Leah Walsh's parents and brothers walked out of Nassau criminal court, emotionally spent.
They wore photos of the Glen Cove special ed teacher who was murdered in October , 2008. And they carried anger and contempt for her confessed killer- her husband of three years, William Walsh.
"There's no fate that could befall him that would elicit the slightest ounce of sympathy from me or my family," said Josh Hirschel, Leah's brother.
A Nassau judge sentenced Walsh to eighteen years to life in prison for strangling his wife. William Walsh had confesed to prosecutors that he strangled Leah after an argument about his alleged infidelity, then dumped her body off the Long Island Expressway.
Along the way, a tearful Walsh lied to reporters and his in-laws about his wife's disappearance. He abandoned her car on the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway and even sent bogus test messages from her phone.
Walsh apologized to his wife's family in court, saying he was "truly sorry" for what happened and would "trade places" with Leah if he could.
"He did his best to express how remorseful he has been since the beginning," said William Walsh's lawyer, William Petrillo.
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But Walsh's in-law's weren't in a forgiving mood.
"His every word and action was so vile and despicable that it should offend the moral sense of every member of the human race," said Leah's father, Howard Hirschel.
"We had hoped to see some real emotion, something that wasn't contrived; but sadly we didn't see anything like that today," concluded Josh Hirschel.
William Walsh's plea deal shaved seven years off his maximum jail term. He said nothing as he was led from the courthouse in handcuffs.
