MANASSAS, Va. (7News) — Wednesday marked the sixth day of Naresh Bhatt’s murder trial and the fourth day of witness testimony.
Bhatt is accused of killing his wife, Mamta Kafle Bhatt, and hiding her body. She is presumed dead and her remains have never been found.
7News is in the courtroom and providing you live updates throughout the trial.
SEE MORE | Prosecutors show bodycam video and more witnesses take stand in Naresh Bhatt murder trial
4:40 PM TRIAL IN RECESS
The trial ends for the day at 4:40 pm, with Feldman set to resume her testimony Thursday.
1:45 PM COURT RESUMES
Commonwealth calls Andrea Feldman to the stand. She testified for nearly three hours.
Feldman is a full-time professor at George Mason University. At the time of Kafle Bhatt’s disappearance, she was employed with the Prince William County Police Dept as a crime scene investigator and testified she was the main crime scene agent in this case.
Feldman walked jurors through the evidence she helped to collect and process from the Bhatts’ house. Among other things, she testified investigators found zip ties, cleaning supplies including stain remover, four kitchen knives in a drying rack by the sink and two iPhones in the kitchen – one of which was in a cabinet, without power. She said they also found a pink wallet inside a TV stand in the den, with three credit cards in Mamta Kafle’s name.
Feldman pointed in pictures to what she described as suspected blood stains in the master bathroom, including on the window sills. She said she took swabs of each suspected blood stain so they could be tested.
Feldman said investigators checked the master bedroom and bathroom for any blood that wouldn’t be visible to the naked eye using Bluestar technology. How that works, she explained, is they spray a solution that produces a blue color when the chemical reacts to iron in the blood cells. She said Bluestar can still detect blood that has been cleaned up.
She said the Bluestar indicated suspected blood in both rooms, including in the shower, in the tub and on the bedroom carpet.
The Commonwealth also brought out physical evidence: two window blinds, one which was found in the master bathroom (the second window there had no blinds) and the other one was found in the walk-in closet of the master bedroom.
When Feldman showed jurors the blinds from the closet, she pointed out several sticky notes on it that she said she marked there to indicated suspected blood.
12:30 PM COURT TAKES A BREAK FOR LUNCH – CRIME SCENE IS NEXT
12:20 PM DEFENSE CROSS-EXAMINES INDEPENDENT JOURNALISTS TO THE STAND, COMMONWEALTH REDIRECTS
Chief Public Defender Tracey Lennox, Bhatt’s defense attorney, asked if Mainali noticed a correlation in Bhatt’s stress level going up when Neema was crying on the other end of the line during the interview.
“As you listen to his voice, it appears that his stress level was going up at the same time that Neema is crying or unhappy?” Lennox asked.
” I did not see it that way because, whenever I wanted specific questions in detail, the connection would drop,” Mainali answered.
“Were you aware that the police on Aug. 6 had asked Mr. Bhatt to not discuss the police investigation if you talk to the press?” Lennox asked.
“I did not know that,” Mainali said.
“You understood, Mr. Bhatt, to tell you that at the wellness check, the officers told him to wait 48 hours before following up with them again, correct?” Lennox asked.
“He didn’t tell me the officer told him. He told me he had heard that there is a waiting period of 48 hours before a missing person report can be filed, but he was not sure whether that was the rule. He didn’t tell me that officers told him,” Mainali said.
Mainali testified that the editor-in-chief of The Rising Nepal, the first English newspaper in Nepal, translated in English between Mainali and Bhatt.
Lennox asked whether there can be different dialects of the Nepali language based on where you grew up in Nepal. Mainali said yes.
The Commonwealth redirected, asking about the wellness check from Manassas Park Police.
“You had this video translated by another person, correct?” Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Matthew Sweet asked.
“Yes,” Mainali said.
“But you yourself listened to the Nepali and confirmed the translation from Nepali to English was accurate?” Sweet asked.
“I checked whether the meaning has been preserved. Yes,” Mainali testified.
11:15 AM COMMONWEALTH CALLS INDEPENDENT JOURNALIST TO THE STAND
Sachchi Mainali, an independent Nepalese journalist, took the stand.
Mainali testified that she regularly hosts live interview programming on social media, including Facebook and YouTube.
The independent journalist told jurors she conducted a two-hour interview with Naresh Bhatt on Aug.18, 2024, via Facebook Live, which was also recorded.
While the interview was spoken in Nepali, there were English subtitles provided.
Mainali testified that she is not a court translator and did not do the translations. She said she reviewed the subtitles, stating they are not word-for-word but preserve the overall meaning.
