Wealth is no protection

At this point, the best we can hope for is that this is yet another of Brian Walshe’s cons — that somehow, his wife’s disappearance is part of some elaborate scheme the Cohasset grifter cooked up as he faced a federal prison sentence for art fraud, that Ana Walshe is actually OK.

It is a slender reed to cling to. Every minute she remains missing makes it more likely that this is all as horrible as it seems: that the knife and the blood found in the Walshes’ basement and elsewhere, Brian Walshe’s movements since his wife went missing on Jan. 1, and the disintegration of the flimsy lies he told police mean something awful has happened to the 39year-old woman.

The likely outcome here is a catastrophe for everyone who loves Ana Walshe, especially her three small children — as is the case in every incidence of intimate partner violence.

But not every missing person’s story captures the worldwide attention this one has. More people care about Ana Walshe because she is white and beautiful, and, as my colleague Joan Vennochi has pointed out, because we still live in a society that values lives like hers more than those of Black, brown, poor, obviously troubled, or LGBTQ people. Though it really shouldn’t, the fact that the Walshes are apparently wealthy adds another layer of intrigue to this unfolding story, on which more later. And it means that Ana Walshe’s disappearance was more likely to be taken seriously by police and others from the moment she was reported missing.

But what we’re seeing here is also something quite rare: a compelling and absolutely bizarre story in which Brian Walshe has been behaving like the villain in a Lifetime movie: one in which multiple members of the family, and some of the many people Walshe swindled throughout his life, are on the record, including in court documents, detailing the fabulist’s shady history, and in which Ana’s loved ones are willing to speak publicly in the hopes of bringing her home. Hers is the kind of complete, compelling picture that every missing person deserves.

But if, as seems increasingly certain, it turns out Ana Walsh is a victim of violence by her husband, there are lessons here beyond our grossly inconsistent valuation of human lives. Too many of us still think of intimate partner violence as a phenomenon of poor and working-class neighborhoods. Too many of us are still surprised to find that people could be victimized by their partners in tony towns like Cohasset, too.

It’s as if we learned nothing from #metoo, which gave us endless examples of abuse by rich and powerful men — movie and TV magnates, tech geniuses and finance chiefs, who leveraged their status to get away with it for years. And yet our wealth-worshiping culture still gives affluent people the benefit of the doubt.

“Many things can produce violence, but male entitlement in professional and wealthy neighborhoods can also produce violence,” said James Ptacek, professor emeritus of Sociology & Criminal Justice at Suffolk University. “It can also shame and silence women who have the nerve to come forward.”

Ptacek has a new book called “Feeling Trapped: Social Class and Violence

Against Women,” based on interviews with scores of domestic abuse survivors. While domestic abuse is more prevalent among less affluent families, the professional and wealthy women he interviewed were more likely to stay in abusive relationships longer, he said. They also seemed more reluctant to seek help, he said, because they were ashamed and because they, too, bought into the fiction that these things befall only poorer women.

“The shame cost them years of abuse,” Ptacek said.

According to court documents in the art fraud case, Brian Walshe leveraged the trappings of wealth to trick the many people he stole from into believing he was on the level. Social status provides a cloak for affluent domestic abusers, too.

But the worst cases always go the same way, regardless of class: physical and emotional abuse that breaks victims and takes lives — at least 27 people died from domestic violence in this state last year, according to Jane Doe — leaving children with enough trauma to last a lifetime.

We can only hope Ana Walshe’s little ones won’t be among them.