MA MA - Ana Walshe, 39, Cohasset, 1 Jan 2023 *MEDIA, MAPS, & TIMELINES - NO DISCUSSION*

[PommyMommy]

JAN 21, 2023

Serbia: Ana Walshe's mother seeks official info about case​

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — 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.

[...]

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.

 

[PommyMommy]

Ana Walshe murder: An in-depth look into where the case stands and what comes next​

Brian Walshe, the husband of Ana Walshe, has been charged with dismembering his wife with a hacksaw and disposing of her remains after using his son’s iPad to Google the best ways to get rid of a body, according to prosecutors.

 

[flowershop]

Criminal psychologist dissects Brian Walshe's smile while walking out of jail in handcuffs

Brian Walshe was charged with impeding an investigation, murder and improper disposal of a body in connection with his wife Ana Walshe's presumed death.

www.foxnews.com

 

[Seattle1]

Numerous search warrants linked to missing Cohasset woman Ana Walshe delivered to court

Numerous search warrants related to the search for missing Cohasset mom Ana Walshe were returned to Quincy District Court Friday, where the documents were impounded.

www.patriotledger.com

COHASSET — Numerous search warrants related to the search for missing Massachusetts mother Ana Walshe were returned to Quincy District Court on Friday, where the documents were impounded, 5 Investigates has learned.

Between 10 and 20 of the documents were returned. While these files were not made public, they typically include affidavits from police officers describing why they think a crime occurred and why they should have permission to search private property in connection with that investigation.

Several search efforts related to the case are known, including those at the home rented by the family and at a North Shore transfer station. Prosecutors said blood and a knife with blood were found in the basement of the home and 5 Investigates learned that a saw and rug with blood on it were found at the transfer station.

[..]

On Thursday WCVB learned of a police complaint filed by Ana Walshe prior to her marriage to Brian Walshe, revealing trouble between the couple as far back as the summer of 2014.

According to a public incident report filed in Washington, DC, Ana Knipp, her name from her first marriage, told Metropolitan Police Department that Brian Walshe, "made a statement over the telephone that he was going to kill [Ana] and her friend."

[..]

Linda Bucci, a former prosecutor, says the district attorney's office continues to gather all kinds of evidence and will likely present that evidence to a grand jury that will attempt to show a motive on what happened to Ana Walshe.

"They have to prove that she's gone and connect her to it somehow," Bucci said. "Like, that she didn't just take a walk or is visiting somebody or ran away. So they have to prove she's dead and they have to prove that she didn't accidentally die."

Prosecutors could bring a formal complaint to the district court for a murder charge or wait for that grand jury to formally indict Brian Walshe, who is currently being held on high bail after being charged with misleading a police investigation.

"They have evidence," Bucci said. "They might have spoken to him. He might have given them evidence. So, they're on their way, but they're not there yet."

Days of searching for evidence at the home the family rented in Cohasset came to a close on Tuesday. During that effort, prosecutors said blood and a knife were found in the basement.

Additionally, the investigation has included searches of a transfer station in Peabody and a waste-to-energy facility in East Wareham. 5 Investigates learned that evidence found at the transfer station, near the home of Brian Walshe's mother, included a hacksaw and a rug with blood on it.

 

[PommyMommy]

JAN 19, 2023

Lawyer explains how Brian Walshe's murder charge could become federal case eligible for death penalty

Brian Walshe, accused of killing his wife, Ana Walshe, in Cohasset, Massachusetts, could potentially face federal charges and the death penalty, a lawyer explained.

www.foxnews.com

[...]

Walshe was on house arrest and pre-sentencing probation for selling fake Andy Warhol paintings, and was being investigated for allegedly destroying his father's will and stealing from it.

"I don't think the feds have dropped this and are watching this case closely," Amendola told Fox News Digital Wednesday night. "It all depends on what his motive was. If he killed her, assuming he did kill her, because she knew something about the art scam or his father's will and he wanted to keep her from talking, that becomes a federal matter."

There are no federal murder charges; it has to be a killing in connection with another federal crime, such as a racketeering, or in this hypothetical situation, witness tampering, which is punishable by life in prison and eligible for the death penalty.

[...]

