Damning snaps show Brian Walshe bought hacksaw, cleaning supplies after wife vanished: authorities

Newly released photos show accused murderer Brian Walshe buying a hacksaw and loads of cleaning supplies and chucking a heavy trash bag into a dumpster just hours after his wife mysteriously disappeared.

The grainy black-and-white surveillance camera shots reveal the 47-year-old Massachusetts art dealer wearing a face mask as he stuffs a litany of supplies into a shopping cart at Lowe’s, including five-gallon buckets, a hacksaw, terry cloth towels, a framing hammer, Tyvek suit, mop, rags, trash bags, and cleaning products, according to a prosecutors’ statement in the case.

The pictures — along with location data from Walshe’s oldest child’s cell phone — place the suspect “alone in Lowes where he bought items that would aid in the dismemberment and disposal of a human body and the cleanup of a murder scene,” prosecutors wrote.

Another photo shows Walshe throwing what looks like a heavy black trash bag into a dumpster outside a Massachusetts apartment building, the Daily Mail reported.

The photos are the newest piece of damning evidence against Walshe, who stands accused of beating his wife, Ana, to death in the family’s Cohasset home before chopping her up, bagging her remains, and tossing them into several dumpsters during the first week of January.

Authorities have not found the 39-year-old mom-of-three’s body.


Security camera footage of Brian Walshe at Lowes
Brian Walshe was captured on camera buying a litany of supplies that would “aid in the dismemberment and disposal of a human body,” Massachusetts prosecutors say.
Quincy District Court

Security camera footage of Brian Walshe at Lowes
The security footage, together with location data from Walshe’s oldest kid’s cell phone, placed him alone at the store, prosecutors say.
Quincy District Court

Brian Walshe allegedly disposing of garbage bags.
Other footage caught Walshe allegedly disposing of heavy black trash bags in area dumpsters.
Quincy District Court

But police say they have a pile of circumstantial evidence linking her husband to the New Year’s Day crime, such as the photos, clothing of hers that he allegedly dumped and Google searches they say he performed seeking information on how to dispose of a body.

Prosecutors allege Walshe killed Ana, a real-estate executive, after discovering her affair.

The slain wife had spent Thanksgiving in Dublin with a mystery lover, according to recently released court papers. Her unidentified beau told cops that he’d been having an affair with her for several months.

Days before her death, Ana told a friend that she thought her husband was going to prison — presumably on art-fraud charges — and she planned to leave him and move to Washington, DC, court documents said.

Prosecutors also say Walshe stood to benefit from a $2.7 million life insurance payout if Ana died, according to a report in the Daily Mail. But the defense claims he doesn’t need the money because his family is already loaded.


A photo of Ana and Brian Walshe
Walshe has been charged with first-degree murder for allegedly killing his wife, Ana, a real-estate executive.
ana.ljubicic/Facebook

Brian Walshe at his arraignment.
Walshe was arraigned Thursday and ordered held without bail.
AP

Ana Walshe sitting on some steps.
Authorities have not found Ana’s body.
Instagram / Ana Walshe

Authorities have charged Walshe with first-degree murder. He was arraigned Thursday in Norfolk Superior Court and has pleaded not guilty.

A judge dismissed the defense’s request to set his bail at $150,000, instead ordering that he be held before his trial.

Police arrested Walshe on Jan. 8 for misleading cops in their investigation into Ana’s disappearance. When they searched the house, investigators found bloodstains in the basement and a bloody knife.

Walshe’s lawyer, Tracy Miner, has claimed Ana is only missing because she doesn’t want to be found and that she simply ran off.

Walshe will return to court in August.