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THE cop who sent vulgar texts about Karen Read while investigating her case has been fired.
Embattled Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor has been dishonorably discharged after being found guilty of mishandling Read’s case and drinking on the job, the agency announced on Wednesday.
Proctor made headlines for mishandling the murder case of Read, who was accused of killing her boyfriend, Boston Police Department Officer John O’Keefe, with her SUV in January 2022.
During Read’s trial last year, Proctor was forced to read incriminating texts he sent while investigating the case on the witness stand.
“She’s a whack job (expletive),” Proctor wrote in a text, he read on the stand in June 2024.
“Yes she’s a babe. Weird Fall River accent, though. No a**.”
While searching Read’s phone during the investigation, he texted his friends that he had found “no nudes so far.”
He also messaged his sister “Hopefully she kills herself,” about Read.
Proctor was relieved of duty just hours after Read’s first trial ended in a mistrial in July 2024.
Weeks later, he was suspended without pay.
The texts were just one of four of Proctor’s violations of agency conduct that the Massachusetts State Police board found in a months-long investigation into the disgraced state trooper.
He was dismissed for sending derogatory texts about Read, providing sensitive information about the case to people who weren’t in law enforcement, and creating bias in dealing with Read.
In his fourth violation, the only one separate from the Read case, the trial found Proctor drank while eating dinner on duty on July 19, 2022.
He then got into his cop cruiser and drove while buzzed.
FAMILY LASHES OUT
Proctor’s family said they’re disappointed with the MSP’s findings, according to the Boston Herald.
The family said in a statement the dismissal was a “wrongful termination” because Proctor was a “trooper with a 12-year unblemished record.”
Michael Proctor’s texts
Disgraced Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Proctor sent a series of inappropriate texts while he was the lead investigator on Karen Read’s murder case.
He called her a “whack job c**t” in one of the disturbing messages.
He texted to his friend, “Yes she’s a babe. Weird Fall River accent, though. No a**.”
While searching Read’s phone during the investigation, he texted his friends that he had found “no nudes so far.”
He also messaged his sister, “Hopefully she kills herself.”
About her Crohn’s disease, Proctor wrote, “She’s got a leaky balloon knot. Leaks poo.”
He also called Read “retarded.”
In another message he wrote that Read “waffled” O’Keefe.
“I looked at [O’Keefe’s] body in the hospital. He was banged up. She hit him with her car,” he said.
Proctor apologized for the texts on the witness stand and said they were “regrettable.”
“The messages prove one thing, and that Michael is human – not corrupt, not incompetent in his role as a homicide detective, and certainly not unfit to continue to be a Massachusetts State Trooper,” the family’s statement said.
Read has insisted she’s innocent and claims she’s being framed for her boyfriend’s death as part of an elaborate conspiracy by law enforcement.
‘BOTCHED’ CASE
After Read’s first trial ended with a hung jury, Neama Rahmani, founder of West Coast Trial Lawyers, told The U.S. Sun he believed prosecutors botched the case by putting Proctor on the stand.
In his 20 years of practicing law, Rahmani said Proctor was one of the worst witnesses he ever saw take the stand.
He compared the state trooper’s performance to a disastrous witness in the murder trial of OJ Simpson.
During Simpson’s trial, LAPD detective Mark Furhman was found to have used the N-word and then lied about it on the stand.
Read’s retrial is set to begin on April 1, 2025.
A timeline of Karen Read’s case
Karen Read, the Mansfield woman accused of fatally striking her cop boyfriend with her SUV in January 2022, will face a retrial on January 27, 2025.
A judge declared a mistrial on July 1, 2024, after a jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict after five days of deliberation.
- January 29, 2022: O’Keefe’s body is found outside of a friend’s home.
- February 1, 2022: Read was arrested and charged with manslaughter, motor vehicle homicide, and leaving the scene of a vehicle homicide.
- February 2, 2022: Read pleads not guilty in Stoughton District Court.
- June 9, 2022: A state grand jury indicts Read on upgraded charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter, and leaving the scene.
- April 12, 2023: Read’s attorneys publicly release court documents they say contain “bombshell exculpatory information,” including Jennifer McCabe’s Google search.
- Nov. 20, 2023: Residents of the divided community vote 903-800 to audit the Canton Police Department over the case.
- May 23, 2023: During another pre-trial hearing, the defense says that the murder of John O’Keefe is a massive cover-up involving members of law enforcement and their friends and family members.
- Feb. 22, 2024: Prosecutors unveil long-awaited results of crime scene evidence tests, alleging that O’Keefe’s DNA was recovered from the broken taillight of Read’s vehicle.
- April 12, 2024: Read’s defense attorneys say in court that Brian Albert, his son Colin Albert, and Brian Higgins could have each killed O’Keefe at the party that night.
- April 16, 2024: Read’s trial began in Massachusetts Superior Court.
- May 17, 2024: Jennifer McCabe, who was with Read when she discovered O’Keefe’s body, testifies that during their search, Read repeatedly said: “Did I hit him? Could I have hit him?” She also says Read later said when emergency workers were on the scene: “I hit him.”
- June 3, 2024: The defense accuses police of planting the shattered fragments of taillight from Read’s car at the scene of the crime.
- June 24, 2024: The defense rests their case.
- July 1, 2024: A judge declared a hung jury after five days of deliberation
