A forensic scientist from the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab revealed during Karen Read’s murder trial that evidence collected in red Solo cups was never tested in the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend, John O’Keefe.
Testimony Wednesday came from O’Keefe’s niece, whom he was caring for after her parents died within months of one another, as well as forensic experts involved in the search of Read’s Lexus SUV and crime lab testing.
Maureen Hartnett, of the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab, testified she found broken glass, scratches and at least one dent on the back of Read’s vehicle, as well as blood and debris recovered from O’Keefe’s clothes.
She also swabbed the evidence that Canton police collected in red Solo cups — although she testified that it had never been tested, and as a result she couldn’t even identify it as blood.
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She collected samples for additional testing but testified that she did not perform testing herself. That was someone else’s responsibility.
She also testified that she could not rule out that any of the damage on Read’s SUV happened before Jan. 29, 2022, the morning O’Keefe died.
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The red substance, described as “red-brown” by the time she saw it, was collected by Canton police from the front lawn of 34 Fairview Road, under a dusting of snow at the spot where investigators believed O’Keefe had been found.
“I think you test it anyway, even if there is no chain-of-custody, just to contextualize the case,” said Paul Mauro, a retired NYPD investigator who is following the case. “If there was a fight inside the house, presumably O’Keefe would’ve fought back. If the blood in the snow came back to one of the Alberts or Higgins, if you’re the defense, you’re doing backflips.”
If the swabs still exist, however, the defense could ask for them to be tested today, he said.
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But police could also have done a better job collecting and documenting evidence, especially after a series of times when officers had to defend making unusual decisions, including having someone else fill out the level of an evidence bag, using a grocery bag instead of an evidence bag, and sending someone home to grab a leaf blower without sending anyone to the police station to get proper evidence-gathering containers.
Other awkward moments included an evidence bag with the wrong number of broken taillight shards and a brief delay after a state police sergeant was asked to open a mislabeled evidence bag with one of the victim’s sneakers inside.
“You don’t have to be doing homicide investigations daily to know that if you gathered a bunch of stuff from a crime scene, preserve it and make sure it’s logged into evidence so you can retrieve it later since you don’t know where this is going,” Mauro said. “If they knew enough and cared enough to take samples from the scene, however imperfect they did it… and they put each cup in a separate Stop and Shop bag, initialed it, closed it as good as they could in a blizzard. It is unorthodox, not perfect, but defensible.”
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Defense attorney Robert Alessi also asked Hartnett about two photos purported to show the same lone hair sample recovered from the back of the SUV.
“You could argue that the snow sealed it in there,” Mauro said.
Read faces charges of second-degree murder, drunk-driving manslaughter and fleeing the scene of a deadly accident in connection with O’Keefe’s death.
Prosecutors allege she reversed her Lexus SUV into him and left him to die on the ground during a blizzard.
She has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and her lawyers say she never hit him.
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While prosecutors have shown photos of her broken taillight and investigators have testified that it played a role in their allegations against Read, her lawyers played a close-up video of her appearing to back into O’Keefe’s parked car before she and two other women found O’Keefe on the ground outside the Fairview Road house.
A group of people had been there the night before for an after-party following a night out drinking.
Read, speaking with reporters outside the courthouse, claimed she saw O’Keefe go inside the party before she left.
Other witnesses, testifying under oath, told jurors that he did not come inside.
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