Karen Read’s attorneys have asked a judge to order the town of Canton to turn over records tied to a police investigation into Sgt. Sean Goode, saying newly obtained documents show he and former Massachusetts State Police trooper Michael Proctor traded vile messages while working as officers.
Read, 46, is pressing for the records in the latest turn of the long-running fallout from the death of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, a case that has already been through two trials and now continues in civil court. Goode testified at Read’s first trial on May 7, 2024, and was one of the first officers to respond to the 911 call about O’Keefe’s death.
In a filing, Read’s lawyers said newly received material from the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office shows that Goode and Proctor were “close long-time buddies who frequently exchanged vile messages while both served as police officers.” Proctor, who was the lead investigator in O’Keefe’s death, was later fired after texts he sent about Read during the investigation came to light during her first trial.
The request comes after Read was tried twice on charges that she murdered her boyfriend by hitting him with her SUV and leaving him to die in the snow. A deadlocked jury produced a mistrial the first time, and a second jury acquitted her of murder but found her guilty of driving under the influence. Since then, Read has been involved in two lawsuits: one she filed against witnesses and investigators she says conspired to frame her, and another filed by the O’Keefe family accusing her of wrongful death and infliction of emotional distress.
Canton is fighting the records request, saying it is too broad and seeks information that has nothing to do with the disputes now before the court. An attorney for the town said, “The Town fails to see how any such records are even remotely relevant to the allegations and defenses in the instant action,” and added that the current investigation did not begin until nearly four years after O’Keefe’s death. The town also said that probe does not involve allegations related to O’Keefe, Read, or Goode’s role in the earlier investigation.
The town acknowledged in its filing that Goode was placed on paid administrative leave after Read’s acquittal in 2025, but it did not say why. Read’s attorneys called it “particularly disingenuous” for Canton to suggest, without evidence, that she would immediately hand documents from the Goode matter to the media.
The fight over the records does not change the shape of the bigger case: Read’s criminal prosecution is over, but the courtroom battles around it are not. The next step is a hearing in her civil trial, where the question is less about what a jury already decided and more about what the town’s files may still show.
