A woman accused of leaving her Boston police officer boyfriend for dead in a snowbank after a night of drinking was still legally intoxicated or near to it eight hours later, according to a former state police toxicologist testifying Tuesday.
Prosecutors assert that Karen Read knocked John O’Keefe down at a fellow cop’s home party in January 2022, struck him with her SUV, and then drove away. Read has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, and her defense team claims that the homeowner’s interactions with local and state police tainted the investigation. They also assert that they framed her and beat O’Keefe inside the home before leaving him outside.
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Nicholas Roberts, who examined blood test data from the hospital where Read received treatment after the discovery of O’Keefe’s body, presented his findings to the jurors as the high-profile trial entered its sixth week. He calculated that her blood alcohol content at 9 a.m., the time of the blood test, was between.078% and.083%, which is close to Massachusetts’ legal limit for intoxication. According to a police record, her final drink was at 12:45 a.m.; therefore, her peak blood alcohol level would have been between 135% and 292%, he stated.
Witnesses have described Read furiously asking, “Did I hit him?” before O’Keefe’s discovery, and then responding, “I hit him.” Others claim the pair had a tumultuous relationship, and O’Keefe was attempting to terminate it.
O’Keefe had been raising his niece and nephew, and they told jurors on Tuesday that he and Read had frequent fights. According to Fox25 News, O’Keefe’s niece described the relationship as “good at the beginning but bad at the end,” while the nephew stated that there was no physical violence involved.
The defense, which has been allowed to submit what is known as third-party culprit evidence, claims that investigators concentrated on Read because she was a “convenient outsider” who saved them from having to investigate other suspects. They have accused Brian Albert, the owner of the Canton residence where O’Keefe died, and Brian Higgins, a federal agent who was present that night.
Higgins, a special agent with the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, testified last week that he exchanged amorous texts with Read in the weeks leading up to O’Keeffe’s death. On Tuesday, he admitted to removing only those communications before tossing away his phone during the murder inquiry.
Higgins stated that he replaced the phone because someone he was investigating for his job had obtained his number. On September 29, 2022, a day before receiving a court order to preserve his phone, he received a new phone and number, discarding the previous one a few months later. On the stand, Read’s lawyer questioned Higgins and argued the timing was questionable.
“You knew when you were throwing that phone and the destroyed SIM card in the dumpster that from that day forward, no one would ever be able to access the content of what you and Brian Albert had discussed by text messages on your old phone,” David Yannetti, your attorney, stated.
