Warning: This report includes gruesome details that readers might find disturbing.
Prince William County prosecutors have decided how to move forward in Naresh Bhatt’s trial a day after his bombshell testimony in which he admitted to dismembering his wife’s body and disposing of her remains in 2024.
While Mamta Kafle’s body has never been found, Bhatt’s testimony on Thursday confirmed for the first time that she is dead.
Attorneys for both the prosecution and defense met on Friday to discuss jury instructions.
First-degree and second-degree murder are on the table, while manslaughter is not.
Bhatt is also charged with defiling and concealing a dead body, but on Thursday, he admitted to those crimes while on the witness stand.
Bhatt claimed he found his Kafle dead from suicide inside their bedroom in the early morning of July 30, 2024. Instead of calling​ 911, he said he cut up her body and threw out her remains in trash cans at their house.
“Put in the trash can,” he said. “Reduced the size and then put in the trash can. With a, in the bag.”
“How did you do that, Mr. Bhatt?”
“With a … I had a saw. I used the saw.”
The jury saw evidence of bleeding and bruising on Mamta Kafle in the months before her death. Prosecutors said it was at the hands of her husband.
While Bhatt said he did dismember her body and dispose of it, he denied killing her and denied all allegations of physical abuse.
“I never thought at all in my whole life, never. Not only Mamta, not any family member. not at all,” Bhatt said.
“The only time you touched Mamta is when you chopped her up​?” prosecutor Matthew Sweet asked.
“That was after Mamta left,” Bhatt said.
“The only time you touched Mamta is when you’re stuffing her into a trash can​? That’s the only time you touched her​?” Sweet asked.
Bhatt’s attorneys will ask him more questions when the trial resumes Monday morning. It’s possible the jury will get the case early next week.
