Brian Walshe, the Massachusetts dad charged in his wife’s disappearance, is a “very angry and physically violent person” who once “attempted to kill” Chinese guards, a friend of Walshe’s dad said in an affidavit.
Fred Pescatore — a friend of Walshe’s dad, Dr. Thomas Moorecroft Walshe III — claimed he watched Brian attack guards in China, who’d allegedly caught him smuggling, according to the affidavit.
“I witnessed firsthand what Brian was capable of,” Pescatore said in the court document dated Nov. 21, 2019.
“I saw Brian attempt to smuggle out antiquities from China. When Brian was confronted, he picked up a stanchion and literally attempted to kill four or five guards that had come to talk to him about his crime,” Pescatore said.
“Brian is not only a sociopath but also a very angry and physically violent person,” he added.
Pescatore’s 2019 affidavit, filed in probate court in a dispute over Thomas’s estate, also said Brian was a diagnosed “sociopath” and had been admitted to the Austin Riggs Psychiatric Center in Massachusetts.
Dr. Walshe’s nephew Andrew Walshe, the executor of the estate, claimed Brian was estranged from his late father.
“At that juncture [the winter of 2009-2010], I understood, as was also common knowledge amongst Dr. Thomas Walshe’s friends and family members, his son, Brian R. Walshe had absconded with almost one million dollars from Dr. Thomas Walshe in prior years,” Andrew wrote in a separate affidavit, dated Dec. 2, 2019.
“The theft from his only son was tragic, not only in that it occurred, but also that Brian R. Walshe essentially disappeared from his father’s life purposefully,” he added.
Brian, however, claimed he’d reconciled with his dad.
“We had a long conversation about our relationship and it was the first time we had spoken candidly since a family therapy session in 1996,” Brian wrote of an alleged 2017 conversation with his dad, who left him out of the will.
But Andrew claimed “the theft caused an irreparable rift in their relationship and caused not only mental hardship for Dr. Thomas Walshe, but also required Dr. Thomas Walshe to continue working past the age at which he had wished to retire, as a significant amount of his savings were stolen and never returned.”
Pescatore wrote that the father “was always clear that he did not want his son Brian to inherit anything from him.
“I cannot imagine that Brian had enough money to buy a house as he had to use his mother’s funds to pay his legal fees for his federal case with respect to which he is under indictment and faces prison time,” he wrote in his filing.
Pescatore added: “Brian and Tom’s estrangement had everything to do with money Brian stole money from Tom and swindled him out of almost one million dollars.”
It’s unclear whether Brian actually stole the $1 million.
In 2018, he was busted for selling two paintings he claimed were part of Andy Warhol’s 1978 “Shadows” series to an unsuspecting buyer on eBay for $80,000 two years earlier.
He pleaded guilty in 2021 to one count each of wire fraud, interstate transportation to defraud, possession of converted goods and unlawful monetary transaction and was still awaiting sentencing when his wife, Ana, disappeared on New Year’s Day.
Brian was charged with misleading police during their investigation into the disappearance.
Police uncovered potential evidence, including a hatchet, a bloody rug and cleaning supplies while searching a trash facility in Peabody, a little over an hour from the couple’s home.
The also seized two dumpsters and a trash compactor from the apartment complex where his mother lives in Swampscott, a neighbor has told The Post.
