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Who is Ana Walshe, the Cohasset woman missing since New Year’s Day?

Ana Walshe.

Ana Walshe has not been seen since she left her Cohasset home early New Year’s Day to catch a flight from Logan International Airport to Washington, D.C., her husband, Brian Walshe told police, according to a affidavit filed Monday in Quincy District Court.

The affidavit is part of a criminal case against Brian Walshe, who has been charged with misleading the investigation into her disappearance.

Here’s a rundown of what we know about Ana Walshe.

Who is Ana Walshe?

Walshe, 39, is married to Brian Walshe and the couple have three children under the age of 6. She’s currently a regional general manager for Tishman Speyer, a property management and real estate brokerage, where she has worked since February, according to her LinkedIn profile.

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Walshe is a native of Serbia and came to the United States in 2005. At the time, she was going back and forth between Serbia and Washington, D.C., on summer work visas, according to Carrie Westbrook, a longtime friend who lives in the Washington area.

Ana married Brian Walshe in 2015, according to friends and court records.

Abdulla Almutairi, a former colleague and close friend of Walshe’s for more than a decade, said Walshe began to travel to Washington, D.C., for work in the past year. She would spend the workweek in the nation’s capital and return to Cohasset on the weekends.

Walshe’s family has a house in Washington. According to assessor records, Walshe brought the home in the city’s Chevy Chase neighborhood for $1.3 million in March.

Almutairi said Walshe was a devoted mother who tried to maximize her time with her children and husband.

“You’re talking about somebody that worked 50 to 60 hours a week, got an Uber to [the] airport, and took a two-hour flight and then took a cab to Cohasset to spend a day and a half with her kids,” he told the Globe. “She’s amazing.”

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Brian Walshe was arraigned Monday on a single count of misleading police. Prosecutors said police found blood and a damaged knife with blood on it in the basement of the couple’s Cohasset home. They also said Walshe bought $450 of cleaning supplies before his wife was reported missing to authorities on Jan. 4.

Walshe was the subject of another case in 2021, when he pleaded guilty in US District Court in Boston to swindling a Los Angeles art buyer out of $80,000 by selling him two fake Andy Warhol paintings, according to court records.

Brian Walshe is currently awaiting sentencing in the federal case, records show.

Ana Walshe, in a June letter to US District Court Judge Douglas Woodlock, said her husband was a wonderful stay-at-home father.

“We are all looking forward to the new chapter of his life,” she wrote.

Walshe also said her husband saved her mother’s life after she suffered a “major neurological event” in 2021.

“Brian was the one who heard my mother’s sighs for help within seconds and immediately called me and emergency,” she told the judge. “Now, months later, she has made about 95% recovery and she keeps repeating that she wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for her son-in-law, Brian.”

Milanka Ljubicic, Ana Walshe’s mother, credited Brian Walshe for saving her life in a separate letter to the court.

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On Friday, Cohasset Police Chief William Quigley said Brian Walshe’s court case and Ana Walshe’s disappearance “seem to be two very separate things.”

What happened on New Year’s Day?

Brian Walshe and Ana Walshe hosted a friend for dinner at their Cohasset home on New Year’s Eve and went to bed after the friend left, according to the affidavit released Monday.

Ana Walshe left the family’s Cohasset home to take a rideshare to Logan for a flight to D.C., Brian Walshe told authorities, according to the affidavit.

She left between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m., the affidavit stated. Police had previously said she had left around 4 that morning.

Ana Walshe had a ticket booked for D.C. from Logan for Jan. 3, police have said. But she left early because of an emergency at one of the properties she managed in D.C., Brian Walshe told police.

Brian Walshe told authorities that before she left, “Ana got ready and kissed him goodbye and told him to go back to sleep,” the affidavit said.

Police have not confirmed Walshe took the rideshare but have determined she did not fly out of Logan Jan. 1, Quigley said.

Almutairi said he noticed nothing out of the ordinary about her when they spoke on New Year’s Eve.

“We spoke right before midnight,” Almutairi told the Globe last week. “Rung in the new year.”

Her employer, Tishman Speyer, has said it is cooperating with the search.

“We are actively assisting the local authorities in their ongoing search for our beloved colleague, Ana, and are praying for her safe return,” the company said last week.

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Walshe hasn’t used her cellphone since New Year’s Day, authorities have said. On Monday, a Norfolk county prosecutor said her phone was last pinged on Jan. 1 and Jan. 2 at her Cohasset address.

Westbrook told the Globe she and many of Walshe’s friends and colleagues are extremely concerned.

“It’s so bizarre and I’m really, really worried about her,” Westbrook said. “She is the type of person who is always really well put-together and over-communicative about things.”

Westbrook said she last texted Walshe on Jan. 3, but the message never displayed as delivered.

What about a fire in Cohasset?

On Friday afternoon, as authorities searched for evidence connected to Walshe near her home, a two-alarm fire was reported at 725 Jerusalem Road, a home that Walshe had previously owned.

According to property records, Walshe bought the home for $800,000 in 2020 and sold it for $1.385 million in March.

On Saturday, fire investigators said they had determined the fire was not suspicious, and had started in an area of damaged piping connected to a natural gas fireplace insert.



John Hilliard can be reached at john.hilliard@globe.com.