Witnesses describe their final interactions with Ana Walshe – including her last ‘festive’ night – at husband’s murder trial

(CNN) — Gem Mutlu paused to gather himself as he described Ana Walshe running from her Massachusetts home into the cold night to greet him before he could even park his car.

They embraced. It was New Year’s Eve 2022, and Mutlu had been invited to celebrate with Ana and her husband, he said Wednesday, growing visibly emotional as he testified in Brian Walshe’s murder trial about the last time he saw Ana alive.

A few days later, around mid-morning on January 4, 2023, Mutlu was walking on the beach when Brian Walshe called to ask if he had heard from Ana, he said.

“His tone was not panicked,” Mutlu said in court Wednesday, remembering Walshe told him Ana had been missing since she left their Massachusetts home early on New Year’s Day to return to Washington, DC, for an emergency at work. Mutlu would have left their home just a few hours before Ana, he said, after ringing in the new year.

“I was incredulous,” Mutlu said. “I said, ‘What work emergency could there have been on New Year’s Eve?’”

“I said, ‘Listen, did you have guys have an argument or something? Did you have a fight?’”

To this day, Mutlu said, he “vividly” remembers Walshe’s response.

“No,” Walshe said, per Mutlu. “Did it look like we had an argument? You were there.”

The testimony of Mutlu – a close friend of Ana Walshe’s who said he considered her family his own – came hours before prosecutors on Wednesday rested their case in the trial of Brian Walshe, who is accused of killing his wife on or around January 1, 2023.

Unbeknownst to the jury, Walshe has pleaded guilty to illegally disposing of her body and misleading police. Still, he insists he did not kill the real estate manager and mother of three, but instead found her inexplicably dead in their bed hours after Mutlu left them.

As the last person other than her husband known to have seen Ana alive, Mutlu’s testimony was key, offering jurors a glimpse at the final hours of her life – and at Ana’s purported mindset about alleged strife in her marriage: Another witness Wednesday said Ana was “at a breaking point.”

Prosecutors called about 50 witnesses across eight days of testimony. Walshe’s attorneys are expected to begin his defense case Thursday morning.

A ‘festive night’ and ‘cracks’ in a relationship

Mutlu first met Ana Walshe through her husband in 2020, when he and Brian Walshe attended a leadership program together, he said. Mutlu hired Ana soon after as the director of operations for his realty group, and they became close friends, keeping in touch even after Ana left the job in 2022 for a more lucrative position based in Washington, DC.

Mutlu hadn’t seen the Walshe family in months when he went to their home to spend the final hours of 2022 with them, he said.

After their hug, Mutlu and Ana Walshe sat at the kitchen counter while Brian Walshe prepared food and poured drinks, Mutlu testified. He did not see anything visibly wrong between the couple, he said.

“It was a festive night,” he said.

The Walshes’ three children were asleep when Mutlu arrived around 8:30 p.m., he said. But their eldest son, then six years old, joined them for a time, hugging Mutlu and giving him a necklace the boy had made. The boy said he missed Mutlu, he testified, again growing emotional.

Ana Walshe was on her phone frequently that night, texting friends for the holiday, Mutlu said.

At one point, he took a photo with Ana and her son. Mutlu believes, he said, that Ana said she sent the photo to a man named William Fastow, a mutual friend with whom Ana was having an affair before her death.

Mutlu had introduced Brian and Ana Walshe to Fastow, a real estate broker in DC, when she was looking to buy a home near her new job. But Mutlu said Wednesday he did not know about Ana and Fastow’s romantic relationship.

Mutlu left the Walshe home around 1:30 in the morning, he said – testimony consistent with the account Walshe provided investigators after he claimed his wife had disappeared.

Mutlu testified he never saw Brian and Ana Walshe argue on New Year’s Eve in 2022 or otherwise.

“I always thought that there was a lot of love between them,” Mutlu said, “and that she was very much in love with Brian.”

Still, while the holiday was jovial, Mutlu testified that people are complex and he was not suggesting the couple was happy: He said Ana Walshe had discussed marital troubles in a lengthy phone call days earlier, on December 29, 2022.

“She told me that there were cracks in the relationship,” he said.

‘She really hit a breaking point’

Mutlu’s testimony was bolstered by that of Alissa Kirby, another close friend of Ana Walshe who similarly said she also spoke with Ana about her marriage on December 29, 2022.

The two women, who had become fast friends after Ana moved to DC, went out for drinks and dancing that night, Kirby said, adding she had never seen Ana so upset.

According to Kirby, Ana spoke at length about struggling with her marriage to Walshe, and she seemed to her friend both physically and emotionally tired.

“She really hit a breaking point,” Kirby said.

Part of the strain, Kirby testified, was an ongoing federal fraud case against Brian Walshe, who had pleaded guilty to charges connected to selling forged Andy Warhol artwork. The sentencing process, however, had not yet been resolved.

Ana Walshe said she wanted her husband to take responsibility, even if it meant jail time, so her family could move forward, Kirby said. The case required Brian Walshe to remain in Massachusetts with their children.

“She just really wanted to be with her kids, their marriage had been really strained for a long time,” Kirby said. “She told me how like upset she was, and how frustrating that was.”

Ana told Kirby she had recently told her husband she was falling out of love with him, Kirby said. According to her, Ana also felt Walshe’s mother disliked her, and claimed Walshe’s mother had seen a psychic who told her Ana was having an affair.

Kirby was aware Ana had a crush on Fastow, she said. But Ana never revealed that they were in a romantic relationship.

Kirby last heard from Ana just after midnight on January 1, 2023, she said, when they exchanged well wishes for the new year. Then, on January 3, Brian Walshe texted Kirby asking if she had heard from Ana.

When Kirby followed up with him on January 4, she said Walshe told her Ana still had not turned up, and that her colleagues were looking for her.

“That’s when I got really scared that something was wrong,” Kirby said.

Kirby was the final witness called by the prosecution.

It’s unclear whether Brian Walshe will testify in his own defense.

His attorney, Larry Tipton, told the jury during opening statements that they would hear evidence about how Walshe found his wife dead in their bed in the early hours of New Year’s Day in 2023.

Tipton also said the panel would hear evidence about the medical field’s perspective on “sudden, unexplained deaths” in seemingly healthy individuals.

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