CNN
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An arrest warrant charging Brian Walshe with murder was issued Tuesday in connection with the death of his wife Ana Walshe, a Massachusetts mother of three who has been missing since the New Year, Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey said.
Walshe, 47, last week pleaded not guilty to misleading investigators about his actions and whereabouts around the time his wife went missing. He is being held at the Norfolk County House of Corrections and being transported to Quincy District Court to face murder charges, Morrissey said.
“Additional details of the investigation and the evidence supporting these charges will likely be presented at the indictment but will not be disclosed at this time,” the prosecutor said.
A lawyer for Brian Walshe declined to comment.
The warrant comes more than two weeks after Ana Walshe was reported missing from her workplace, prompting investigators to launch a massive search for her whereabouts.
Police have found possibly grim evidence: blood and a bloodied knife in the basement of the family’s Cohasset home, according to prosecutors; Brian Walshe’s internet recordings show how a body can be dismembered and disposed of, according to law enforcement sources; and a hacksaw and obvious bloodstains at a garbage collection site, law enforcement sources said.
According to police, he told investigators he last saw his wife in early January when she left her home in Cohasset in a rideshare or cab to go to the airport to catch a flight to Washington, DC for her real estate job. He said he ran errands for his mother in nearby Swampscott later that day and went out for ice cream with one of his children the day after.
But prosecutors said there was no evidence Ana Walshe hailed a ride or made it to the airport, and in an affidavit, police said there was no evidence he ran errands for his mother on New Year’s Day. Prosecutors uncovered surveillance video showing Brian Walshe at a Home Depot as he died on March 2.
The affidavit describes Brian Walshe’s testimony to police as “a clear attempt to mislead and delay investigators.”
The indictment follows a series of tumultuous legal troubles for Brian Walshe.
In 2021, he pleaded guilty to three federal fraud charges related to a 2018 plan to sell fake Andy Warhol artwork online. Since then he has been under house arrest and monitored as part of his detention conditions.
Also in 2018 his father Dr. Thomas Walshe, which led to a protracted legal battle over his estate. In court documents, family members accused Brian Walshe of financial misconduct, described him as an angry and violent person and said he had been diagnosed as a sociopath.
“He had a violent argument with his son,” Andrew Walshe, the executor of the estate, said of Dr. Walshe’s relationship with Brian. “Brian ran off with a significant amount of his money; he had had almost no contact with Brian R. Walshe for the past decade or more.”
Also, in 2014, Ana Walshe told police someone threatened to “kill[her]and her friend,” according to an incident report obtained by CNN from the Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department. A department spokesman confirmed that Brian Walshe was the person involved in the report.
The report was submitted by Ana Walshe – then Ana Knipp – while living in DC. The case was later dropped because the victim refused to cooperate with prosecutors, the spokesman said.
The couple’s three children, all between the ages of 2 and 6, are in the care of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, a spokesman said.
This is an evolving story and will be updated.
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