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Tag: Ana Walshe

  • Brian Walshe convicted of first-degree murder in wife Ana’s death in Cohasset, Massachusetts

    A jury found Brian Walshe guilty of first-degree murder Monday in the death of his wife Ana Walshe on New Year’s Day 2023 in their Cohasset, Massachusetts home.

    Walshe now faces a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Sentencing will happen Wednesday, when victim impact statements in the case will be read.

    The jury of six women and six men deliberated for about six hours before coming to a decision. Walshe did not appear to react as the verdict was read. 

    “This was a huge win for the prosecution, not having a body, not having a cause of death,” WBZ-TV legal analyst Jennifer Roman said. “They convinced 12 people beyond a reasonable doubt that Brian Walshe not only killed her, but he premeditated that murder.”

    During closing arguments on Friday, a prosecutor told jurors that Brian Walshe planned to kill Ana Walshe and hide the evidence because their marriage was falling apart and he needed money from her life insurance policy that was worth more than $1 million. The defense countered by saying text messages show the Walshes loved each other and were planning for the future, and that she died suddenly for unexplained reasons.

    Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey, who had been criticized for his handling of the Karen Read trial, said this is the first case he can remember where a first-degree murder conviction was secured without a body.

    “We did hear from Ana’s sister and her comment was, ‘justice has been served,’” Morrissey said. 

    What was Brian Walshe charged with?

    Walshe pleaded not guilty to a charge of first-degree murder.

    Jurors could have decided to convict Walshe on a lesser charge of second-degree murder if they believe he killed his wife but it wasn’t pre-planned.

    Just before the trial started, Walshe pleaded guilty to disposing of a body and misleading police. Judge Diane Freniere ruled that the jury could not be told about those guilty pleas. He has not been sentenced on those charges yet.

    The prosecution rested Wednesday after calling 48 witnesses, including police investigators, forensic scientists, friends of the couple and a man who was having an affair with Ana Walshe. The defense did not call any witnesses, and Walshe himself did not take the stand.   

    Timeline of Ana Walshe case

    On Dec. 31, 2022, the couple celebrated New Year’s Eve at their Cohasset home with family friend Gem Mutlu, who said there was “no indication” of an impending tragedy.

    Brian Walshe originally told police that his wife took an Uber or Lyft early on the morning of New Year’s Day to Logan Airport to catch a flight to Washington, D.C. for a “work emergency.” She was reported missing on Jan. 4.

    Walshe was arrested on Jan. 8 after investigators found a broken knife and blood in the basement of their home. They also obtained surveillance footage of Walshe buying cleaning supplies at local stores, as well as a hacksaw and hammer that were later found in the trash. 

    Prosecutors have released internet searches that were allegedly made by Walshe around the time of his wife’s death. The Google searches include “10 ways to dispose of a dead body if you really need to” and “How long before a body starts to smell?”

    Ana Walshe’s body has never been found.

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  • Brian Walshe Defense Rests Without Witnesses in Murder Trial

    Defense attorneys for Brian Walshe rested their case without presenting a single witness to rebut the prosecution’s assertion that he was jealous of his wife’s Ana’s new lover, and worried about going to jail in federal art fraud case, when he killed her to collect millions in life insurance

    Brian Walshe had no defense. Literally.

    Last month, the Massachusetts man admitted to a judge overseeing his murder trial in Massachusetts that he disposed of his wife Ana’s dismembered remains after finding her in bed, dead, but insisted he didn’t kill her.

    Brian Walshe pictured with his wife
    Brian Walshe is pictured with his wife, Ana, whom he allegedly dismembered on New Year’s Day 2022
    Credit: Los Angeles file photo

    This month, jurors heard eight days of testimony from prosecutors who argued that Walshe – while awaiting sentencing in a federal art fraud case in Los Angeles – hacked up her body at their Massachusetts mansion on New Year’s Day in 2020 so he could inherit “millions” from her life insurance policy at a time when he was negotiating a restitution settlement with the government connected to his guilty plea in an elaborate scheme to rip off the L.A. owner of Revolver Gallery on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood by selling him bogus Andy Warhol paintings.

