June 8, 2026

Karen Read's 'Let Them Die' Lawsuit Against the State Police, an Arkansas Dad Who Walked Free, and Boston Cop Charged in a Carjacking Death

Show Notes
Transcript

Three stories today, and all three of them put a badge in the frame. In Lonoke County, Arkansas, a judge has dismissed the second-degree murder charge against Aaron Spencer — a father, and a candidate for sheriff — who admitted to shooting and killing the man accused of abusing his daughter. The case fell apart not on the facts, but because law enforcement lost a piece of evidence. In Boston, Officer Nicholas O'Malley has pleaded not guilty to killing a carjacking suspect named Stephenson King Jr. — and the attorney defending him is the same lawyer who defended Karen Read. And Karen Read herself is back, with a new lawsuit against the Massachusetts State Police and the Town of Canton that drags two officers' alleged private messages into the public record.

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Caalaroga Shark Media.

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Good morning.

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I'm Garrett Fisher, and this is Daily Crime and Justice

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for Monday, June eighth, twenty twenty six. Three stories today,

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and all three of them put a badge in the frame.

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In Lenote County, Arkansas, a judge has dismissed the second

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degree murder charge against Aaron Spencer, a father and a

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candidate for sheriff, who admitted to shooting and killing the

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man accused of abusing his daughter. The case fell apart

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not on the facts, but because law enforcement lost a

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piece of evidence. In Boston, officer Nicholas O'Malley has pleaded

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not guilty to killing a carjacking suspect named Stevenson King Junior,

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and the attorney defending him is the same lawyer who

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defended Karen Reid. And Karen Reid herself is back with

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a new lawsuit against the Massachusetts State Police and the

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Town of Canton that drags two officers alleged private messages

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into the public record. Look, I'm going to be honest

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with you. The first story today is going to test

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how you feel about the law itself, about what we

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owe a child the system failed, and what we owe

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to the idea that a killing gets decided in a

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courtroom and not on the side of a road. The

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second one asks the question this country never stops asking

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when a man with a badge pulls the trigger, did

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he have a choice or did he make one? And

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the third the third is about the words people write

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when they think no one's ever going to read them.

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Some of those words are hard to say out loud.

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We're going to talk about why they matter anyway. It

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starts with a girl. I'm not going to tell you

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her name, and I'm not going to pin a number

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on her age. She's a child, and the one mercy

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this story can still hand her is that she gets

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to be more than the worst thing that was done

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to her.

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So here's what we know.

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In the summer of twenty twenty, for a sixty seven

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year old man named Michael Fossler was arrested and charged

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with a stack of sexual offenses against her. Court records

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described dozens of charges, including rape and internet stalking of

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a child, and then, despite all of that, despite a

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no contact order that was supposed to keep him away

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from her, Michael Fossler was released on bond. He was

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out and the order that was meant to be a

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wall between a grown man and the child he allegedly

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hurt turned out to be a piece of paper. On

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the night of October eighth, twenty twenty four, Aaron Spencer

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and his wife woke up and their daughter was gone,

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not in her room.

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Gone.

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They called nine one one, and then they did what

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I suspect a lot of you listening would do.

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They didn't wait.

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They got in the truck and they went looking. Spencer

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drove the roads around his home until he found her

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in the passenger seat of Michael Fossler's vehicle, the man

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under the no contact order out on bond, driving around

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in the dark with the child.

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He was accused of abusing.

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What happened next, Aaron Spencer has never denied he forced

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the truck off the road. There was an altercation, and

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he shot and killed Michael Fossler then called nine to

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one one and reported that he shot his daughter's kidnapper,

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that he had no choice. He was charged first with

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first degree murder, later reduced to second degree. He pleaded

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not guilty. His defense was simple, I was protecting my child.

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And here is where this story turns into something else.

