In a case that captured national attention and served as endless fodder for true-crime podcasts, prosecutors in Massachusetts attempted to convict Karen Read on charges that included second-degree murder in the death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe III, on a snowy night in January 2022. After the first attempt ended in a mistrial, the subsequent proceedings led to Read’s acquittal. Almost a year after her exoneration, Read has served notice that she believes it’s now her turn.
On June 4, 2026, Read filed a civil lawsuit in Bristol County Superior Court against the Massachusetts State Police (MSP) and the Canton Police Department (CPD). She accuses both law enforcement agencies of allowing a culture of hatred and bigotry that culminated in the allegedly biased and flawed investigation into O’Keefe’s death by Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor and Canton Police Sergeant Sean Goode. The accusations of police misconduct and the lack of oversight over the questionable decisions and actions taken by Proctor and Goode stood at the center of Read’s legal defense.
Read’s complaint alleges a history of shocking texts and chats between Proctor and Goode awash in overt misogyny, bigotry, and racism that a Norfolk Superior Court judge ruled admissible as evidence for related civil suits in April 2025. The suit claims both the MSP and the CPD were aware of the problems with both officers, but kept them in positions of power that betrayed the public trust in law enforcement, including allowing the pair to be in charge of the investigation into O’Keefe’s death. Proctor was fired by the MSP in March 2025 after an internal affairs investigation into his conduct during the O’Keefe case, and he ultimately dropped an appeal of his termination. Goode, who was the subject of an outside investigation on his alleged misconduct, resigned from the CPD a few days before Read’s lawsuit was filed.
Read, who was acquitted of murder, manslaughter, and leaving the scene of an accident, was found guilty of a drunken driving charge. Claiming emotional distress, violation of her civil rights, and the loss of her career, home, and reputation, she’s seeking whatever damages the court deems appropriate relief for police misconduct and wrongful prosecution.
You Can’t Say That on Television (or Anywhere Else, Really)
After drinking in a bar and reportedly having numerous arguments on a snowy late January evening in 2022, Read and O’Keefe got into her SUV and drove to the house of fellow Boston PD officer Brian Albert in Canton. What happened next branches into two extremely different versions. Read claimed that O’Keefe got out of her car at Albert’s address before driving away and going home. The investigation conducted by Proctor and Goode alleged that Read backed into O’Keefe with her car before driving off, leaving him to die in a snowbank.
While exactly what occurred may never be fully known, the sad truth is that O’Keefe died that night. Proctor and Goode’s investigation firmly pointed the finger at Read, enough that the prosecution secured an indictment for second-degree murder. Along with true-crime podcasts and websites, the defense began discovering behavior by the two lead officers that raised several red flags. These included:
- Not going into Albert’s house until a week after the incident, and then only to have a brief interview with Albert’s wife
- Not processing the inside of the Alberts’ home as a possible crime scene
- Not interviewing everyone present at the time of the alleged murder, including other law enforcement officers
- Not establishing proper chains of evidence
- Not taking samples from the Alberts’ German Shepherd, despite O’Keefe’s body showing signs of fresh claw and bite marks that the defense argued were consistent with a canine
- Not examining the phones of those present in the Alberts’ house
Read’s defense promoted the theory that Proctor and Goode, driven in part by a desire to protect fellow law enforcement officers, deliberately did everything possible to implicate her for O’Keefe’s death, including the alleged planting of evidence. Her attorneys alleged that O’Keefe was killed inside the house, with his body placed outside to frame her for murder. The approach raised sufficient reasonable doubt for her acquittal, which followed a hung jury in the first trial.
The successful defense would likely have been aided by the later discovery of texts and chats between Goode and Proctor, dating back to 2013. During the investigation of O’Keefe’s death, the two neither considered nor investigated any alternate theories to Read being the killer. Proctor texted that Read had “zero chance [of] skating” when they were 16 hours into the investigation, while Goode expressed disappointment that an examination of Read’s seized phone didn’t appear to contain any nude photos of her.
Read’s lawsuit contains dozens of examples of the two men allegedly showing contempt and hatred for anyone who wasn’t white, male, straight, and not Jewish. Women (including Read) were referred to as “c*nts” and “tw*ts” (Goode called Anne Frank a “lying c*nt), Black people were called “n*ggers” and “monkeys,” and Proctor stated that “Hitler was really onto something” before the U.S. had to step in and “ruin it.” After four years on the MSP, Proctor noted that he had “no idea how [he] passed the background” check.
Just “Locker Room Talk?”
The complaint charges that both the MSP and the CPD were aware of the racism, misogyny, and hatred of officers like Proctor and Goode, but did nothing to discipline them. It alleges that the agencies instead allowed the bigotry to flourish. This, the lawsuit claims, constitutes negligence in their duty of care to citizens. Read also accuses the departments of a civil conspiracy, orchestrated by Proctor and Goode, to frame her for O’Keefe’s death.
Read has also filed a civil lawsuit against the people present in the Alberts’ house on the night of the incident. At the defendants' request, that filing was moved to a federal district court. As the MSP has immunity from federal courts, she filed in a Massachusetts state court, with the CPD included for procedural reasons. While neither officer is still employed by their former agencies, Read hopes to foster institutional change through her lawsuit, in addition to seeking compensation for the absolute upheaval and destruction of her life.
