Where is Ana Walshe? (Part 2)
Where is Ana Walshe? (Part 2)
An incremental update.
True Crime Report has seen an influx of new subscribers since I wrote about the Jan. 1 disappearance of Massachusetts/DC-area real estate executive Ana Walshe. I’m grateful for new readers. Thank you all.
With more readers, I have to confront something that bothered me in the past — the contrast between a positive thing like feeling gratitude for new subscribers and the dark nature of the subject this newsletter covers.
For example, this update about Walshe isn’t hopeful. It adds to the strangeness surrounding her disappearance.
News about Walshe has spread throughout Boston-area outlets. Below are a couple of tweets from WHDH correspondent Kimberly Bookman.
Local news has the resources to do what I can’t while maintaining my newsletters and working my night job for Entrepreneur, which is to follow up on a couple of questions I still had when I published the previous post.
One question answered: Walshe lives in Cohasset, Mass., and in DC. She’s been commuting to the nation’s capitol for work and has another vehicle and residence there. Multiple reports indicate investigators have checked out Walshe’s DC home and found no evidence she returned there.
Another answer: She’s still married to Brian Walshe, who is not incarcerated and is reportedly cooperating with the investigation into her disappearance.
Here’s the strangeness I referenced earlier in the form of a tweet from CBS Boston journalist Beth Germano — a fire today inside the home where Walshe lived with her husband and children until they moved sometime last year:
If you hear hoofbeats behind you and you aren’t in the desert or on the veldt, chances are you hear horses, not zebras or camels. Meaning that missing spouse cases often go one way — someone close to the person had a role in their disappearance.
Still, at this point, there’s a host of stories about someone taking a cab or a rideshare — or worse, mistaking a car for their rideshare and ending up with a predator — and vanishing because they ran afoul of a dangerous stranger. It’s always possible.
But Ana Walshe, a 39-year-old executive with the means to afford two homes in different states, doesn’t come across like any kind of conventional victim. Her friend Peter Kirby told NBC Boston, “Ana is a remarkable woman."
“She’s a powerful executive, she’s a loving mom, she’s just a loving wife, she’s one of the most remarkable humans we know,” Kirby reportedly said, “and we’re very scared. We miss her a lot, and we’re just praying for her to be safe.”
New reporting from Boston media has clarified more than just Walshe’s marital status. It added details to the timeline of her disappearance. The last time she was seen at her Cohasset home was between 4 and 5 a.m. on January 1. However, no one reported her missing until Wednesday, January 4, when her husband Brian and her DC employer notified authorities that no one had heard from her.
Cohasset PD Chief William Quigley told media early Friday that Walshe was set to use a ride-sharing service like Lyft or Uber to travel from Cohasset to Logan Airport (a 20-plus mile drive), where she’d board a flight to DC. Investigators haven’t confirmed she used a ride share, and they know she didn’t get on a flight.
More puzzling still: Chief Quigley said Walshe did have a plane ticket, but it was for January 3. Not New Year’s Day. The missing woman was allegedly heading down early for some “work emergency.” It’s hard to imagine what kind of emergency someone working in property management might have on Sunday, January 1. Still, since her job was in DC, it’s possible, given a likely influx of newly-elected legislators and staffers.
So, here’s a basic recap:
Jan. 1 - Ana Walshe allegedly has a “work emergency” in DC. She supposedly is last seen between 4 and 5 that morning. She was going to take a rideshare for the 20-plus mile drive between Cohasset and Boston’s Logan Airport.
Jan. 3 - Walshe had a plane ticket for this date. She never boarded a flight on the 1st or the 3rd.
Jan. 4 - Walshe’s husband Brian and her DC employer report her missing.
Jan. 5 - News of her disappearance begins to spread.
Jan. 6 - Police begin investigating outdoors near Walshe’s current Cohasset home. At the same time, a fire breaks out in the Walshe’s previous home on Jerusalem Road.
Again, thank you for reading. I want to note the difference between newsletters and blogging is it’s hard to add to the coverage of a story like this by simply updating and linking previous posts — the format requires a new article. Any updates after this will come as a new edition of the True Crime Report newsletter.
Ana Walshe is 5’2”, 115 lbs, and speaks with an Eastern European accent. If you have any information about her disappearance, call Cohasset, Massachusetts police at 781-383-1055, Ext. 6108 or email hschmidt@cohassetpolice.com.
Where is Ana Walshe? (Part 2)
I wonder who actually bought the plane ticket and communicated to her friends or family that she had a "work emergency." Maybe I missed a reference to her cell phone but it seems so weird for a working professional to completely disappear in this day and age. If she's got a smart phone you'd think closest family would know where her phone was last.
The Cohasset police reported her phone has been “off” since early on Jan 1. No one hires a ride share then turns their phone off. In fact most people (especially moms of young kids) never turn their phones off. That’s one of the biggest red flags here.