A 10th day of witness testimony was held Tuesday in the Karen Read trial as her angry voicemails to John O'Keefe the night he died were played for jurors. Canton police officers and Massachusetts State Police investigators also took the stand.

Prosecutors say Read hit and killed O'Keefe, a Boston police officer, with her SUV in January 2022 after a night of drinking and left him to die outside Brian Albert's home at 34 Fairview Road in Canton. Read's attorneys argue that Brian Albert and two other men actually killed O'Keefe during a fight inside the home then dumped him in the yard.

Special prosecutor Hank Brennan has been handling the majority of direct questioning during the trial. Defense attorney Alan Jackson had been cross-examining most witnesses.

Trial ahead of schedule

As she dismissed jurors at the end of the day, Judge Beverly Cannone said the trial is slightly ahead of schedule.

Read, who has regularly spoken to reporters outside of court following testimony, offered no comment on Tuesday for a second straight day.

Massachusetts State Police evidence search

Massachusetts State Police Lt. Kevin O'Hara was called to testify Tuesday afternoon. He has been team commander for the agency's Special Emergency Response Team since 2014.

O'Hara said he got a call around 2:30 p.m. on January 29, 2022 to respond to 34 Fairview Road.

Seven members of the search team arrived by 6 p.m. O'Hara said one team member was not able to arrive due to snow, which changed the dynamics of the search. He said instead of supervising and documenting what was happening, he had to participate in the search.

O'Hara said the team was looking for pieces of taillight. They also had learned that O'Keefe was missing a shoe, so they were searching for that. Team members were equipped with shovels, push brooms, garden rakes and head lamps.

The first piece of evidence was found around 5:45 p.m. O'Hara said it was a piece of taillight. 

"I believe in total we located six or seven pieces of taillight," O'Hara said.   

A short time later, a sneaker was found against the curb with snow on and inside it, O'Hara said.

On cross-examination, defense attorney Alan Jackson highlighted that before O'Hara arrived at the scene, the area had been left unsecured for hours.

O'Hara said this was the first time his team had done an evidence search in blizzard conditions.

Detective Lieutenant Brian Tully, who worked for Massachusetts State Police in the Norfolk County District Attorney's office, would document items as they were found, O'Hara said.

Tully was one of Michael Proctor's supervisors. Proctor, the lead investigator, was fired for his conduct in Read's case. Tully was transferred out of the unit and later lost accrued time off following an internal investigation that found he failed to properly supervise troopers in the case.

The search was eventually called off due to the weather. O'Hara said he offered for the team to come back at a later date, saying there was a good chance they had not located all the evidence because of the snow. The team was never called back.

O'Hara completed his testimony around 3:30 p.m. and court ended for the day.

Karen Read's broken taillight 

Canton Police Lt. Charles Rae took the stand earlier Tuesday afternoon. Rae said he went to O'Keefe's home after he was taken to the hospital for a wellbeing check on O'Keefe's niece and nephew.

O'Keefe was the guardian for his niece and nephew after their mother, O'Keefe's sister, died of cancer.

Brennan played dashboard camera that showed Rae arriving at the home. In the video, Read's Lexus SUV can be shown parked in the driveway. It appears that Read's right taillight is broken in the video. In the first trial, Read's attorneys argued that her taillight was broken when she bumped into O'Keefe's vehicle in the driveway earlier in the night.

The defense did not cross-examine Rae.

Karen Read's angry voicemails to John O'Keefe

Massachusetts State Police Trooper Nicholas Guarino was called to the stand around 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Guarino has been called as a witness several times during the second trial to present evidence extracted from cellphones belonging to O'Keefe and Read. Brennan said he expects this to be the last time Guarino testifies. 

"John, I f---ing hate you," Read says in a voicemail around 12:37 a.m.

According to Guarino, Read's cellphone connected to the internet at O'Keefe's home at 12:36:39 a.m. on January 29, 2022.

