One is accused of killing her boyfriend after a drunken spat. The other vanished without a trace, leaving her husband a murder suspect.
Both were investigated by the same Massachusetts state trooper whose on-the-job behavior led to his suspension without pay and an internal investigation into his conduct.
They are Karen Read, a former finance professional who is accused of hitting her Boston police officer boyfriend John O'Keefe with a Lexus SUV and leaving him to die in a snowstorm, and Ana Walshe, a jet-setting real estate executive who vanished on Jan. 1, 2023, allegedly due to foul play on behalf of her husband Brian Walshe.
Michael Proctor, an embattled investigator whose career could end in shame at the conclusion of a series of state disciplinary hearings, investigated both cases.
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O'Keefe was found dead in the snow outside a friend's house on Jan. 29, 2022, after a night out drinking with Read and other friends. Her defense has claimed the prosecution is part of an elaborate effort to frame her after he died in a confrontation with his fellow police officer friends.
Her first trial, which included embarrassing testimony from Proctor, ended with a hung jury.
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Jurors were seen shaking their heads in court as Read's defense team read some of Proctor's text messages. In them, he called Read a "wack job," a "babe … with no a--" and a "c---." He also wrote that he wished she would kill herself and joked about looking for nude selfies while searching her phone. He was suspended without pay after the trial.
She lost a bid to have the case thrown out on the grounds of double jeopardy Tuesday and will receive a new trial as expected. It has been scheduled to begin in April.
On New Year's Day in 2023, Brian Walshe allegedly killed and dismembered his 39-year-old wife, Ana Walshe, in their home in Cohasset, about 25 miles from where O'Keefe died. His trial is scheduled to start on Oct. 21.
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During a December hearing in the Walshe case, his defense team raised red flags about potential police bias from a group of Massachusetts state troopers, including Proctor, the lead investigator who was a key figure in Read's mistrial.
The Norfolk District Attorney's Office, which is handling the Walshe case, declined to comment.
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Prosecutors have downplayed Proctor's involvement as minimal and said they do not plan to call him to the stand, but the defense told the court he was present for numerous witness interviews and for evidence collection from the start of the case and onward.
The defense also argued that the Read case suggests Proctor could have been biased in other cases, including Walshe's, and they requested internal affairs reports regarding the trooper. They accused state police of cherry-picking evidence.
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"The defendant has a right to show that the investigation has flaws in it, and what we're hearing from the government is they don't want to call Proctor the case officer," defense attorney Larry Tipton told the court at a hearing last month. "It's not because he didn't do important things. It's because Proctor, along with the other troopers he worked with, seemed to be engaged, at least in the Read case … engaged in this type of professional misconduct that they got investigated for."
Tipton, who wrote a textbook on taking murder cases to trial, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Judge Diane Freniere took the defense arguments under advisement but said she may not make a decision until closer to trial.
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Walshe's defense demanded prosecutors turn over all of Proctor's texts in the new case.
A week after the hearing, Proctor appeared in front of a state trial board for a disciplinary hearing over his behavior in the Read case. The outcome has not yet been decided.
Ana Walshe's body hasn't been found, but police accuse her husband of using their son's iPad to make more than a dozen Google searches about how to dispose of human remains.
Read is due back in court on Feb. 18 for a motions hearing, and her new trial is scheduled for April 1.
Walshe's trial is scheduled to begin on Oct. 20.
Fox News' Mollie Markowitz contributed to this report.
