Photo: WBZ NewsRadio
Updated 6/12/24 3:40 P.M.
DEDHAM, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — Massachusetts State Police (MSP) Lieutenant Brian Tully returned to the stand on Thursday in the Karen Read murder trial.
Read is accused of killing her boyfriend Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe by hitting him with her SUV and leaving him for dead in a snowstorm on Jan. 29, 2022. Read’s defense argues that she has been framed.
On Wednesday, the defense finished their cross-examination of MSP Trooper Michael Proctor, who was the lead investigator in the case and is currently under federal investigation for his handling of the case. A series of inappropriate text messages from Proctor referring to Read have taken the spotlight.
When Tully took the stand on Wednesday, he testified that he saw the texts and “expressed displeasure at [Proctor's] unprofessionalism," before reporting the texts to his superiors. Before court wrapped for the day, Tully also testified about searching for evidence where O’Keefe’s body was found outside of Brian Albert’s home on 34 Fairview Road in Canton, Mass.
Read More: MSP Trooper Michael Proctor Returns To The Stand In Karen Read Murder Trial
On Thursday when Tully returned to the stand, prosecutors questioned him about Read’s phone records. He walked the prosecution through Read’s whereabouts on the night of O’Keefe’s death and phone calls she made during the early hours of Jan. 29, 2022.
“Starting at 12:33 A.M. to 6:03 A.M., there were 53 phone calls from Ms. Read to a phone number associated with John O’Keefe,” said Tully.
Tully also said Read started calling O’Keefe’s friends around 4:45 A.M. to try to find him, before Read and two other women went out to search.
When the defense started their cross-examination of Tully, the questioned him about why he and other investigators never searched the Albert’s house. Tully had testified on Wednesday that they did not get a search warrant because there was no evidence that O’Keefe went inside the house.
Defense attorney Alan Jackson narrowed in on the clothes O’Keefe was wearing when his body was found, pointing out that he was not wearing a jacket and could have left one inside the house. Tully maintained that it was “not reasonable” to get a search warrant for the house based on the evidence they had.
The defense then focused on Tully’s report about evidence found outside the 34 Fairview Road house on Jan. 29, 2022. The report stated that three pieces of taillight shards were collected on that day, but 5 pieces of taillight evidence were submitted as evidence for the trial.
“As memorialized on the bag, it says pieces of clear plastic, so I’ll take the hit that my report does not properly memorialize it. But, I would argue that the handwritten notes on the bag, that are contemporaneous to the collection of the evidence, would be more accurate,” said Tully.
Tully also said the additional pieces may have been caused by them breaking in the evidence bags, as they were already damaged.
Next on the stand on Thursday was Needham Police Sgt. Brian Gallerani, who testified that he collected DNA samples from Proctor and MSP Sgt. Yuri Bukhenik. The defense did not cross-examine Gallerani after his brief testimony.
Bode Technology DNA analyst Nicholas Bradford was the third person to testify on Wednesday. He analyzed DNA from Proctor and Bukhenik and compared it to DNA samples taken from Karen Read’s SUV.
Bradford testified that the taillight evidence he analyzed most likely had DNA from O’Keefe and that DNA did not seem to match the investigators. Read’s defense elected not to cross examine him.
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