Naresh Bhatt Convicted: The Road to Justice for Mamta’s Family

The following episode includes references to domestic abuse, suicide, and sexual assault. Your discretion is advised, and we'll have resources at the end of the episode. Well, after six weeks in court, testimony from over a hundred witnesses, and just over four hours of deliberation, Nereshbott has been found guilty of murdering his wife, Momta Kafelebott. Just to recap now, Nereshbott is the Manassas Park Virginia man charged with first-degree murder, physically defiling a dead body and concealing a dead body. Back in July 2024, he had reported his wife, Momta, missing. This happened after her co-workers asked authorities to conduct a welfare check at their home because she had failed to turn up to work. Around that time, her daily calls to her mother in Nepal also completely stopped. And during that welfare check, Nereshbott spoke to police, saying that Momta just disappeared from the home, leaving the couple's 11-month-old daughter behind. The statement certainly raised eyebrows. Momta was a dedicated mother. As certainly if you look at her social media page, she adored her child. And then in a truly stunning turn, in testimony this last week, Nereshbott changed his entire story, saying that in fact, what happened was that he found his wife dead in their home by an apparent suicide, and he panicked and disposed of her body. While on Tuesday, November 10th, the jury rejected that testimony, finding him guilty of all charges. Nereshbott will be sentenced on March 12th, 2027. I'm 48 hours correspondent Anne Marie Green and this is Case by Case. For our previous coverage of the bot trial, you can go to the 48 hours YouTube channel or you can check out Case by Case wherever you get your podcasts. Joining me now is WUSA 9 Reporter, Katie Lusso, who has been covering not only this trial from the very start, but this case from the very start. Katie, it's great to have you back with us. Thank you so much for having me. And I mentioned you've been on this case since the very beginning since it was just sort of a missing person's case. You actually went to Neresh's house to speak to him back then. It's been a kind of a long journey. It's several years now. You know, did you ever think that this was sort of result in a guilty verdict? It has been a whirlwind, a roller coaster. I mean, when you think back to that early day of standing at his door, it was a missing person's case at that moment. Now he's on trial for murder. That started at the beginning of October. And then last week, we heard that insane testimony, a new story that we had never heard before. And I should also mention, Montes family had never heard before. So imagine learning that your daughter is in fact dead in a courtroom after begging for answers for more than two years. So, you know, it was unclear whether or not Neresh was going to be testifying a lot of times in murder cases. The accused is not testify, but he did take the stand. And he was, I think he was the first witness in the defense's case. Give me a sense of what that was like in the courtroom when he was testifying. I kind of expected him to testify. I did not expect him to be the first witness called. And I can tell you, we were all shocked. I looked around. I looked at my colleague who was there with me. And I was like, get out there. Let someone know that he's getting up there on the stand inside our station. And when he got up there, he was just cool calm and collected. You know, hard to imagine. You're on trial for murder, but he was pretty calm up there. They didn't have a lot of witnesses. The defense didn't. And we're going to get into what we did here from them. But I'm also really curious about when the verdict came down. Did you see a reaction from him? No, it looked like he was trying to maintain no reaction. He did look like he might be upset, but he did not show a clear reaction. There were no tears. Just him staring straight at the jurors and then obviously speaking with his attorneys, which we imagine he was just trying to get clarity on what comes next. And what about Momta's family, her mother or brother? Yeah, they were both there. And it's one of those moments. It's better sweet. They wanted justice, but what they really wanted was Momta. And I've said time and time again, there is no winner here. Yes, they got a conviction that they still do not have what they want. And that is Momta. And they also don't know what actually happened to her. I had mentioned to you before we started recording sort of the social media chatter. For this case, I found like really intense and robust. And it's clear that the community is sort of gathered around Momta several different communities. You were outside the courtroom where there were people really gathering after the verdict on Tuesday. What was it like there? What have you been hearing from the people who live in Manassas Park about this case? A lot of these people did not know Momta, but what is so important to talk about in this moment is the power of community. And what we saw