Explosive textual content messages from fired detective may injury Karen Learn homicide case

[ad_1] Be part of Fox Information for entry to this content material

Plus particular entry to pick articles and different premium content material along with your account - freed from cost.

By getting into your e-mail and pushing proceed, you're agreeing to Fox Information' Terms of Use and Privacy Policy , which incorporates our Notice of Financial Incentive . Please enter a sound e-mail handle.

Having trouble? Click here. NEW Now you can take heed to Fox Information articles!

Particular prosecutor Hank Brennan might have dulled the influence of inappropriate textual content messages the lead murder detective despatched relating to Karen Read days earlier than she was charged with the homicide of John O'Keefe – however they're nonetheless damaging to the state's case and never simply because he used vulgar and obscene language, specialists say.

The texts had been a bomb that blew up the primary trial after they had been learn with Michael Proctor on the witness stand, and it ended with a deadlocked jury final yr. This time round, prosecutors determined to not name him as a witness, and it was his childhood good friend Jonathan Diamandis who – visibly uncomfortable – walked the jury by means of the dialog.

However past the crass remarks about Learn, specialists say much less explosive messages about Proctor's early opinions of the investigation may very well be damning.

"Proctor is mentally begging [the defense] to name him," retired Massachusetts Superior Court Choose and Boston School regulation professor Jack Lu advised Fox Information Digital. "Now that the texts are in, they won't name Proctor until they're satisfied they've misplaced – the outdated ‘Hail Mary’ go."

KAREN READ UPDATE: FIRED LEAD INVESTIGATOR ON WITNESS LIST FOR 2ND TRIAL IN BOSTON COP JOHN O'KEEFE'S DEATH

Karen Learn sits together with her protection staff, from left, Robert Alessi, Elizabeth Little, Alan Jackson, and David Yannetti throughout her homicide retrial in Norfolk Superior Courtroom, in Dedham, Mass., Monday, June 2, 2025. (Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe by way of AP, Pool)

Lu mentioned the protection staff gained some floor with Diamandis on the stand, however with Brennan going through the textual content chain head-on, the messages had been probably not a major shift in Learn’s favor.

"Will the jury be actually shocked by abusive texts from a police officer investigating an individual they assume is a assassin?" Lu mentioned. "I doubt it."

Learn is accused of hitting her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, together with her Lexus SUV throughout a drunken argument earlier than leaving him to freeze to death within the entrance yard of a good friend’s dwelling within the early morning hours of Jan. 29, 2022.

Diamandis testified he has been in a bunch chat with Proctor for greater than a decade and was aware of textual content messages despatched through the investigation into O’Keefe’s dying.

KAREN READ CASE: MASSACHUSETTS TROOPER MICHAEL PROCTOR 'TERMINATED' FROM STATE POLICE

Jonathan Diamandis, a longtime good friend of Michael Proctor, testifies for the protection through the homicide retrial of Karen Learn in Norfolk Superior Courtroom, in Dedham, Mass., on Monday, June 2, 2025. (Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe by way of AP, Pool)

The Massachusetts State Police fired Proctor in March after an inner investigation discovered he had shared delicate and confidential details about the case with folks outdoors of regulation enforcement.

Learn’s first trial revealed inappropriate textual content messages the lead investigator despatched because the case was unfolding .

"The messages show one factor, and that Michael is human – not corrupt, not incompetent in his function as a murder detective and definitely not unfit to proceed to be a Massachusetts State Trooper," his sister, Courtney Proctor, beforehand mentioned in an announcement.

On cross-examination, Brennan requested Diamandis to learn to the jury Proctor’s messages from the day O’Keefe’s physique was found.

Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor takes the stand throughout Karen Learn's first homicide trial at Norfolk Superior Courtroom in Dedham, Mass. on June 10, 2024. (Kayla Bartkowski/The Boston Globe by way of Getty Photographs)

"She waffled him," Proctor wrote, referring to Learn. "I checked out his physique within the hospital."

Proctor weighed in together with his personal observations of what might have occurred to O’Keefe, initially agreeing with one other member of the group chat that the Boston police officer might have been crushed to dying.

"That’s what I initially thought after speaking to [a] Canton paramedic," Proctor wrote. "Then I noticed the man."

