COHASSET — Authorities looking for a mother of three young children who has been missing since early New Year’s Day, said Saturday that they have ended their search of a wooded area near the woman’s home.
Ana Walshe, 39, disappeared after she left her home around 4 a.m. on Jan. 1 when she was expected to take a rideshare to Boston for a flight to Washington, D.C., a family member told police.
Cohasset police and State Police troopers, including some with K-9s, spent a second day Saturday searching a wooded area near Walshe’s home in the 500 block of Chief Justice Cushing Highway, which is Route 3A.
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Authorities set up a command center behind a Stop & Shop supermarket, on the edge of the woods where police searched.
State Police divers also searched a stream and a pool but did not find anything, according to David Procopio, a State Police spokesperson.
Procopio said in a statement Saturday afternoon that “State Police and Cohasset Police detectives continue to undertake various investigative actions to determine Ms. Walshe’s whereabouts.”
The ground search will not resume, he said, unless investigators develop new information that warrants doing so.
More than 50 troopers and Cohasset officers participated in Saturday’s search, which wrapped up around 4:30 p.m., according to Justin Shrair, a Cohasset police spokesman.
The FBI is also assisting in the search, officials have said.
David Traub, a spokesman for Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey, said Saturday that the investigation remains a missing person case.
Investigators have asked people with any information to contact them at tips@cohassetpolice.com.
Also on Saturday, fire officials said that a two-alarm blaze that broke out Friday afternoon at Walshe’s former property at 725 Jerusalem Road in Cohasset was not suspicious. The fire originated in the area of damaged piping connected to a natural gas fireplace insert, according to Jake Wark, a spokesman for the state Department of Fire Services.
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The fire had been reported as police began searching the woods for clues about Walshe’s whereabouts, prompting speculation about a connection to her disappearance.
Walshe bought the Jerusalem Road property for $800,000 in 2020 and sold it for $1.385 million in March 2022, according to officials and state records.
Walshe was traveling to D.C. on Jan. 1 because of an emergency involving one of the properties she manages there, Cohasset Police Chief William Quigley said on Friday.
Quigley has said investigators have not been able to confirm whether she ever got into a rideshare vehicle, but they have determined she did not board a flight at Logan on Sunday
Walshe also was booked for a flight to D.C. on Jan. 3, he said.
She was reported missing Wednesday by her husband and colleagues at her workplace, Quigley said.
Police have searched a home owned by the Walshe family in Washington, D.C., without success, Quigley said.
Walshe is a regional general manager for Tishman Speyer, a property management and real estate brokerage, according to her LinkedIn profile. The company has said it is cooperating in the search for her.
She is a native of Serbia, and a friend told the Globe she is a devoted mother and wife who would work 50 to 60 hours a week but prioritized time with her family.
Walshe’s husband, Brian R. Walshe, has cooperated with police during the search. He said he was asleep when Walshe left for her trip Sunday, Quigley said.
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Quigley has said Walshe has not been in touch with any family, friends, or coworkers, and has not used her cellphone since Sunday.
As of Friday, police had not found any surveillance video footage of her leaving her home in Cohasset, he said.
In 2021, Brian Walshe pleaded guilty in federal court in Boston to scamming a buyer in Los Angeles into purchasing a pair of fake Andy Warhol paintings for $80,000. He is awaiting sentencing, according to court records.
Quigley has said that Walshe’s disappearance and her husband’s criminal case “seem to be two very separate things.”
Walshe praised her husband in a June 2022 letter to the court, calling him a wonderful stay-at-home father.
“We are all looking forward to the new chapter of his life,” she wrote.
A neighbor who lives near the Walshe home on Chief Justice Cushing Highway said Saturday that the area was quiet on New Year’s Eve and nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
The neighbor, who declined to give her name, said she did not know the Walshe family and the mystery has left a spell of unease over the neighborhood.
“We’ve been here for years, everybody takes care of everybody,” she said. “So to hear something like that so close to home is a little nerve-wracking.”
Christy Driscoll, a realtor who rented out a home to Walshe in Cohasset, said she only met with Walshe a few times but “found her very lovely, she was always very upbeat.”
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Driscoll said the community is stunned by Walshe’s disappearance and hopeful that she returns soon.
“It’s so hard to say what’s going on, but we’re all just hoping for the best,” she said.
Ivy Scott of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
John Hilliard can be reached at john.hilliard@globe.com. Nick Stoico can be reached at nick.stoico@globe.com. Follow him @NickStoico.