DEADHAM, Mass. (CN) — The retired Boston police officer whose family home became the site of a deadly hit-and-run of another Boston police officer testified Friday in the trial of the woman accused of hitting him with her car and leaving him to die in a snowstorm following a night of barhopping.
Karen Read, 44, claims that she was framed by local law enforcement in the death of her boyfriend, John O’Keefe, and that corruption was rampant in the officer's murder investigation. She pleaded not guilty to murder in the second degree, vehicular manslaughter while driving under the influence and leaving the scene of a collision.
O’Keefe was found dead at 34 Fairview Road in Canton, Massachusetts, outside the home of a fellow Boston police officer Brian Albert, who was the last to testify for the day, getting on the stand at 2:30 p.m., after his wife and his sister-in-law.
In Norfolk County Superior Court before Judge Beverly Cannone, Albert and his wife told the same story of how they learned O’Keefe was dead.
Jennifer McCabe, his wife’s sister, burst into their bedroom a little after 6 a.m., waking them up, Albert said. Both husband and wife described her as “hysterical” as they struggled to understand what she was saying. They then went to speak with police officers waiting in their foyer.
Albert and his wife both claimed to not have heard anything unusual outside at the afterparty they hosted following the night of barhopping with friends that included O’Keefe. They had invited everyone over after the bar to celebrate their son’s 23rd birthday, since the original birthday party had been canceled due to the impending snowstorm.
"Everybody was in a great mood,” Albert said of the atmosphere at the bar. “People were getting along. It was friends and family. It just seemed like a great night."
Albert also clarified that “John O’Keefe and Karen Read never entered my home.”
His wife, Nicole Albert, took to the witness stand before him, also to describe the afterparty.
“People were sitting around talking, having a good time. Nothing crazy,” she said of the hours before O’Keefe death.
Nicole Albert also testified that she saw no tension between Read and O’Keefe, who she says she only met once or twice through her sister Jennifer McCabe, and she saw no evidence that Read had too much to drink.
Julie Albert, Brian Albert's sister-in-law and O’Keefe's neighbor, was the first to give testimony in the morning. She said she was out with O’Keefe at a bar before he was found dead in the morning, but left early with a migraine. She continued to say she learned O’Keefe had died when she arrived at the Fairview Road home in the early morning to drop off doughnuts for her nephew’s birthday.
She confirmed that she knew Courtney Proctor, the sister of the lead investigator Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor. She described Courtney as her sister’s “best friend” and admitted to babysitting for Courtney but said they “rarely” spoke.
Defense attorney Elizabeth Little said phone records showed Julie and Courtney had 67 phone conversations in the seven-month period following O’Keefe’s murder, including three calls the day after Read was arrested for O’Keefe’s murder.
When asked to clarify what she meant by “rarely,” Julie said: “not daily.”
Julie Albert continued to say she had no memory of her four-minute conversation with Michael Proctor on his personal cell phone hours after he left her home following an interrogation of her and her husband, Christopher Albert. She also testified that she would often see Read playing with O’Keefe’s kids in their yard but called Read an acquaintance.
After the morning break, Tim Bradly, attorney for Aidan Kearnery, a blogger also known as "Turtleboy," addressed the Commonwealth’s motion to have Kearnery — who is facing witness intimidation charges relating to the Read case — removed from the courtroom. Bradly called the motion “a personal vendetta carried out by the district attorney.”
Cannone said Kearnery has a press pass, but due the “chilling effect” he will have on witnesses who have open cases against him, he will be excused from the courtroom during specific witnesses’ testimony, including the Albert and McCabe families.
Cannone ended the day by making a request for more deliberate witness questioning. “I’d like us to pick up the pace a little bit,” she said. “We’ve had some repetitive testimony.”
Defense for Read will cross-examine Brian Albert on Monday.
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