Accused killer Brian Walshe thought his wife was cheating on him—so he had his mom hire a PI to tail her, according to prosecutors.
Walshe, 48, allegedly murdered and dismembered real estate executive Ana Walshe on New Year’s Day. He was arrested on Jan. 8 and indicted last month by a Norfolk County, Massachusetts grand jury on charges of murder, misleading investigators, and improperly conveying a human body.
In a court appearance on Thursday, Norfolk County Assistant District Attorney Greg Connor argued against releasing Walshe, rattling off a litany of incriminating particulars he said pointed to Walshe’s guilt. Connor reiterated that Walshe had performed a variety of suspicious internet searches shortly after Ana, 39, went missing, such as “can you identify a body with broken teeth,” “can you be charged with murder without a body,” “how to stop a body from decomposing,” and “hacksaw best tool to dismember?” He told Norfolk Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone on Thursday that after Ana vanished, Walshe used an iPad belonging to the couple’s oldest child to search for the best states to get divorced and to visit websites that had “instructions on how to clean blood and DNA,” along with that of a crime scene cleanup company, Aftermath Services.
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The pair had been having issues, according to Connor, who told Cannone that Walshe late last year became concerned that Ana was seeing another man. She was living and working out of town while Walshe was back home in Cohasset, unable to leave the state under conditions set by a federal judge in an art fraud case he had been battling.
“In December of 2022, it had become evident that Mr. Walshe was suspecting his wife of having an affair,” Connor said. “He was routinely visiting the Instagram page of one of her male friends, and on December 26, his mother, with his input and direction, obtained and hired a private investigator to surveil Ana Walshe in Washington, D.C.”
On Dec. 28, prosecutors say, Ana told a friend she expected Walshe would be sent to prison for the fraud, which involved the sale of a fake Andy Warhol painting, and said she planned to leave him and take the kids with her to D.C.
Ana flew home to Cohasset on Dec. 30 to spend a long weekend with Brian and their three children, according to Connor. The next day, he said she attended an exercise class, got her nails done at a local salon, and made arrangements for a family friend to come over to ring in New Year’s.
“That family friend said he got there at approximately 8 p.m. and that the children were asleep, and that Mr. Walshe cooked dinner for the three of them,” Connor said in court. “Around 10 p.m., one of their children came downstairs, socialized with the adults, and went back upstairs… The family friend left at approximately 1:30 a.m. on January 1. And that is the last time someone has seen Ana Walshe alive, outside of the defendant and his family.”
On Thursday, Connor went into detail about a string of unusual purchases Walshe made the next day: a Tyvek full-coverage suit, five Lowe’s five-gallon buckets, a Lennox high-tension hacksaw, 200 disposable rags, 48 terrycloth towels, three 64-ounce jugs of ammonia, 13 different types of hydrogen peroxide, trash bags, a framing hammer, shoe guards, snips, Murphy’s Oil Soap, and “other cleaning products.”
He also said that Ana had taken out life insurance policies worth some $2.7 million, and that Walshe was the sole beneficiary. Following Ana’s disappearance, investigators discovered numerous trash bags containing bloody articles of Ana’s clothing, anda hacksaw with blood and a bone fragment on it, which is still being processed for DNA analysis. Walshe made “no attempts” to contact authorities to locate his wife, and was seen on surveillance video at a Brockton apartment complex unloading “a bag that appears to be heavy” from his SUV and tossing it into a dumpster, Connor told Cannone.
Defense attorney Tracy Miner argued unsuccessfully on Thursday for Walshe to be released on $250,000 bail, insisting that there had been no “discord” between the couple.
She conceded that her client’s internet searches could be seen as “problematic,” but said he had also searched for a variety of more benign terms. He has cooperated with police, who have no proof that Ana is indeed dead, according to Miner.
“It has been four months since Ana Walshe was last seen,” she said. “Under Massachusetts law, as you know, a person is not presumed dead for seven years because it is easy for a single person to disappear if they want to disappear. There has been no body found.”
Further, Miner said, Walshe didn’t approve of his mother’s hiring of the private investigator to tail Ana, whom she called “a good girl.”
In a January interview with The Daily Beast, Ron Rivlin, the art dealer Walshe allegedly scammed, said, “He knows how to play the legal system, he knows how to play everyone and everything.”
On Thursday, Walshe, who has pleaded not guilty to Ana’s murder, was ordered held without bail. His next court appearance in the case is scheduled for Aug. 23.
