Massachusetts State Police Trooper Yuriy Bukhenik took the stand Wednesday in the murder trial of Karen Read, after jurors heard testimony on evidence from the night Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe died.
Jurors had heard from two forensic scientists on what was found at the scene of the crime that morning.
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First on the stand Wednesday was Ashley Vallier, a forensic scientist from the Massachusetts State Police Crime Laboratory, who began her testimony on Monday. She was the second forensic scientist to testify on Monday.
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Vallier's colleague, Christina Hanley, followed.
Read is accused of hitting O'Keefe with her SUV and leaving him to die on the lawn of fellow Boston Police Officer Brian Albert on Fairview Road in Canton, Massachusetts, on Jan. 29, 2022. His body was found around 6 a.m.
A broken taillight on Read's SUV was a consistent focus throughout Wednesday. When Bukhenik first interviewed Read, he testified, he asked how the vehicle was damage.
"She stated, quote, I don't know, it happened last night," Bukhenik said.
Video from the Canton Police Department's sallyport — a building's secured entryway — showed the SUV stored and taped off. Bukhenik testified that he took it to a state police facility in Milton later on, after Canton police recused themselves from the investigation.
While prosecutors allege Read's vehicle fatally injured O'Keefe, and that pieces of broken taillight later found at the scene prove it, Read told NBC10 Boston after court Wednesday that other video played for the jury, showing her backing into O'Keefe's car that night, shows when it was damaged.
"You saw it. I backed into John's car," she said.
Wednesday was a full day of testimony, and Bukhenik will return to the stand for more questions on Thursday, which will be a half day.
Forensic scientist Ashley Vallier continues her testimony
Vallier continued her testimony Wednesday morning and was asked questions by Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally about photos she took of pieces of taillight collected from 34 Fairview Road.
After she explained details on the texture and surface area of varies pieces of evidence, Vallier explained the process of documenting them, including comparing pieces that may fit together and how.
After Lally concluded his testimony, defense attorney David Yannetti asked about one set of evidence, pieces of debris collected from an orange shirt and grey hoodie, and established through the questioning that Vallier didn't have any knowledge about who had access to it before it arrived at the state crime lab.
Vallier said that Massachusetts State Police investigator Michael Proctor delivered that evidence to the lab on March 14, about six weeks after O'Keefe's death.
Proctor was the lead investigator on the case, whom the defense contends (and which the prosecution denies) as part of its claim of a cover-up is connected to other witnesses in the case.
Yannetti then showed a different evidence package, from Feb. 3, submitted by a different trooper, that included lots of small pieces of a vehicle's taillight. He followed up by showing other pieces, larger ones found by Proctor five days later, then more sets found in the following weeks.
He ended by showing the final reconstruction of the taillight, which had one large piece missing, a hole on the upper left side of the exhibit. Vallier confirmed that the whereabouts of those missing pieces was unknown.
Forensic scientist Christina Hanley testifies
After a break, Massachusetts State Police Crime Laboratory forensic scientist Christina Hanley was called to the stand. She established her areas of expertise, and that she trains other forensics investigators at the lab.
Lally began asking about glass that was discovered at the scene of O'Keefe's death, which Hanley subsequently analyzed.
State police Trooper Yuriy Bukhenik testifies
Massachusetts State Police Trooper Yuriy Bukhenik, a supervisor in the state police detectives unit at the Norfolk District Attorney's Office, took the stand shortly after 12 p.m.
Lally started by asking him about how long he has known Trooper Michael Proctor, the lead investigator on the case. He said he has known Proctor since about 2019, and has supervised him for that entire time.
Bukhenik said he was contacted on the morning of O'Keefe's death and traveled to Canton to meet Proctor there. He said he arrived at the Canton Police Department around 9:15 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022.
When he arrived, he and Proctor met with the police officers from Canton. He said Proctor had already briefed him about the situation before his arrival and at some point he was informed that O'Keefe had been found in Albert's yard on Fairview Road and taken to the hospital.