    Ron RivlinRon Rivlin
    Revolver Gallery owner Ron Rivlin
    Credit: Courtesy Ron Rivlin

    On Wednesday, prosecutors laid out the evidence collected after Ana Walshe disappeared. The couple had hosted a friend for dinner, and then hours later, Walshe dismembered her body in the basement of their family estate in upscale Cohasset, MA, and disposed of her remains at an incinerator site, prosecutors argued in a court hearing Thursday. 

    Investigators recovered bloody slippers, stained towels and a carpet splattered with her remains, prosecutors say. Ana’s Gucci necklace was broken around her neck. Witnesses described Walshe’s online searches that included: “how to dispose of a 115-pound woman’s body” and “how long for someone to be missing to inheritance (sic)?” according to the documents. 

    And then the state rested its case.

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    On Thursday, the defense also rested – without calling a single witness, including Walshe.

    Closing arguments are slated to begin Friday morning.

    Michele McPhee

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  • More cases involving Michael Proctor are under review

    Disgraced former Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor is no longer fighting to get his job back, but his investigative work is still attracting the attention of defense attorneys.

    Proctor was fired in March because of his handling of the Karen Read case. He served as the lead investigator into the death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe.

    Read was ultimately acquitted of the most serious charges against her, including murder, at the end of her second trial this year.

    The work of former Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor, who was fired over his handling of the Karen Read investigation, is being scrutinized by defense attorneys in other cases.

    Recent court documents show the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office has examined nearly 20 cases involving him.

    “I’m not surprised that the number is high — before we’re done, it might even go higher,” said NBC10 Boston legal analyst Michael Coyne.

    Prosecutors were ordered to review a federal investigation of the Read case and turn over any evidence beneficial to other defendants whose cases involved the former state trooper.

    The cases were identified as part of a document involving Brian Walshe, charged with the murder of his wife, Ana Walshe. Proctor investigated that case, as well.

    Michael Proctor has moved to dismiss his appeal to get his Massachusetts State Police job back — he lost it in the wake of the Karen Read case, for which he led the investigation. In a separate case, 13 years of deleted cellphone data from his phone was located in the cloud.

    “Any time that you can use some of these mistakes that he’s made to help put doubt in the minds of a juror, well, that is precisely what they’re supposed to do,” Coyne said.

    It’s unclear what, if any, information was given to the defendants, with a lot of the details coming from Proctor’s cellphone.

    “Remember, Tom Brady destroyed his cellphone during Deflategate,” Coyne said. “Most people would not want their phones examined. He turned it over, in part, thinking that he had deleted some of this information, but as we’re learning, things are never deleted forever.”

    Interest in Proctor’s phone activity is not new — during the state’s first trial against Read last year, which ended in a mistrial, he acknowledged in his testimony that he sent offensive texts about the defendant to his friends, family members and fellow state police troopers during the investigation. He did not testify at the retrial.

    Coyne compared the review of Proctor’s investigative work to the case of Annie Dookan, the state criminologist who admitted to tampering with evidence, prompting a review of thousands criminal cases.

    “You’re not going to see anything of that magnitude,” Coyne said. “This is small county, it’s Norfolk County, but again, it does tell you, when the evidence is tainted, the defense attorneys are going to dig deep.”

    The judge overseeing this process has ordered for the federal evidence pulled from the investigation to be saved instead of being destroyed.

    John Moroney, Robert Goulston and Mike Pescaro

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  • Ana Walshe’s mother in Serbia seeks official info about her missing daughter after Brian Walshe charged with murder

    Ana Walshe’s mother in Serbia seeks official info about her missing daughter after Brian Walshe charged with murder

    The Serbian mother of a Massachusetts woman who has been missing since New Year’s Day and whose husband is charged with murder, will ask the United States for official information about her daughter’s disappearance, Serbia’s Foreign Ministry said Saturday.

