Jury selection in a Lowell murder retrial came to a sudden halt after prosecutors dropped a late-breaking disclosure tied to a Massachusetts State Police homicide detective at the center of a deadly crash. The twist involves Sgt. Scott Quigley and a December 2023 collision in Woburn that left a passenger in a wheelchair-accessible van critically injured and later dead. Defense attorneys now say the timing of the disclosure suggests prosecutors may have had access to Quigley’s medical and toxicology records long before they alerted the defense.
Chelmsford defense attorney William Dolan, who represents one of the Lowell defendants, told reporters, “So they absolutely knew,” arguing that prosecutors worked with Quigley “on an almost daily basis” and should have flagged documents submitted with his injured-on-duty claim, according to Boston 25 News. Dolan and the Schettino family point to a February 2024 referral from the Massachusetts Disabled Persons’ Protection Commission that he says should have triggered further inquiry. The new material surfaced just as jurors were being empaneled, prompting the judge to hit pause on the trial while the timeline gets untangled in open court.
Court filings and orders show a judge recently forced the hospital that treated Quigley after the Dec. 12, 2023, collision to turn over his toxicology results, which defense filings say put his blood-alcohol concentration at about 0.10, above the legal limit, per The Boston Globe. According to that reporting, the crash happened when an unmarked State Police cruiser crossed the center line on Lexington Street in Woburn and struck the van, and passenger Angelo Schettino died roughly a month later from his injuries. State Police relieved Quigley of duty on Jan. 28 and say they have opened an internal review while Suffolk County prosecutors launch a criminal inquiry.
What prosecutors say
The Middlesex District Attorney’s office maintains it did not learn that a person had died in the crash or about Quigley’s toxicology results until Jan. 27, 2026, and that it disclosed the information to the court and referred the matter to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office within 24 hours, according to Boston 25 News. Middlesex DA Marian Ryan also sent a Feb. 4 letter to State Police Colonel Geoffrey Noble asking for an independent investigation into why the department did not provide the information sooner. The office says it had no reason to open a criminal probe until it learned the injuries were the result of potentially criminal conduct.
How this could affect other cases
Quigley has served as a lead investigator on multiple homicide cases handled by Middlesex prosecutors, and defense teams are already arguing that any late disclosure of impeachment material could trigger evidentiary hearings or undermine active prosecutions. The Boston Globe reports that prosecutors moved quickly to bring the new information to the court and to send the crash for a separate criminal review by Suffolk County. Legal analysts say the situation is likely to spark broader challenges and questions about how and when law enforcement shares critical information with prosecutors.
Next steps
The Middlesex DA’s office has asked State Police for an independent probe, and the department says it will cooperate with the Suffolk County investigation while conducting its own internal review. The Schettino family’s civil suit is still active, now running alongside the criminal and administrative inquiries. As those probes move forward, judges and defense attorneys are expected to push for more documents and testimony in an effort to nail down who knew what, and when they knew it.
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