Det. Lt. Brian Tully was followed on the stand Thursday by multiple DNA analysts.
. . . Karen Read made dozens of calls to John O’Keefe from around the time she dropped him off at 34 Fairview Road after midnight on Jan. 29, 2022, to when she found his body on the home’s front lawn hours later, according to Massachusetts State Police Det. Lt. Brian Tully.
“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,” he said.
In that time and after finding O’Keefe unresponsive in the snow shortly after 6 a.m., Read also made calls to her mother and father, Jennifer McCabe, Kerry Roberts, Michael and Katherine Camerano, and members of O’Keefe’s family, Tully noted.
He spoke about the information investigators can glean from phone records, explaining that cellphone carriers memorialize data about the specific antennas used during calls. According to Tully, those phone records can also tell investigators roughly how far away the device was from an antenna, even when someone was not actively using their phone. He walked jurors through maps showing the antennas Read’s phone pinged at various points throughout the morning of the 29th.
“These records are just depicting where the handset was, but as we all know, we all travel with our cellphone within arm’s reach,” Tully noted.
Using those maps and surveillance footage from several locations in Canton, Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally sought to retrace Read’s steps from the morning O’Keefe died. Tully testified that a “large, black SUV” can be seen on surveillance footage going past the town library on Washington Street at about 5:15 a.m. and a nearby temple around 5:18 a.m.
Tully said Read arrived at McCabe’s home on Country Lane at about 5:35 a.m., though he believed that timing was inconsistent with the distance between the temple and the McCabes’ house.
“It would take you much quicker to get there,” Tully said. “It’s about a mile and a half from Temple Beth Abraham to Country Lane. You would continue north on Washington Street and just take a left into the Country Lane neighborhood.”
He confirmed Read would have had enough time to stop at 34 Fairview Road before continuing on to McCabe’s house.
On cross-examination, defense attorney Alan Jackson pointed to a map showing the cellphone tower Read’s phone pinged between 5:20 a.m. and 5:37 a.m. He noted the tower was about 2.4 miles away from 34 Fairview Road and about one mile from McCabe’s home.
Tully confirmed Read’s phone pinged two towers closer to 34 Fairview Road when she was at the scene after finding O’Keefe’s body around 6 a.m.
“Importantly, though, between 5:20 and 5:37 a.m., neither of those two towers ever picked up her phone or any signal from her phone, correct?” Jackson asked.
“Correct,” Tully confirmed.
“So based on those facts, it’s far more likely that Karen Read was actually at Jennifer McCabe’s and on her way to Jennifer McCabe’s at and around 5 a.m. than going to 34 Fairview Road, correct?” Jackson proposed. Judge Beverly Cannone sustained an objection from prosecutors before Tully could reply.
Answering a question from Lally on redirect examination, Tully explained that while distance is the greatest predictor of which tower a phone will ping, “there are things that can disrupt a cellphone signal, which would cause a handset not to connect to the closest antenna.” He named physical obstructions, elevation, and precipitation as a few examples.
During his direct examination, Tully also testified that investigators had no reason to believe evidence might be found inside 34 Fairview Road.
“I don’t believe that Mr. O’Keefe entered the home, so I had no nexus to the house” for requesting a search warrant, he explained.
Later, Tully said he viewed photos taken of O’Keefe’s injuries at Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton. He testified specifically about the scrapes along O’Keefe’s right arm.
“I noticed the abrasions had a certain pattern on them, and I know that when a blunt force object is involved in causing an abrasion, the characteristics of the object that comes in contact with a person will often leave the characteristics on that person in the form of an abrasion,” Tully said.
Tully went on to add, “I’d be comfortable in saying the marks on Mr. O’Keefe are consistent with—” but was stopped short by an objection from the defense.
Jackson later revisited investigators’ decision not to search inside 34 Fairview Road, noting that O’Keefe was found on the home’s front lawn without a winter coat.
“I’m asking if you believe it was reasonable if a man is found 30 feet outside the front door of a home and he’s got no winter gear on whatsoever, that perhaps he came from inside the home not having donned his winter gear,” he said.
“It’s not reasonable, given other information I had,” Tully replied.
Jackson also had Tully hold up several pieces of plastic recovered from the scene.
“There are five items in … those two bags, right? Just the plastic?” Jackson asked.
“Correct,” Tully confirmed.
“And your report very clearly says there were three items of plastic evidence recovered at the scene, correct?” Jackson asked.
