MANASSAS, Va. (Court TV) — The husband of a nurse in Virginia gave police, friends and a journalist conflicting accounts in the days after his wife disappeared.
Naresh Bhatt sits in court on Oct. 14, 2026. (Court TV)
Naresh Bhatt, 49, has pleaded not guilty to murder and defiling a body in the death of his wife, Mamta Kafle, 28. Kafle was last seen alive in July 2024 and was reported missing days later when she failed to show up for work.
Prosecutors haven’t said how Kafle was killed, but said they believe Bhatt took her life in their home on July 30, 2024. On Aug. 2, police arrived at the family’s home after Kafle’s co-workers called for a wellness check.
Detective Claudia Ventura, one of the officers who spoke with Bhatt at his home, testified as jurors saw body-worn camera video showing their interaction. Ventura said she noticed that when she asked Bhatt what his wife was wearing when he last saw her, he kept giving different answers. First, Bhatt said his wife had been wearing scrubs; then he changed that to a T-shirt and pants. He also seemed to struggle to recall how she wore her hair. “She’s not a fancy girl,” he said.
Ventura said that when she looked through a closet at Bhatt’s home, she noticed cleaning products. Ventura also noticed birth control and abortion pills in one of his wife’s bags.
One of Kafle’s best friends, Sunita Bhandari, said she became concerned about the victim’s whereabouts when Kafle’s mother called her on Aug. 2, saying she hadn’t reached her daughter in several days. Bhandari said calls to Kafle went straight to voicemail and texts were unanswered.
Concerned, Bhandari reached out to Bhatt, who responded on Aug. 3, saying that his wife was working until Saturday but everything was fine. Hours later, Bhatt followed up with the message: “She is not at work, she might be at her apartment.”
FILE – Mamta Kafle Bhatt (Manassas Park Police)
Bhandari asked Bhatt, “Did you guys have a fight again?” Bhatt responded, “No, we decided to separate with respect. No any discussion at all even we don’t argue. She wanted to move either NY or TX.” Bhandari said Kafle had never mentioned an apartment to her, and she did not know of any plans for her friend to travel out of state.
Bhatt also spoke to a Nepali journalist, Sachchi Mainali, who told the jury on Wednesday that she struggled to get straight answers from the defendant in the days after his wife was reported missing. In their interviews, which were conducted in Nepali and then translated by Mainali into English subtitles, Bhatt claimed that he and his wife never fought and had not had an argument since April 2024. “We had a formal [relationship],” Bhatt said, according to the translation.
In her Oct. 7 opening statement, Bhatt’s attorney urged jurors not to rush to judgment before the trial ends. “There is a sort of black hole at the time of Mamta Kafle’s disappearance,” she said. “And it’s a hole where evidence should be.”
