Brian Walshe Convicted of Wife's Murder

A Norfolk County jury convicted Brian Walshe of first-degree murder on Monday in the death of his wife, Ana Walshe, who vanished from their Cohasset, Massachusetts, home on New Year's Day 2023. The 39-year-old real estate executive, originally from Serbia, was last seen early that morning after a New Year's Eve dinner with her family. Walshe, 50, faces life in prison without parole at his sentencing scheduled for Wednesday.

Prosecutors argued that Walshe killed Ana amid mounting strains in their marriage, including her affair and his financial woes from a prior federal art fraud conviction. He had pleaded guilty last month to lesser charges of misleading investigators and unlawfully disposing of her body but maintained his innocence on the murder count. The trial, which lasted about two weeks in Dedham's Norfolk Superior Court, featured eight days of prosecution evidence and no witnesses from the defense.

Central to the case were incriminating Google searches Walshe made on devices linked to him in the hours and days after Ana's disappearance. Queries included "best way to dispose of a body," "how long before a body starts to smell," and "hacksaw best tool to dismember,"...