Hacksaw, hatchet and blood found in search for missing mom of 3 Ana Walshe
Police have found a hatchet, blood, hacksaw, trash bags, used cleaning supplies and a rug at a trash transfer station in their search for missing Massachusetts mom Ana Walshe, it was reported Tuesday.
Authorities also seized two dumpsters and a trash compactor from the apartment complex of the mother of Walshe’s husband, Brian Walshe, a neighbor told The Post.
Investigators accompanied by police canines uncovered potential evidence such as the hatchet and cleaning items while searching a trash facility Monday in Peabody, which is north of Boston and a little over an hour from the couple’s home, CBS reported.
The same day, investigators “took both dumpsters and a trash compactor” from the complex where Brian’s mom lives in Swampscott, local Joe Curley, 44, told The Post.
The town, about 15 minutes from Peabody, is where Brian told detectives he spent the afternoon of Jan. 1 — the last day his wife was seen alive.
Ana Walshe, a 39-year-old real-estate exec with Tishman Speyer, disappeared Jan. 1 after a New Year’s Eve dinner at the home she shares with Brian and their three young kids in Cohasset, about an hour south of Peabody, authorities have said.
Ana’s 47-year-old husband was charged this week with misleading investigators in the search for his wife, and he is currently being held on $500,000 bond. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Monday. He is not charged in the disappearance of his wife, who he reported missing Jan. 4.
In addition to the transfer-station materials, evidence indicating foul play in Ana’s suspicious disappearance includes a bloody knife found in the family’s basement and Brian Walshe’s alleged purchase of $450 in cleaning supplies the day after his wife vanished.
The couple’s three little boys are in custody of the state’s child-welfare agency as the search continues.
According to his arrest affidavit, Brian Walshe, who was convicted for selling bogus Andy Warhol paintings in 2016, told police that his wife left on a “‘work emergency’” early on the morning of the 1st.
There is no record of Ana Walshe taking an Uber, Lyft or taxi to the airport, as was her usual practice during work travel.
Brian Walshe claimed he left the family’s home Jan. 1 to visit his mother.
“At the time, Walshe did not have his cell phone so he did not use a GPS,” authorities stated. He reportedly said one of his sons must have absconded with the device sometime during the New Year’s festivities.
“Walshe related he drove to his mother’s house via the route leading by Derby Street in Hingham, Route 3 north, Route 93 through Boston, and instead of taking Route 1A, he got lost and took Route 1 and then maybe Route 114,” the document continued.
“Walshe related the commute should have taken 60-70 minutes but ended up taking about 90 minutes.”
Brian told police he helped his mother run errands at CVS and Whole Foods before returning to his family’s Cohasset home around 8 that night.
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Surveillance footage does not place him at the pharmacy or the grocery store during the times he claimed to have visited, authorities said.
Brian later said he found his cell phone under his pillow Jan. 2, when he also violated parole by visiting a Home Depot to buy the cleaning supplies. He is currently under home confinement on the fraud conviction, although he can leave the house at certain times for some activities, such as to pick up his oldest son from school.
Investigators have alleged that Brian deliberately wasted their time by not answering truthfully when asked about his whereabouts on the day of Ana’s disappearance.
“The fact that he was asked a specific question and he gave an untruthful answer that led investigators out of the area caused a clear delay in the search for the missing person,” the affidavit reads.
Ana Walshe previously gushed about her husband in a letter to a judge last summer in a bid for leniency for her hubby in his art-fraud case. She showered her spouse with praise for helping her mother after she suffered a brain aneurysm in December 2021.
“Not only did he save her life, but he also brought her and the entire family comfort and joy during the course of her illness,” Ana wrote of her husband’s time in home confinement.
“Brian has been working consistently on breaking the past bad habits of his family and we are all looking forward to the new chapter of his life,” she continued of her spouse, who has yet to be sentenced.
But a week before her disappearance, Ana seemed to have a change of heart and begged her mother, who now lives in Serbia, to come to visit.
“She just said, ‘Please, Mama. Come tomorrow,’” Milanka Ljubicic, 69, told Fox News Digital on Monday from her home in Belgrade.
“Which means that clearly, there must have been some problems.”
In a statement Tuesday, the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office said no further details on the results of Monday’s search would be released.
“There is no anticipated change or adjustment of the charges in place in this matter at this time,” the statement read.
Additional reporting by Steven Vago in Massachusetts
