Brian Walshe, the Cohasset, Massachusetts, man accused of killing his wife, Ana, on New Year's Day, received a new lawyer at a hearing on Thursday.
Walshe was charged with murder over the death of his wife, whose disappearance he reported to authorities several days later, saying she'd left home early on Jan. 1 and he hadn't heard from her since. The case set of a massive search around the Boston area, first to find her alive, then for evidence of her death.
Walshe's private attorney, Tracy Miner, filed a motion to withdraw from the case, Judge Beverly Cannone said at the hearing in Norfolk Superior Court.
Miner, a partner at a boutique Boston white collar defense law firm, didn't say in the hearing why she was withdrawing, but Cannone said she understood that Walshe is now indigent, meaning he cannot pay for a private lawyer.
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Cannone approved the appointment of a court-appointed lawyer. A court official said that Walshe had requested to meet with the lawyer ahead of the hearing but that it wasn't logistically possible.
With hundreds of pages of testimony and evidence for the new defense attorney to catch up on, the two sides agreed on March 4 as the next court date in the case.
Ana Walshe, a 39-year-old mother of three from Cohasset, was initially reported missing by her husband, who said she'd left early the morning of New Year's Day. But days later, after a search that included parts of Washington, D.C., where she worked for a major realty company, Brian Walshe was arrested on charges of misleading police. He was later charged with murder and has pleaded not guilty to both charges.
In the expansive search for her body, law enforcement eventually found in a dumpster near his mother's house pieces of clothes and jewelry that Brian Walshe said she was wearing when she left their house early New Year's Day, along with a hacksaw and a bone fragment, prosecutors have said.
They also have alleged that Brian Walshe suspected Ana of having an affair. His mother had hired a private investigator into her, they said.
The case has been on hold as prosecution and defense have been waiting on DNA evidence testing. Miner said at a November hearing that they expected to have "everything" by the end of the year.
Asked by the judge for an update on evidence analysis, prosecutor Greg Connor said, "we're kind of at a stand-still as far as DNA."
NBC10 Boston Legal analyst Michael Coyne has said DNA evidence is especially important because investigators never found Ana Walshe’s body. Not only do prosecutors have to prove that he murdered his wife, they also have to prove that she’s dead, he said.
“A bone fragment in and of itself doesn’t prove death necessarily," Coyne said. "It proves she may have been injured, but they’re trying to prove first-degree murder."
The last activity in the case outside of court came in August, when a tip from two people prompted a police search of a wooded area in Peabody. Authorities later said the search yielded nothing.
