Broken Knife, Blood Found in Basement of Ana Walshe's Cohasset Home
Broken Knife, Blood Found in Basement of Ana Walshe's Cohasset Home
Plus: The General's Granddaughter: Ana Ljubičić
Brian Walshe, the husband of missing Massachusetts/DC real estate executive Ana Walshe, left jail in Cohasset to head to court this morning. Walshe’s wife is missing. His children are likely with the Massachusetts Dept. of Children & Families. He is under arrest, reportedly for misleading investigators. Yet as he exited the jail, Walshe was smiling.
And once Walshe was in court, the prosecutor reported that a search of Walshe's home over the weekend revealed blood in the basement. The search found a bloody, broken knife. Investigators also found that on January 2, Walshe purchased $450 worth of items at a Home Depot in Rockland, Mass., including a tarp, bucket, mops, and tape. The prosecutor asked for a bail amount of $500,000.
If I were writing this for someone else’s publication, I might move on here and let readers draw their own conclusions. (Readers will, regardless.) But my conclusion is there are some situations where even reflexive nervous smiling makes no sense. Like Brian Walshe’s. Unless you’re the kind of person who doesn’t really get nervous, anxious, worried, or fearful, like a malignant narcissist or even a psychopath.
Serbian publications have picked up on Ana Walshe’s disappearance, leading to some interesting new details about the missing 39-year-old executive and mother of three. Born Ana Ljubičić, she left Serbia after graduating from gymnasium — basically the equivalent of high school in the US — in 2005.
According to Novosti Online, that same year saw the death of 89-year-old People's Hero of Yugoslavia General Nikola Ljubičić. He was buried with full military honors at the New Cemetery in Belgrade.
General Ljubičić, Novosti reports, was Ana Walshe’s grandfather.
Ljubičić was Yugoslavia’s Minister of Defense between 1967 and 1982, then President of the Presidency of Serbia until 1984, when he became a member of the Presidency of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a position he kept through 1989. He was an undeniably powerful figure in Ana Walshe’s home country, with close ties both to Yugoslavian president Josip Broz Tito and to infamous Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević, who was overthrown as president of Yugoslavia in 2000, later dying at The Hague in 2006.
So Ana Walshe didn’t necessarily come from humble beginnings, which is something many Americans might assume about someone who came here from the former Eastern Bloc. But once in America, she made her own way, until January 1, 2023.
Ana’s mother gave an interview to Novosti, revealing a bit more about what may have been her daughter’s final hours.
Milanka Ljubičić told the publication that Brian Walshe said he thought Ana was fine and that he wasn't worried, though she said a Boston (likely Cohasset PD) police chief said she "maybe went on a short vacation."
Milanka Ljubičić said that didn’t seem like Ana at all. Even if she had left, Milanka reportedly said, she wouldn't have gone without contacting anyone for so long.
Brian Walshe’s arraignment on Monday morning revealed not only the blood and his telltale Home Depot shopping trip but also that Ana’s phone last pinged at their home on Jan. 2, after she’d supposedly taken a rideshare on the 1st. Investigators found no evidence she ever called or got into a Lyft or Uber.
Because there was no emergency, or else why would her employer wait until January 4 to find out where she was? No one is surprised about where this is going now.
The prosecution’s half-million dollar bail request was granted.
Broken Knife, Blood Found in Basement of Ana Walshe's Cohasset Home
I watched that video when WCVB posted it online. That smile as he walked out of jail was *bone-chilling*. The narcissism fits into what is already known about his past criminal behavior, from the paintings to his father’s will. I noticed, too, that the police had the garage door opened so that his Volvo was clearly visible, closing it as soon as he was shut into the police SUV.
Those unsealed details leave no room for doubt as to what the police’s theory must be; I predict that this case will have long-reverberating echos across the true crime landscape. It’s got more hooks than a fisherman’s prize tackle box.
It is especially upsetting to me that part of the reason Brian was not incarcerated for his fraud conviction (and only on home confinement) was affidavits submitted by Ana herself, as well as her mother, pleading for Brian to be released to home confinement. They stated how helpful he was and how much it meant that he was home to see his kids grow up, etc. Had he been incarcerated, she would still be here. This case is so horribly grim. He is one of the most serially dishonest and devious men I have seen or heard about.