An investigation into After police found a knife and blood in the basement of the woman’s home, they arrested her husband, an art fraudster, for misleading authorities. Now, investigators are looking for further signs of foul play in what authorities are calling the “suspicious disappearance” of Ana Walshe, a real estate executive and mother of three young sons who lived in the wealthy coastal town of Cohasset, Massachusetts.
Brian Walshe (47), was arrested Sunday and appeared in court on Monday. He was charged with misleading investigators during the search for Ana Walshe (39) when he claimed that he last saw her in the early hours Jan. 1. He said she had left town for a job trip. CNN reported that police found internet searches by Brian about disposing of bodies, however, and when police searched the couple’s home, they found blood and a bloodied knife in the basement, prosecutors revealed in court, according to reports by local news outlets.
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The exact timing of Ana Walshe’s disappearance is uncertain. On New Year’s Eve, the couple hosted a friend for dinner. That much is confirmed by their guest, Gem Mutlu, who spoke with Boston’s CBS station WBZ. “Brian had cooked an elaborate meal for us, and we hugged and celebrated and toasted, just what you’d do over New Years,” he told the reporter on Monday, occasionally breaking down in tears as he spoke. “There was a lot of looking forward to the new year.” He had been suspicious of Brian’s story, however. “A part of me had this suspicion all along that there may have been foul play, and that somehow just the story wasn’t adding up,” he added. For Ana’s sake, he stated that he held on to some hope that Ana would still be alive.
According to a police affidavit filed Monday in Quincy District Court, Brian told police that Ana had left their home early the morning of Jan. 1 for a “work emergency.” Ana commuted frequently between Cohasset and Washington, D.C., where the couple owns a townhouse and Ana has a car, although there was no sign that she arrived there after her disappearance, police revealed at a press conference Jan. 6. Brian stated that Ana kissed her goodbye and told him to get back to sleep. He claimed she left at 6:07 a.m. and that she usually takes a taxi or a car through a rideshare app to get to the airport. Police, however, were not able to find evidence she’d taken a rideshare car or that she had gotten on a flight.
Other elements of Brian’s story didn’t add up, either. He said that he had done errands that day for his mother, who lives north Boston, at CVS and Whole Foods, but that no video footage of him was captured at either store in the time frame he described.
Brian claimed that he left their house on Jan. 2 to go out with their son for a milkshake. Surveillance footage showed Brian, in a surgical mask, gloves and making a cash transaction at a Home Depot after the ice cream visit. At Brian’s arraignment on Monday, prosecutors said he had purchased $450 worth of supplies, including mops, a bucket, and a tarp. It was an unapproved trip, which was in violation his federal fraud conviction pre-sentencencing house arrest.
In 2021, Brian pleaded guilty to charges that he’d sold fake Andy Warhol paintings to a gallery owner in Los Angeles. Court filings from that case show Brian sold fake prints from Warhol’s Shadows Series on eBay for $80,000 in 2016. The victim was Ron Rivlin, owner of Revolver Gallery in California, the world’s largest Andy Warhol gallery. “He’s a calculated guy,” Rivlin told WBZ on Tuesday, after news of Brian’s recent arrest broke. “I’ve bought over a thousand Warhols and this is the one and only acquisition that got by me. He was that good…What happened to me is telling of [Walshe’s] masterful ability to coerce people.”
Brian was awaiting sentencing for the federal conviction and wearing an ankle monitor at the time of his wife’s disappearance. Ana had written to the judge in June, thanking him for allowing Brian time to be with his family while he waited to be sentenced. He was there for their sons, as well as their mother’s aging parents, Ana wrote. She also encouraged their kids to do charity work. “Brian has been working consistently on breaking the past habits of his family and we are all looking forward to the new chapter of his life,” she wrote. As part of Brian’s house arrest, he was only allowed to leave the house for approved purposes, but the week Ana went missing, he made multiple violations, prosecutors reportedly said at his arraignment.
Ana Walshe didn’t disappear until January 4, when her colleagues reportedly called police. Between Jan. 5 and 7, more than 20 officers from local and state police departments used K9 units and dive teams to search the woods and waterways surrounding the Walshes’ home, but found nothing. In Brian Walshe’s internet history, however, police found evidence that he’d looked up information on “how to dispose of a 115-pound woman’s body,” law-enforcement sources told CNN. Then, when they executed a search warrant on the family’s home on Sunday, Jan. 8, they discovered the knife and blood in the basement. Brian was then arrested.
Brian pleaded guilty to the charges and was released on $500,000 cash bail. Tracy Miner, Brian’s attorney, declined to comment through a staffer. That same day, police were searching through trash at multiple locations in the Boston area, including close to Brian’s mother’s home.
On Tuesday, the Norfolk District Attorney’s office released a statement that acknowledged authorities were analyzing items gathered during that search. “Search activity conducted north of Boston yesterday resulted in a number of items being collected which will now be subject to processing and testing to determine if they are of evidentiary value to this investigation,” the statement said. The DA’s office would not confirm details of the items, but sources told WBZ they included a hatchet, a hacksaw, a rug, and used cleaning supplies. The DA’s office announced in a statement later on Tuesday that police have finished processing the Walshes’ house and said, “the investigation continues.”
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