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COHASSET, MASS. (WHDH) - Police continue to search for clues into the disappearance of a Cohasset mother of three who was last seen shortly after midnight on New Years Day.
Investigators could be seen sorting through trash at a transfer station in Peabody Monday night to find any sign of 39-year-old Ana Walshe.
The search was launched after Brian Walshe, 46, of Cohasset, told police that he went to his mother’s house in Swampscott on New Year’s Day, but that it took him longer than it should have because he got lost.
Brian also said he went to Whole Foods and CVS, but officials stated he was not seen on surveillance video at either store and that there were no receipts for the items he claimed to purchase.
Brian was arraigned in Quincy District Court Monday on a charge of misleading a police investigation. He is being held on $500,000 bail.
Prosecutors say Brian misled police by telling them Ana had left for the airport in an Uber or Lyft on Jan. 1 to fly to Washington D.C., where she works for a real estate agency. However, officials said there was no evidence she left the house and that her phone pinged at her home location on Jan. 2.
Additionally, prosecutors said Brian claimed the only time he left his home on Jan. 2 was to take his son for a smoothie. However, he was seen on surveillance video around 4 p.m. at a Home Depot in Rockland, where he purchased $450 worth of cleaning supplies, including mops, a bucket, and tarps.
Police later obtained a search warrant and searched the house they were renting, where they found blood in the basement and a knife with blood on it.
Walshe’s attorney told the court her client has been nothing but cooperative with authorities during the investigation over the past several days, emphasizing that Walshe has not been charged with murder.
“The charges are not anything relating – he’s not charged with murder,” defense attorney Tracy Minor said. “He’s charged with misleading investigators by not saying, as I understand it, he went to Home Depot.”
Minor said Walshe had allowed authorities into the family’s home throughout the investigation, consenting to the searches, and that he was the reason Ana was reported missing in the first place, being the one who contacted her employer in Washington, D.C.
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