Members of the Massachusetts State Police, the company chargeable for the investigation of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe’s murder, lastly took the stand within the sixth week of Karen Learn’s trial.
Lt. Kevin O’Hara was the primary trooper to testify within the homicide trial in Norfolk Superior Courtroom in Dedham when he took the stand final Monday. Because the commander of the Particular Emergency Response Group, O’Hara’s position within the investigation was restricted to managing the sweep of the entrance yard of 34 Fairview Street the afternoon of Jan. 29, 2022, hours after O’Keefe’s physique was discovered there.
However issues actually began to warmth up on Wednesday when Sgt. Yuriy Bukhenik, one of many chief investigators within the case, took the stand. His position started that morning at 6:44 a.m., he mentioned, when he acquired a piece name reporting that “there was a body in (a) snowbank” outdoors the Fairview Street residence.
Bukhenik mentioned that he needed to await a short time for the roads to clear within the morning snowstorm and at last opted to take his private all-wheel-drive truck quite than his division sedan to make the drive to satisfy the murder’s assigned “case officer,” Trooper Michael Proctor, on the Canton PD, the place he mentioned he arrived at round 9:15 a.m.
Proctor, the assigned chief investigator of O’Keefe’s murder, has but to take the stand and it’s not sure if the prosecution will name him this week, the seventh week of Learn’s homicide trial.
Learn, 44, of Mansfield, faces fees of second-degree homicide, motorcar manslaughter and leaving the scene of a collision inflicting the dying of O’Keefe, a 16-year Boston Police officer when he died at age 46. Prosecutors say that she struck him along with her SUV within the early hours of Jan. 29, 2022, following an argument and an evening of heavy consuming and left him to die in a snowstorm. Protection attorneys counter that an out of doors particular person or individuals beat O’Keefe to dying within the Fairview Street residence and framed Learn for his homicide.
The trial had slowed its tempo in latest weeks, with final week seeing solely two and a half days of testimony — common trial days on Monday and Wednesday and solely three hours of trial on Thursday morning — and the trial solely assembly for at some point the week earlier than.
Choose Beverly Cannone, who has admonished attorneys over proof group delays in addition to repetitive testimony that she mentioned has wasted the jury’s time, on Thursday mentioned the prolonged trial was prone to be handed over to jurors within the final week of this month.
Bukhenik and Proctor’s investigation
In chief investigator Proctor’s absence to this point within the trial primarily based on his investigation, attorneys peppered Bukhenik — Proctor’s supervisor within the Norfolk DA’s MSP detective unit — for particulars on how Learn was charged along with her boyfriend’s homicide.
The detectives’ first cease that day was the house of Jennifer and Matthew McCabe, the place Bukhenik mentioned he interviewed every of them individually and in addition interviewed Brian Albert, the then-Boston Police sergeant who owned the house the place O’Keefe was discovered.
They subsequent went to view O’Keefe’s physique at Good Samaritan Medical Middle in Brockton, the place, Bukhenik testified, O’Keefe’s clothes, stained and ripped, was scattered on the ground and encrusted with “traces of vomit.”
Bukhenik mentioned he noticed “bruising” to O’Keefe’s eyelids, in addition to “a cut to his nostril” and to at least one eyelid, and “abrasions” to O’Keefe’s “upper forearm and lower bicep area,” with the injuries “concentrated” just a few inches on both aspect of the elbow.
They subsequent visited Learn’s mother and father’ residence in Dighton, Bukhenik mentioned, the place they questioned Learn.
Bukhenik mentioned the interview surveyed the earlier 24 hours, with Learn saying she and O’Keefe had argued the earlier morning over what O’Keefe’s niece and nephew — who he had custody of — ate for breakfast. The couple would then drink at two Canton bars, the place Bukhenik mentioned video proof confirmed Learn consumed no less than 9 drinks between the 2 of them, earlier than she mentioned she dropped O’Keefe off at 34 Fairview Street, made a three-point flip and left.
“I advised Ms. Read that her phone was going to be seized as evidence and that her vehicle was going to be seized as well,” Bukhenik mentioned.
Forensics
Bukhenik testified that he had instructed the detective troopers and others in his workplace to drive by 34 Fairview Street within the days following the Jan. 29, 2022, as a result of, he mentioned, “certain items were revealed naturally through the melting process.”
These objects have been proven in pictures: sections of taillight — which is along with the “six or seven” items O’Hara mentioned his workforce present in its preliminary search — a black consuming straw like ones served in cocktails at bars, and a Boston Police hat with an American flag emblem, “which was compacted by the snow.” Bukhenik confirmed the hat within the courtroom.
That proof was then processed by MSP crime lab scientists, just a few of whom testified final week: Maureen Hartnett, Ashley Vallier and Christina Hanley.
Hartnett swabbed the frozen “red-brown stains” Canton Law enforcement officials collected in purple SOLO cups from below O’Keefe’s physique after the samples had thawed to check for blood.
She additionally carried out a survey of Learn’s 2021 Lexus LX570 contained in the police station’s sallyport. She mentioned the car was “in overall good condition,” however with injury to the rear passenger-side space”: a dent within the rear door, scratches to the bumper and injury to the taillight.
Vallier mentioned she carried out “physical match” evaluation of the proof, together with the clothes O’Keefe died in, the place she famous “apparent dirt debris” in addition to plastic, glass and a straw. She additionally carried out “mechanical fit” for the assorted items of the taillight. Proof pictures proven in court docket began with the person shards of taillight and progressed via reassembly of the items like a forensic jigsaw puzzle.
Hanley testified to testing the composition of “apparent glass” on the bumper of Learn’s car the place no less than some matched the busted cocktail glass discovered on the scene.