from day one from this community is they were demanding answers about Momta's disappearance. I think it's important to mention we heard from the prosecution at the end talking about just a lot of the credit going to this community because they were the ones who were screaming from the rooftops. Where is Momta? Something is wrong. They called us. They called the police. They never gave up. And two years later, they got the justice they were looking for. Again, not the result they were looking for, but they at least got justice. Yeah. So let us talk about kind of the most shocking moment in this case, right? This is Noresh's testifying. It's Thursday, November 5th. And it's not just that he says that he came home to find his wife already deceased, which is like something no one had ever heard before, right? But then he goes on to admit that after panicking, he dismembers her body. I want to play some of the questioning of him. Did you define the dead body of your wife, Momta? Yes. Did you conceal the dead body of your wife, Momta? Yes. Telled your wife, Momta. No, not even imagination. Can we talk a little bit more about what Noresh said on the stand and what it was like in the courtroom? Yeah. She spent the first day talking to him about his childhood. I think the entire day was talking about his life growing up, how he first met Momta. We were all kind of like, where is this going? The next day though, she got to July 29th. And that is the last time Momta had spoken to her mother back in Nepal. And then she got to July 30th. And we were all like, what is about to happen right now? And then he had this elaborate story of how he woke up at four in the morning, walked into the other bedroom and smelled something that seemed off to him. He looked down and he saw his wife in a pool of vomit and blood. He said, he panicked. He did not call 911, which he was questioned about. Why did you not call 911? He instead dragged her into the bathroom. He said, he poured water into her mouth. He tried to give her CPR. He did everything, but call 911. Then he dropped his daughter off at the babysitter. He came back. He said, he tried to take his own life, thought about his daughter, went back upstairs and decided he needed to get rid of his wife's body, tried to throw her in the trash. When she didn't fit in the trash, he then proceeded to dismember her body, mind you in between this. He went shopping for some of the supplies you might need to dismember and get rid of a body. So for him to say all of this, I immediately, as soon as he started talking about seeing his wife and confirming that he did, in fact, know where his wife was these past two years. I looked over at Momta's mother and Momta's brother. My heart broke for them. I watched her in real time reacting to this. You could see the color draining from her face. She bent over. She started crying. At one point, she had to be escorted out of the courtroom because she could not contain herself. She was devastated. Imagine learning this in a courtroom. This is a moment you want to learn in private. And then just the disrespectful nature of how things unfolded and admitting to dismembering their loved one. Katie, you are sort of spot on. This is a woman that got no warning at all that she was going to hear such gruesome testimony. And even if you didn't know Momta's gruesome, but when it's your own child, I can't even imagine. So like we mentioned, this was probably a surprise. I'll say shock to most people in the courtroom. One of your colleagues at W USA 9, John Durant actually spoke to a member of the jury after the trial to get their take on this testimony. I want to play some of that sound. You know, if you find somebody that you love, you know, dead. You don't just, you know, you want to give them a proper burial. You don't cut them up. You know, that right there was like, okay, you know, something isn't right. And so that's pretty much what it was, yeah. You could you tell that was fellow jurors that was sort of the turning point. - Oh, yeah, absolutely. That's one of the biggest things was the cutting up the body and hiding it and not giving the proper. And then so many lies were told. You know, it just was just pretty much obvious. You know, just the repetitive lying. - So here's the thing about this defense. In the defense's opening statement, they didn't mention any of this. Their opening statement focused on the lack of evidence that the prosecution had. So I don't know if this was new information to them, but clearly there was a shift in the defense. It seems like it anyways, somewhere along the way. - Yeah, and I think the biggest question we all had was where was this story for the past two years? You know, we had spoken to him, police had spoken to him. We just spent five weeks watching these body-worn camera clips of him telling police, I don't know where my wife is. She left, there was an argument, there was a fight. He told me there was no argument. And then we hear this and we were like, what? How is this happening right now? We'll be come to find out, I think