 

[PommyMommy]

JAN 21 updated JAN 22, 2023

How the Brian Walshe murder trial could play out

There’s one piece of evidence that prosecutors can’t use in their case against Brian Walshe for the murder of his wife, Ana Walshe: a body. But trying murder without a body has been a high-profile …

www.bostonherald.com

There’s one piece of evidence that prosecutors can’t use in their case against Brian Walshe for the murder of his wife, Ana Walshe: her body.

But trying a murder case without a body has been a high-profile highlight of three successive Norfolk County District Attorneys. The previous cases resulted in, first, a plea deal admitting manslaughter and, second, a murder conviction.

[...]

Those cases are from an earlier age, and “forensics has evolved so much” in the intervening years that DNA sourced from materials, “maybe it comes from an internal organ or some tissue” that couldn’t have been present on items from some external cut, “could become a strong proxy for not having an actual body,” said Christopher Dearborn, a clinical law professor at Suffolk University Law School.

[...]

Readers were captivated by the story of Robin Benedict, the “Missing Beauty” who worked Boston’s Combat Zone red-light district under the name “Nadine,” who vanished from professor Douglas’ home on March 5, 1983. Her body was never found.

[...]

... Douglas, then 41, lured her to his Sharon home and bludgeoned her to death with a sledgehammer and then stashed her body in a dumpster at a Providence mall. She was only 21 years old.

Douglas pled down to manslaughter on April 27, 1984.

[...]

Katherine Romano vanished after leaving her work on Boston’s Big Dig on Sept. 27, 1998, under the tenure of Norfolk DA William Keating.

Her murder at the hands of her husband, Joseph Romano, who would then dismember her body with a borrowed saw would be the first murder conviction in Massachusetts without a body.

The jury didn’t buy Joseph Romano’s defense, that his wife was killed by drug dealers to whom she owed money, especially after the powerful evidence that bits of his wife’s bone, muscle and other tissue were found on the saw he borrowed from a neighbor and the blood found in the couple’s home.

(Romano was convicted of second-degree murder.)

 

[PommyMommy]

JAN 23, 2023
Missing Mom Ana Walshe Survived Serbian Genocide Before Immigrating
[...]

Court documents and public records obtained by Inside Edition Digital outline her remarkable ascent after arriving in this country as a young immigrant.

[...]

Ana and her sister were raised in war-torn Serbia, living through years of ethnic conflict and genocide according to a court filing submitted by Ana’s mother, Milanka Ljubicic.

After attending the University of Belgrade in her native country, Ana traveled to the United States and eventually enrolled at Cornell University in New York, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Her first job after arriving in the States was at the famed Inn at Little Washington in Virginia.

She wrote about her time there in an Instagram post last year.

"So many aspects of the positions I held in the beginning did not include any glamorous tasks. (making beds, cleaning toilets, polishing glasses, setting up tables, serving bread, etc.), and often resulted in working up to 16 hours per day, I now (some 15 + years later) reap the benefits of the work ethic, discipline and endurance and cherish memories of the journey like no other," wrote Ana.

Ana eventually transferred to the Wheatleigh, a luxury estate in the Berkshires, which is where she met Brian Walshe.

[...]

 

[PommyMommy]

JAN 25, 2023
No body, no crime? Brian Walshe and the surprising conviction rate of ‘no-body’ murder cases

“He has since become a leading expert on the subject, and lectures prosecutors and police investigators across the country on how to secure homicide convictions in the absence of the victim’s remains. Below, he walks The Post through the complications of a no-body murder, and what to expect from the Walshe case.”

 

[PommyMommy]

JAN 25, 2023

Small Town Talk: Locals Remember Brian Walshe As "Looking Like A Creep"

Brian Walshe often visited a pizza restaurant and coffee shop near his home. Workers there say he was usually alone and "looked like a creep."

lawandcrime.com

“You can probably count on one hand how many times big events have happened in this town going back to the 1960s,” explained SG, whose family owns Cohasset Pizza House. “Nothing newsworthy really happens.”

That changed in early January, when mother-of-three, Ana Walshe, went missing. Neighbors in the tiny town describe Ana Walshe as “quiet” and Brian, her husband, as someone who “looked like a creep.”

SG confirmed Brian Walshe was a regular customer who visited the restaurant at least once a week.

“He seemed like a normal, happy, smiling dad,” SG said. “He would always come in and go out. But he was always pleasant. He was happy and that never changed.”

[...]

SG remembers at first she was “stunned” that her regular customer was arrested, believing it, “couldn’t have been him.” But after Brian appeared outside the Quincy District Courthouse smiling, SG said she changed her mind.

