Last week in Massachusetts, a trial started for a woman who is accused of hitting her Boston police officer boyfriend with her car and leaving him in a snowbank to die.
John O’Keefe passed away in Canton, a town near Boston, on January. The date is February 29, 2022.
The case is getting a lot of attention across the country because the defence says that police and authorities wrongly accused Karen Read and let the true killer go.
For the last few days, Read’s lawyers have been talking a lot about how the police are connected to the family who owned the house in Canton, Boston where O’Keefe’s body was found. They are saying that these relationships made the investigation unfair and made it hard for the police to consider the idea that someone else might have killed O’Keefe.
The lawyers first questioned Katie McLaughlin, a firefighter who came to the place and was friends with Caitlin Albert’s family member. Albert’s father, who was a police officer in Boston, owned the house at that time.
McLaughlin said on Friday that she and Caitlin Albert went to the same high school, were friends on social media, and took a picture together at a beach ten years ago. She said they were just people she knew a little, and she didn’t know it was Albert’s house when she went there. She also said she hadn’t spoken to Albert in a long time.
Alan Jackson, the lawyer for Read, kept trying to prove that Read and McLaughlin were closer than McLaughlin wanted to say, by showing other beach pictures of them together.
By Monday, he and other lawyers were strongly emphasizing that connection.
Before the group of people making decisions arrived, the lawyers told Judge Beverly Cannone that they had gotten a lot more pictures over the weekend of McLaughlin and Caitlin Albert together, including at a party for a soon-to-be baby. They also found out that both of them were on the running team in high school. Cannone said she will deal with the problem later.
The lawyers defending the case also asked questions to Canton Police Lieutenant. Paul Gallagher was the first person to speak on Monday. He was asked why he didn’t look for any physical evidence in the family home. They saw pieces of a broken glass outside the house and think they might find more inside if they search.
Jackson asked Gallagher if the police didn’t search the house because it belonged to a police officer from Boston.
Gallagher said that the police did not have enough evidence to do a search.
Jackson asked Gallagher if Chief Berkowitz stepped back from the investigation because of the connection between the Albert family and the Canton police department.
Gallagher said no because Brian Albert’s brother works in the Canton police’s investigative unit.
On Tuesday, the defense talked about the connection between Canton Police Lt. Michael Lank was friends with Christopher Albert, who is the brother of Brian Albert, and they were classmates in high school.
Lank said he was drinking when Christopher Albert came to him for help because he had gotten into a fight and was threatened.
Lank’s lawyers said he helped Albert because they’re good friends, but he said that’s not true.
“I helped a scared person, Chris Albert, and his family on that night,” he said in court.
The charges: A tumultuous relationship turns deadly
Police said that Read and O’Keefe went to two bars on the night the officer died, and then they were on their way to a party in nearby Canton. Read didn’t feel good and chose not to go, they said. When they were at home, O’Keefe got out of Read’s car. While she was turning the car around, she hit him and then drove off. according to prosecutors.
Read got very worried when she couldn’t contact O’Keefe. She went back to the party and, with two friends, found his body under the snow, according to the prosecutors.
Up to now, they are focusing on what Read said at the scene, including what first responders remember her saying loudly and many times, that she “hit him,” but she never mentioned using her SUV. They also have brought people to court who said the couple didn’t get along well.
However, a person who was at a bar with the couple on the night O’Keefe died, said that he did not see any signs of them fighting or arguing that night.
“I actually saw the opposite,” said Nicholas Kolokithas, who lives in Canton and is a lawyer, to the court. “They were very loving and affectionate with each other. My wife even noticed and asked why we couldn’t be like that. “