This is about justice for Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, who died on the morning of January 29, 2022 in Canton, Massachusetts. Karen Read, his girlfriend, is accused of killing him with her vehicle, and her two-month trial ended in a hung jury. Many are convinced of her guilt. They are, alas, altogether wrong. To the contrary, Read’s promised retrial is the principal impediment to justice for Officer O’Keefe.
The case for the prosecution is simple, and it is powerful. Officer O’Keefe had been out drinking with Read and others; they all left the tavern shortly after midnight and adjourned to the residence of another Boston officer. A heavy snowstorm was starting, and the temperature was about 20 degrees. Read chose not to join the continuing party, and left O’Keefe. She denies knowing what happened to him, but early the following morning, she returned, with others, and found his body on the front lawn of the residence where she had left him.
Read’s right taillight was broken; she, still under the influence of liquor, was allegedly heard to cry “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.” And over the next several days and weeks, as snow melted, some 47 pieces of plastic were found on the lawn. Re-assembled, they formed a taillight, which fit, unmistakably, Read’s damaged vehicle.
Read called witnesses to prove that the damage to her vehicle could not produce the injuries to Officer O’Keefe’s body, nor could Officer O’Keefe, whose fatal injury was to his head alone, have been killed by a motor vehicle. Her lawyers also offered an argument that the injury was inflicted within the residence and his body was placed outside to deflect blame.
The trial evidence was extensive, with many side issues; but at core, it is easy to see why a verdict was not reached. A body is found on a lawn surrounded by pieces of a taillight; though it may be made to sound improbable, the victim was in fact beyond reasonable doubt killed by the vehicle from which the taillight was missing. Clever and expensive lawyering does not undercut that conclusion.
On the other side, the federal government’s accident reconstruction engineers concluded that Officer O’Keefe’s un-bruised torso could not have been hit by a motor vehicle, nor could Read’s vehicle have run into anyone at 24 miles per hour, as claimed by the prosecution. The defense also offered evidence that abrasions on Officer O’Keefe’s arm were from a dog attack; the homeowner had a German Shepard, known to be dangerous. Field of plastic or not, doubt of the prosecution was reasonable, indeed, patent.
The defense insisted that Read was framed by the lead investigator, Trooper Michael Proctor of the Massachusetts State Police, with the aid of innumerable others. Proctor was shown to be under pressure quickly to solve the case of the death of a police officer, and not inclined to pursue a possible case against a second Boston police officer, of whom he was, as it turns out, a family friend. And Trooper Procter harbored a peculiar and incomprehensible contempt for Read, vulgarly expressed, whom he did not know before the 29th.
Could Proctor have planted evidence, as claimed by the defense? He certainly had motive, and the means of doing so were simple. But what opportunity did he have? Read’s vehicle was on its way to Dighton, thirty miles away, when Proctor first arrived to work on the case at 10 am on the 29th. He and his sergeant, Bukhenik, retrieved the vehicle that afternoon, and had it towed to the Canton Police garage, called a “sally port”, where they arrived at approximately 5:32. A videocam filmed the arrival with time signatures clearly recorded.
At just that time, Mass State Police Lieutenant Kevin O’Hara was at the crime scene, waiting for the last of his seven-man special search crew. So too was Lieutenant Brian Tully. At 5:41, the last member of O’Hara’s crew arrived at the staging area, and by or shortly after 5:45, they had found the first three pieces of the eventual 47 pieces of plastic that had formed Read’s right rear taillight cover. Curiously, no piece of plastic, most of it bright red, was found when the Canton Police Department, aided by a snow-blower, had searched the site earlier in the day. They had found Officer O’Keefe’s broken glass, about 2 ¾” wide, 2 ½” high.
