Nobody has seen Ana Walshe alive since her New Year’s Eve dinner party one year ago.
Those charging her husband, Cohasset man Brian Walshe, with her death, said he used his son’s iPad to look up how to kill his wife, dismember her and how he could get away with it in the days before and after he killed her, then lied to police during questioning after her employer reported her missing.
A bloody knife was found in the family’s basement during an investigation, prosecutors later said. Surveillance footage was discovered of Walshe buying hundreds of dollars of cleaning supplies the day after his wife’s suspected killing, the prosecution said.
Dumpsters outside Brian Walshe’s mother’s Swampscott home were also searched and detectives found personal items of Ana’s, a hacksaw and rugs similar to ones in the family’s home, prosecutors said.
But Ana Walshe’s body has not been found.
Walshe’s previous lawyer maintained his innocence and Walshe pleaded not guilty to a grand jury murder indictment in April.
He was recently appointed a new attorney by the court on Dec. 14, according to Norfolk District Attorney’s spokesperson David Traub.
There is still forensic work underway as defense Attorney Larry Tipton becomes familiarized with the Walshe case, Traub said.
Here’s everything we know about the case.
Murder suspect Brian Walshe of Cohasset is arraigned, Thursday April 27, 2023, in Dedham Superior Court in Dedham, Mass. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool)AP
What happened in January 2023?
Cohasset Police first released an image of Ana Walshe to the public on Jan. 5, 2023, and said she’d been reported missing, last seen in the early hours of the morning on Jan. 1, 2023. Her description — 5′2″, about 115 pounds with brown hair, brown eyes, olive skin and a Eastern European accent — was also shared.
Police initially said Brian Walshe had reported his wife as missing the same day her employer, Tishman Spyer, an international property management company, contacted police.
When questioned, Brian Walshe told officers his wife left in a rideshare vehicle at 4 a.m. on New Year’s Day for a 6 a.m. flight at Boston Logan Airport to D.C. because of an emergency at one of her properties.
She’d already booked a return flight for Jan. 3 to Washington for work, but her husband told officers she had to leave earlier than expected on the holiday for the emergency.
Brian Walshe told police it was not abnormal for his wife to work long hours and not contact her family at home, which is why three days had passed before she was reported missing, according to Cohasset Police Chief William Quigley.
But by Jan. 4, Ana Walshe hadn’t shown up for work, and police said her cellphone had been off since Jan. 1. Police searched the Walshe’s Cohasset home and surrounding area for the next several days with K-9 dogs, and checked on her townhouse in Washington.
Cohasset Police Chief William Quigley initially said in the press conference on Jan. 6, that Brian Walshe was “fully cooperative” in the investigation. Though he noted Ana Walshe was believed to be in danger, he said there was “nothing to support anything suspicious or criminal” in connection with her disappearance.
A state trooper assigned to the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office who was investigating Walshe’s disappearance received a ransom note Jan. 7 demanding $127,000 in exchange for her return. The note came from a Google e-mail account with the user name “Richard Walker,” court documents said.
Brian Walshe was arrested Jan. 8 and charged with misleading police, the district attorney’s office said.
iPad searches, video surveillance and suspected lies
During Brian Walshe’s arraignment on —, prosecutors said two knives, one bloody and damaged, were found in the basement of the family’s home. Blood was in the basement and plastic tarps were also found, prosecutors said, and Ana Walshe’s phone was pinged in the location of the Cohasset house on Jan. 1 and 2.
Prosecutors recited each of the Google searches Brian Walshe completed in detail, and Norfolk County District Attorney Lynn Beland said, “On Dec. 27, the defendant Googled ‘what’s the best state to divorce from.’”
“Rather than divorce, we believe Brian Walshe dismembered Ana Walshe and discarded her body,” Beland said.
Here is the complete list of each Google search prosecutors recited during Brian Walshe’s murder arraignment.
Dec. 27, 2022
- “What’s the best state to divorce for a man”
Jan. 1, 2023
- 4:55 a.m.: “How long before a body starts to smell”
- 4:58 a.m.: “How to stop a body from decomposing”
- 5:20 a.m.: “How to embalm a body”
- 5:47 a.m.: “10 ways to dispose of a dead body if you really need to”
- 6:25 a.m.: “How long for someone to be missing to inherit”
- 6:34 a.m.: “Can you throw away body parts”
- 9:29 a.m.: “What does formaldehyde do”
- 9:34 a.m.: “How long does DNA last”
- 9:59 a.m.: “Can identification be made on partial remains”
- 11:34 a.m.: “Dismemberment and the best ways to dispose of a body”
- 11:44 a.m.: “How to clean blood from wooden floor”
- 11:56 a.m.: “Luminol to detect blood”
- 1:08 p.m.: “What happens when you put body parts in ammonia”
- 1:21 p.m.: “Is it better to throw crime scene clothes away or wash them “
Jan. 2, 2023
- 12:45 p.m.: “Hacksaw best tool to dismember”
- 1:10 p.m.: “Can you be charged with murder without a body”
- 1:14 p.m.: “Can you identify a body with broken teeth”
Jan. 3, 2023
- 1:02 p.m.: “What happens to hair on a dead body”
- 1:14 p.m.: “What is the rate of decomposition of a body found in a plastic bag compared to on a surface in the woods”
- 1:20 p.m.: “Can baking soda make a body smell good”
Walshe also lied to police about his whereabouts on the day after his wife was last seen alive, prosecutors said; he’d previously told police the only time he left the house on Jan. 2 was to briefly get ice cream for one of his children.