“At first when I looked up at the picture, I said, ‘There’s no way. This man is nice, he’s happy, he’s normal,’” she said “Then a few days after they arrested him, when he was coming out of the police station and he had that smile on his face, that was the exact smile he had when he was coming in here everyday. So I’m sure it was just his hidden self, his little demeanor that he just showed the world. And he didn’t know when to turn it off.”

[...]

MA confirmed both Ana and Brian Walshe visited Pour Coffee and Bagel before her disappearance.

“She was always quiet,” MA recalled. “I remember seeing her walk through here once, but this was a long time ago, like months ago,” MA said. “I just remember her being quiet. He just kind of looked like a creep.”

[...]

“I haven’t really met any customers that have had relationships with either of them, which I thought was strange, because they lived in town for about two or three years,” SG said. “They didn’t seem to make any friendships while they were here.”

[...]

 

[PommyMommy]

JAN 21, 2023
"BRAJAN JE ZAMIŠLJEN I ČUDAN. NE MOGU TO DA PODNESEM!" Majka Ane Volš za "Blic" otkriva nove detalje iz života ćerke: Otkrila joj je BRAČNU TAJNU samo mesec dana pre nestanka!
"The two of us have not even met properly. When I went there she said she couldn't meet me because of corona. It was agreed that we would meet at lunch, but I was sick then. After that, our meeting was never mentioned again. Ana didn't say anything bad about her to me," says Milanka.

[...]

"I've seen Brian in pictures now, he's gained a lot of weight. It is completely different! I don't know what happened to him. When I was there, he was the head chef. He was constantly preparing lunch, and Ana was working. She came home in the evening, changed clothes and made pancakes. Her pancakes are the best in the world! She was smiling all the time. While I was there I spent most of my time with her youngest child and Brian who worked from home. But you know, I couldn't wait to see my Anna. Even though I was there with all of them, sometimes I felt lonely, because Brian was always at the computer, because he was working. Ana at work. Older children in kindergarten..."

[...]

"When Ana was in Belgrade in the period November-December, she told me that she wanted to spend more time with her children. She also mentioned Brian. She said he had changed. That he is absent, brooding and that she can't take it anymore..."

[...]

 

[PommyMommy]

JAN 27, 2023
Internet evidence key, but not enough in Massachusetts murder case
Prosecutors in Massachusetts are basing their murder case against a man whose wife is presumed dead but whose body has not been found in large part on a series of gruesome internet searches he made around the time of her disappearance.

Scouring data on personal electronic devices is a common strategy in criminal cases, but experts warn that incriminating searches are not enough alone to build a solid case.

“It would be very challenging to try and base a criminal investigation on just what somebody searched for on the internet,” said Jennifer Lynch, the surveillance litigation director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that defends digital civil liberties.

 

[PommyMommy]

FEB 9, 2023

Brian Walshe status hearing could point to next steps in wife’s murder case​

A status hearing scheduled for Brian Walshe could point to where the murder case that gained international attention goes from here.

Walshe is scheduled to appear virtually on Thursday morning from the Norfolk County House of Corrections where he’s being held without bail.

The prosecution is expected to provide the evidence that has been gathered thus far. That potentially includes items that were still being tested at the State Crime Lab when Walshe last appeared in court for his murder arraignment three weeks ago.

[...]

The state has already presented evidence collected from 10 trash bags that were reportedly disposed of in a dumpster at the Swampscott apartment complex of Brian Walshe’s mother.

Some of that evidence includes a piece of a necklace that Ana had been wearing, a Prada purse, a COVID vaccine card with her name and other items containing both Brian and Ana’s DNA.

At some point in the investigation, prosecutors could bring all of the evidence gathered to a grand jury.

The grand jury would then vote on whether to directly indict Brian Walshe on the charges.

[...]

 

[PommyMommy]

Brian Walshe to Appear in Court in Wife's Killing​

[...]

Generally, these status conferences are scheduled to update the court on where the case stands and set dates for any future hearings.

Brian Walshe’s status conference is scheduled for the 9 a.m. session.