"John, I'm here with your f---ing kids and nobody knows where the f--- you are, you f---ing pervert," Read says, referring to his niece and nephew.

"You're f---ing another girl ... you're a f---ing loser. F--- yourself," Read shouts in another voicemail. 

In total, Read called O'Keefe 52 times in the overnight hours, records show. She left him eight voicemails.

The eighth voicemail came at 6:03 a.m. as Read, Jennifer McCabe and Kerry Roberts found O'Keefe in the snow outside 34 Fairview Road in Canton. The line remains open, and commotion can be heard in the background.

Read's attorney's did not cross-examine Guarino, and he stepped down after the voicemails were played. 

WBZ Legal Analyst Katherine Loftus breaks down the timeline prosecutors are creating. "12:30, 12:31, if the argument is John is hit at approximately that time, she basically immediately just speeds away and then just gets home in you know five and a half minutes to Meadows (O'Keefe's home) where she then connects to the Wi-Fi," Loftus said.  

Weather when John O'Keefe died

Meteorologist Robert Gilman took the stand late Tuesday morning. Adam Lally, who was the lead prosecutor for the first trial, handled questioning.

Gilman testified about the conditions in Canton on January 29, 2022. According to Canton, there was about 3.9 inches of snow accumulated by 6 a.m. By 7 a.m., snow began falling moderately at about 1.5 inches per hour.

By the end of the day, about 23.8 inches of snow had fallen in Canton.

"The biggest snowstorm in January in our history," Gilman said.

Defense attorney Bob Alessi attempted to highlight that the majority of the snow fell in the hours after 6 a.m. when O'Keefe's body was found. Gilman completed his testimony after a brief redirect from Lally.

Karen Read interviews played

Retired Canton Police Lt. Paul Gallagher was on the stand for cross-examination when court ended for the day Monday. He started Tuesday back on the stand facing questions from Jackson, and finished his testimony about 90 minutes later. 

Before the morning recess, Brennan went to play two clips of Read speaking in media interviews. The defense asked the see the judge at sidebar, and the clips were not played until after a second sidebar following the morning break.

In one clip from a recent HBO documentary, Read described O'Keefe holding a cocktail glass.

"So when John got out of the car at Brian Albert's house, he took my full vodka soda, which was in the cupholder," Read said in the clip. A day earlier, Gallagher held up a broken cocktail glass that he said he discovered in the area where O'Keefe's body was found.

In the second clip from the same documentary, Read described why in a previous interview she said she remembered thinking "Could I have hit him? Did I hit him?"

"I said, yeah, my first thought was I had been out late. I'd been drinking. And he's in the general vicinity of when I last saw him," Read said. "So he's in the front yard, to the left of the front door. And no one's coming out of the house. Jen [McCabe] is telling me nobody's seen him. So I'm thinking, Jesus. Was I starting to pull away and I ran over his foot? He's roughly where I left him. So yeah, when I found him I was thinking, like, did I clip him somehow?""

Throughout the trial, Brennan has been playing clips from various interviews, attempting to use Read's own words against her. Because defense attorneys do not dispute the clips are authentic, no witness has to be on the stand when the clips are played. Defense attorneys have objected to some of the clips, but the judge has allowed each to be played so far.

Karen Read's Lexus

Jackson noted that Read's Lexus SUV was not photographed in the Canton Police Department garage until February 1.

Gallagher said the reason Canton police did not take pictures of the car is that Massachusetts State Police took over the investigation when O'Keefe died.

"This is important to know. Unfortunately, John O'Keefe was deceased at this time. Once John O'Keefe becomes deceased, it becomes the state police's investigation, the Norfolk County District Attorney CPAC investigation. That's why it is not our investigation. It's up to the investigating agency to make those decisions," Gallagher said when asked why the SUV wasn't photographed on January 29, 30 or 31.

