Bloody knife found in basement of missing Massachusetts mother’s home

Ana Walshe, age 39, was last seen at her home in Cohasset, Massachusetts, shortly after midnight on New Year’s Day. | Courtesy Cohasset Police
(CNN) — Investigators looking into the disappearance of a Massachusetts woman found a bloody knife in the basement of the home she shared with her husband and accused him of misleading police, a prosecutor with the Norfolk District Attorney’s office said in court Monday.
The alleged discovery of the knife was revealed during a Quincy District Court hearing for the woman’s husband, Brian Walshe. Ana Walshe, a mother of three, has not been seen since New Year’s Day.
Her husband said he last saw her early on January 1 when she took an Uber or Lyft to the airport to fly to Washington DC for work, according to prosecutor Lynn Beland. Her workplace reported her missing on January 4 after she did not show up to her job, Beland said.
However, a police investigation found there was not an Uber or Lyft that day, she did not arrive to her flight or to DC, and her cell phone pinged at her home later in the day, Beland said.
The investigation also called into question Walshe’s statements to police about his actions and movements the first few days of the new year. For one, Beland said he took his child to get ice cream on Jan. 2, but surveillance video shows he bought $450 of cleaning supplies at Home Depot that day, including mops, a bucket and tarps, the prosecutor said.
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Police obtained a search warrant and found blood and a damaged, bloody knife in the basement of their home, Beland said.
“These various statements caused a delay in the investigation to the point that during the time frame when he didn’t report his wife and gave various statements, that allowed him time to either clean up evidence, dispose of evidence, and causing a delay,” prosecutor Lynn Beland said.
A defense attorney for Brian Walshe said his wife’s employer reported him missing because he had first called them to ask about her whereabouts. The attorney also noted he has given multiple interviews with police and consented to search of his properties.
“He has been incredibly cooperative,” she said.
The judge set bail at $500,000 cash and set the next hearing for February 9.
On Saturday, Cohasset and Massachusetts State Police said in a joint statement investigators have “concluded” their ground search for Ana Walshe. The decision to suspend search efforts in the wooded area surrounding her home was made after two days of searching with “negative results,” the statement said.
The ground search will not resume unless new information warrants, it added, though detectives “continue to undertake various investigative actions to determine Ms. Walshe’s whereabouts.”
The two-day search of the area surrounding Walshe’s home in Cohasset — a town on Massachusetts Bay, 20 miles southeast of Boston — involved 20 state troopers from a specialized search and rescue unit, three K-9 teams, the State Police Air Wing and police divers, authorities said.
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