later that day, that he actually told this story to his attorney about two weeks after he was arrested. Mind you, two weeks after he was arrested nearly a month after he had reported his wife missing, which by the way, he did not do right away. So he did tell his attorney the story. Now why didn't this come up during any of the pretrial hearings, during any of the bond hearings, unclear? I checked with mom to his family, they had no idea about this version of events. The prosecution did not know about this version of events. But apparently he did tell his defense attorney and that definitely brings so many questions with it as well. But yes, you're right, they did not bring this up in opening. And maybe they were holding it as a last-ditch effort to see if maybe by telling such gruesome and specific details, maybe the jury would say, oh, well, who would lie about that? Maybe this is the truth, but I think it really backfired on them. To your point, then, I mean, if I was a jury member of the jury, I would be left wondering, well, what's the truth and what's not the truth here, right? So I want to go back to discuss the last few days of testimony leading up to this verdict. In our last episode on the bot trial, we talked about Neuresh taking the stand on November 4th. And the defense questioning him about his past, there was a lot of detail about that. He went into some of the trauma that he says he suffered, growing up in Nepal during the Civil War, his US military service as well. Tell us a little bit more about this testimony. And what it was that the defense was trying to do here. So I'll start with that. I think they were trying to humanize him and make people in the jury feel sympathetic towards him. I don't know if it worked. It was a lot of information thrown at us for quite a while. It was a very long testimony. But he talked about his time growing up in Nepal and how he was poor. He shared a home, I believe, with 20, 25 other family members in the home. There were animals that lived inside of the home. They showed us pictures of the home. But then he talked about being kidnapped by the Maoists, which were a group of fighters. And he said they tried to get him to join them. He was kidnapped twice during one of the kidnappings. He told the jurors that he was physically, mentally, and sexually abused. He also shared that he had never told anyone this story before because he just couldn't talk about it. But he said he would go on to have nightmares, waking up in the middle of the night. And we later then hear from a psychologist who talks about how he had PTSD from that. - Yeah, in fact, the psychologist was from Fordham universities. His name was Professor Barry Rosenfeld. And that was basically, I mean, now that we know that he was testifying that he had dismembered his wife, then they had to explain why someone would do something like that. And so what the psychologist talked a lot about, I guess, was what PTSD does to a person. - Yeah. And he went back to talk about a specific incident that Narech told him about. And this was, I believe, his aunt taking her own life in some regard and lighting herself on fire. And how, in Nepal, what they would do in an emergency situation like that is get their elders, get a senior member of the community. They wouldn't call 911 because that wasn't an option. - So the only other witness that was called by the defense was Elizabeth Lu Pieri. She's a former naval criminal investigative service deputy director and a forensic specialist. She was called in to talk about the blood stain pattern analysis. Just to remind everyone, last time we talked about the bot trial, we talked about how the prosecution actually brought a portion of the carpet that was in the bot home into the courtroom for the jury to see for themselves. What did we hear from Lu Pieri about the blood stains and about the investigation? - Yeah. So the big focus for her was that she was kind of contradicting what the blood stain analyst expert who was called in by the Commonwealth had said. And she was really focused in on the lack of PPE that the investigators were wearing inside of this home. So we had heard from a different expert on this during the prosecution when they were calling witnesses. And she talked about some of the same things that Lu Pieri talked about in terms of the blood evidence. They both said that they could not verify what actually happened to lead to that blood evidence. But it seems like Lu Pieri was brought in to really hyper focus on this lack of PPE and the impact it would have had on them collecting this evidence. And when you talk about the body being dragged from the bed into the bathroom, they were trying to say that some of that blood could have been moved around by people walking over it without booties or without the paper down. So I think that was the biggest takeaway for her. But I also thought it was interesting because the Commonwealth said to her, were you brought in just to say law enforcement messed up and to be critical and she said absolutely not. But it did seem that