Karen Read trial: State Police sgt. in the hot seat with questions about Ring video, evidence found on Fairview Road (2024)

Crime

Jurors in the Karen Read trial are expected to begin deliberations sometime in the last week of June, Judge Beverly Cannone said Thursday.

By Abby Patkin

updated on June 6, 2024

On the stand Thursday:

• Sgt. Yuriy Bukhenik, Massachusetts State Police

Noon update: State Police Sgt. Yuriy Bukhenik testifies on gaps in Ring footage, search for evidence at 34 Fairview Road

When investigators received several days of surveillance footage from the motion-activated Ring camera in John O’Keefe’s driveway, there were a couple noteworthy gaps in the video, Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Yuriy Bukhenik confirmed Thursday.

Notably, there was no footage of O’Keefe’s girlfriend, Karen Read, arriving back at the home after dropping O’Keefe off at a gathering in Canton early on Jan. 29, 2022, Bukhenik testified. He said the footage was also missing a key moment between Read and witnesses Jennifer McCabe and Kerry Roberts — two women who accompanied Read on her search for O’Keefe later that morning.

According to Bukhenik, “There was also video missing from the defendant showing Ms. McCabe and Ms. Roberts the damage to her right rear taillight.”

He previously testified about Read’s damaged SUV and the several drinks she allegedly consumed before driving O’Keefe to a house party at 34 Fairview Road on the 29th. Taking the stand again Thursday, he said surveillance video from two Canton bars, C.F. McCarthy’s and the Waterfall Bar & Grille, “shows nine drinks being consumed by the defendant” on the night in question.

Bukhenik also confirmed that the surveillance video jurors saw of Read’s SUV sitting in the Canton Police Department’s sallyport garage was mirrored, or flipped.

“I do not know why it is inverted, but that’s the way it was collected and presented from Canton police,” he added.

Jurors on Thursday heard a brief audio clip of Read blaming others for O’Keefe’s death during a conversation with Bukhenik following her indictment and arrest on June 9, 2022. Read’s lawyers have argued others were responsible for killing O’Keefe, pointing specifically to the Albert family, who owned 34 Fairview Road at the time.

“You’re aware he was beaten up by Brian and Colin Albert? I mean, we’re all in on the same joke, right?” Read asks in the clip. “My taillight is cracked, and John … was pulverized.”

At that point, Bukhenik said he advised Read to stop talking.

Proctor obtained Ring footage, Bukhenik testifies

At defense attorney Alan Jackson’s prompting, Bukhenik confirmed that State Police Trooper Michael Proctor was the one to draft a search warrant for the Ring footage from O’Keefe’s home. He testified that investigators also spoke with Ring about obtaining an activity log that would show who logged into O’Keefe’s Ring account and accessed the account’s data.

“When you reviewed those activity logs, there was no evidence revealed that my client ever logged into that account, correct?” Jackson asked on cross-examination.

“There was no activity logs provided by Ring,” Bukhenik testified.

Jackson offered Bukhenik a document he said indicated State Police received account information, video recordings, and “activity logs associated with the video recordings” from Ring. Bukhenik noted that the document also stated that Ring provided said data “to the extent of its availability.”

“The long and short of it is, during the entire course of your investigation, … that investigation never revealed any evidence whatsoever that my client ever even accessed the account information for the Ring account associated with the search warrant, correct?” Jackson pressed.

“Nothing provided by Ring … suggested or proved any evidence of that type of activity, no,” Bukhenik confirmed.

Jackson later played surveillance footage from O’Keefe’s driveway that showed Read’s SUV reversing out of the garage toward O’Keefe’s parked car at about 5:07 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022. He enlarged the area around the left rear tire on O’Keefe’s car, which appeared to jolt slightly as Read’s SUV neared.

“Based on the motion in the shot with the snow falling, it appears that there is movement, but the video speaks for itself,” Bukhenik testified.

‘I did not find it suspicious at all,’ Bukhenik says of Canton chief’s role in discovery of evidence

Bukhenik’s testimony also touched on several searches he and other investigators conducted outside 34 Fairview Road in the days and weeks after O’Keefe died.

He said he and Proctor met up with Trooper David DiCicco to search outside the home the morning of Feb. 3, 2022, given the temperatures were rising and the snow on the front lawn was melting. The troopers requested documentation assistance from the State Police Crime Scene Services Section, and Bukhenik said the search turned up O’Keefe’s missing baseball cap, a co*cktail straw, and pieces of plastic.

Bukhenik testified that he also directed the troopers in his office to drive past 34 Fairview Road on their way to and from work to see if the melting snow would reveal any other clues.

