The conduct of a former Massachusetts state soldier who was fired for his handling of Karen’s murder investigation led the centralist in his new trial this week, while defense lawyers spent hours grilling the former Offer’s supervisor.
Sergeant of the State Police of Massachusetts. Yuri Bukhenik acknowledged that he was also disciplined by allegations of misconduct linked to Michael Proctor, the agent of the case who managed the investigation into the death of policeman John O’Keefe. But the supervisor witnessed that the ex -solid has dealt with the investigation with “honor and integrity.”
“I believe all human beings have prejudice,” Bukhenik said in a court southeast of Boston. “Especially in this case, they did not affect the outcome of the investigation.”
Proctor, who was fired after Read’s defense team raised allegations of misconduct in his first assisted trial, did not witness in his trial. It is not clear if he goes.
Read, 45, is accused of second degree murder, manslaughter of motor vehicles while driving under the influence and leaves the place of a collision causing death.
The first trial, which lasted nine weeks and five days of jury deliberations, ended when the panel could not reach a unanimous verdict. This week he marked the third in his new trial.
Prosecutors claimed that Read was furious with her deteriorated relationship when she drunk supported her two -year -old boyfriend’s Lexus SUV in O’keefe and left him outside the suburban house of a now retired Boston Police Sergeant Brian Albert.
O’Keefe, 46, was found unanswered at Albert’s backyard shortly after 6 am on January 29, 2022. Later, he was declared dead. The coroner attributed his cause of death to hypothermia and direct force trauma to his head.
Read affirmed his innocence. Her lawyers claimed that she is the victim of a conspiracy-o’keefe was probably beaten inside Albert’s house, bitten by the German pastor of the family and dragged out, they said and a cover-up that sought to fit her into her death.
Defense lawyers accused Proctor of manipulating evidence and conducting a biased investigation. He was dismissed in March after a review of state police found that he violated the agency’s rules when he sent derogatory messages about reading to friends, family and other people, and when he shared sensitive and confidential details about the case with non-law execution staff.
At the trial, Proctor acknowledged that his comments were “non -professional” and “dehumanized,” but he said they did not affect the integrity of the investigation into O’Keefe’s death. Proctor did not commented on his end, but his family said the decision to fire him “exploits and governing scapegoats unjustly one of them, a soldier with a 12-year record.”
Bukhenik was among those that Proctor sent a text message. While searching Read’s phone seven months after O’keefe’s death, Proctor sent a message from a group about one of Read’s lawyers, David Yannetti, and referred to reading with offensive language and said, “There is no naked so far.”
In other messages that did not include Bukhenik, Proctor said he hoped Read died from suicide and he made derogatory comments about his medical condition. The reading was diagnosed with Chron’s disease.
Bukhenik witnessed that he was working in a traffic detail from the airport when the message arrived at his Apple Watch. Although Bukhenik answered with a threshing emoji, he said, he didn’t look at the messages at the time.
Bukhenik was later disciplined about the accuracy of Proctor’s performance evaluation, he witnessed and not supervising it properly. He lost five days on vacation, he said, and remains a homicide investigator of the Massachusetts State Police.
Under the interrogation of defense attorney Alan Jackson, Bukhenik said that although Proctor got the investigation, he did not believe that the former solido played an important role because he was only one of several soldiers assigned to the case and was not responsible for 51 % or more of work.
Asked if he believed that Proctor’s involvement in the case contaminated the investigation, Bukhenik said he did not.
“The investigation was done with honor and integrity and the evidence pointed out in one direction,” he said.
Tim Stelloh
Tim Stelloh is a news reporter from NBC News Digital.