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Entirely because last Thursday, weeks before this was supposed to

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go in front of a jury, a judge threw the

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whole thing out, not because twelve people waited, not because

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Aaron Spencer was acquitted, because the police lost the evidence.

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There was a dash camera inside Fossler's truck. It may

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have recorded the entire altercation, the one thing every side

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in this case wanted to see. And according to court records,

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a detective with the Lenoke County Sheriff's Office pulled that

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camera out of the truck and then did just about

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everything wrong. Didn't log it into evidence right away, stored

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it in his personal office instead of the evidence room,

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let the battery drain, which reset the camera back to

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its factory settings, and by the time it reached the

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Attorney General's office for a forensic exam, the memory card,

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the SD card that was inside it when it was collected.

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Was gone missing.

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The judge, Special Circuit Court Judge Ralph Wilson Junior, did

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not soften it. He wrote that dismissal is his phrase,

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an extraordinary and extreme remedy, and then he granted it anyway,

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finding that the conduct by law enforcement was quote so

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egregious that dismissal of this case is warranted. Sit with

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what that means. The one piece of footage that might

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have told us definitively what happened on the side of

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that road, whether Fossler lunged, whether this was the self

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defense Spencer described, or the planned killing prosecutors alleged, we

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are never going to see it because the same kind

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of institution Aaron Spencer is now running to lead couldn't

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keep track of a memory card.

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Now.

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I want to be careful here because this is the

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part where it would be easy to make you feel good.

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And lie to you a little.

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There's a version of this story that's pure catharsis the

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dad who did what the system wouldn't, the predator who

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got what was coming. And I understand the pull of that.

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I feel it too. A man accused of dozens of

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sex crimes against a young girl was let back out

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onto the street and a father found him in a

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car with that child in the middle of the night.

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If you're a parent, your body has already finished this sentence.

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But here's what I owe you. The system failing that

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girl does not automatically make everything that followed right, and

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a man being killed before he ever stood trial means

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there are now two questions that will never get answered

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in a courtroom. What Michael Fossler did to that child

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and what exactly happened on that road. Both things can

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be true. A father can be fierce and terrified and

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full of love, and the rule of law can still matter.

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And a case this serious deserved to be decided by

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people in a jury box, not closed. Because a detective

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treated crucial evidence like junk mail, that's not a small failure.

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That's not a mistake. When you don't log evidence in

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a homicide, when you take it home and let it

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die in a drawer, that's a choice made by someone

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who didn't think the rules applied to him. Aaron Spencer

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is today a freeman. He's his party's nominee for Sheriff

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of Lenochi County on the ballot this November, with a

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real chance of running the very department that arrested him.

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His attorney, Aaron Cassanelli, said, no member of this family

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should ever again have to walk into a courtroom and

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relive this, And on the human level, I hear that.

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But a dismissal is not an exoneration. The questions didn't answered.

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They got buried, buried under the incompetence of the people

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whose entire job was to find the truth. Nobody was

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watching the evidence, nobody was watching the bond hearing that

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put Fossler back on the street, and a thirteen year

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old girl is the one who paid for all of it.

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On Thursday, a thirty four year old Boston police officer

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named Nicholas O'Malley stood in a courtroom and pleaded not

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guilty to charges that.

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He unlawfully killed a man.

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Let me walk you through it, because there are two

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very different versions of this story, and the truth is

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going to live somewhere in the space between them. Back

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in March, O'Malley was called out to investigate a carjacking.

