MANASSAS, Va. (Court TV) — A Virginia jury deliberated for several hours before finding a man guilty of murdering his missing wife.
Naresh Bhatt, 39, was convicted of first-degree murder, concealing a dead body and defiling a human body in the death of his missing wife, Mamta Kafle, 28. Kafle was last seen alive in July 2024, but wasn’t reported missing until August, when her coworkers became concerned and called the police. Naresh stood silently as the verdict was announced on Tuesday afternoon.
Sentencing is scheduled for March 12, 2027.
Naresh Bhatt appears in court on Nov. 10, 2026. (Court TV)
In her closing argument to the jury, prosecutor Sarah Sami said that Bhatt’s own words to his wife in a text proved that he had planned her murder: “The days are coming that you will regret a lot.” Sami said that text was sent 162 days before Kafle disappeared. “162 days later, he delivered on that promise,” Sami said. “162 days later, the defendant murdered Mamta Kafle. The defendant dismembered Mamta Kafle and the defendant got rid of her like garbage.”
Sami portrayed Kafle as a victim of domestic abuse and said the defendant “ruled his house with an iron fist.” Sami said Bhatt cut off Kafle’s phone, restricted her access to money and a car, and mistreated her throughout their marriage. “The reality was, Mamta lived in a house of terrors,” she said. “With [Bhatt], a kingdom of torture where the king reigned.”
Bhatt testified in his own defense, telling the jury that he awoke on July 30, 2024, to see his wife dead on the floor in a puddle of vomit, insisting that she took her own life. He said he panicked and, not knowing what to do, first tried to revive her before eventually dismembering her and disposing of her body.
“He wants you to believe now that even though he cut up Mamta’s body, even though he stuffed her in the garbage can, he had nothing to do with her death. Come on. That’s ridiculous,” Sami said. “He thought he was going to get blamed for her committing suicide. He was such a bad husband that he did all that to cover up a suicide. Because he was a bad husband. I’ll give it to him: he was a terrible husband. But Mamta did not commit suicide because he was a terrible husband.”
Despite Bhatt’s admission that he used a saw and knives to dismember Kafle’s body so he could more easily dispose of it in a trash can, his attorney, Tracey Lennox, urged the jury not to find him guilty of concealing a dead body. “I would remind you that the intent of the actor in a charge does matter for those charges,” she said. “You must find, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the concealment of Mamta Kafle’s body occurred with malice.”
“Nothing suggests that Mamta killed herself. That is the defendant’s last hurrah, to try to control her, her narrative, and her legacy,” Sami said. “He knows that the only other person to refute the ridiculous evidence that actually does not make sense is no longer here. He gave her a final resting place of the landfill in Luray, Virginia. Mamta will always be missing for that family there, always be missing. We know she’s dead, but she is missing because they will never be able to give her last rites. She’s in pieces. Crushed in some landfill somewhere.”