way. - Okay, now I want to talk about the digital evidence in this case. The last episode we went through some of the Google searches that Nuresh did and some of them were pretty disturbing. A digital forensics investigator testified that there were searches like, can I donate my baby to my friend? Katie, what were some of the reactions when people heard some of the things that he was apparently looking at? - Yeah, I was sitting behind Mom to his mother, Gita, when that one was right out loud and she gasped, she covered her ears, mind you, she's listening through a Napoli translator, so she had headphones on. But my goodness, this was so awful for them to hear. They're learning all of this for the first time, but he sure had an answer for every single one of those searches when he was asked. And some of those answers were outrageous. There was one about what happens to dead of dyed spouse. That one really sticks out for me because he said, well, I was googling that for a friend in Seattle who lost their husband in a motorcycle crash. So he just seemed to have an answer for every single one of these, except for human brain diagram, which he apparently googled in the middle of the night when he was supposedly sleeping before he found his wife at 4 AM. - And they also played some of Nuresh Bot's police interrogation in court. And what we hear is an officer asking him to rate his level of honesty from one to 10. And he responds, I never lie, which I think universally is a red flag because even the best of us lie somewhat. In light of the recent testimony, it's more surprising to hear the statement that he never lies. Were there any inconsistencies from him that really, really stuck out? - Yes, I mean, I will go right to the closing arguments by the prosecution. She played that video where he says, I never lie. I'm a 10 when it comes to on a scale of one to 10, do you ever lie? I'm a 10, I never lie, I'm a unicorn. Just outrageous, especially hearing all of this. But then the other ones that stuck out for me personally because I think back to when I was at his friend door. And also what he said to my colleague and the prosecution played both clips from both of our interviews. And it's specifically the part where he is telling us, I'm the one suffering. And I think when you think back to what was actually going on, leading up to that conversation we had and you think back to now and what we know, hearing him say, I'm the one suffering. I heard guests in the crowd in the courtroom when that was set up. They're just so upsetting. - Not just because, at that point, he admits to dismembering the body, but throughout the trial, there are multiple instances of domestic violence, right? Allegations against him. Momta's brother testifies that, you know, Momta would tell him that she felt unsafe. She also told a friend, Serita, that, you know, she was contemplating divorce and that Neuresh would hit her. Katie, what were some of the other evidence that sort of backed up these allegations of abuse? - Yeah, we saw pictures that she had apparently sent to Mahesh, to her friends. And in these pictures, you see bruises on Momta's face, you see blood on her face. And I think what's interesting is when Neuresh was asked about it in one of the instances, he said, Momta fell down the stairs. He denied having anything to do with it. But Momta was sending these pictures, sending these texts to her loved ones and she was so adamant in those messages that she did not want her parents to know because, you know, think about parents in this situation. She didn't want to upset them, but she trusted her brother and Hash described himself as her protector. You could see just how painful it was for him to not only talk about this, but to hear Neuresh denying it and then to be questioned by the defense, why he didn't do anything with those images. I think it was really tough for him up there. - I can only imagine and how heartbreaking it is to hear your loved one talk about this in your half a world away. - Hey, I'm BLINDAMIR GTF. - And I'm Kelly O'Grady. - And we're here to tell you about our new show Straight Up. - Every week, we're ditching the anchor desk to break down the story the internet can't stop talking about. - And we'll have a cocktail recipe to match the mood. Straight Up is out now wherever you get your podcasts. - Hi, I'm Neesie Nash. - And I'm Dianash, her daughter. Most nights, you'll find us in bed chatting, watching True Crime. - So on our new show, Mother Knows Murder, a crime house original, we're letting you in on our hand. - Each week, one of us brings a case and the other one hears it for the first time. - And once justice is served, baby, we drag the murder. - Listen and follow Mother Knows Murder available wherever you get your podcasts. - I know that's right. - Uh-huh. - Amy Ashworth, she is a Commonwealth's attorney for Prince William County. She actually made a statement following Tuesday's verdict. She says this case is a powerful reminder that the absence of a victim's body does not mean the absence of justice. - Very powerful words