Ana Walshe’s mother expressed hope that the missing Massachusetts mom will be found alive — despite the mountain of damning evidence that her husband allegedly killed and dismembered her.
“I think that she just left somewhere, to get away, maybe she was tired of everything. … It is only my assumption. I still don’t know the truth about what happened,” Milanka Ljubicic told NBC News from her home in the Serbian capital of Belgrade.
“I just hope that she is alive. Anywhere, but alive. That is my only hope,” the 69-year-old woman added on Thursday.
Brian Walshe, 47, who is charged with murder in his wife’s disappearance, allegedly made several disturbing searches from his young son’s iPad in the days before and after he claimed she vanished from their Cohasset home on New Year’s Day.
Among his grotesque queries were “how to stop a body from decomposing,” “how long before a body starts to smell,” “hacksaw best tool to dismember” and “can you identify a body with broken teeth,” prosecutors revealed this week.
He also allegedly searched for “how long for someone to be missing to inherit.”
Ljubicic said she was aware of the disturbing searches.
“Yes, I have seen it, of course it made me upset, but I just don’t believe in that. Because Brian was never aggressive, he was never mad or furious, God forbid. I just cannot believe in it,” she told NBC News.
Ljubicic recently told Fox News Digital that her daughter had begged her to visit a week before she went missing on New Year’s Day, when Brian claimed she left their home for a “work emergency.”
Ana, 39, was first reported missing Jan. 4 by her employer, the luxury real estate group Tishman Speyer, for which she worked in Washington, DC.
“She just said, ‘Please, Mama. Come tomorrow,’ which means that clearly, there must have been some problems,” Ljubicic told Fox News Digital.
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In her interview with NBC News, she said Ana “never complained about her husband, never,” adding: “I always thought good of him. He was always in a good mood, telling jokes. He was the main cook in the house, always made us food.”
Ljubicic said Brian “absolutely adored Ana, the way she is, and said many times he missed her very much while she was away from work.”
She added that “from what I know, everything was just fine between them.”
Ljubicic also told NBC News she was unaware that Ana had accused her husband of threatening to kill her in 2014 when the pair were dating.
Ana didn’t cooperate with DC Metro police, so Brian was never charged and the case was closed, according to Boston 25 News.
“I didn’t know back then, I’ve seen it recently in the media,” Ljubicic told NBC News of the alleged threat. “They got married after that, got kids. … I don’t know what to say. I had no knowledge about it at all.”
Ljubicic said her daughter hated being away from the couple’s three young boys as she commuted to her DC job, saying they couldn’t move because Brian was on home confinement in connection with a wire fraud case.
“She was bothered by the fact they had to stay because in Washington, DC, they had better living conditions, and she could not cope without children for so long,” she told the outlet.
“They hoped this legal process around Brian would last only for a couple of months, and they can be together. But it dragged for a year or so,” Ljubicic said, adding that she “wasn’t worried at all” about Ana’s safety or her relationship with Brian.
The devastated mom said Ana last called her on New Year’s Eve but she was asleep and didn’t answer.
“[The next day] I texted her, wishing Happy New Year, but there was no response,” Ljubicic told the outlet. “Even then I didn’t think something bad had happened — just wasn’t thinking in that direction.”
