- Former Massachusetts State Police trooper Michael Proctor, who was the lead investigator in Karen Read’s murder case, refused to testify in a different murder case due to his inappropriate text messages, including racist conversations, which have jeopardized other cases he worked on.
DEDHAM, Mass. (Court TV) — A former Massachusetts State Police trooper whose inappropriate text messages made headlines during Karen Read’s trial said he would not testify at a hearing in a different murder case in which he served as the lead investigator.
Read, who stood trial twice and was eventually acquitted of charges that she killed her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, produced evidence at her first trial showing that Michael Proctor, the lead investigator in her case, had been sending inappropriate messages about her.
The fallout from the messages cost Proctor his job with the Massachusetts State Police and triggered disciplinary action against his supervisor. Proctor’s behavior has also jeopardized other cases where he served as the lead investigator, including the Commonwealth’s case against Myles King, who is charged with the 2021 murder of Marquis Simmons.
King’s attorney, Rosemary Scapicchio, filed a motion to dismiss the charges against her client, arguing that a search of Proctor’s phone revealed that he regularly engaged in racist conversations with friends. “Proctor had a hand in, and guided the entire investigation,” Scapicchio wrote in her motion to dismiss. “He did all this while holding the beliefs that black people should be ‘enslaved,’ that black people are ‘animals,’ and that they should be killed.”…