In his first interview with law enforcement, Brian Walshe opened up about the stressors in his and his wife's lives, including the federal fraud case he was awaiting sentencing for when she disappeared.
A recording of a police interview on Jan. 4, 2023, played in court on Monday as Cohasset Police Sgt. Harrison Schmidt, a detective at the time of Ana Walshe's disappearance, took the stand.
The interview took place on the first day that the Cohasset Police Department was alerted that Ana Walshe was missing. Ana Walshe's employer in Washington, D.C., Tishman Speyer, reported her missing at about noon that day.
Schmidt arrived at the couple's Cohasset household on Chief Justice Highway at about 6:30 p.m. that night, nearly four days since anyone had last seen Ana Walshe alive.
Brian Walshe told the detective that the couple was struggling with the distance and not spending time with each other. Ana Walshe would spend weekdays working in Washington, D.C., and fly home for the weekends.
"The only problems that we had in our marriage were that we weren't spending time together," Brian Walshe said.
He mentioned how the "legal problems" he faced for several years prior prevented him and his family from moving down to Washington, D.C.
"It's one of the reasons why I couldn't leave because I'm dealing with that now, and it was supposed to be done a long time ago, and it wasn't," Brian Walshe said. "So the stress was being apart and not being the authors of our own lives. I couldn't move when we had to."
In April 2021, Walshe agreed to plead guilty to charges of wire fraud, interstate transportation for a scheme to defraud and unlawful monetary transaction in federal court for selling forged Andy Warhol paintings.
The case took a winding path after that, but Walshe was eventually sentenced to 37 months in prison for those crimes last year.
"The whole family is dealing with that due to my actions," Brian Walshe said. "It's extremely embarrassing for me to talk about, but under these circumstances, it's worth it."
Earlier on Monday, during opening statements, a defense attorney for Brian Walshe claimed that Ana Walshe died as a result of a "sudden unexplained death."
"You will hear evidence that it made no sense to him, but he nudged Ana, his wife," Larry Tipton told jurors. "She didn't respond. He nudged her again, a little harder. She didn't respond. He nudged her now in a frantic and panicked reaction to where she actually rolled off the bed."
Brian Walshe is on trial for first-degree murder after the disappearance of his wife.
The explanation offered by Tipton on Monday followed the prosecution's presentation of their theory of the case, one of a husband convicted of federal art fraud and the possibility of paying $400,000 in restitution and prison time hanging over his head.
Ana Walshe was 39 when she went missing. A Serbian immigrant, she began working in real estate and in February 2022 got her dream job at Tishman Speyer. She bought a townhouse in Washington, D.C., and expected her family to move down as well.
Prosecutors plan on presenting digital evidence of Google searches about divorce, how to dispose of body parts after a murder and about accessing a credit card for a missing person, among other similar searches.
Prosecutors also plan on presenting surveillance footage evidence that shows Brian Walshe purchased cleaning supplies, a hazmat suit, cutting instruments such as shears and a hacksaw from various stores.
Police recovered a trash compactor near Brian Walshe's mother's apartment in Swampscott, where they found boots, a black coat, a vaccination card belonging to Ana Walshe, a hazmat suit, rugs, a hammer, a hatchet and a hacksaw, according to Norfolk County Assistant District Attorney Gregory Connor.
Brian Walshe pleaded guilty to the counts of witness intimidation (misleading a police investigation) as well as disinterment of a body at the start of jury selection earlier this month.
The trial continues on Monday with more testimony from Schmidt, the Cohasset police detective.