“Yes,” Tully said.
“So my question once again is, where did the extra two items come from?” Jackon pressed.
“Well, as memorialized on the bag, it says ‘pieces of clear plastic.’ So I will take the hit that my report does not properly memorialize it,” Tully said. “But I would argue that the handwritten notes on the bag that are contemporaneous to the collection of the evidence would be more accurate.”
He also suggested one of the smaller pieces of plastic could have broken off from a larger one.
What about the witness who allegedly saw a Ford Edge?
At Jackson’s prompting, Tully confirmed he became aware at some point that an eyewitness placed a Ford Edge in front of Fairview Road early on Jan. 29, 2022. However, he said he wasn’t satisfied with the witness’s reliability.
“The person has given the statement multiple times, and it appears to have changed over those times,” Tully said. “It also appears that the person observed this vehicle from a distance, and also the identification of a Ford Edge seemed highly suggestive the way that I had read the account of it. If I had done that as a police officer, this court would throw out that identification.”
He later explained that the witness was driving in a blizzard, claimed to have seen the Ford Edge at a distance from a neighboring street, and self-reported that he was color blind.
He also noted the person who interviewed the witness — a private investigator working for the defense, according to prior court documents — confirmed the vehicle make and model in a “highly suggestive” manner. According to Tully, the investigator brought the witness outside and “allegedly pointed to a motor vehicle that was in a parking lot and said, ‘Is that it?’ And the witness said, ‘Yes, that’s it.’”
Jackson asked whether any members of the Albert family owned a Ford Edge. Tully said he couldn’t recall and did not look at vehicle registration records to check.
O’Keefe was found injured and unresponsive on a lawn in Canton on Jan. 29, 2022, and prosecutors say Read — his girlfriend of two years — is to blame.
The couple had gone out drinking with friends the night before, and Read, 44, is accused of drunkenly and intentionally backing her SUV into O’Keefe while dropping him off at an afterparty after midnight on the 29th. However, lawyers for the Mansfield woman say O’Keefe entered the home and was beaten, possibly attacked by the family dog, and dumped outside in the snow.
Tully leads the State Police detective unit out of the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office. He testified Wednesday that he first learned of O’Keefe’s injuries in a call from State Police Sgt. Yuriy Bukhenik shortly after 7 a.m. on Jan. 29.
“Normally, I would not get a call like that, but we learned that Mr. O’Keefe was an active Boston police officer,” Tully explained. “Sgt. Bukhenik wanted to make me aware of it at that point.”
Tully said Bukhenik and State Police Trooper Michael Proctor began investigating the case that day and provided updates as they learned new information. He testified about some of the evidence investigators found at the scene outside 34 Fairview Road, including a sneaker that matched the size, style, and color of the one Bukhenik and Proctor found with O’Keefe’s clothing at Good Samaritan Medical Center.
“The shoe that was recovered by the troopers at the hospital was a right sneaker,” Tully said. “This one found was the left, or a left.”
He also recalled conversations about the Canton Police Department’s potential conflict of interest in the case, given Canton Det. Kevin Albert’s brother, Brian Albert, owned 34 Fairview Road at the time.
“Because of the appearance of a conflict, we had made a decision that the Canton police was going to take a step back from the investigation and that State Police would do the investigation without them,” Tully noted.
Proctor, who testified earlier this week, came under fire for his personal ties to the Alberts, as well as the vulgar texts about Read he sent to family, friends, and colleagues throughout his investigation into O’Keefe’s death.
After becoming aware of Proctor’s texts, “I had a long discussion with him about the content and nature of them,” Tully testified. “I expressed my displeasure at his unprofessionalism and the content of them, and I reported it up my chain of command.”
Testifying earlier on Wednesday, Proctor admitted he used language that dehumanized Read, with some texts calling her a “wack job c**t” and “retarded,” and others making light of her Crohn’s disease.
Days into the investigation, Proctor texted his sister: “Hopefully she kills herself.” On the stand, he confirmed he was talking about Read.
“My emotions got the best of me based on the fact that Ms. Read hit Mr. O’Keefe with her vehicle and left him to die on the side of the road,” Proctor explained. “So my emotions got the best of me with that figure of speech.”
He described his texts as “juvenile and regrettable” but said he stood by the investigation into O’Keefe’s death.
“This investigation was done with the utmost integrity, not just by me, but my supervisors and other troopers in my office,” Proctor said.
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