Editor's Note: The husband of Ana Walshe was arrested and charged with misleading a police investigation, police said Sunday. Read more.
Family and friends of Ana Walshe in both Boston and D.C. say they are frantic with worry over her disappearance.
The 39-year-old real estate executive works in the District during the week and flies to the Boston area, where her husband and three young children live, on the weekends.
Police said a relative told them Walshe had planned to leave her family’s Cohasset, Massachusetts home around 4 or 5 a.m. New Year’s Day to catch a flight to D.C. to deal with a work emergency. That person told officers they were asleep when Walshe left.
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D.C. police searched her Friendship Heights townhouse, around the corner from Chevy Chase Pavilion, on Wednesday, the day she was reported missing.
Neighbors said police came to their doors asking if they had seen Walshe, or if they had any idea where she was.
At a press conference, Cohasset’s Police Chief William Quigley provided up updates on the investigation.
He said detectives have been unable to find records that Walshe took a rideshare to Logan Airport in Boston, which the relative said was her standard procedure.
He said they found no evidence she ever boarded a plane that day, on Jan. 3 (the day for which she had a ticket), or any other day since then. He also said Walshe’s cellphone is off.
“It’s very difficult as you know, nowadays, not to leave an electric footprint,” Quigley said.
Searches of the woods in Cohasset and nearby towns have turned up nothing.
News4 spoke to Walshe’s longtime friend Abdulla Almutari as he prepared to board a plane from D.C. to Boston to help Walshe’s husband and three very young children.
“We are just waiting for a better day tomorrow, and I am hoping that she will be on a flight back to D.C. with me very soon,” Almutari said.
Walshe’s employer, the international real estate firm Tishman Speyer, released a statement that said: “We are actively assisting the local authorities in their ongoing search for our beloved colleague, Ana, and are praying for her safe return.”
Massive attention was drawn when a fire broke out this afternoon at a Cohasset home Walshe and her family used to live in, but sold in March. Police said Saturday that investigators determined that the cause of the fire was accidental.
