Real estate executive Ana Walshe was looking forward to the promise of what 2023 had to offer.
Chillingly, before her disappearance, the Serbian immigrant who met her husband in 2008, wrote a missive just hours before an intimate New Year’s Eve party about her hopes for the new year.
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The note, written in red on the side of a champagne box reads: “Wow! 2022 … What a year! And yet, we are still here and together! Let’s make 2023 the best one yet! We are the authors of our lives … courage, love, perseverance, compassion, and joy. Love, Ana.”
Nothing appeared to be amiss, according to a friend who shared the bottle on the big night.
“There was a lot of looking forward to the New Year. There was no indication of anything other than celebrating the New Year, problems on hold,” the person told WBZ-TV.
And then, Ana Walshe vanished.
Cohasset is one of those charming New England towns that sounds like it might be a rival to Family Guy’s fictional Qohog.
Instead, the real-life town of 8,000 has burst into the international limelight for a nightmare still unfolding.
The shocking disappearance of the 39-year-old mom of three young boys is unravelling like an episode of a daytime soap opera.
Homicide detectives instinctively know the first port of call in any investigation is the husband, wife, children and others close to the victim.
In this case, it’s Ana Walshe’s husband, Brian Walshe, who another beneficiary of his father’s will once called a “sociopath.”
Who is Bryan Walshe? He is a 47-year-old convicted art swindler who is now behind bars for misleading detectives investigating his wife’s disappearance and is being held on $500,000 cash bail.
At the time of his bust, Walshe was under house arrest for selling bogus Andy Warhol paintings. His latest legal misstep wasn’t his first.
In 2018, he was accused of destroying his father’s will. The old man was a wealthy neurologist and Brian Walshe was enraged that he had been cut adrift from sharing in his father’s fortune.
His dad, Dr. Thomas Morecroft Walshe, offered his son “my best wishes but nothing else.” Instead, he left the dough to a longtime friend.
“I saw Brian attempt to smuggle out antiquities from China,” the man wrote. “When Brian was confronted, he picked up a stanchion and literally attempted to kill four or five guards that had come to talk to him about his crime.”
He added: “Brian is not only a sociopath, but also a very angry and physically violent person.”
So far cops have dug up the backyard pool at the now notorious at 516 Chief Justice Cushing Hwy. Media reports are suggesting forensics investigators have also found blood and a broken knife in the home.
And things aren’t looking great for Brian Walshe. According to CNN, the alleged headcase hubby searched the web with these queries: “How to dispose of a 115-pound woman’s body” and “how to dismember a body.”
He also reportedly spent $450 in cleaning supplies.
Brian Walshe later told the friend his wife had been called to Washington for a work emergency. Cops found no record of it.
He finally reported her missing on Jan. 4.
In recent months, prior to her disappearance, some friends told the media that Ana had been acting odd. She promised a “big surprise” in the New Year. The couple was also in the midst of a fire sale of their assets.
Friends and investigators say Ana Walshe appeared to pay most of the bills and their portfolio of properties and investments was in her name. He seemed to either do nothing or scam. It was Ana “who wore the pants in the family.”
And while the Walshes emitted a sunny, united front, the reality appeared to be much different. Tenant Mike Silva said the slender beauty was “a little flirtatious.”
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There were also frequent putdowns of her layabout husband, who she left a previous marriage for. Silva recalled Ana telling him in the presence of her husband: “Brian is like a girl, when he scrapes himself, he cries like a little girl.”
But as the clock ran out on 2022, friends said Ana seemed to be coming apart.
Mandi Silva said: “It was like a whole other Ana.”
“My heart is breaking the more information is released,” former co-worker Cofield Williams told the New York Post last week. “Even thinking about the thought of (Ana) not being among us anymore is truly devastating.”
The investigation is ongoing.
bhunter@postmedia.com
@HunterTOSun