Former FBI agent says DNA will be 'jackpot' in Ana Walshe case
COHASSET - A former FBI special agent says forensic analysis is now the crucial piece in the disappearance of Ana Walshe of Cohasset.
"The main concern is the DNA," former agent Jennifer Coffindaffer told WBZ-TV.
Does the bloody knife found at the Cohasset home, the hacksaw or rug remnants found at a landfill, according to I-Team sources, have Brian Walshe's DNA on them?
"That hacksaw that was touched with such friction would very likely have DNA left on it," Coffindaffer said. "That combined with her DNA will be the jackpot in this case."
She says it's largely a circumstantial case right now, as Walshe has only been charged with misleading investigators. Behind the scenes it takes time to process the evidence.
On Friday, the Norfolk County District Attorney's Office confirmed search warrants connected to the case have been returned to Quincy District Court and impounded.
"They are having to look through blood, possibly saliva unless a mask was worn," Coffindaffer said. "Remember this would cause a lot of exertion to do what is being thought that he did."
Not just physical evidence, she says, but a trove of legal documents with new insight into Walshe's mental state. In particular, a legal dispute over his father Tom's will from which Brian was excluded.
Court documents reveal an affidavit in which a friend of the father's, Dr. Fred Pescatore, said "I wanted no contact with nor communication with Brian, who I knew from Tom to be a felon and a sociopath."
He later writes that their estrangement "had all to do with Brian being a sociopath who could never stay in one school as a child."
"I think the documents reveal he's very volatile and all this was coming to a head," said Coffindaffer.
But so far Ana Walshe has not been found so the forensics and building a timeline she says is crucial for prosecutors.
"I think we'll have to come to grips with the fact they might not find a body," Coffindaffer said. "The prosecutor is thinking I don't have a body I need to have this DNA."