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He and another officer found the stolen vehicle. They approached

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it and told the driver, a man named Stevenson King Junior,

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to shut off the engine and show his hands. And

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here's a detail both sides agree on. King did show

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his hands. After that, the accounts split apart. Prosecutors say

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King then refused to unlock the car and backed it

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into O'Malley's police cruiser, which they're careful to point out

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was empty at that moment, nobody inside, and as King

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was executing what the prosecutor called a three point turn

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to drive away, O'Malley fired three shots into the driver's

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window and door. All three hit King, at least one

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of them killed him. The assistant state attorney Ian Pollenbaum

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told the court that O'Malley was quote not acting in

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reasonable defense of himself, the other officer, or the public,

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and he called the shooting excessive. O'Malley had told investigators

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he fired because he feared for the safety of the

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second officer. Prosecutors say the rest of the evidence contradicts that. Now,

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the defense, and this is where it gets interesting, because

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the attorney standing next to Officer O'Malley is a name

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some of you are going to recognize, David Yanetti, the

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same David Yanetti who defended Karen Reid through both of

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her criminal trials. Yanetti looked at the prosecution's account and said,

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in so many words, that it had been sanitized. He

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told the court a different story. A mother in Roxbury

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picking up her daughter, attacked by a violent carjacker who

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got into her car, punched her in the face, ordered

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her out and stole the vehicle. Yanetti concedes King raised

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his hands, but he says, King then hid them again,

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ignored in Yanette's phrasing, lawful.

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Order after lawful order, after lawful order.

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And then smashed that stolen car into a police cruiser

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with quote no care in the world about who he endangered.

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Yanetti's bottom line, he left officer O'Malley no choice. So

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you've got two stories, an officer who fired three rounds

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into a car that was driving away from him, or

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an officer facing a man who'd already committed one violent

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crime and was using a two ton vehicle as a

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weapon to commit another. I'm not gonna tell you which

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one is true, because I don't know, and neither does

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anyone outside that investigation. Yet what I can tell you

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is this, Stevenson King Junior was never tried for that carjacking.

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He was a suspect, and now he's dead and he

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doesn't get to answer for himself either. And Nicholas O'Malley

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has pleaded not guilty, and he is entitled to the

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presumption of innocence, same as anyone else who walks into

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that courtroom. O'Malley was released without cash bail on his

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own recognizance, but he had to surrender every firearm to

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the Boston Police Department, and he's barred from contacting any

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civilian witness. He's due back in court on July twenty

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third for a pre trial conference. We'll be watching that

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one when we come back. Karen Reid is back in

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the headlines, and this time the bombshell isn't about what

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happened the night John O'Keeffe died. It's about what two

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investigators were allegedly saying to each other in private for

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a decade, and some of it is genuinely hard to

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read out loud. Stay with me, Welcome back to Daily

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Crime and Justice. I'm Garrett Fisher, and if you've been

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with us a while, you do not need me to

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reintroduce Karen Reid.

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We followed this one from the beginning.

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Two criminal trials, a hung jury and acquittal, and a

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tangle of civil lawsuits we walked through back in April.

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Quick refresher for anyone just joining us. Reid was accused

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of killing her boyfriend, Boston Police officer John O'Keefe, who

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was forty six years old. Prosecutors said she hit him

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with her SUV and left him in the snow. She

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always said she was framed. Two trials later, she was

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acquitted of murder, and ever since the fight has moved

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into civil court, where there are now lawsuits flying in

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just about every direction. On Thursday, Reed's attorneys opened a

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brand new friend. They filed a lawsuit not against the

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witnesses this time, but against the institutions, the Massachusetts State

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Police and the Town of Canton. The legal theory is

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negligent hiring, training, and supervision. The argument that these departments

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put quote, biased and corrupt officers in positions of power,

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and in doing so, violated Read's constitutional rights. The suit

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doesn't name individual officers as defendants, but make no mistake

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about who it's about. It's about two men, Michael Proctor

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and Sean Good. You'll remember Proctor. He was the lead

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investigator on the O'Keefe case for the State Police, and

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at Reid's first trial he had to sit on the

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witness stand and admit under oath to text where he

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called her a whack job and a nutbag and worse.