He said he stopped by the home again to collect evidence on Feb. 4 after receiving a call informing him that someone from the Canton Police Department found more evidence. Canton Police Lt. Michael Lank previously testified that then-Canton Police Chief Kenneth Berkowitz spotted evidence in the melting snow.

Answering later questions from Jackson, he confirmed he was aware the Canton Police Department had recused itself from the investigation into O’Keefe’s death because 34 Fairview Road was owned at the time by Brian Albert, whose brother Kevin is a Canton police officer.

“So did you find it unusual or suspicious in any way that the chief of police for the conflicted Canton PD was the person driving by 34 Fairview looking for evidence?” Jackson asked.

“I did not find it suspicious at all,” Bukhenik answered.

The State Police Crime Scene Services Section did not come out to 34 Fairview Road to assist with documentation for a subsequent search on Feb. 10, 2022, Bukhenik testified.

“We had collected so much evidence already, and so much had been documented at that point, that we did not contact Crime Scene Services to come back out and photograph more shards of glass and plastic,” he explained. “We simply collected it for processing.”

Bukhenik noted that the items found on Feb. 10 were in the same vicinity as the other evidence recovered at that point.

Jackson showed Bukhenik a photo of an evidence collection bag purportedly containing pieces of plastic found at the scene that day. He asked the trooper if he was aware the bag wasn’t logged into evidence until March 14, 2022.

“I was not aware of that, no,” Bukhenik said.

What’s on tap for Monday?

At another point, Jackson asked Bukhenik whether he called Good Samaritan Medical Center — where O’Keefe had been brought by ambulance — at 10:41 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022, to inform staff that “Mr. O’Keefe was struck in the face with a co*cktail glass.”

Bukhenik said he never spoke to staff at Good Samaritan but later clarified that he told someone in the medical examiner’s office that O’Keefe appeared to have been struck by a co*cktail glass.

“Your initial investigation during those obviously critical hours, the beginning hours, led you to believe that there was at least a good possibility … that it was a physical altercation that led to John O’Keefe’s death, correct?” Jackson later asked.

“That’s correct, yes,” Bukhenik confirmed.

Read’s trial is not in session Friday. Monday morning, Bukhenik will return to the stand for additional testimony and Judge Beverly Cannone will hear arguments on prosecutors’ request to receive reciprocal discovery and block testimony from a defense expert, Dr. Marie Russell.

“After speaking with the lawyers, I can safely say that you will get this case for your deliberations sometime the last week in June,” Cannone assured jurors. “We’ll know better next week.”

Livestream via NBC10 Boston.

Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Yuriy Bukhenik will return to the stand in the Karen Read murder trial Thursday after offering jurors a recap of his early investigation into the death of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe.

Read, 44, is accused of backing her SUV into O’Keefe — her boyfriend of two years — following a night of drinking in January 2022. Prosecutors allege Read was driving drunk and deliberately struck O’Keefe while dropping him off at an afterparty in Canton. However, lawyers for the Mansfield woman say she was framed in a widespread coverup intended to protect relatives of the homeowner, a fellow Boston police officer.

O’Keefe’s body was found in the snow outside 34 Fairview Road early on Jan. 29, 2022, and Bukhenik testified that the victim had bruised eyelids and cuts on his face and right arm. He also said O’Keefe’s injuries were consistent with what he’s seen during previous death investigations involving subdural brain hemorrhages.

Bukhenik said he and State Police Trooper Michael Proctor interviewed Read at her parents’ home in Dighton later that day and learned Read and O’Keefe had gotten into an argument the morning of the 28th.

The couple went out drinking that night at two Canton bars — C.F. McCarthy’s and the Waterfall Bar & Grille — and Read “confirmed that Mr. O’Keefe did not have any injuries on him when she interacted with him at C.F. McCarthy’s or the Waterfall,” Bukhenik recalled. “He did not get into any verbal or physical altercations with anyone to have sustained those injuries.”

Bukhenik also walked jurors through several surveillance video clips from the two bars, which he said showed Read receiving and consuming at least seven drinks. She told investigators she did not attend the afterparty at 34 Fairview Road because she was “having stomach issues,” Bukhenik recalled.

Read “was asked if she saw Mr. O’Keefe walk into the home at 34 Fairview, and she stated that she did not,” he said. “She stated that she made a three-point turn after dropping him off and left.”

Bulhenik recalled seeing Read’s SUV parked outside her parents’ home with a damaged taillight, noting that the broken light could also be seen in surveillance video from O’Keefe’s driveway around 5 a.m. that day.

According to Bukhenik, when Read was asked how she learned of the damage to her car, she stated, “I don’t know. It happened last night.”

Thursday will be a half day in court, and Read’s trial is not in session Friday.