Prosecutors said they’ve turned over reams of Proctor’s notes from his work on the Walshe case as a homicide investigator in the Norfolk District Attorney’s office, as well as some requested materials from the internal affairs review, but not all of them.
In court papers filed Monday in Norfolk Superior Court, prosecutors said they’re “in the process of reviewing Trooper Proctor’s work phone and iCloud data for discoverable information as it pertains to this case and [have] hired an experienced attorney to perform an independent review.”
Prosecutors in the murder case against Brian Walshe , the Cohasset man who allegedly killed and dismembered his wife on New Year’s Day 2023, are balking at providing his lawyers with all the requested materials pertaining to an internal affairs review of Michael Proctor, a State Police Trooper who is suspended over his conduct in the Karen Read investigation.
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Proctor has been suspended without pay since July, days after Read’s murder trial ended in a hung jury. Proctor had been forced on the stand to read aloud crude, misogynistic text messages he had sent about Read to friends and coworkers, which the defense seized on to argue investigators were biased against their client. Read’s retrial for allegedly running over her boyfriend with her SUV in January 2022 is slated for April.
In the Walshe case, prosecutors said that the defense appears to be requesting “all evaluations” of Proctor that his supervisor completed, starting from the investigation into the death of Read’s boyfriend, John O’Keefe, through his suspension.
“Because the evaluation of a police officer likely contains privileged, confidential, or private information, and may contain sensitive investigatory information, this court should conduct an in-camera review … to determine whether any evaluation should be disclosed and whether it is appropriate to subject the materials to protective orders,” prosecutors said.
Walshe’s lawyers have raised questions about the integrity of the investigation, noting that Proctor led the probe. Prosecutors have said they won’t call Proctor as a witness at Walshe’s trial.
Proctor is scheduled to appear before a State Police trial board on Jan. 15, when the head of the agency could impose final discipline, according to legal filings.
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Trooper Michael Proctor in court. Greg Derr/Pool
Prosecutors in the Walshe case said they’re also objecting to a defense request for all recordings and written transcripts of internal affairs interviews of Proctor and his supervisors.
“Because Trooper Proctor remains the subject of an open internal affairs investigation, recordings pertaining to his conduct or performance should not be subject to disclosure,” prosecutors wrote.
Walshe is scheduled to appear in Middlesex Superior Court on Wednesday for a pretrial hearing; the case will be tried in Norfolk Superior Court but the presiding judge is currently sitting in Middlesex. Walshe is being held without bail, with his trial slated to begin Oct. 20, records show.
He stands accused of murdering his wife Ana Walshe, a 39-year-old mother of three. Ana Walshe, a real estate executive who worked in Washington, D.C., and split her time between there and Massachusetts, was reported missing by co-workers on Jan. 4, 2023.
On New Year’s Eve of 2022, the couple had hosted one of Ana Walshe’s former employees, who left their Cohasset home around 1:30 a.m., according to prosecutors.
By 4:50 a.m., authorities allege, Ana Walshe was dead and her husband allegedly used his son’s iPad to conduct searches such as, “How long before a body starts to smell?” and “How long for someone to be missing to inheritance?”
Prosecutors say Brian Walshe was the sole beneficiary of a $2.7 million life insurance policy his wife had taken out. They also allege he had been closely monitoring the Instagram page of a man he believed his wife was having an affair with.
Material from prior Globe stories was used in this report. This story will be updated.
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Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.
Brian Walshe, accused of killing, dismembering wife in Cohasset, due in court Weds.
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