Karen Read’s defense team scored a victory in Friday’s intense cross-examination of Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Yuri Bukhenik, as legal experts suggest. Bukhenik took the stand for the second day as prosecutors attempt to persuade the jury that Read was responsible for the death of her boyfriend, Boston cop John O’Keefe, allegedly leaving him to perish in a blizzard in January 2022.
Under the scrutiny of defense attorney Alan Jackson, the homicide investigator had to go through a series of text messages between Read and Brian Higgins, an ATF agent based in Canton with whom she was engaging in flirtatious exchanges behind O’Keefe’s back.
The defense strategically had Bukhenik read out the texts to bring hearsay statements into play, as mentioned by Grace Edwards, a local defense attorney closely monitoring the case. This move also serves to cast doubts on the credibility of the investigation, a key tactic employed by the defense to undermine its validity.
Local police also testified that they used red Solo cups and a grocery bag to collect evidence, removed snow with a leafblower and continued to be involved on the outskirts of the case despite a conflict of interest – one of their detectives is Brian Albert’s brother.
“The prosecution is going to go home this weekend and reevaluate things, because this week couldn’t have been worse,” said David Gelman, a former prosecutor and Philadelphia-area defense attorney who is following the case.
Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Proctor faces a tough cross-examination by lawyer Alan Jackson. The Karen Read murder trial in Norfolk Superior Court, Dedham, Massachusetts, on Wednesday, June 12, 2024 (© Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger/IMAGN)
He previously told Fox News Digital he was surprised the commonwealth even moved forward with a new trial after the first case fell apart.
On the other hand, digital evidence has not supported defense claims.
Two experts have testified that Albert’s sister-in-law, Jennifer McCabe, made a key Google search about hypothermia shortly after Read and two other women found O’Keefe unresponsive in the snow – not hours earlier, before anyone should have known he was dead, as the defense has claimed.
And reading the texts in court could be a “double-edged sword,” said Paul Mauro, a former NYPD inspector. Did Higgins have a reason to get into an altercation with O’Keefe? Or do they paint Read as manipulative and untruthful?
