The husband of missing Massachusetts mother Ana Walshe will appear in court today charged with her murder, nearly three weeks after she disappeared on New Year’s Day.
Brian Walshe is due to appear in Norfolk County Circuit Court for Quincy today, where more details about Ana’s shocking disappearance will emerge after he was held on $500,000 bail yesterday.
Prosecutors have been building a case for weeks against Brian, who bought hundreds of dollars worth of cleaning supplies after his wife’s disappearance, with evidence that also includes blood found in the couple’s basement and a bloody hatchet.
Despite intensive searches of the family home in Cohasset, where she lived with her husband and their three sons, and the surrounding area, Ana’s body has still not been found.
Brian Walshe is already in custody for misleading the police. It will be shown on January 9th
ANA WALSH’S DISAPPEARANCE
JANUARY 1: Ana and Brian throw a New Year’s Eve dinner party.
She was last seen at 1.30am.
She does not show up for work in Washington DC, and there is no evidence that she made it to the airport for her flight.
JANUARY 4: Tishman Speyer’s security chief in DC calls the police to report her missing.
The caller told the operator he had informed her husband
JANUARY 6: A fire was reported in the home Ana shared with her husband
JANUARY 8: Brian Walshe arrested on misleading charges
JANUARY 9: Police say they found blood in the basement of the couple’s home
JANUARY 10: Police say they found garbage bags full of bloody objects, a hatchet and a hacksaw at a garbage dump near the house
JANUARY 17: Brian Walshe is arrested for murder
Friends say the couple’s marriage was strained by Ana’s busy work schedule, which meant they lived apart much of their time, with Ana in Washington DC and Brian and the boys in Massachusetts.
Ana was also photographed without her wedding ring in some of the last photos taken before she disappeared on Jan. 1, as she was seen hugging British gin entrepreneur Paul Walker at a book signing in DC.
In a statement Tuesday, Norfolk District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey said: “The ongoing investigation has now enabled police to obtain an arrest warrant charging Brian Walshe with the murder of his wife.
‘Mr. Walshe is brought to trial for murder.
“Additional details of the investigation and the evidence to support these allegations will likely be presented at the indictment but will not be disclosed at this time.”
A person who answered the phone at Walshe’s attorney Tracy Miner’s office said Miner would not comment on the murder charges.
An email was left on Miner asking for a comment. She has previously said that her client was cooperating with the investigation.
Walshe has previously denied misleading police into his wife’s disappearance.
Ana was last seen at 1:30 a.m. on the morning of January 1, when she and her husband were inviting friends to a New Year’s Eve party, which guests say was full of celebratory toasts.
Cem Mutlu, one of the friends who attended the party, said: “Brian had cooked an elaborate meal for us.
“We hugged and celebrated and toasted each other and that’s exactly what you do over New Year’s Eve. The anticipation for the new year was great.”
Ana, pictured with her husband Brian, has been missing since the New Year
The next day, he says, Brian called him and asked if he had “seen Ana” and that she was missing.
She was scheduled to travel to Washington DC for work on January 1st but did not show up for her flight or boarded her ride to the airport.
She was reported missing on January 4 by Tishman Speyer, the real estate company she worked for.
A man posing as the company’s security chief in Washington DC called the Cohasset Police Department to request a welfare check for them.
This man told police he informed Ana’s husband Brian that she was missing.
It contradicted Brian’s attorney’s claim in court that he told her at work that she was missing.
Her cellphone was not used and there was no activity on her credit or debit cards, police said.
Friends said there was “tension” in the marriage because of their work schedule and are now asking that they take care of their children.
Ana (pictured with Paul Wharton on December 13) had stopped wearing her wedding ring in the weeks leading up to her disappearance
The Cohasset home that Ana shared with her husband Brian and their three children
Walshe was enjoying her working life in Washington DC and looking forward to the year ahead
Walshe is no stranger to legal troubles.
In 2018, he was convicted of fraud for stealing and trying to sell two fake Andy Warhol paintings that he advertised as real.
According to investigators, around the time of his wife’s disappearance, Walshe was searching online how to dispose of the body of a 115-pound woman and was also caught by surveillance cameras near a dumpster next to his mother’s home.
Prosecutors told the court that the day after his wife’s last visit, Brian Walshe was seen on surveillance video buying $450 worth of cleaning supplies at a hardware store.
Walshe in his mug shot after being arrested for misleading police
Police also found a broken knife and blood in the basement of the couple’s home, prosecutors said, although they didn’t say whose blood it was.
Police wanted to test a sample of Ana’s three sons’ blood found in the bag.
Brian and Ana met in 2008 while she was working at a hotel in the Berkshires. She was the ambitious daughter of a Serbian couple who came to America in search of a better life.
He was the son of a wealthy family from which he is now estranged. In court filings, his family accused him of stealing millions from his elderly father after the man suffered a stroke.
Family friends called him a “sociopath” and said he only cared about his father’s money.
The couple married in Serbia in 2015 and later had three sons together.
Ana began working for Tishman Speyer in February of last year, taking a position as general manager of the company’s Washington DC office.
She had previously worked for The Mutlu Group, a real estate company near her home run by the boyfriend who spent New Year’s Eve with the couple. Before that, she gained professional experience in hotels and housekeeping.