EXCLUSIVE: BELGRADE, Serbia – The Massachusetts real estate executive missing since January 1 pleaded with her mother to travel from her home country of Serbia to visit her just a week before she went missing, leading the now-concerned woman to believe there were “problems” at home before her daughter’s disappearance, she told Fox News Digital.
“He just said, ‘Please, Mom. Come tomorrow,'” Milanka Ljubicic, the mother of the missing Ana Walshe, 39, said in an interview conducted Monday and later translated into English. “Which means that clearly there must have been some problems.”
Ljubicic, 69, spoke to Fox News Digital outside her apartment building in Belgrade, Serbia, where she recalled how her daughter had texted her on December 25 and requested that Ljubicic travel to see her in Washington, DC at next day.
HUSBAND OF MOTHER ANA WALSHE DISAPPEARED FROM MASSACHUSETTS SEARCHED FOR HOW TO DISMEMBER BODY: REPORT
Milanka Ljubicic looks at a photo of her daughters, Ana and Aleksandra, in her apartment in Belgrade, Serbia, Monday, Jan. 9, 2023. Ljubicic’s daughter, Ana Walshe, is not at her Cohasset, Massachusetts, home and was seen for the last time on New Year’s Day.
(IV for Fox News Digital)
A copy of a photo of Milanka Ljubicic with her daughters, Ana and Aleksandra. Her daughter, Ana Walshe, not at her Cohasset, Massachusetts home, was last seen on New Year’s Day.
(IV for Fox News Digital)
“He sent me a text at night urging me to go to Washington the next day,” he said. She recalled responding, “I can’t recover in one day. I’m 69 years old, I have to get my medicines and a thousand other things.”
Ljubicic said he suggested he come the next day instead.
BLOOD, KNIFE FOUND IN HOME OF MISSING MASSACHUSETTS REAL ESTATE EXECUTIVE: PROSECUTORS
Ana Walshe commuted from Massachusetts to Washington, DC, every week to work in real estate, friends told WCVB.
(Cohasset Police Department)
“And now I can’t forgive myself for not letting things fall where they may, and just going, and whatever happens to me, will happen.”
When asked if Ana gave Ljubicic any reason behind the urgency, Ljubicic said no.
Milanka Ljubicic opens the door of her apartment in Belgrade, Serbia, on Monday, January 9, 2023.
(IV for Fox News Digital)
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Ljubicic suggested to her daughter that she visit her on January 5 or 6, but her daughter said she didn’t have to.
“She said, ‘You don’t have to’ come in January. Brian and I are making plans for February,” Ljubicic recalled.
General view of an apartment building in Belgrade, Serbia, on Monday, January 9, 2023, which is the residence of Milanka Ljubicic. Ljubicic is the mother of Ana Walshe, who has been reported missing in Cohasset, MA, last seen on New Year’s Day.
(V for Fox News Digital)
The entrance to an apartment building in Belgrade, Serbia on Monday, January 9, 2023, which is the residence of Milanka Ljubicic. Ljubicic is the mother of Ana Walshe, who has been reported missing in Cohasset, MA, last seen on New Year’s Day.
(V for Fox News Digital)
The woman then missed the call from her daughter around midnight on December 31, and another call shortly thereafter, Ljubicic continued.
“She called again at 1 a.m. and I missed that call as well. She called her older sister, who was also asleep. She then tried to call her bridesmaid, who didn’t hear the phone because of loud music,” she said. saying. “And now, I regret not getting the phone, because she disappeared.”
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Walshe, a mother of three young children, was last seen in the early morning hours of January 1, when she was supposed to take a rideshare service to a local airport to board a flight to Washington, D.C. .
The Tishman Speyer real estate executive was scheduled to leave for DC on January 3, but said there was an emergency that required her to fly there earlier than expected.
Her company reported her missing to the police on January 4, after Brian Walshe’s defense attorney said he contacted the firm asking for Ana’s whereabouts.
People could be seen emptying the pool at Ana Walshe’s house; Walshe has been missing since New Year’s Day.
(David McGlynn for Fox News Digital)
But in the days between Ana’s disappearance and the missing person’s report, Brian Walshe allegedly lied about his own whereabouts. Investigators said Walshe not only told investigators that he traveled to stores, such as CVS and Whole Foods, where he might not have, but also neglected to mention that he spent about $450 in cash buying cleaning supplies at a Home store. Rockland Depot, Massachusetts.
General view of the Home Depot at 1149 Hingham St, Rockland, Massachusetts on Monday, January 9, 2023. According to an affidavit, Brian Walshe may have picked up cleaning supplies here after his wife was last seen.
(David McGlynn for Fox News Digital)
According to court documents and officials, Walshe was seen on surveillance video “wearing a black surgical mask, blue surgical gloves and making a cash purchase” of items including mops, duct tape and cloths.
Investigators also discovered blood and a bloody and damaged knife in the basement of the couple’s home, and traced Ana’s cell phone to the area of the family’s Cohasset home on January 1 and 2. Meanwhile, Brian’s cell phone rang in other parts of Massachusetts, such as Brockton and Abington, despite his lack of permission to be in the areas under his home confinement terms.
Police/investigators bringing equipment to Walshe’s home at 516 Chief Justice Cushing Highway, Cohasset, MA, after Brian Walshe and the children left.
(David McGlynn for Fox News Digital)
Walshe was arrested Sunday and charged with misleading a police investigation.
Police attributed the charge to Walshe’s alleged “intentional, deliberate and direct responses to questions about his whereabouts on Sunday, January 1, 2023, and Monday, January 2, 2023,” which they called “a clear attempt to mislead “. and delay investigators.
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Walshe’s defense attorney, Tracey Miner, argued that her client was otherwise forthcoming with authorities, but did not mention his trip to Home Depot. She noted that he had been “incredibly cooperative.”
Walshe, a previously convicted art fraudster, was ordered to hold $500,000 cash bail plus $5 million bail.
Brian Walshe arrives at Quincy District Court in Massachusetts on Monday, January 9, 2023. Walshe is being arraigned on charges related to his alleged deception of investigators investigating the disappearance of his wife, Ana Walshe, last seen on the day New year.
(David McGlynn for Fox News Digital)
When asked about Brian Walshe, Ljubicic described how her daughter was, at times, “irritated” by the constraints Ana faced as a result of her husband’s pre-sentence home confinement, such as “having to work in Washington living in a house by herself, while he was at home with the three children.
“Occasionally [Brian’s] mom would help. There may have been a disagreement about this and then over New Year’s Eve,” she continued, “You have a few drinks and relax etc.”
Milanka Ljubicic opens the door of her apartment in Belgrade, Serbia on Monday, January 9, 2023. Ljubicic is the mother of missing Massachusetts mother Ana Walshe.
(IV for Fox News Digital)
But Ljubicic added: “That something happened, I can’t believe it. In total, I spent sixteen months with my son-in-law and I never noticed anything wrong with my son-in-law.”
Ljubicic said his daughter “loves him and they love each other.”
“I can’t believe he ever did anything to her,” she said. “He told the police that everything with Ana was fine.”
Ljubicic said he last saw his daughter when he visited Belgrade in late November. He stayed 10 days.
Brian Walshe of Cohasset faces a Quincy court judge charged with impeding an investigation into the disappearance of his wife Ana from their home on Monday, January 9, 2023.
(Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool)
“I couldn’t believe something like this happened to me,” he said. “I only have one wish, and that is for my daughter to be alive.”
Fox News Digital’s Rebecca Rosenberg contributed to this report.
