Ana Walshe, missing mother of three, promised a ‘big surprise’ at New Year’s

Missing Ana Walshe kept promising a “big surprise” in the New Year and was in a rush to sell assets for cash, friends have revealed as the search continues for the Massachusetts mother of three.

Mike and Mandi Silva told NBC Washington that for the past six months, something seemed off with their friend Ana, who they last saw on New Year’s Day.

The couple said Ana, 39, had been rushing to sell assets for cash on December 28 or 29, including a car and their apartment, which the Silvas had been renting.

The Silvas’ comments emerge as new security video obtained by 7NEWS was released showing Ana’s husband, Brian Walshe, 46, at Press Juice Bar in Norwell, Massachusetts, placing an order for three children’s shakes and two large shakes on January 2, a day after Ana was spotted for the last time at the family home in Cohasset.

Ana was reported missing to police on January 4 by her employer in DC, three days after her husband last saw her on January 1.

Cops recovered a hacksaw, hatchet and rug, and found blood in a dumpster near her husband’s mother’s home. Police arrested Walshe on suspicion of ‘misleading’ authorities, but have not charged him with anything else.

Walshe pleaded not guilty Monday to misleading investigators in the search for his missing wife, but remained in jail on $500,000 bail.

Walshe has been accused by prosecutors of failing to give a full account of his activities in the days after his wife went missing while they were searching for her.

One of those activities was the trip to Norwell on Monday, January 2, the day after Ana was last seen. Walshe had said that she took her son shopping for milkshakes. The couple have three children, believed to be two, four and six years old.

According to a receipt, at 9:57 a.m., Walshe ordered three kid-friendly chocolate peanut butter shakes and two large peanut-banana-honey shakes, 7NEWS reported.

Hannah Connors, the manager of the juice bar, told the news outlet that she remembers “he was staying towards the door, towards the entrance.” Usually people sit and hang out, but he didn’t go there. He was just waiting for him and he left as soon as he received it.

“We know our regular customers and stuff, but we were too busy,” Connors added. “I didn’t have a conversation with him, but just thinking that he was here is absolutely mind blowing.”

Smoothie shop employees said Walshe paid for his order with a credit card and that it was not his first visit, and that the staff considered him a regular.

The same day, surveillance footage showed him at a Home Depot in Rockland, authorities have learned. He bought $450 worth of cleaning supplies, including mops, a bucket and tarps, they said.

Walshe was arrested just a few days later.

This week, a friend of Walshe’s father claimed he was a “long-term patient” in a psychiatric facility and had been diagnosed as a “sociopath”.

Walshe had received treatment at the Austen Riggs Psychiatric Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, before being released a few years ago, Jeffrey Ornstein alleged.

Ornstein, who was a friend of Walshe’s neurologist father, Dr. Thomas Walshe, for 35 years, voiced the claims in an explosive 2019 affidavit.

He also claimed that Walshe had become estranged from the rest of his family after being accused of stealing millions of dollars from Dr. Walshe’s estate after his death.

Walshe’s cousin and two close friends of his father aired the allegations against him in scathing 2019 court documents following Dr. Walshe’s death in 2018.

Ornstein said he had known Brian Walshe since he was 13 years old, but said the father and son had been separated since 2009.

He claimed that, when Walshe was released from Austen Riggs after around 12 years and tried to contact his father, he was rebuffed by Dr Walshe.

Walshe’s wife, Ana Walshe, worked for real estate giant Tishman Speyer, and the couple owned several properties together, including their Cohasset home and a $1.3 million home in DC.

They also owned another property in Massachusetts, valued at $1.4 million, which they sold last year before it disappeared.

The building caught fire days after she went missing, but police officers investigating the matter believe the fire is not related to her disappearance.

On Monday, police said they had found blood on a damaged knife and in the basement of his Cohasset home.

Officers searching two waste facilities Monday night found more potential evidence.

They reviewed security footage at West Wareham after finding blood, an axe, hacksaw, rug and used cleaning supplies in a Peabody dumpster.

The first facility is an hour south of Ana and Brian Walshe’s home in Cohasset, while the other is 15 minutes from their mother’s home in Swampscott.

Walshe told officers that he last saw his wife at 6 am on January 1, when she left to catch a flight to Washington DC for work.

Police told a judge he was seen spending $450 worth of cleaning supplies at a nearby Home Depot on January 2.

He claims he only left the house once on January 2, the day after she disappeared, to take his son out for ice cream.

Authorities say it would have given him time to clean up the evidence and dispose of it, setting his bail at $500,000 cash.

Quincy District Court prosecutors say Walshe’s statements, including the claim that he did not leave the house, delayed the investigation.