Brian Walshe, who is accused of killing his wife Ana Walshe and dismembering her body in their Cohasset, Massachusetts home, was assaulted Thursday night at the Norfolk County jail in Dedham. His lawyer told WBZ-TV Walshe was stabbed. 

He was taken to a Boston hospital to be treated for his injuries and released later that night.

The Norfolk County Sheriff's office said an inmate was "assaulted inside one of the facility's housing units" with a "makeshift blunt instrument" just before 10 p.m. Authorities said correctional officers acted immediately to subdue the attacker and give the inmate first aid.

"The individual who was assaulted was conscious and alert and taken to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston for treatment," the sheriff's office said in a statement. "He was returned to our facility overnight."

The assault is under investigation. Authorities have not yet identified the attacker.

Walshe is scheduled to stand trial in October. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, misleading a police investigation/obstruction of justice and improper conveyance of a human body. 

High-profile inmate

"That's how quickly something could happen when you have a high-profile inmate," said former Bristol County Sheriff Tom Hodgson. 

Hodgson said he dealt with similar challenges trying to protect former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez while he was in jail. 

"That would require them to be, in the case where we had Aaron Hernandez, in a secure unit where the inmates aren't all out at the same time and rec time," Hodgson said. 

Hodgson said the person that is responsible for the attack would be put into segregation and charged. 

"As far as the victim goes, I am sure they will be reassessing whatever security level they had him at," Hodgson said. 

Walshe's case has garnered national interest, and Hodgson said the other inmates would know what he is accused of. 

"They have access to television in there of course and iPads and so forth so they would likely know what his case was about and there aren't too many secrets amongst the inmates in prison," Hodgson said.  

Ana Walshe's disappearance

Ana Walshe was last seen early in the morning on Jan. 1, 2023 after the couple hosted a friend for dinner on New Year's Eve. Brian Walshe told police that she left the house between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. to take an Uber or Lyft to the airport so she could fly to Washington, D.C. for a work emergency, but there's no evidence that she was ever picked up by a car or boarded a plane. 

Prosecutors said Brian Walshe made a series of gruesome internet searches on his son's iPad around the time of his wife's disappearance, including "How long before a body starts to smell?"; "10 ways to dispose of a dead body if you really need to" and "hacksaw best tool to dismember." Surveillance video showed Walshe at a Home Depot in Rockland buying hundreds of dollars worth of cleaning supplies, including mops, a bucket, tarps, drop cloths and tape, the prosecution said. 

A week after Ana Walshe's disappearance, prosecutors say investigators found blood, and a bloody and damaged knife in the basement of their home. Brian Walshe was then arrested and taken into custody.

Prosecutors also said Brian Walshe hired a private investigator to follow his wife in the days before her murder because he suspected she was having an affair, and that Ana Walshe had a $2.7 million life insurance policy that named her husband as the sole beneficiary.

Brian Walshe's defense

The defense has argued that investigators illegally obtained the Google searches being used as evidence against Brian Walshe. His lawyers have also sought emails and text messages from former Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor, who helped lead the investigations in the Walshe and Karen Read cases. Proctor was fired for his actions in the Read case after admitting to sending inappropriate and offensive text messages about the defendant. 

Walshe is also serving a separate three-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to art fraud charges.