Jackson shows photographs of the SUV in the police garage, including an investigator holding open a brown paper bag with plastic Solo cups inside. Police said the cups had blood in them that had been collected near the scene the morning O'Keefe's body was found.

The defense attorney noted that the cups were not sealed.

"They were not in an evidence bag, they were in a grocery bag, correct?" Jackson said. Gallagher had previously testified that the blood had been frozen in the snow. It was put into the cups, then into a brown paper grocery bag.

Jackson attempted to show that there could have been cross-contamination with the evidence was being displayed near the SUV.

"You will agree that having unsealed and unsecured blood right next to the right rear of the SUV is a recipe for cross-contamination, wouldn't you?" Jackson asked.

"Not in the hands of a trained criminalist no," Gallagher replied.

On redirect questioning, Brennan asked Gallagher if he saw anything suspicious from state police investigators when they were handling evidence near Read's Lexus.

"Did you see anything during that time that caused you any concern about the potential corruption of evidence?" Brennan asked.

"No. I had complete faith in the criminalists," Gallagher responded.

Neighbor's security camera

Canton Police Deputy Chief Thomas Keleher is a neighbor who lives across the street from Brian Albert. He had an Arlo camera system set up above his front door.

Gallagher said he did not ask Keleher for footage from the camera from the time police believe Read hit O'Keefe with her SUV.

Under cross-examination from Jackson, Gallagher said the reason he did not ask for the footage is that he has picked up packages at Keleher's home in the past, and knew that the camera would not have captured the incident. According to Gallagher, the camera was pointed at the front porch and part of the front lawn.

"To me, there was no expectation that it had captured anything. So I didn't think it was practical," Gallagher said.

Brian Higgins

Jackson began to question Gallagher about his relationship with Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent Brian Higgins. It was revealed during the first trial that Higgins exchanged "flirty" texts with Read.

Defense attorneys argue that Higgins, who was out drinking with Read and O'Keefe on the night in question, is one of the men who could have killed O'Keefe during a fight inside the home.

Gallagher confirmed that Higgins had a key card that allowed him access to parts of the Canton Police Department. Gallagher also confirmed that he was friends with Higgins, and would have recused himself from interviewing him if the opportunity had come up.

After Brennan questioned Gallagher on redirect, Jackson returned for another round of cross-examination.

He attempted to show that Gallagher did not know that Higgins was in the home the night O'Keefe died, despite returning to question people inside 34 Fairview Road hours after his body was discovered. Gallagher said he later discovered Higgins was one of the people in the home when he read his colleague's written report.

"It was a very fast-moving scene and pace," Gallagher said. 

Jackson also asked why police did not search Brian Albert's home. Gallagher said there was not probable cause, and there has not been evidence that O'Keefe ever went inside the night he died.

Retired Canton police lieutenant cross-examined

As cross-examination resumed on Tuesday, Jackson asked Gallagher about clearing snow in the lawn with the leaf blower.

"You did not see a single piece of bright red plastic taillight material did you?" Jackson asked. Gallagher said no.

"As a matter of fact, you didn't see 46 pieces of taillight material, either clear or bright red plastic in any of the area that you searched?" Jackson followed up. Gallagher said he did not.

In the past, defense attorneys have said that pieces of taillight found at the scene in the days after O'Keefe's death were planted by police.

Karen Read trial latest

Gallagher testified Monday about using a leaf blower to clear the top layer of snow in the area where O'Keefe's body was found in an effort to uncover evidence. Gallagher said that while searching the scene, he found the broken cocktail glass.

Also on Monday, several people who were at 34 Fairview Road the night O'Keefe died took the stand, as did an EMT who said she heard Read say "I hit him" when fire responders arrived on scene. Prosecutors tried to show that the EMT has connections to Brian Albert's daughter.

Read has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence of alcohol, and leaving the scene of personal injury and death. She stood trial in 2024, but that ended in a mistrial due to a hung jury.