But Jan. 2 video surveillance showed Walshe purchasing about $450 in cash of cleaning supplies while wearing gloves and a mask in the store, including mops, drop clothes and various kinds of tape, from a Home Depot in Rockland, prosecutors said.
He went to CVS and Whole Foods that day, too, without telling the officers, the prosecution said, and had been in Brockton and Abington on Jan. 1, and did not tell police during their questioning.
Prosecutors also said Brian Walshe had never actually reported Ana Walshe as missing, a contrast to the police’s initial statement, and said her employer was the only party that reported her missing on Wednesday, Jan. 4.
Investigators said that on Jan. 4, Brian Walshe went to a HomeGoods store and T.J. Maxx, where he purchased towels, bath mats and men’s clothes. He also went to Lowe’s Home Improvement, where he bought squeegees and a trashcan.
Ten trash bags were recovered at a trash transfer station in Peabody that had towels, rags, slippers, tape, a Tyvek suit, gloves, cleaning agents, rugs, hunting boots and a COVID-19 vaccine card in the name of Ana Walshe.
Some of those items had stains consistent with blood, prosecutors said. DNA testing at a state crime lab found blood on several of those items matched both Brian and Ana Walshe.
Data from Brian Walshe’s phone, according to prosecutors, showed he traveled to an apartment complex in Abington on Jan. 3. Surveillance footage from the complex, prosecutors said, shows Brian Walshe’s car at the complex and a man exit a car near a dumpster.
The man walked to the dumpster carrying a garbage bag, prosecutors said, adding that the male figure in the video is leaning to one side, indicating the garbage bag was heavy. The man in the video leaves the garbage bag in the dumpster, lawyers said.
Brian Walshe also traveled to two other apartment complexes in Abington shortly after, where he “discarded items.” That same day, prosecutors said, Brian Walshe made additional internet searches for the rate at which a body decomposes in a plastic bag compared to on a surface in the woods.
Walshe was held on a $500,000 cash bail as the police’s search continued the same day, which “resulted in a number of items being collected,” according to the district attorney. He was indicted on a murder charge by a grand jury in March, and was held without bail following his April arraignment.
What happened with the Walshe family before 2023?
In 2018, Brian Walshe was indicted on federal fraud charges in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts in connection to a scheme to sell fake Andy Warhol paintings on eBay, according to court records. In April 2021, he pleaded guilty to those charges and is currently awaiting sentencing, court records show.
In early 2022, Ana Walshe was hired by Tishman Spyer, an international property management company. Her job required her to relocate to Washington, D.C, court records said.
She purchased a home in D.C. with the intent of moving her whole family — the Walshes had three young children — down to the city once her husband’s case was resolved, according to a court affidavit. In the meantime, Walshe would work in D.C. on the weekdays and visit her husband and their three children on the weekends.
Although the move was initially scheduled for July of 2022, delays in Brian Walshe’s sentencing prevented the family from relocating to D.C.
In the months following the initial 2023 investigation and murder charge, detectives learned Ana Walshe was having an affair in Washington, D.C.
A six-page document filed with the court claims that in December 2022, Walshe repeatedly accessed the Instagram page of one of his wife’s male friends from Washington, D.C.
On Dec. 26, 2022, Walshe’s mother — with his direction and input — hired a private investigator to find proof of infidelity, Norfolk County Assistant District Attorney Greg Connor wrote in the court papers.
On Dec. 28, 2022, Ana Walshe went out with a friend in Washington, D.C. During the outing, she became upset, as she believed her husband was going to be incarcerated on the pending criminal art fraud case, court records stated, and she told her friend about her plan to leave her husband.
On Dec. 30, 2022, Ana Walshe flew up to Boston from Washington, D.C. to host a New Year’s Eve dinner at her Cohasset home with her former employer. The guest arrived on Dec. 31 and left the home at about 1:30 a.m. on Jan. 1 – the last time Ana Walshe was seen.
What’s next in the Walshe case?
The last public search in the Walshe case was in August, when state police were searching again in Peabody from a tip from two residents, but officers found “nothing,” the district attorney’s office said.
When asked for a recent update on the investigation, State Police spokesperson David Procopio gave the statement, “Massachusetts State Police investigative units are working closely with the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office as the criminal proceedings against Brian Walshe move forward.”
“Troopers and prosecutors continue their meticulous preparation with one goal in mind — to secure justice for Ana Walshe,” Procopio said. He added the Forensic Services Division was analyzing various evidentiary items at the crime lab and arranging for testing at an outside lab.
