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‘I can’t forgive myself’: Ana’s mom says she missed call from daughter hours before alleged murder

BOSTON — The mother of Ana Walshe, who prosecutors say was murdered and dismembered by her husband, says she received a phone call from her daughter on New Year’s Eve, just hours before she vanished.

“I was sleeping. And I can’t forgive myself for that,” Ana’s mother Milanka Ljubicic told APTN/ Pink Serbia.

She also told the Serbian TV station she did not get the sense anything was wrong between her daughter and Ana’s accused husband Brian.

“As far as I know, and I was there with them for 16 months, on three different occasions, but I did not notice anything bad happening. Literally, nothing. They were always in a good mood, smiles on their faces, making jokes. I did not notice anything bad there,” Ljubicic told the news outlet.

According to Ljubicic, her daughter and son-in-law told her not to visit in January, citing they had plans in February.

Ljubicic also said she did not receive Ana’s annual New Year’s greeting card.

“She sent a new year greeting card to family, not to me, maybe it didn’t arrive yet, I will look in my mailbox. She usually sends these greeting cards to me and all our relatives. And my godmother said she got her greeting card a few days ago, but no one spoke to [Ana].”

In Brian Walshe’s Wednesday court appearance, prosecutors detailed an incriminating list of Google searches the Cohasset man allegedly performed on his son’s iPad on January 1, the day Ana vanished, and the immediately following days.

Included in the list of searches were such phrases as:

- “How long before a body starts to smell?”

- “10 ways to dispose of a dead body if you really need to”

- “Dismemberment and the best ways to dispose of a body”

-“Hacksaw best tool to dismember”

Ana spent New Year’s Eve with her husband and three kids at their Cohasset home. The prosecutor said her phone turned off at 3:14 a.m. New Year’s Day. She wasn’t heard from after that.

Before Ana was reported missing by Brian, investigators say he was seen on video on Jan. 2 at the Home Depot in Rockland wearing a black surgical mask, and blue surgical gloves making a cash transaction. He is said to have purchased a tarp, mops, tape, and other cleaning supplies.

The missing person investigation surrounding Ana quickly shifted to a suspicious disappearance investigation after a blood-covered knife was found in the basement of their home.

Subsequent clues uncovered by investigators led them to the North Shore, where a hacksaw was found at a transfer station in Peabody.

While some trash bags that Brian dumped were incinerated before being found, other bags that were located contained bloody rugs, a COVID-19 vaccine card with Ana’s name, a hatchet, and the hacksaw, according to prosecutors.

Brian is due back in court at a later date.

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