Karen Read retrial hits Day 9 with the fateful night in question

DEDHAM, Mass. — The Canton Fire Department paramedic who initially reported hearing Karen Read say “I hit him” while nearby John O’Keefe, dead or dying on a front lawn, took the stand on the ninth day of trial.

Read, 45, of Mansfield, faces charges including second-degree murder in the death of O’Keefe, a Boston police officer and her boyfriend of roughly two years at the time, sometime after midnight on Jan. 29, 2022. Prosecutors say she struck him with her Lexus SUV, leaving him to freeze and die on the front lawn of 34 Fairview Road.

Monday saw testimony from five new witnesses that provided more details about the party happening inside the home and Read’s SUV outside of it as well as chaotic scene around O’Keefe’s body and the first police search of the area.

The paramedic

O’Keefe was found dead or dying on that front lawn at around 6 a.m. by Read and two others: Jennifer McCabe and Kerry Roberts, both of whom have already testified. McCabe called 911 and flagged down the first responders, she testified.

Katie McLaughlin was the junior firefighter who rushed to the scene. She testified Monday to seeing O’Keefe lying on his back on the front lawn and a woman she would learn is Read “frantic” and “hysterical” at the scene.

Canton Fire paramedic Timothy Nuttall testified earlier that O’Keefe was “very cold to the touch.” He and others worked to try to revive O’Keefe and Read walked over, Nuttall testified, and said “I hit him” multiple times.

McLaughlin testified that Read told her the same thing. She said Read told her “I hit him,” but that she didn’t ask her further questions about that.

“The woman was very upset,” McLaughlin testified. “I didn’t feel comfortable pushing and asking for more … I felt like that’s something the police — that’s more their role.”

Under cross-examination, McLaughlin said that at the time she heard Read say these words, other paramedics including Nuttall were already in the ambulance with the doors closed. Defense attorney Alan Jackson’s questioning suggested the others who testified to “I hit him” only heard it from McLaughlin.

Jackson also worked to make McLaughlin appear biased because of her relationship with Caitlin Albert, the daughter of Nicole and Brian Albert, who owned the property where O’Keefe lay dead or dying and who are central to the defense’s theory of a conspiracy and cover-up.

McLaughlin said that she and Caitlin Albert were in high school together and had “mutual friends” but that she didn’t then and still doesn’t “have a close personal relationship with her.”

Jackson showed her a variety of photos of the two women together. McLaughlin confirmed they were photos of them but said it’s because their friendship groups would often get together but that the two of them were not close.

The party

That Canton home was abuzz the early morning that O’Keefe lost his life because it was the birthday celebration of Brian Albert Jr. He had friends over and his parents, aunt and uncle and other adults would come by to join in on the festivities after drinking in downtown Canton.

Brian Albert Jr.’s friends included Julie Nagel and Sara Levinson, who were planning to be picked up by Julie’s elder brother Ryan Nagel.

Levinson testified that the mood inside the house was “light, celebratory.” She said the adults came home “around midnight” and joined in the festivities and that nothing remarkable happened inside that night.

Ryan Nagel and his girlfriend at the time, Heather Maxon, both testified Monday that they went to the home for the pickup at around 12:30 a.m. they encountered Read’s SUV, which they identified on the stand as “a black SUV.” They also testified that they didn’t see a man — meaning O’Keefe — in or near the car when it was parked near the house.

When their car was parked, Ryan Nagel testified, he texted his sister they were there to pick her up. She came out after “maybe two minutes” or to ask if they wanted to come in for drinks, but Ryan Nagel and the others in the vehicle declined and left.

Ryan Nagel also testified that the taillight of the SUV, the area of the vehicle prosecutors say would strike O’Keefe, was intact at this time.

The snowblower

Lt. Paul Gallagher, who has since retired from the Canton Police Department, was in charge of the scene after paramedics left with O’Keefe. He said he arrived around 7 a.m. and primarily maintained the scene as the local cops waited for the Massachusetts State Police, which have jurisdiction over unattended death investigations, to arrive.

But he said the snow was falling fast and he needed to take some action to see if he could preserve evidence from the storm. He testified that he used a leaf blower to “slowly” remove snow from where O’Keefe’s body had been — even though he hadn’t seen it himself — to look for evidence. He testified the blower “was great” for the job and he “memorialized” it by having another officer video his work.

“I thought someone might wonder why I decided to use a leafblower and I wanted to document its effectiveness,” he said.

He would find pink spots that turned out to be blood and decided to preserve it. Another cop who lived nearby provided red SOLO plastic cups which Ghallagher scooped the samples into for transport.

Defense attorney Alan Jackson heavily critiques Gallagher’s decisions in cross-examination. He confirmed the cups were the same as “you’d find at a backyard barbecue,” that they were unsealed and that the blood was mixed with snow that could contaminate the “integrity of the biological sample.” He also criticized the use of a Stop & Shop bag to collect a broken cocktail glass found at the scene.

Blood alcohol

The day began with cross-examination of Hannah Knowles, a forensic scientist with the Massachusetts State Police crime lab, who testified Friday that Read’s blood alcohol could have been as much as three times the legal limit around the time of the alleged vehicle strike.

Defense attorney David Yannetti had her admit that the analysis depended on when Read had stopped drinking so if she had drank after leaving the bar — say at O’Keefe’s house when she went to look for him there — then that would have made the conclusion inaccurate.

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