He and Proctor traveled together to the residence of Matthew and Jennifer McCabe on Country Lane in Canton, where they spoke separately with the McCabes and then Brian Albert. The two investigators then went to the Good Samaritan Hospital in Brockton, where O'Keefe had been taken.
"Once in the room we obeerved Mr. O'Keefe's body on the medical bed or gurney. His clothing, which had been cut off of him, were on the floor at the foot of the bed a couple feet away," Bukhenik said.
He said they identified and bagged O'Keefe's clothing, which was soaking wet, as evidence.
Bukhenik also testified that he observed bruising on O'Keefe's face, and abrasions on his right arm that appeared to be from "blunt force trauma friction." He said the abrasions appeared linear and concentrated in one area.
While at the hospital, Bukhenik said he and Proctor attempted to speak with Read, but she was not at the hospital. She was reportedly at her parents' home in Dighton at that time.
From the hospital, he said he and Proctor traveled to Read's parents' home.
Bukhenik also displayed some of the evidence recovered from the hospital that day, including O'Keefe's sweatshirt, T-shirt, right sneaker, blue jeans, belt and boxer shorts.
The trial broke for lunch around 1 p.m. after the items of O'Keefe's clothing were entered into evidence. The break lasted about 30 minutes, at which time Bukhenik returned to the stand.
Three new photographs were entered into evidence just after the break, showing O'Keefe's body at Good Samaritan Hospital on Jan. 29, 2022. Judge Beverly Cannone prefaced the display of the photos to jurors by instructing them to separate any emotional reaction they might have to the graphic nature of the images.
Bukhenik described the swelling on O'Keefe's face, lacerations on his right arm and how he saw blood pooling on the bed.
After leaving the hospital, Bukhenik said he went to Dighton, the home of Read's parents.
He said Read's SUV was there when they arrived, and he observed as he walked past it that the rear right taillight was damaged. He said Proctor also confirmed the damage.
"During the initial phase, I observed snow compacted and caked onto portions of the taillight casing. There were pieces missing, and I knew that because the left side taillight was intact," he said.
Bukhenik said he and Proctor were greeted by Read's father, who invited them into the home. When they entered the home they said Read was sitting on the couch with her laptop on her lap and her phone on the armrest of the couch.
Read's mother was also present in the home, he said.
"It was polite, courteous," Bukhenik said of the conversation. "She had just went through a traumatic event, so we were considerate of her losing her boyfriend... We were in the information gathering, fact finding portion of the investigation. We simply wanted to collect her recollection of the events that she remembered."
Read told the investigators that she was willing to answer their questions but said she didn't want to go into too much detail. She told them that she was in a relationship with O'Keefe, and had gotten into a fight with him that morning over what his niece and nephew had eaten for breakfast.
She said she then met O'Keefe at C.F. McCarthy's bar that night, and she was drinking vodka soda while the men drank Bud Light. She explained how they later went to the Waterfall Bar & Grill. She said O'Keefe didn't have any injuries on him at either of those locations and hadn't gotten into any physical altercations with anyone.
He said Read told the investigators that she and O'Keefe left the Waterfall together and she drove them to a location on Fairview Road in Canton, where she dropped O'Keefe off. She said that she didn't see O'Keefe walk into the home, and said she made a three-point turn after dropping him off and left.
Asked about the damage to her SUV, Bukhenik said Read told them, "I don't know. It happened last night."
Read told investigators that she was having "stomach issues," and that's why she didn't accompany O'Keefe to the party on Fairview Road.
She also told the investigators she found O'Keefe in the snow on Albert's lawn on the morning of Jan. 29, 2022 and began performing CPR. She said he had sustained injuries and was bleeding from the nose and mouth and both of his eyes were swollen.
When the interview concluded, Bukhenik said he told Read that her phone and her SUV were being seized as evidence.
Prosecutors also showed surveillance video from outside Read's parents' home, showing Read and her father appearing to gesture toward the rear taillight of her SUV. Further video also showed the vehicle being loaded up onto a flatbed truck to be towed from the scene. In the video, Bukhenik pointed out how the rear taillight was illuminated.
