Brian Walshe (left) pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife Ana Walshe (right), who has been missing since January (Picture: AP)
Brian Walshe pleaded not guilty to murdering his missing wife Ana Walshe at a hearing on Thursday.
Walshe appeared at Norfolk Superior Court in Massachusetts on Thursday, where he pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, misleading police, and disinterring a body.
Walshe, 47, was denied bail after prosecutors laid out the case against him, detailing how the jealous husband became paranoid that his wife was having an affair after starting a new job in Washington DC.
The last time anyone saw Ana Walshe alive was on New Year’s Eve, when a family friend ate dinner with the couple before leaving around 1.30am.
Walshe appears beside his defense attorney Tracy Miner (Picture: AP)
Brian Walshe initially reported his wife’s disappearance on January 4, but Norfolk Assistant District Attorney Greg Connor said this was false.
‘The Commonwealth has established that this was a lie. By this time, he had killed her, dismembered her, and disposed of her body.’
Connor said that Walshe began to suspect his wife of having an affair in December. ‘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 DC,’ the prosecutor said.
Connor continued: ‘On December 27, the oldest son’s iPad was used to research “best states to get divorced in and worst states to get divorced in.”‘
Prosecutors allege Brian Walshe became suspicious of his wife Ana after she started a new job in Washington DC (Picture: Facebook/Ana Walshe)
Around the same time, prosecutors also said that Ana Walshe became ‘uncharacteristically upset’ at dinner with a friend due to her husband’s impending incarceration. She told the friend that she was prepared to leave him and take the children to live with her permanently in Washington DC.
Brian Walshe was in the process of pleading guilty to federal charges of fraud for a scheme to sell fake Andy Warhol paintings.
On December 30 she flew home and was not expected not to return until January 3.
Brian Walshe told investigators that his wife left for a ‘work emergency’ in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day. She allegedly took a rideshare car to Boston Logan Airport, but she never arrived at her destination.
Brian Walshe listens to charges being read against him after his arrest on January 18 (Picture: AP)
In the meantime, Walshe began a series of Google searches on his son’s iPad, including searches for: ’10 ways to dismember a body,’ ‘can you be charged with murder without a body,’ and ‘can you identify a body with broken teeth.’
Walshe’s defense attorney, Tracy Miner, criticized the murder charges against her client, as investigators have still not been able to find her body since her disappearance.
‘It has been four months since Ana Walsh has last been seen,’ Miner said. ‘As your honor knows under Massachusetts law, a person is not presumed dead because they’re missing for a period of seven years because it is easy for a single person to disappear if they want to disappear.’
She continued: ‘In that four months there has been no body found, there has been no indication if she died, how she died, there’s no murder weapon, there’s no motive.’
Miner also said that there is no solid evidence that Brian Walshe suspected his wife of having an affair. She said that her client called his mother ‘crazy’ when she hired a private investigator to follow Ana.
‘His mother did hire a private investigator shortly before New Years that year. She told Mr Walshe that she was doing that,’ Miner said. ‘He told her that she was crazy, and ‘Ana’s a good girl, but go ahead and prove me wrong.”‘
Miner did admit that the Google searches were ‘problematic.’ But she said that Walshe was also searching for several other things at the same time, including ‘how to set up a charitable corporation to give away large lottery winnings tax free’ and ‘best places to go for a family vacation.’
The judge eventually denied Walshe bail. He is due back in court on August 23 for a pretrial conference.
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Walshe is charged with his wife’s murder, misleading police, and disinterring her body.