Ana Walshe disappearance: Court records shed light on Brian Walshe’s pattern of behavior

COHASSET, Mass. — The man facing a charge of misleading a police investigation following the disappearance of his wife, Ana Walshe, struggled to deal with trauma from his childhood and grew to become both charismatic and manipulative, according to people who knew him and more than a dozen character letters obtained by WFXT.

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The letters were filed in federal court after Brian Walshe, 47, pleaded guilty in 2021 to fraud charges. Brian Walshe stole two Andy Warhol paintings from a friend in South Korea and offered them for sale online, later sending counterfeits to the buyers, according to prosecutors.

Brian Walshe was born to Diana Walshe and Timothy Walshe, a prominent neurologist in Boston, according to WFXT. In a sentencing memorandum, his attorneys said he grew up in a “family with economic means” though they said his childhood could “hardly be considered to be privileged” due to the acrimonious relationship between his parents.

Diana Walshe said in a letter filed in court that her son was “the ONLY reason I get up in the morning.” She described her son as reliable and “the most amazing father.”

“He loves his wife very much and was concerned when his mother-in-law lost her husband of 47 years in Serbia,” she wrote. She also said that she and Ana Walshe “do not have a good relationship … perhaps due to cultural differences.”

Ana Walshe wrote that she and her husband met in 2008, while she was working in Lenox, Massachusetts. They dated long-distance until she moved to Boston in 2015, and they married soon after.

“It was love at first sight for me and I feel the same way about Brian to this day,” Ana Walshe wrote in 2021. She described her husband as “the love of my love, my life partner, best friend and the father of our three children.” However, she added that Brian Walshe struggled to cope with issues stemming from his childhood.

“He was taught to lie and hide,” she wrote. “He was told that he was a loser, that his parents should not have had him, that he had no chances of making anything of himself and life, and that he was a lost cause. This trauma has been ever-present in Brian’s life, brought deep sadness for years and was the determining factor of how he showed up for himself and others in the past.”

A longtime friend of Thomas Walshe, who asked not to be named, told WFXT that he knew Brian Walshe when he was a child. He said that as the younger Walshe grew older, “he sort of lost touch with how people make it in the world and assumed a mantle of entitlement.”

“There (were) signs he was a con-artist,” the person said, according to WFXT.

He told the news station that Brian Walshe used an elaborate real estate scheme to con his father out of a “large sum” of money, and that afterward, he disappeared from the elder Walshe’s life.

“His father was never the same after that,” the person said.

When Thomas Walshe died in 2018, he left his son out of his will. Court records obtained by WFXT alleged that Brian Walshe destroyed his father’s will and tried to take control of his estate. The family friend said that people had to intervene to keep the younger Walshe from selling his father’s home.

“All the people that I know that know Brian … are equally shocked,” the family friend said. “No one said, ‘It was just a matter of time.’ Everyone is shocked.”

Authorities said that years earlier, Walshe took two Warhol paintings from a friend in South Korea after promising that he would sell them on his friend’s behalf, according to WFXT and prosecutors. However, authorities said that Walshe cut off contact with his friend after returning to the U.S. He sold one of the paintings on eBay in 2016 for $80,000 and then gave the buyer a fake.

WFXT identified the victim as Ron Rivlin, owner of the world’s largest Warhol gallery, Revolver Gallery in California. He told the news station that Brian Walshe was “charismatic, articulate and professional” during the purchase, after which he became unreachable. It wasn’t until after Rivlin got authorities and Ana Walshe involved that Brian Walshe began to cooperate, he said.

“What happened to me is telling of (Walshe’s) masterful ability to coerce and deceive people,” he told WFXT.

Ana Walshe was last seen on New Year’s Day. She was reported missing by her employer on Jan. 4. Authorities have since said they found blood and a bloody knife in the Walshe family home in Cohasset.

Ana Walshe remains missing.

Brian Walshe was under house arrest awaiting sentencing for the fraud charges when his wife was last seen, though prosecutors said he was caught on surveillance camera buying hundreds of dollars’ worth of cleaning supplies from a Home Depot on Jan. 2. He has pleaded not guilty to one count of misleading a police investigation.

Authorities continue to investigate.

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