Two more Massachusetts State Police officers linked to the high-profile Karen Read murder case are facing an internal affairs investigation, joining a third trooper, Michael Proctor, who was suspended earlier this month while facing a probe of his own.
Detective Lieutenant Brian Tully and Sergeant Yuri Bukhenik will remain on active duty while the investigation takes place, the state police told NBC News.
Tully supervised the Norfolk County detective unit where Proctor worked during the Read investigation, while Bukhenik was part of a group that received offensive messages from Proctor about Read as officers investigated her alleged 2022 killing of her boyfriend John O’Keefe, a Boston police officer.
Tully, through a representative at the Norfolk County DA’s office, told The Independent he had no comment besides that he was “looking forward to the conclusion of the review.”
The Independent has contacted Bukhenik and the state police union for comment.
The state police told the Associated Press it wouldn’t comment on the nature of the investigation “in fairness to the integrity of the pending investigative outcomes.”
The investigations are the latest dark cloud over the Read case, which ended in a mistrial earlier this month.
Prosecutors allege Read backed her SUV into O’Keefe and left him for dead in the snow, while the defense argues Read was framed.
Proctor, the lead investigator in the high-profile murder case, was suspended without pay earlier this month, after coming under scrutiny for a series of offensive, misogynistic text messages the officer sent to friends and colleagues about the investigation.
During the nine-week Read trial, Proctor admitted in testimony that he sent a series of inappropriate texts about Read.
The texts included messages where he joked about hoping to find nude photos on her phone, mocked her Crohn’s disease, referred to her with a misogynist slur, and said he hoped she killed herself.
Proctor has previously acknowledged that the messages crossed the line, describing them as having “dehumanized” Read, but has stood by his police work in the case.
“These juvenile, unprofessional comments have zero impact on the facts and the evidence and the integrity of this investigation,” he testified.
In August, a court will hear oral arguments on a defense motion to dismiss two of the charges against Read, and a retrial is planned for January.
