law degree required.

Get full access to Trial and Error with Simone R. Bray at htownlawyer.substack.com/subscribe

Seven days of deliberation. Eleven to one vote. One mistrial. About a thousand follow up questions.

The one I keep getting most: Why didn’t the judge just swap in an alternate? There is a reason, and it is not the one most people assume.

Then everything after that. What happens to those twelve people now that they have gone home? What happens to Lindsay Clancy tonight? Whether jeopardy already attached the second that jury was sworn, because if it did, how can they possibly do this again? Whether they even want to…. And if they do, whether the Commonwealth’s witnesses can simply tell it differently the second time around.

I am a trial lawyer. I have stood in the same rooms. Let me walk you through what actually happens next, in plain English. No law degree required.

Get full access to Trial and Error with Simone R. Bray at htownlawyer.substack.com/subscribe