Husband of Missing Woman Arrested, Allegedly Looked Up Ways to Dispose of a Body

When Ana Walshe, age 39, failed to show up for work on January 4 at her Washington, DC, office for commercial real estate firm Tishman Speyer, the company contacted local authorities. When authorities began their investigation, they discovered she was last seen in the early morning hours of January 1, after celebrating the new year with her husband, Brian Walshe, and a family friend. Authorities made shocking discoveries when they investigated the matter.

Mr. Walshe, 47, claims that the last time he saw her, she was leaving their family home in Cohasset, Massachusetts, to take an Uber to Boston’s Logan Airport for a flight to Washington, D.C., for “a work emergency.” While it may appear strange that a man would go three days without hearing from his wife and the mother of their three little children and not show any distress,  it’s what prosecutors presented as evidence after charging him with her murder.

At Walshe’s arraignment on January 18, state lawyers claimed he made internet searches that were especially ghoulish given his wife’s uncertain whereabouts.

These are some of them:

1.) How long before a body starts to smell
2.) How to stop a body from decomposing
3.) How to embalm a body
4.) Dismemberment and the best ways to dispose of a body
5.) Can you be charged with murder without a body

Prosecutors allege investigators discovered blood and a bloody knife in the couple’s basement, as well as trash bags containing a hatchet, a hacksaw, and a COVID-19 immunization card in Ana’s name. They also testified in court about how the objects in the bags were bloodsoaked, and DNA tests revealed that both of them were “contributors” to the fluid.

Walshe was already being held on a $500,000 bond on suspicion of lying to police during their investigation into his wife’s disappearance. He was on home detention at the time of her abduction, awaiting punishment after pleading guilty to selling two bogus Andy Warhol paintings on eBay for $80,000.