Search goes on for missing Virginia woman, husband charged with concealing a body

MANASSAS PARK, Va. (AP) — More than a month has passed since a Virginia woman disappeared, and authorities say she likely died in a bloody struggle at her Manassas Park home.

Police are still looking for the body of Mamta Bhatt, 28, a mother and pediatric nurse who was last seen in late July, The Washington Post reported. Meanwhile, her husband Naresh Bhatt, 37, is in jail and facing a charge of concealing a body.

The investigation has drawn international attention. It’s also drawing scrutiny from Naresh’s Bhatt’s attorney, who told a judge last week that the felony count against his client “requires that there is a dead body.”

“What they have, to be clear, is blood,” said Shalev Ben-Avraham, the senior assistant public defender representing Naresh Bhatt, the Post reported.

But Prince William County prosecutor Sarah Sami told the judge that the amount of blood found in the home in the northern Virginia suburbs of the nation’s capital indicates “injuries that are not survivable.”

Naresh Bhatt has waived his right to a preliminary hearing and is being held in jail without bail until his next court date, which is in early October.

NBC Washington reported that authorities searched a local park over the weekend as part of the ongoing investigation into the disappearance.