Former tenants of missing Massachusetts mom Ana Walshe and her fraudster husband claim they saw the composed profession woman descend into an epic “meltdown” shortly before her disappearance.
“It was like a complete other Ana,” Mandi Silva told The Post of the moment she and her husband confronted the Walshes late last month about plans to sell the apartment they rented from the couple for nearly 4 years.
Mike Silva, a contractor, said he worked on Ana and her husband Brian’s six Massachusetts properties for eight years. He and Mandi got discounted rent on their unit, within the town of Revere, in exchange for his labor.
“ Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle, or the Queen? They present and carry themselves very skilled, that was Ana,” Mandi said of the actual estate executive and mom of three.
“But once we put our foot down and said, ‘No, you can not do that to us’ and we were fighting back, it was like watching Britney Spears have a meltdown when Justin Timberlake broke up along with her. It was not normal.”
Ana, 39, was last seen on the family’s Cohasset home on Jan. 1. Brian Walshe, 46, was arrested on Jan. 8 and charged with misleading the investigation into her disappearance after failing to reveal accurate details of his own whereabouts in the course of the previous week.
He pleaded not guilty on Monday, and is being held on $500,000 bail.
Mike — who claims the Walshes still owe him $2,500 for work he did at their Lynn property — said he texted each Ana and Brian on Latest Yr’s Eve, but only heard back from Brian on Jan. 2.
Latest on missing mother of three Ana Walshe
“He texted me back, ‘I’m sorry for the delay. I lost my phone and my son just found it,’” he remembered.
“I’m shocked he didn’t say, ‘Sorry for the delay. My wife is missing. Have you ever heard from her?’ or anything like that.”
Looking back, Mike continued, it was clear that Ana, a Serbian native with a high-powered Washington, DC-based job at luxury property company Tishman Speyer, “wore the pants within the family,” which also included the couple’s three young sons, between ages 2 and 6.
In contrast to his wife’s corporate savvy, Brian Walshe “presented himself as an investor” but had few notable skilled ties.
“He would have a robe on in his house the entire time we worked there,” said Mike, noting that he was unaware Brian was actually under house arrest after pleading guilty to federal fraud charges in 2021.
Ana, he remembered, was also “a bit flirtatious” and continuously put her husband down with comments like “‘Brian is sort of a girl, when he scrapes himself, he cries like a bit girl.’”
The cruel jibes are a stark contrast to the effusive letter Ana wrote to a judge last summer, which applauded the “joy” and “comfort” Brian dropped at the family.
The Silvas’ recollections of the Walshes come because the seek for Ana takes an increasingly desperate turn. Earlier this week, investigators found grisly items — including a hatchet, a hacksaw and a rug — at a trash transport site an hour from the family’s home.
At Brian’s arraignment on Monday, prosecutors also announced that a stained knife and blood were present in the Cohasset basement. That evidence, combined together with his purchase of $450 in cleansing supplies and alleged Google searches for “the right way to eliminate a 115-pound woman’s body” in the times after Ana’s disappearance, have family and cops fearing the worst.
“My heart is breaking the more information is released,” former co-worker Cofield Williams told The Post this week.
“Even fascinated by the considered [Ana] not being amongst us anymore is actually devastating.”