Naresh Bhatt's Chilling Trial Testimony Reveals How He Cut Up Wife's Body

The night Mamta Kafle Bhatt disappeared

Mamta Kafle Bhatt, 28, worked her last shift as a registered nurse in the medical-surgical unit at UVA Health Prince William Medical Center in Manassas, Virginia, on July 27, 2024. She spoke to a friend the next day and posted a TikTok video of herself with her infant daughter. Then she went quiet.

Her husband, Naresh Bhatt, 39, told police and reporters at the time that he last saw her at the dinner table on July 31 and that the couple had no argument that night. He did not officially report her missing until August 5, 2024 — and only after her coworkers asked for a welfare check.

Two years later, on the witness stand in his own murder trial, Bhatt told a very different story. He testified that on the night of July 29, 2024, he put the couple's 11-month-old daughter to bed around 8 p.m. in a room down the hall from the primary bedroom. He said he woke around 4 a.m. on July 30 to a strange smell and found Mamta on the bedroom floor, unresponsive, surrounded by vomit that contained pills, with an open container of Celphos — a toxic agricultural fumigant — nearby.

Bhatt testified he tried to revive her for 45 minutes to an hour, then moved her body into the bathroom and poured water into her mouth. He did not call 911. He said he panicked.

Prosecutors told jurors the digital record undercuts that account. Investigators say Bhatt searched 'Human brain diagram' just after midnight on July 30 — the day prosecutors believe Mamta was killed — and 'Chicken farm near me' not long after.

What Bhatt said he did next

By his own account, Bhatt took his daughter to a babysitter's house that morning, then drove to a Home Depot, where he bought gloves 'to find anything to hide a body,' he testified. He said he briefly considered driving to the Potomac River to dispose of Mamta's body, and considered hanging himself, before deciding instead to cut her body down to a size that would fit in a trash can.

'I was trying to lower the body apart,' Bhatt testified, according to Courthouse News. 'Like, separate the legs from the body.'

He said the work took roughly a day to a day and a half, using knives and, mainly, a reciprocating saw. 'Reduced the size and then put in the trash can,' he said, according to NBC4 Washington. 'With a, in the bag.' He testified he put her remains in trash cans at the couple's own home, then over the following days drove bags to a former apartment complex in Falls Church, Virginia, where he threw them into a trash compactor and household garbage bins. Prosecutors told jurors surveillance video shows him dropping bags into multiple dumpsters and compactors across Northern Virginia while wearing gloves. According to Times Now, Bhatt testified that on at least one of those trips he brought his 11-month-old daughter along in the car. He separately threw away his wife's clothing, he said, because he feared her spirit.

In the days after, Bhatt gave the saw he had used to the family's landscaper, Jose Ayala, as a $40 payment for lawn work. Ayala turned the saw over to police once he learned Bhatt had been arrested. Crime scene investigator Andrea Feldman testified she found 'reddish-brown stains' she believed to be blood inside the saw, along with hair-like strands that matched Mamta's DNA profile, according to WJLA.

"I was trying to lower the body apart. Like, separate the legs from the body." — Naresh Bhatt, to Courthouse News

The people at the center of the case

Mamta Kafle Bhatt was a Nepal native living in the United States on a green card, a registered nurse and mother to an infant daughter with Bhatt. Her close friend Sarita Neupane testified she had been helping Mamta open her own bank account and start the process toward U.S. citizenship.

Neupane also testified that Bhatt was controlling — that he turned off his wife's phone, would not let her drive, and withheld her access to money. She said a rice ceremony for the couple's baby had to be rescheduled because Mamta had a large bruise on her face that she told Neupane came from Bhatt after he thought she had not cleaned the house well enough.

Mamta's mother, Gita Kafle, moved from Nepal to Virginia after her daughter disappeared and testified through an interpreter, as did Mamta's brother, Mahesh. Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Matthew Sweet prosecuted the case; Bhatt was represented by Tracey Lenox, chief public defender for Prince William County. The defense called psychologist Dr. Barry Rosenfeld, a Fordham University professor who evaluated Bhatt twice and testified he met the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Charges, a verdict and a sentencing date

Bhatt was arrested at the couple's home in Manassas, Virginia, on August 22, 2024, roughly three weeks after Mamta was reported missing, and was initially charged with concealing a dead body. He was held without bond from that point forward. A Prince William County grand jury indicted him on first-degree murder and defiling a dead body in December 2024.

He pleaded not guilty to all three charges — first-degree murder, concealing a dead body, and defiling a dead body. At trial he admitted to the conduct underlying the second two charges, dismembering and disposing of his wife's body, but denied killing her, testifying instead that she died by suicide.

The trial ran roughly seven weeks in Prince William County Circuit Court, with the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office calling more than 70 witnesses. Mamta's body has never been recovered. Prosecutors built their case on circumstantial evidence: blood found throughout the primary bedroom and bathroom, blood and hair matching Mamta's DNA on the saw, surveillance footage of Bhatt dumping bags across Northern Virginia, a rise in the home's water usage, and Bhatt's internet search history before and after her disappearance.

A jury found Bhatt guilty on all three counts after deliberating for several hours. 'This verdict represents an important measure of justice for Mamta Kafle Bhatt, whose life was tragically taken and whose family has endured more than two years of unimaginable pain and uncertainty,' the Prince William County Commonwealth's Attorney said in a statement. Bhatt is scheduled for a sentencing hearing on March 12, 2027. Before the verdict, Times Now reported that Bhatt faced a possible life sentence if convicted of first-degree murder.

What each side said at trial

During cross-examination, Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Matthew Sweet confronted Bhatt directly. 'You're a liar,' Sweet said, according to Courthouse News and NBC4 Washington. Bhatt replied, 'Yes.' Applause broke out in the courtroom before the judge called for order.

Defense psychologist Barry Rosenfeld testified that panic could explain Bhatt freezing up, but drew a line at the dismemberment itself. 'It's certainly a plausible way of behaving. Not the cutting of a body,' Rosenfeld said, according to FOX 5 DC. 'I mean, panicking and not knowing what to do, that is not thinking clearly... It is not at all surprising for somebody who has got Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and has been triggered by something upsetting.'

Bhatt offered jurors remorse without admitting murder. 'I wasn't treating her emotionally well. I wasn't helping her well the way I used to do,' he testified, adding later, 'Because I wasn't kind with her, it led her to suicide. That's why I feel like, one way or the other, I was one of the factors that led her to suicide.'

Outside the courthouse, Mamta's friends did not hide their anger. 'It was unexpected, unbelievable,' her friend Bina Khadkalama told reporters, according to FOX 5 DC. 'It was very hard to hold myself, and my job was to hold Gita, Mamta's mom, that was the hardest job today,' she said. 'She broke down very bad, and we had to walk her outside the bathroom. It's just unfair to the world. He lied to everyone.'

What happens next

Naresh Bhatt is scheduled for a sentencing hearing on March 12, 2027, following his conviction on all three counts — first-degree murder, concealing a dead body, and defiling a dead body. Mamta Kafle Bhatt's remains have never been recovered.