A once-prominent Massachusetts doctor accused of killing his wife in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic was in court for a hearing Wednesday, where new filings that mention the closely watched Karen Read investigation were briefly discussed.
Dr. Ingolf Tuerk has been indicted on a murder charge over the 2020 death of Kathleen McLean's body in a pond near the couple's Dover home. In a suit and handcuffs, he appeared in court for a hearing Norfolk Superior Court, where his new lawyer, Kevin Reddington, discussed several motions.
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Last week, Reddington made several filings, including a request for personal text messages and emails from investigators who worked on the case. Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Proctor, the investigator suspended by the agency for what was revealed about his investigation into the Read case, also investigated McLean's killing.
Tuerk's case is one of several in Norfolk County that could be affected by the fallout from the Proctor revelations. But the judge, Beverly Cannone, who has also presided over the Read case, ruled that Reddington needed to file an affidavit explaining why it's important to obtain the messages from Proctor and others before the motion is argued in court. The matter will be argued at the next court date, in September, with the case slated to go to trial in November.
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Reddington was one of the lawyers who received a letter from the Norfolk District Attorney's Office referring to Proctor's crude, unprofessional text messages about Read to co-workers, friends and family during the early stages of the investigation into the death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe.
"They give me a notice and they say, 'Look, you got a lousy investigation, you got misrepresentations, you got totally inappropriate references to the defendant who's being investigated," Reddington said told NBC10 Boston.
Reddington said Proctor played a major role gathering evidence in the Dover investigation, which is why he's requesting police officers' text messages and emails. He also noted that "nobody would've known about this issue" if not for the U.S. Attorney's Office for Massachusetts conducting a rare probe into how the Read case was handled.
Read was eventually charged, and a mistrial was declared last month — she argued she was framed by investigators to protect O'Keefe's real killer. Proctor has been suspended without pay while an internal affairs investigation plays out.
Rosemary Scapicchio, another prominent Massachusetts defense attorney, also received the letter from the Norfolk District Attorney's Office. She represents defendants in three murder cases that Proctor investigated, and plans to make a similar request for communications among law enforcement.
"I think it certainly raises a red flag as to whether or not his investigations are done without bias," she said.
Scapicchio also said the matter should set a precedent: "We're trusting law enforcement to do their job in an unbiased way."
Several other matters were dealt with at Wednesday's hearing, including further requests for documents and access to electronic devices.
Tuerk was a renowned urologist who specializes in robotic surgery and was once featured on a hospital's billboard in Boston, but he was charged in 2019 with medical billing fraud by Attorney General Maura Healey. The case was settled.
Prosecutors have said he admitted to strangling McLean to death, then dumping his body in the pond. Among the new filings submitted by Tuerk's lawyer is a lengthy statement depicting Tuerk's side of the story; it wasn't addressed in court Wednesday.
In it, Reddington describes the history of the couple's relationship and claims that, the night of the killing, McLean admitted to setting him up so she could provide for her children and was seeing other men even after the couple had recondiled.
"She referred to the dating site men as [Tuerk], on the knees, begged McLean, "please don't do this" and she proceeded to hit him with a glass, striking him on the head and striking him in his forehead and came at him with arms outstretched. He stood up and grabbed her and it was at this point that he realized that she went limp and that she had, indeed, passed away," the statement of the case concludes.
The document doesn't go into further detail about the alleged murder.
Investigators have said Tuerk called 911 to report McLean missing a day after she was last seen, and that he sent a text message to a common friend of the couple.
"Curt I am sorry brother but she is a vindictive devil, she played us all, I am really sorry brother, but she manipulated us all, love you Harry," the text read, according to authorities.
After being found unresponsive at a hotel room in Dedham, Tuerk allegedly told investigators he strangled his wife to death after a fight at their home and dumped her body in a nearby pond, prosecutors said in court.
A not guilty plea was entered on Tuerk's behalf at that court hearing, and he was ordered held without bail.