 

[PommyMommy]

FEB 9, 2023

Livestream: Case against Brian Walshe for murder of his wife, Ana, returns to court​

The case against Brian Walshe, the Cohasset man accused of murdering his wife, Ana, last month, was scheduled to return to court Thursday.
www.boston.com

• Prosecution asks for a continuance.
• "The expectation is that this matter will be finished in the Grand Jury by the end of March, but hopefully mid-March."
• Defense has received "basically nothing."
• They haven't even received the search warrants.
• Defense is asking for the status conference to be moved about three weeks out.
• Continued to Wednesday, March 1st via Zoom for status.

 

[PommyMommy]

FEB 9, 2023

Status Hearing; continued

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=705840184619685

 

[PommyMommy]

FEB 9, 2023

Brian Walshe's attorney says she's 'received basically nothing' from prosecutors in Ana Walshe murder case

Brian Walshe, the Cohasset man charged with murder in the disappearance of his wife Ana, made a brief appearance in court Thursday.

www.cbsnews.com

[...]

... He appeared in court Thursday via Zoom from the Norfolk County Correctional Center in Dedham for a status hearing in the case.

Prosecutor Greg Connor said the grand jury investigation should be done by the end of March.

"We have received very little discovery to date," Walshe's attorney Tracy Miner said. "We've received basically nothing."

She said she hasn't received the search warrant for Brian Walshe's car and "the basic stuff we should have had immediately."

[...]

 

[PommyMommy]

FEB 9, 2023

New hearing date scheduled for Brian Walshe, accused of murdering his wife Ana Walshe on Jan. 1

A new status hearing has been scheduled in the case of Brian Walshe, who is accused of murdering his wife Ana Walshe on the first day of the year, as it makes its way to the Superior Court.

www.bostonherald.com

Assistant District Attorney Greg Connor, who said he had just been put on the case about a week ago, said he was fine with that plan and said that prosecutors expect a grand jury will hand down an indictment against Walsh by the end of next month. The indictment would move the case to Norfolk Superior Court

Ana Walshe update: Brian Walshe’s lawyer says they have not received ‘basic’ discovery items in murder case

Brian Walshe, who's accused of killing his wife, Ana Walshe, in Cohasset, Massachusetts, appeared in court Thursday as part of the case in her disappearance.

www.foxnews.com

"If we haven't even received the search warrants for my client's car, the inventories for search warrants, the basic stuff we should've had immediately we don't have," she said. "I'm a little bit skeptical that the discovery is going to be wholesome or contain everything I need."

https://twitter.com/x/status/1623714924521201668

 

[PommyMommy]

FEB 27, 2023

Next court appearance for Brian Walshe pushed to April​

The office of Norfolk District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey said Monday that the case involving Brian Walshe was continued from Wednesday to April 4 in Quincy District Court. A status conference was scheduled for March 1.

[...]

After Walshe is indicted by a grand Jury, the case against him will move to Norfolk Superior Court, The Boston Globe reported. Prosecutors said earlier this month that could happen by mid-March.

 

[PommyMommy]

MAR 30, 2023

Brian Walshe indicted for murder of missing wife Ana Walshe, who he allegedly dismembered​

A Norfolk County grand jury indicted Walshe for first-degree murder, obstruction of justice, and other charges, the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office said, according to reports.

He could face life in prison if convicted.

He pleaded not guilty in Quincy District Court when he was charged with murder during a January arraignment, but the indictment now moves the case to Norfolk Superior Court where he will be arraigned in the coming weeks, the district attorney’s office said according to the Boston Herald.

[...]

 

[PommyMommy]

MAR 30, 2023

Husband of missing mom Ana Walshe is INDICTED for her murder​

The husband of missing Massachusetts mom Ana Walshe has been indicted for her murder just months after she vanished from a New Year's Eve party.

Brian Walshe, 48, has been indicted by a Norfolk County grand jury for murder as well as for misleading a police investigation/obstruction of justice and for improper conveyance of a human body.

DA: Brian Walshe indicted on murder charges of wife Ana Walshe​

Attorney Michael W. Morrissey announced on Thursday that three indictments against Walshe, 48, of Cohasset, were issued including the murder of his wife, for misleading a police investigation/obstruction of justice, and for the improper conveyance of a human body.

“Brian Walshe entered a plea of not guilty to the charge of murder at his Quincy District Court arraignment in January,” District Attorney Morrissey said. “This indictment moves the case to the Norfolk Superior Court, where it will be arraigned anew in the coming weeks. That date has not yet been set.”

[...]

District Attorney Morrissey said his office would provide the arraignment date as soon as it was finalized by Norfolk Superior Court. Walshe remains held without bail.