Close inspection of the sally port video discloses the following. Proctor was in the sally port, and near the right rear of Read’s vehicle, but out of view of the camera, for some 47 seconds. Only the tow truck driver was present, and he was at the driver’s seat and then in front of the vehicle, and so could not observe Proctor. At 5:38 Proctor left the sally port, moving quickly in the direction of the parking lot, where his own vehicle was parked. The crime scene was 1.2 miles, 3 minutes driving away. There, in addition to O’Hara and his assembling crew and Lieutenant Tully, five members of law enforcement were at the scene, quite dark. Proctor had time to drop three pieces of plastic and circumstances ample to avoid observation.
Once the plastic was found at the scene, further inquiry as to the manner of Officer O’Keefe’s death seemed gratuitous. Lieutenant Tully surely must have thought so, altogether reasonably. And so, the frame was virtually complete; created by Proctor alone, without co-conspirator. He had several days to complete the task of seeding the scene with the rest of the taillight cover, and doubtless sought to add other evidence against Read. But if the field of broken plastic were planted, it follows that Read is not merely not guilty; she is manifestly innocent.
And law enforcement must find out what happened to Officer O’Keefe. Their investigation of alternatives ended at 5:45 pm on the day of his death, if it ever began. If Karen Read did not kill him, somebody else did.
Imaginitive story; but what is the corroboration? Well, those who followed this case closely at one time expected the prosecution to show that certain pieces of glass found on the rear bumper of Read’s vehicle matched the broken drinking glass found with Officer O’Keefe’s body. Those pieces were photographed in place on Read’s bumper on February 1, and collected by Maureen Hartnett of the Massachusetts Crime Laboratory on February 2. They were small pieces of broken glass; call them “shards”. They were placed in an evidence bag, 3-3, and subsequently the five shards were labeled A-E. Piece of glass 3-3 E, is THE FIFTH SHARD. On it, the case against Karen Read turns. The prosecution made nothing of it at the first trial. They had no doubt hoped to tie Officer O’Keefe by use of glass to the vehicle as they tied the vehicle to Officer O’Keefe by use of plastic. But Mass Crime Lab trace expert Christina Hanley established to a virtual scientific certainty that the Fifth Shard did not match Officer O’Keefe’s glass. The defense on cross examination of Hartnett spent notable effort showing and demonstrating the improbability that the five shards could have remained seated on Read’s bumper through its extensive trek to and from Dighton in the snowstorm. They needn’t have bothered. Since none of the five shards in 3-3 matched, the prosecution could not use them. That might have ended it. But it is only the beginning.
Hanley further established to a scientific certainty that the Fifth Shard did match a single piece of glass, item 7-14, purportedly found at the scene. And of course, as Hanley further testified, 7-14 does not match Officer O’Keefe’s glass. How on earth did the Fifth Shard get on Karen Read’s vehicle? Well, we know that it came from the same place as 7-14. Though the prosecution’s objection was sustained—it seemed so inconsequential at the time—the defense made clear that the police laboratory records established that 7-14 came from the hand of Michael Proctor. All are invited to think about that; there is only one conclusion–“ineluctable”, in the prosecution’s favorite idiom. Proctor took the frameup a step too far. The plastic seems such compelling evidence of Read’s guilt. Adding glass on the bumper, and having it match a piece ‘retrieved’ from the scene might have sealed a conviction. But Proctor did not quite think it through. No one hearing what Proctor was texting his pals on the evening of January 29 would think Proctor made it a practice to think things through. Shard E had to match Officer O’Keefe’s broken glass. It didn’t. And so the Fifth Shard in turn corroborates how Read’s taillight cover came to be strewn about the lawn where John O’Keefe was found.
It will be weeks before there is a retrial; perhaps someone will contrive an explanation of the Fifth Shard of at least marginal probability. Or perhaps there ought not to be a retrial.
While waiting, law enforcement might note that Officer O’Keefe’s shirt bore cellular, and so matchable, DNA, from two persons, not identified, in addition to Officer O’Keefe’s. Perhaps it came from paramedics or hospital staff. But law enforcement might consider discretely asking for a voluntary swab from each of the several prosecution witnesses pointed to by the defense as implicated in Officer O’Keefe’s death.
© Gail F. Sullivan, News Link Live
