I-Team: Piecing together evidence that led to murder charge against Brian Walshe
BOSTON - When Brian Walshe was charged with the murder of his wife Ana on Wednesday, prosecutors revealed new details about the investigation.
The WBZ I-Team was first to report much of the evidence police were uncovering in the Ana Walshe case. WBZ-TV's Cheryl Fiandaca looks at how investigators put together the pieces of the puzzle.
Police became suspicious on January 4 when prosecutors say Ana's Washington, D.C. employer reported her missing. They went to the family's Cohasset home and what they saw made Brian Walshe, Ana's husband, a potential suspect in her disappearance.
At Walshe's arraignment on murder charges Wednesday, Assistant District Attorney Lynn Beland said, "When Cohasset police went to the house for the well-being check, officers observed his Volvo with seats down and a plastic liner in the back of the car."
After seeing the plastic liner, police started asking questions and Walshe's answers, sources say, didn't add up.
Walshe allegedly told investigators he last saw Ana New Year's Day, when she took a ride share to the airport for an early flight to D.C. for a work emergency. But police say they found no record of that trip. And that's not all. Beland told a judge, "Ana's phone indicated that it was stationary in the area of the Cohasset house on New Year's Eve, and at 3:14 a.m. on (January 2) it was turned off."
Investigators looking into Walshe's account of where he was on January 1 began checking into claims that he went to CVS and Whole Foods. But investigators say they did not find any evidence or receipts from those trips.
Prosecutors say Walshe was using his son's iPad to Google "How long before a body starts to smell" and "Ten ways to dispose of a dead body" among other searches.
The next day on January 2, police say they found surveillance video of Walshe at a nearby Home Depot. Prosecutors say, "the defendant was observed on a security camera pushing a cart. Items included cleaning products, mops, brushes, tape, tarp, a Tyvex suit with boot covers, buckets, goggles, baking soda and a hatchet."
Investigators continued to track Walshe using data from his cell phone. That led them to an apartment complex in Abington. There, prosecutors say Walshe is spotted on surveillance video. "He walks to the dumpster carrying a garbage bag," Beland said. "He's leaning and it appears to be heavy as he has to heft it into the dumpster."
On January 8, police get a search warrant for the Walshe family home in Cohasset. In court, Beland said, "they found blood in the basement, a knife with the presence of blood. The knife was damaged. A second knife was also found.
Police still using data from Walshe's cell phone then headed to a dumpster in Abington and two others. But sources say they were too late, the trash had been picked up and brought to a Wareham incinerator and no evidence was found.
On January 9, Walshe is charged with misleading investigators. The same day, police took dumpsters from the Swampscott condominium complex where his mother lives and brought it to a trash facility in Peabody. The I-Team was first to report police found evidence at that site. That evidence, sources say, was in trash bags and included a hatchet, a hacksaw, blood and more.
Assistant District Attorney Beland said among the items secured were towels, rags, slippers, tape, a Tyvex suit, gloves, cleaning agents and a COVID-19 vaccine card in the name of Ana Walshe.
Prosecutors also say DNA testing on the evidence collected showed the presence of Brian's blood and Ana's blood