    Milanka Ljubicic, the mother of Ana Walshe, signed a formal request to receive documentation about the case as next of kin, the ministry said in a statement. The request has been sent to Serbia’s Consulate in New York and will be submitted to relevant U.S. authorities, the ministry added.

    Brian Walshe, 47, has been charged with murder in the case of Ana Walshe, 39, whose body hasn’t been found. The couple, who have three young children who are now in state custody, lived in the affluent coastal community of Cohasset, about 15 miles southeast of Boston.

    walshe.jpg
    Ana and Brian Walshe.

    Photos from Cohasset Police and Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool


    Ana Walshe was reportedly last seen leaving their home in the early morning hours of Jan. 1, purportedly to take a ride-hailing vehicle to Logan International Airport for a flight to Washington, authorities said. But police have found no indication that she either took a vehicle or boarded any flight out of Logan.

    She was reported missing Jan. 4 by her employer in Washington, where the couple has a home and to which she often commutes during the week for work at a real estate company, authorities said.

    Prosecutors said earlier this week that Brian Walshe had used his son’s iPad to to look up ways to dismember and dispose of a body, and that items belonging to the woman with Ana Walshe’s DNA were found at a trash processing facility. Officials also found trash bags with blood, a hatchet, a hacksaw, a rug and used cleaning supplies.

    One of the searches Walshe conducted early on the morning of New Year’s Day was “10 ways to dispose of a dead body if you really need to,” prosecutor Lynn Beland said in court.

    Other searches Beland said Walshe conducted that morning were “how long before a body starts to smell,” “how to stop a body from decomposing,” “how long does someone to be missing to inherit,” “can you throw away body parts,” “dismemberment and the best ways to dispose of a body” and “how to clean blood from wooden floor.”

    Walshe’s disappearance has been followed closely in her native Serbia where her mother still lives. Ms. Ljubicic has told local media she could not believe that her son-in-law would harm her daughter.

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  • Husband of Ana Walshe charged with murder

    Husband of Ana Walshe charged with murder

    Husband of Ana Walshe charged with murder – CBS News


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    Prosecutors announced Tuesday that Brian Walshe, the husband of missing Massachusetts woman Ana Walshe, has been charged with her murder. He was initially charged last week with misleading investigators in the ongoing search for his wife, a mother of three, who was last seen in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day. Nancy Chen has more.

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  • Ana Walshe case: What we know about the missing Massachusetts mom

    Ana Walshe case: What we know about the missing Massachusetts mom

    Ana Walshe, a 39-year-old mother of three from Massachusetts, has been missing since sometime after having dinner with her husband and a friend on New Year’s Eve. The case has been under investigation for over a week. 

    Searches for Walshe have been unsuccessful, even as the investigation fanned out from the area of her home in Cohasset to other towns in the state. 

    The case took a turn when her husband, Brian Walshe, was arrested on Jan. 8 on a charge of misleading investigators.

    While police have discovered some physical evidence they’re investigating, Ana Walshe herself has not been found. Here’s what we know so far. 

    Who is Ana Walshe? 

    A friend of Ana Walshe, Alissa Kirby, described her as “a loving wife and mother to, she always says, ‘three beautiful boys.’” 

    The Walshe family lives in Cohasset, about 45 minutes down the coast from Boston, but Ana Walshe spent workweeks in Washington, D.C. for her job as a real estate investment manager, CBS Boston reported. The family had a vehicle and townhouse in Washington, police have said. 

    In addition to keeping busy with work, friends say Ana Walshe was an active member of a Newton-based organization for immigrants in America called the Sky International Center.

    The Walshes’ three young sons, ages 2, 4 and 6, are now in the custody of the state’s Department of Children and Families.

    When was Ana Walshe reported missing? 

