Police have unearthed a potential murder kit that includes a hatchet, blood strains, a hacksaw, a rug and used cleaning supplies while searching for missing Massachusetts mom-of-three Ana Walshe on Tuesday, according to police sources. The evidence was found near Ana Walshe's arrested art swindler husband Brian Walshe's mother's home in Peabody.
This came as police continued the hunt for Ana nine days after she vanished. Brian Walshe, a convicted fraudster arrested in 2018 for peddling fake Andy Warhol paintings, allegedly admitted to authorities that his wife had left early on January 1 on a "'work emergency,'" according to the arrest document. However, police now find Brian Walshe's account completely false and baseless.
Chilling Evidence Unearthed
There is no evidence that Ana, as was her practice while traveling for work, took an Uber, Lyft, or cab to the airport. Police believe Ana never took the work flight t Washington D.C. on Jan 1, as claimed by her husband.
Brian, according to the arrest affidavit, also told police that after Ana left in a rideshare, he left the house that afternoon to go see his mother in Swampscott, which is an hour away. Police have now found a hatchet, blood strains, a hacksaw, a rug and used cleaning supplies near his mother's home in Peabody.
According to reports, the items were found in a garbage station that doubles as a compactor in the Peabody area, close to her home in Swampscott, which is located 14 miles north of Boston.
It comes as it was revealed that Brian Walshe had looked up "how to dispose of a 115-pound woman's body" online. Cops discovered more blood in the room as well as a knife with blood on it in their basement. They also said that Brian Walshe had spent $450 at Home Depot on cleaning supplies.
After hours of digging through the trash, the Norfolk District Attorney's office verified that a "number of items" were found at the Peabody transfer site.
"Search activity conducted north of Boston yesterday resulted in a number of items being collected which will now be subject to processing and testing to determine if they are of evidentiary value to this investigation," Norfolk District Attorney's office said in a statement.
The case which was initially being treated as a mission person's case now looks completely different.
Contradictory Statement
Police said Brian Walshe didn't have a cell phone when he went to his mother's home. "At the time, Walshe did not have his cell phone so he did not use a GPS," authorities stated. He reportedly claimed that one of his sons had to have stolen the device at some point during the celebrations for the New Year.
"Walshe related he drove to his mother's house via the route leading by Derby Street in Hingham, Route 3 north, Route 93 through Boston, and instead of taking Route 1A, he got lost and took Route 1 and then maybe Route 114," the arrest affidavit read.
"Walshe related the commute should have taken 60-70 minutes but ended up taking about 90 minutes."
Brian claimed he helped his mother in doing errands at Whole Foods and CVS before returning to the Cohasset house at 8 pm. However, surveillance footage does not show him at the grocery store or drugstore at the time he mentioned to cops to have gone there.
Later, Brian claimed that he found his cell phone under his pillow on January 2, while simultaneously breaking parole by going to a Home Depot in a city he was not allowed to visit.
Now, investigators assert that Walshe purposefully wasted their time by lying when questioned about his locations on the day Ana vanished.
"The fact that he was asked a specific question and he gave an untruthful answer that led investigators out of the area caused a clear delay in the search for the missing person," the affidavit reads.
Is Ana Alive?
Brian was arrested on Sunday on charges of misleading the police in their investigation. However, the grim discovery of multiple weapons and cleaning supplies has now raised fears about safety of Ana Walshe.
It also seems Ana Walshe's relationship with her husband may have soured only lately as she gushed about her husband in a letter to a judge written last summer and praised him for helping her mother after she experienced a brain aneurysm in December 2021. "Not only did he save her life, but he also brought her and the entire family comfort and joy during the course of her illness," Ana wrote of her husband's time in home confinement.
"Brian has been working consistently on breaking the past bad habits of his family and we are all looking forward to the new chapter of his life," she continued.
But she looked worried lately as she begged her mother to come from her homeland Serbia and visit her, a week before she mysteriously vanished on New Year's Day.
Milanka Ljubicic, 69, told Fox News Digital that Ana's requests to reunite over the holidays have now made her believe that there may be "some problems" in her life.
"She just said, 'Please, mama. Come tomorrow,'" said Ljubicic on Monday in an interview from her home in Belgrade, Serbia and later translated to English. "Which means, that clearly, there must have been some problems."
Ljubicic told Fox News that her daughter texted her on December 25 inviting her to visit Washington the following day, but she refused because she couldn't get herself together in time. She claimed that although she had proposed traveling the next day and then in early January, Ana had told her she didn't have to.
"And now I can't forgive myself for not just letting things fall where they may, and just go, and whatever happens to me, happens," the worried mother said, explaining that her daughter never said why she was so eager to meet her.
According to Ljubicic, her daughter tried to call her twice on December 31—once about midnight and once shortly after—but both attempts were unsuccessful. Ana allegedly contacted her maid of honor, who couldn't hear the phone because of the loud music, and an older sister who was asleep.
"And now, I regret not getting the phone, because she's disappeared," Ljubicic reportedly said.
In spite of Brian Walshe being the subject of increasing suspicion over the whereabouts of his wife, Ljubicic claimed she never detected "anything bad" about him.
However, police are now suspecting foul play as they continue to search for Ana Walshe on Tuesday morning.