at 48 hours. I've done a few no body cases. And they always seem like such a long shot 'cause how do you even prove that a crime occurred if you don't have a body? But in this case, they were able to do that. What does this mean now for Neuresh? What's next? - So there's gonna be a pre-sentencing report that'll be done. And then he is set to be sentenced our March 12th of 2027. But before he receives his fate, we will hear from the family I expect. We'll hear again from Momta's mother and her brother, Gita Koffley and Mahesh Koffley. And I expect that to be incredibly emotional. And when it comes to this community, they have vowed to stand behind Momta's family. And remember, there is a little girl here. She is now three years old. She doesn't have her mother. She doesn't have her father. But what she does have are a ton of people who love her and want her to succeed and grow up to be a strong, beautiful young woman. - And what she does have is community. You talked about that earlier. This little girl is going to have a tremendous community. It does not replace her mother. We talked a lot about Neuresh. I wanna end the podcast talking about Momta. We're gonna close with the words from some of her closest friends. And I wanna start off with her former coworker. - I am so glad that Momta worked with me and chose me to be her warrior. What I now know is that you thought when you erased her that she would be erased. You thought nobody would notice that she was missing. Nobody would care. You would lie and say she went somewhere and nobody would look for her. You underestimated the strength of Momta. And let me tell you what, you highly underestimated the strength of the love that we had for her. - You can hear the emotion in her voice. There's a fierceness in her voice. Momta's friend, Bina, also spoke after the verdict and here's what she had to say about the family's reaction. - How are you feeling? - I don't know what to say. Who lived peaceful little bit and is this actually happening? I cannot believe that just happened. - My age is like a warrior. He was so much on every little thing generally. I remember until five o'clock before we went inside. He wanted to hear the assurance from people. He kept asking, do you think it's gonna happen? Do you think it's gonna happen? What do you think? People say something, my second degree, I said, stop. It's gonna be first degree, stop. And I called other guys and I told them ahead of time. I assure him, it's gonna be first degree. He was so stressed. So I'm imagining how peaceful his mind is right now. His heart is right now. - You mind we have a moment? - Yes, and I'm so part of Commonwealth. Yeah. You know, verdicts can never sort of really bring peace 'cause it could not bring your loved one back. But hopefully there is something positive that the family gets out of this. And maybe part of that is an awareness of the type of community that they have available to them. One of Manta's loved ones brought up something that I didn't know about which is a Nepalese festival called Baitika. And this is a festival that celebrates the bond between siblings, right? Between brothers and sisters. My head should have been celebrating this with his sister. And I'm sure every year that this celebration comes around, he will be thinking about the loss. This has got to be particularly tough for him. Yeah, I mean, even Bina and Mahesh, I've had such an opportunity to get to know them over the years when I was talking to Bina in that conversation there. I think you should know, she was holding my hand so tightly. I have watched her sit there with Gita being there, absorbing all of Gita's pain and just being there. She has not had a moment to take for herself to process. She's been there every day, but she's just been absorbing and I could see kind of her starting to relax, but also just so much pain still, and they still have a long way to go. Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be years. Katie, I gotta tell you, it's been great having you here to talk about this trial. You're an excellent journalist, but I can also really tell that you're invested in this story. It means something to, you know, it's not just a job. You've done a fantastic job covering it, so we're lucky to have you here on Case by Case. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I wanna take a moment to say if you or someone you know may be experiencing domestic violence, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline by calling 1-800-799-7233, or by texting, start to 8-8-788. And if you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 9-8-8 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Just call or text 9-8-8. We're gonna be back next week with another episode of Case by Case for our continuing coverage. You can check out the Case by Case feed wherever you get your podcasts. And you can also watch episodes of Case by Case on the 48 hours YouTube channel or by searching Case by Case on Paramount Plus. Be sure to rate and review. 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