Family members of missing mom Ana Walshe are speaking out after the investigation into her disappearance took an ugly turn.
“He was a lovely man, lovely. And I just can’t believe that Brian would do this — if he did do this. I don’t know,” Ana’s cousin Elizabeta Jovičić told NBC Boston.
Brian Walshe was arrested last week for “misleading” the police in the investigation of the disappearance of his wife, Ana, who was scheduled to leave her home in Cohasset, Massachusetts, on New Year’s Day for a business trip to Washington, D.C. The mother of three never got on the plane and hasn’t been seen since.
Jovičić, who lives in Serbia, told the outlet it was surreal watching her cousin make international headlines, adding that Ana’s mother was extremely concerned about her daughter’s well-being, particularly after missing a call from her on New Year’s Eve.
“She called her mom, her sister and a friend. No one answered the call, and she just disappeared,” Jovičić said.
Surveillance video shows Ana Walshe’s husband at a dumpster: reports https://t.co/cd8JvbUtAF pic.twitter.com/6b0RZA2jwi
— New York Post (@nypost) January 12, 2023
Jovičić shared that she last spoke with Walshe a week before she disappeared and told the outlet that nothing seemed out of the ordinary. “She did not speak bad of Brian or her situation with him,” Jovičić said.
Surveillance video allegedly showed Brian Walshe near a dumpster by his mother’s condominium, whom he claimed he visited the day his wife disappeared, CBS Boston reported. Brian Walshe told police that he ran errands for his mother that day, visiting both a CVS and a Whole Foods store, but officials have not seen any footage of him inside those stores, according to 7 News Boston.
Though no physical evidence has been found in the dumpster Brian Walshe allegedly visited, investigators did discover bloodied trash bags, a hacksaw, a rug and used cleaning supplies at a nearby trash facility. Prosecutors have also claimed to have found a damaged knife and blood in the couple’s basement, NBC 10 reported. The DNA process, however, takes some time. (RELATED: ‘How To Dismember A Body’: Husband Of Missing Mom Allegedly Made Eerie Internet Search)
“There’s not any benefit to being in a hurry at this point. You want the lab to be thoughtful,” Dr. Robin Cotton, who teaches forensic DNA analysis at the Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine, told the outlet. Cotton added the cold weather probably preserved the bloodied evidence. “If it was 90 degrees in the middle of the summer, that might be a different story,” she added.
Brian is being held on a $500,000 bond after pleading not guilty on Monday for misleading investigators, CBS Boston noted. He has not been charged in the disappearance of his wife.
The couple’s three boys are in state custody, though family friends are trying to get them out of foster care so that they can be together. “I can only imagine the unfathomable pain that they’re going through,” family friend Pamela Bardhi told WCVB News. “This is, unfortunately, going to be something they live with for the rest of their lives, despite the outcome of this investigation.”