KAREN READ TRIAL: LEAD DETECTIVE'S WIFE SLAMS SUSPECTED COP KILLER'S MEDIA TOUR AS 'UNRELENTING PROPAGANDA'

<source media="(min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 1023px)" srcset="https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2025/05/672/378/karen-read-boston-ma-retrial-john-okeefe-day-23-002.jpg?ve=1&tl=1, https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2025/05/1344/756/karen-read-boston-ma-retrial-john-okeefe-day-23-002.jpg?ve=1&tl=1 2x" height="378" width="672"><source media="(min-width: 1024px) and (max-width: 1279px)" srcset="https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2025/05/931/523/karen-read-boston-ma-retrial-john-okeefe-day-23-002.jpg?ve=1&tl=1, https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2025/05/1862/1046/karen-read-boston-ma-retrial-john-okeefe-day-23-002.jpg?ve=1&tl=1 2x" height="523" width="931"> Karen Learn speaks together with her protection legal professional, Alan Jackson, throughout her retrial in Norfolk Superior Courtroom, Thursday, Could 29, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (Mark Stockwell/AP Photograph, Pool)

Requested for extra particulars, Proctor replied with a message implicating Learn, telling his buddies, "she hit him together with her automobile."

"Gotcha," one pal wrote. "[O’Keefe] was frozen within the driveway, and she or he didn’t see him."

"That’s one other animal we gained’t be capable of show," Proctor replied. "They arrived on the home collectively, bought into an argument, she was driving and left."

DEFENSE LAWYERS URGED TO REEXAMINE CONVICTIONS LED BY FIRED KAREN READ DETECTIVE

The textual content messages elevate the likelihood that Proctor reached a conclusion on O’Keefe’s dying earlier than the investigation completed, based on Massachusetts protection legal professional Grace Edwards. He despatched them round 11 p.m. on Jan. 29, 2022 – the day O'keefe had been discovered. An post-mortem wasn't accomplished till two days later.

"These textual content messages had been from the night time of John O’Keefe’s dying, and it seems that Michael Proctor has already come to a conclusion in regards to the case – earlier than the medical expert's report," Edwards advised Fox Information Digital. "His conclusion was untimely."

Proctor’s alleged rush to implicate Learn may have brought on him to disregard proof pointing to different potentialities surrounding the reason for O’Keefe’s dying, based on Edwards.

"Michael Proctor will not be certified to make a willpower about how John O'Keefe died," Edwards mentioned. "That's what now we have health workers for. Based mostly on the textual content messages, Michael Proctor had come to that conclusion all on his personal inside hours of O’Keefe’s dying."

KAREN READ JUDGE BLOCKS SANDRA BIRCHMORE MENTIONS; EXPERT SAYS CASES SHOULD BE WAKE-UP CALL FOR POLICE

Officer John O’Keefe poses for his official headshot. O’Keefe’s girlfriend, Karen Reed, is at the moment on trial for homicide after he was discovered lifeless outdoors of a Massachusetts dwelling in January 2022. (Boston Police Division)

Felony protection legal professional Mark Bederow additionally pointed to Proctor’s skilled incapability to find out what – or who – killed O’Keefe, and the way the fast assumption may have been detrimental to the investigation.

"[Proctor] will not be certified to say that," Bederow advised Fox Information Digital. "There may be an abundance of proof of Proctor’s investigative tunnel imaginative and prescient and bias."

Because the tone of the texts shifted, Diamandis advised the courtroom he didn't wish to proceed studying the messages aloud as a result of they contained "uncomfortable phrases," prompting Brennan to learn them and ask Diamandis to verify that what he was studying was an correct depiction of the texts on the chain.

Karen Learn and John O'Keefe pose for an undated {photograph}. (Karen Learn)

GET REAL-TIME UPDATES DIRECTLY ON THE TRUE CRIME HUB

"Yeah, she’s a babe," Proctor wrote. "Bizarre Fall River accent although. No a--."

The textual content chain turned obscene at factors, together with mocking Learn over a purported medical subject.

Proctor is topic to witness sequestration and declined to remark.

FOLLOW THE FOX TRUE CRIME TEAM ON X

Proctor is on the protection witness checklist, however Learn's staff referred to as Diamandis as an alternative, in what Edwards believes is a dangerous transfer by the protection.

"Brennan has now taken the wind out of the sails of the protection as a result of the studying of these texts didn't have the influence that they did through the first trial when Michael Proctor learn them himself," Edwards mentioned.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The selection to name Proctor’s childhood good friend may very well be seen as a secure approach for the protection staff to drop the bombshell textual content chain with out risking cross-examination by the state.

However, the protection can now level to the truth that prosecutors declined to place their lead investigator on the witness stand, Bederow mentioned.

"They’ll probably pursue a ‘lacking witness’ instruction from the court docket by which the decide will inform jurors they might draw an adversarial inference in opposition to prosecution for his or her failure to name Proctor," he mentioned. "It's just about exceptional for the prosecution to not name the lead investigator in a homicide case, however in fact it is also terribly uncommon that the lead investigator was terminated for unprofessional habits and bias on [the same] case."