COHASSET, Mass. – Prosecuting a murder case without the victim’s body is possible, but it is a “difficult task” because “there must be sufficient evidence to show that the alleged victim is actually dead,” said a Massachusetts criminal defense attorney.
It’s been sixteen days since Ana Walshe was last seen at a New Year’s Eve celebration at her Cohasset, Massachusetts home, and there is still no sign of her or her body.
But speculation that she was killed has intensified as weeks go by with no answers, and Walshe’s friends have told Fox News Digital they believe the chances of finding her alive are “grim.”
Nathaniel Amendola, a criminal defense attorney in Massachusetts who has been closely following the case, said in a post on his website that prosecutors may rely on other types of evidence to prove that a death has occurred.
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Ana Walshe pictured in front of a Ritz Carlton hotel sign in August 2022.
(Anna Walshe/Instagram)
“A confession, for example, can help satisfy that burden, although the law requires that some additional evidence corroborate the confession,” Amendola wrote. “So far, there is no direct evidence that Ana Walshe is dead. But there may be some circumstantial evidence that she is.”
He said, for example, that if blood found in the basement of the Walshes’ home, as well as a broken knife, is positively identified as Ana’s, “it can be inferred that it got there because she was cut with the knife.”
“If the authorities can gather enough evidence of this type, they could prove, circumstantially, that Ana is dead,” Amendola said.
That’s what Daniel Bibb, a former Manhattan assistant district attorney turned criminal defense attorney, had to do when he indicted Dr. Robert Bierenbaum for the murder of his wife, Gail Katz, in 1985.
SCHEDULE OF THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ANA WALSHE AND THE ARREST OF BRIAN WALSHE
Brian Walshe seen in Quincy District Court in connection with his wife, Ana Walshe. disappearance.
(WBZ)
Bibb called it “the most difficult case of our career” when he spoke to Fox News Digital last August about prosecuting a homicide when the victim’s body has not been found. He weighed the challenges of that type of case in the midst of last summer’s trial in the disappearance of Kristin Smart, which led to Paul Flores’s conviction of murder.
“There were two aspects to the construction of this case,” Bibb said of Katz’s case. “The first was, can we prove that she is deceased? And looking at all the evidence, not just the evidence that existed at the time, but the evidence that was developed. There are two questions here: Is she dead and who killed her?
“The problem was, could we prove it beyond a reasonable doubt? And when we were done investigating and…we sat down and went through it piece by piece, we came to the conclusion that she was dead, and he did.”
Bibb and his team secured a conviction against Bierenbaum in October 2000, and 20 years later, Bierenbaum confessed to the murder during a parole board hearing.
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Massachusetts State Police and other officials searched the property, backyard, pool, and surrounding area of the home of missing woman Ana Walshe in Cohasset on Saturday, January 7, 2023.
(David McGlynn for Fox News Digital)
Brian Walshe was arrested for allegedly lying to police about his whereabouts on January 1 and 2 while police were searching for his wife, according to the affidavit of probable cause for your arrest.
Police and the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office, which is prosecuting Brian Walshe’s case, have not publicly named Ana’s husband as a suspect or person of interest.
According to authorities, it took three days for anyone to report Ana Walshe missing.
The search warrants were executed last Thursday and later seized, meaning they have been returned and are not available to the public, a member of the Quincy District Court told Fox News Digital.
There are no plans to open them, the court said last week, so it is not yet known where the warrants were executed and what was recovered.
Brian and Ana Walshe seen in September 2016.
(Anna Walshe/Facebook)
In the days between Ana’s disappearance and the missing person report, Brian Walshe allegedly lied about his own whereabouts. Investigators said Walshe told investigators that he traveled to stores, such as CVS and Whole Foods, where he actually might not have been.
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But he allegedly forgot to mention that he spent about $450 in cash buying cleaning supplies at a Rockland, Massachusetts Home Depot.
Investigators also discovered blood and a bloody and damaged knife in the basement of the couple’s home, prosecutors said. Police also reportedly found bloody garbage bags, an ax and a hacksaw at a waste facility an hour from the family’s home.
They also traced Ana’s cell phone to the area of the family’s Cohasset home on Jan. 1, and approximately 0.7 miles from the home on Jan. 2, according to officials and a police record.
Brian’s cell phone rang in other parts of Massachusetts, including Brockton and Abington, even though he did not have permission to be in the areas under the terms of his home confinement. The convicted art fraudster was under home confinement while he awaited sentencing for selling fake Andy Warhol paintings.
Brian and Ana Walshe toast their wedding day at the Ballroom de L’Espalier in Boston, Massachusetts on Monday, December 21, 2015.
(Obtained by Fox News Digital)
Officials previously disclosed that investigators recovered evidence when they appeared to have removed, and then replaced, a dumpster taken from the Swampscott home of Brian Walshe’s mother, located nearly 35 miles from the couple’s home.
And a recent CNN report described how Walshe had searched the internet for “how to dispose of a 115 pound woman’s body” and how to dismember a body.
Brian Walshe was arrested on January 8 and charged with misleading a police investigation.
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Police said the charge stemmed from Walshe’s alleged “intentional, deliberate, and direct responses to questions about his whereabouts on Sunday, January 1, 2023, and Monday, January 2, 2023.”
Furthermore, they called it “a clear attempt to mislead and delay investigators.”
