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Prosecutors say they don’t plan to call Trooper Proctor to testify in Brian Walshe murder trial
Proctor remains on unpaid suspension following his testimony in Karen Read's trial.
Still sifting through the fallout from Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor’s disastrous testimony in the Karen Read case, prosecutors say they won’t call the disgraced investigator to testify in the trial of Brian Walshe, a Cohasset man accused of killing and dismembering his wife.
The Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office said Friday it doesn’t plan to have Proctor take the stand when it tries Walshe, who has pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife Ana in January 2023. Prosecutors allege Walshe purchased hundreds of dollars of cleaning supplies and hardware products after his wife was last seen alive on New Year’s Day, also pointing to a series of disturbing Google searches that purportedly included “10 ways to dispose of a dead body if you really need to.”
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Proctor was the designated case officer in the missing person search turned murder investigation, the same role he played in Read’s case. However, State Police later suspended Proctor without pay after he admitted he “dehumanized” Read in vulgar and derogatory texts to friends, family, and coworkers during the investigation.
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In one message, Proctor called Read a “wack job c**t.” In others, he joked about looking for nude photos on Read’s phone and said he hoped she would kill herself.
“My emotions got the best of me with that figure of speech,” Proctor said by way of explanation.
Read is accused of drunkenly and intentionally backing her SUV into her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, in January 2022. Her first trial ended in a mistrial on July 1, and a retrial is slated to begin in January.
In the meantime, prosecutors are left to consider what the disclosure of Proctor’s texts means for his other investigations.
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The DA’s office previously confirmed it has flagged Proctor’s testimony from Read’s trial to defense attorneys in other cases he touched. In one such case, a lawyer for Ingolf “Harry” Tuerk — a former Dover surgeon awaiting trial for his wife’s 2020 murder — is now seeking access to electronic devices from Proctor and other investigators.
While State Police recently turned over data from Proctor’s work phone and cloud account, prosecutors are still “in the process of ascertaining how to determine what — if any — information … is discoverable,” the DA’s office said in legal filings last week.
Prosecutors are also “exploring hiring an outside firm” to examine Proctor’s phone and cloud data, according to notices filed in several high-profile cases.
Explaining that the data may include sensitive and confidential information about unrelated cases, prosecutors argued that “releasing the entire extraction report outside of law enforcement is anticipated to jeopardize open investigations, compromise the privacy and safety of civilians, and thus be contrary to the interests of justice.”
The legal filings also touched on an unrelated case involving Julius Hammond-Desir and Samantha Schwartz, two people charged in connection with a fatal shooting at the South Shore Plaza in 2022. While Proctor had minimal involvement in that case, the DA’s office said it will search the trooper’s phone data for potential bias and discovery material at the direction of the judge overseeing those court proceedings.
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“The Commonwealth would be willing to and able to conduct similar searches” for the Walshe and Tuerk cases, prosecutors wrote. “The Norfolk District Attorney’s Office also intends to continue [to] explore retaining an independent firm to review and examine the materials.”
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