But vehicle data from Read’s SUV showed that at 12:45 a.m., while outside Albert’s home, the Lexus traveled backward for 60 feet at 24 mph, Lally said. The SUV’s tail light was broken, Lally said, and pieces of the light were later found outside Albert’s home.
Forensic testing showed that O’Keefe’s hair was found on the vehicle’s bumper and his DNA was found on the taillight, Lally said. Investigators also found the remnants of a cocktail that appears to have been spilled on the bumper, the prosecutor said. O’Keefe was captured on video leaving the bar with a cocktail in his hand, and bits of what the prosecutor described as a drinking glass were found in the SUV’s bumper.
Read was charged with second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter and other crimes.
What does the defense say?
Read’s lawyers have challenged some of the prosecution’s evidence and said that she was framed for a murder she didn’t commit. During the afterparty, the defense team alleged, O’Keefe appeared to have been ambushed, beaten, bitten by a dog — the Alberts had a German shepherd — and left outside.
“He was supposedly sprawled on that lawn, just feet from where these people were walking when they left the residence,” defense lawyer David Yannetti said in his opening statement. “Not one of these people saw John O’Keefe.”
The defense blamed authorities for failing to carry out a “real” investigation because of close connections to Albert and his family — his brother is also a police officer — and instead focusing on Read, whom Yannetti described as a “convenient outsider.” (Albert testified that O’Keefe never came to his house but he would have been “welcomed with open arms” if he had.)
The defense lawyers have alleged that the lead investigator in the case, Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor, was one of the chief reasons the investigation was biased.
In testimony Monday, Proctor acknowledged referring to Read using derogatory language in text messages with other troopers. In one instance, Proctor described Read using an offensive term for developmentally disabled people and told other troopers in a text thread — including two supervisors — that he hadn’t found any nude photos of Read while searching her cell phone.
Proctor described the comments as “regrettable” and “unprofessional jokes” that did not obscure his ability to carry out a impartial investigation.
Proctor was suspended without pay seven days after the judge declared a mistrial.
The defense also pointed to what Yannetti described as two “curious” phone calls between Albert and Brian Higgins, a friend and agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who had been at the bar and afterparty. The calls were made at 2:22 a.m. Jan. 29 after the party at Albert’s house, Yannetti said.
Under questioning from the defense, Albert testified that his initial phone call to Higgins — which lasted one second — was accidental. He said he did not respond to a returned call that lasted 22 seconds. Higgins testified that he had no recollection of answering the phone or calling anyone back.
Higgins testified that he and Read had become attracted to each other in the months before O’Keefe’s death and had exchanged flirtatious texts. When another defense lawyer, Alan Jackson, asked Higgins if he’d become frustrated when Read “ghosted” him in the days before the party and paid no attention to him at the bar, Higgins responded: “No, not at all.”
According to defense attorney Yannetti, Read’s broken taillight didn’t come from backing into O’Keefe, but from leaving her home in a panic after discovering in the pre-dawn hours of Jan. 29 that her boyfriend had never come home.