In the testimony, Mainali said she did not know Kafle-Bhatt or Bhatt before interviewing him.
Mainali told the court that during her 2024 interview, Bhatt told her Kafle Bhatt went missing July 31, 2024.
“Miss Mainali, did you ask the defendant directly if he had done anything to Mamta?” Prosecutors asked.
“Yes,” Mainali said.
“At the end, I did. I first asked him. You didn’t do anything to Mamta, right?” Mainali told the jury. “You have not hidden her or kept her somewhere against her rule, right?”
State attorneys said they don’t plan on airing the entire two hours, as a lot of it needed to be redacted.
Prosecutors played clips of the interview for the jury.
“What do you think she might have done?” Mainali asked Naresh in the 2024 interview. “Is there anything specific that comes to your mind?”
“Thousands of thoughts come to my mind,” Bhatt said in the video. “It tells me one thing at one time and another thing at another time.”
When Mainali asked if they [Bhatt and Kafle Bhatt] had any minor arguments since April, Bhatt told her, “No, we stopped having even positive arguments, not even in a teasing manner…sometimes we engage in petty fights in a bantering manner, like how I used to spill water over her.”
During the interview, Mainali pressed Bhatt a little more about filing a missing person’s report and searching for Kafle-Bhatt.
“You have been asking those things. I told you things related to law enforcement, things related to the investigation are strictly confidential,” Bhatt told Mainali.
“The public concern centers on why you didn’t file the report immediately, on the same date?” she asked. “Police have to do their own protocols,” the subtitles read.
Bhatt responded in the video, “I did that on the 2nd. What happened on the 2nd then?”
“The report on the 2nd came from her workplace, not from you. It was a wellness check initiated by her workplace,” Mainali told Bhatt.
“Let me explain further,” Bhatt said. “By that time, I got serious. Even before that, she had stayed at a friend’s place a couple of times. She didn’t come home for one night.”
10:52 AM COURT RESUMES; COMMONWEALTH CALLS ITS NEXT WITNESS
Hillary Rapson, the custodian of records for T-Mobile, took the stand next.
Rapson testified that she reviewed the cellphone records in Bhatt’s case.
“Could you explain to the jury what this is that we’re looking at?” Senior Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Sarah Sami asked Rapson.
Defense attorneys interjected with an objection, telling the judge, “Either provide expert fact testimony or expert opinion testimony; they have not designated her as an expert witness.”
“The objection is sustained with regard to any expert opinion testimony, but it is overruled to the extent of anything else,” the judge told the courtroom.
Rapson told the jury which texts messaged where completed successfully and which calls were incoming. She testified the last outgoing call for one of the cell phones, which we know from prior testimony belonged to Kafle Bhatt, was on July 29 — two days before Bhatt told police he last saw her.
The defense had no questions for this witness.
9:40 AM COMMONWEALTH CALLS NEXT WITNESS TO THE STAND
Liane Benick, an AT&T custodian of records, was called to testify AT&T records for the Tesla, including date and time stamps and coordinates.
The defense objected to Benick’s testimony, saying that the Commonwealth has “not laid the proper foundation that this witness knows what these records say, what they mean. I think it’s irrelevant if they’re just pointing.”
During the questioning, defense attorneys objected multiple times, arguing that it is “Fundamentally unfair to Mr. Bhatt that we have not been provided notice that this is an expert witness that they are trying to call to explain these records to the jury. I have not had time to prepare for this witness,” they told the judge.
The judge excused the jury for counsel to handle privately.
“I will prohibit her from giving any opinion,” the judge said of Benick for her testimony.
The judge overruled the objection and testimony continued.
“She can only testify as to facts,” Judge Kimberly A. Irving stated as the Commonwealth continued to ask what some of the cell tower sites mean, among other lines of questioning.
Judge Irving overruled the defense’s objections nearly four times during Benick’s testimony.
Commonwealth had no other questions. Defense asked for a 10-minute break to prepare for cross-examination. After that, the witness is dismissed.
SEE ALSO | Naresh Bhatt’s murder trial continues with police testimony
9:15 AM COURT RESUMES IN THE NARESH BHATT TRIAL
The Commonwealth called Christopher Seise, a Manassas Park police officer, to the stand. Seise was assigned as the case agent when Kafle Bhatt went missing in August 2024.
Seise testified he obtained search warrants for the Bhatts’ T-mobile phone records and the AT&T records for Bhatt’s Tesla. When the Commonwealth tried introducing the phone records into evidence, the defense objected, arguing that Seise is not a T-Mobile employee and could not properly establish the foundation for the records. Seise was then excused.
Source: wjla.com