    Ana Walshe was reported missing on Jan. 4. Police Chief William Quigley said in a press conference said it was “simultaneously reported” by her husband Brian and by employees at her Washington, D.C. workplace.

    “Officially we realized (Wednesday) that she was missing. We suspected maybe something Tuesday,” her friend Alissa Kirby, who lives in Washington, told CBS Boston. 

    Ana Walshe was last seen at her home on Jan. 1, according to police. Her husband said she took a rideshare to Boston’s Logan International Airport to fly to Washington, D.C., but there is no evidence that she got on the plane. Quigley said they also could not confirm that she was ever picked up by the vehicle. 

    Quigley said Brian Walshe said he did not see his wife leave the house because he was asleep at the time. Another family member saw her at the house at 4 or 5 in the morning, Quigley said, though he did not explain which family member that was. 

    “We’re not exactly sure” why there was a gap between when Ana Walshe was last seen and when she was reported missing, Quigley said. “It seems like it was a situation where … she does work in D.C. and it’s not abnormal for her to work long hours and not contact the home right away. That seems to be the case.” 

    Who is Ana Walshe’s husband and why was Brian Walshe arrested? 

    Ana Walshe’s husband, Brian Walshe, was on home confinement at the time of her disappearance, because of a federal conviction involving a scheme to sell fake Andy Warhol paintings. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud, interstate transportation for a scheme to defraud, and possession of converted goods and unlawful monetary transaction, CBS Boston reported.

    walshe.jpg
    Ana and Brian Walshe.

    Photos from Cohasset Police and Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool


    The station reports his house arrest bracelet was not equipped with GPS tracking and that he had an exemption that allowed him to take the couple’s three sons to school. Quigley said in his press conference that those charges were not related to Ana Walshe’s disappearance. 

    Police initially said that Brian Walshe was cooperating with their investigation into his wife’s disappearance, but on Jan. 8, he was charged with misleading investigators. 

    The Norfolk District Attorney’s office announced the arrest, saying that in the course of the investigation, police “developed probable cause to believe that … Brian Walshe had committed the crime of misleading police investigators.” 

    Brian Walshe has pled not guilty to charges and remains in jail on a $500,000 bond, according to CBS Boston. 

    What has the investigation into Ana Walshe’s disappearance found? 

    As the investigation has unfolded, information has come to light about Brian Walshe’s movements after his wife was last seen.

    According to court documents from his arraignment, Walshe was seen on security camera footage purchasing $450 of cleaning supplies, including tarps and buckets, at a home improvement store while wearing a disposable mask and gloves on Jan. 2 — two days before Ana Walshe was reported missing but one day after she was last seen. 

    Brian Walshe had told police he had been to a supermarket and a pharmacy, but there is no evidence that he was at either store, Assistant Norfolk District Attorney Lynn Beland said in the hearing. 

    Another surveillance video showed him at a juice bar on the same day, and video footage reviewed by CBS Boston’s investigative team show Brian Walshe near a liquor store dumpster in Swampscott, Massachusetts. Sources told CBS Boston that no physical evidence was found there. 

    Physical evidence has been found in multiple other locations, including the couples’ Cohasset home and the woods behind the house. A broken knife and blood were found in the home’s basement, according to CBS Boston, but it hasn’t been confirmed whose blood it was. 

    Investigators also found trash bags with blood, a hatchet, a hacksaw, a rug and used cleaning supplies at a transfer station in Peabody, Massachusetts, sources told CBS Boston’s investigative team. Peabody is about 46 miles from Cohasset. 

    Sources told CBS Boston’s investigative team that Brian Walshe’s car has been impounded and showed signs of being recently cleaned. 

    CBS Boston also reports that investigators are reviewing an incident from August 2014 in which Ana Walshe, who was not yet married to Brian Walshe, claimed someone threatened to kill her and her friends. In a Washington, D.C. police report viewed by the station, she claimed the threat came from Brian Walshe over the phone. But no charges were filed after she refused to cooperate with the investigation.

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