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Those texts helped blow the case wide open. Sean Good

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is a name we haven't spent as much time on

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a sergeant in the Canton Police Department who was also

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part of the investigation. According to Reed's lawyers, the two

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of them have been friends since high school. And here's

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the heart of the new complaint, which Court TV says

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it has reviewed. The lawsuit alleges that Procter and Goods

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spent roughly a decade sending each other and a circle

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of like minded friends written and recorded messages that the

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suit describes as establishing quote entrenched and unrepentant hatred for women,

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for Black Americans, for Asian Americans, for Jews, for Hispanics.

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For Arabs, and for gay people. I'm not going to

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read you those messages.

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Some of them are quoted in the complaint, and I've

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read them and they are exactly as ugly as that

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description promises, racial slurs, a comment praising Hitler, and in

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one message about a traffic accident involving a black man,

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a line telling a colleague to take his time getting

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there and to quote let them die. That's the phrase

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giving this lawsuit its headline, let them Die, allegedly written

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by a man whose job was to investigate deaths. The

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complaint attributes equally vile material to Good, including a grotesque

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comment about a young woman, Sandra Birchmore, who was allegedly

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killed by a different officer in a different department.

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Entirely.

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Now, I have to be straight with you about what

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this is and what it isn't. These are allegations. They

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are quotes pulled into a civil complaint by Karen Reid's

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own lawyers, a party with every incentive in the world

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to make these two men look as bad as possible.

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Neither the Massachusetts State Police nor the town of Canton

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has filed any response yet. Proctor and Good are not

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named defendants, and they have not answered these specific claims

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in court, so hold them as exactly what they are, allegations,

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not findings. But here's the part that is not in dispute.

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Michael Proctor was fired from the Massachusetts State Police after

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he testified in Reid's first trial that already happened, and

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Sean Good, according to this lawsuit, Good stayed on as

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a sergeant in the Canton Police department, drawing a paycheck

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carrying a badge until two days before this suit was filed,

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at which point the complaint says he was quietly allowed

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to resign. Once the department learned the litigation was coming,

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allowed to resign, not fired, not charged, allowed to walk

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out the door the moment he became a problem. And

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that that's the thing I keep coming back to. Set

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aside for a second, whether Karen Reid hit John O'Keefe

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with her car in the criminal sense, that question is settled.

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She was acquitted.

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The thing this lawsuit is actually about is older and

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uglier than any one snowy night in Canton. It's about

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who gets to investigate the rest of us. Because if

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even a fraction of what's in this complaint holds up,

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then a man who allegedly wrote the words let them

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Die about a black accident victim was trusted to objectively

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determine how a man died. There's a playbook for this.

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You let the bad ones quietly resign, You call it

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a personnel matter, and you hope nobody connects the dots

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out in the open. Accountability doesn't have a legal department.

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Someone has to say these names out loud, put them

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next to the words they're accused of writing, and ask

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the only question that actually matters, how did these men

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keep their badges for as long as they did? Three stories,

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three badges, a father in Arkansas who walked free because

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the police lost the evidence, an officer in Boston who

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says he had no choice facing prosecutors who say he

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had every choice, And a pair of investigators in Massachusetts

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whose alleged words may end up doing more damage to

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the system's credibility than any verdict ever could.

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The thread running through all of it is the same.

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The institutions we.

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Trust to find the truth only work when the people

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inside them actually do the job. Log the evidence, follow

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the law. Treat every lifelike it counts when they don't.

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Somebody pays for it, and it's almost never them.

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Do better.

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Now, before you go, if this episode got under your

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skin a little good, that means you were paying attention,

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do me a favor and share it with one person

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who'd want to hear it. Word of mouth is how

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this show grows, and a story like Aaron Spencer's is

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exactly the kind of thing people argue about at the

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dinner table.

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So go start the argument, and if you're.

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Listening on Spotify, drop a comment and tell me where

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you land on that Arkansas case, because I promise you

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we are not all going to agree on it. And

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I want to hear it wherever else. You're listening on

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YouTube anywhere. Hit follow so the next one finds you automatically.