Third-party killer theory looms large
Read trial kicks off Tuesday
Attorneys on either side of the Karen Read murder case presented final arguments to place limits on what materials can be included when the trial begins next week, with Read’s third-party culpability defense topping the list.
Judge Beverly Cannone heard the majority of final request arguments yesterday morning and a few more at the beginning of the Norfolk Superior Court’s afternoon session and made rulings on a number of the smaller contentious matters. But she had not ruled on the most controversial issues by the end of the court day.
Read, 44, of Mansfield, was indicted in June of 2022 for second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter, and leaving the scene of a collision causing death in the Jan. 29, 2022, death of John O’Keefe, 46, a 16-year member of the Boston Police Department and Read’s boyfriend of two years. Prosecutors say she struck him with her Lexus SUV outside a Canton home after a night of heavy drinking and left him to die in the cold.
The issue that dominated yesterday’s hearing — the last before jury selection begins Tuesday — is whether the defense would even be allowed to invoke its central argument: that someone else, other than Read, killed O’Keefe that early morning at 34 Fairview Road in Canton.
Defense attorney David Yannetti said that both his team’s expert witness as well as experts retained into the federal probe of the Read investigation have “corroborated that O’Keefe’s injuries are not consistent” with being struck by a car.
“So, your honor, if Mr. O’Keefe was not hit by a car, then the defendant did not kill him,” Yannetti said. He added later that, “If you want to point the finger in a third-party culpability defense, you have a constitutional right to do so.”
Cannone expressed some skepticism with the theory, saying toward the start, “I don’t know who the thirdparty culprit is, even after reading 4,500 pages of discovery.”
Yannetti countered that it’s not the defense’s job to name the culprit but to defend their client.
“It is not our job to solve this case for the prosecution,” he said. “They had the opportunity to do that but failed.”
But Cannone pushed for more specifics, and so Yannetti specified three people who he alleges were at the home at the time of O’Keefe’s death and had both motive and opportunity to have killed him.
Those are Boston Police Sgt. Brian Albert, the thenowner of the home; Colin Albert, Brian Albert’s then16-year-old nephew; and Brian Higgins, a federal special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) who maintains an office at the Canton Police
Department.
Yannetti said Higgins had a prior romantic relationship with Read and seemed to suggest jealousy as a motive to kill O’Keefe. He added that despite a retention order, Higgins destroyed his cell phone following O’Keefe’s death.
Then came Colin Albert, who Yannetti said has a demonstrated history of “bad blood” with O’Keefe, over Colin Albert apparently driving through O’Keefe’s yard and throwing beer bottles or cans in his bushes, “and John O’Keefe was not happy about that.”
Then Brian Albert, who Yannetti said also has “expressed hostility toward O’Keefe.” He said that as a police officer, Brian Albert is “duty-bound to help someone in trouble” and that even though he knew as other first responders came to his home to tend to O’Keefe, Brian Albert “did nothing,” indicating “consciousness of guilt.”
Prosecutor Adam Lally responded, “What counsel just went through is a list of rank speculation and is not evidence.”
“What I’m concerned with is believability,” Lally said. “Now is the time where counsel is going to be relegated to what is actually relevant, admissible evidence.
“It has to be specific. It has to be a specific person who has motive or opportunity,” Lally continued, “and as it stands I have seen no evidence.”
Lally said that the majority of what Yannetti brought up comes from the federal probe, which is also on the chopping block for admissibility at trial, based on an exclusion motion Lally filed.
Lally said that the details of the federal probe are not known, and so the parties just have a vague idea of what is under investigation. Because of that, he argued, bringing the federal probe up directly is “simply inadmissible.” He also alleged the federal probe helped to launch and shape the federal investigation.
“The federal government, your honor, is perfectly capable of deciding its own investigation,” defense attorney Alan Jackson said in response. He said that it is “critical to give this jury the proper contact of the evidence and how it came to light.”
Judge Cannone allowed the motion to exclude the direct presentation of the federal probe but appeared to allow for the issue to be used in a limited capacity if it comes up during the trial.
Judge Cannone did rule against both the prosecution and the defense, who in separate motions had asked that a blogger well-known for his coverage and advocacy on behalf of the Read defense named Aidan Kearney, who goes by “Turtleboy,” not be brought up in the case.
Despite the requests, Cannone said that she wouldn’t tether witnesses on the content of their answers to questioning and so would not bar references to Kearney in the trial.
She had a similar line of reasoning to her take on allowing the prosecution to be informed of what the defense will ask during crossexamination of their witnesses “regarding alleged bias.”
Cannone said that the defense is afforded “broad latitude” in their cross-examination of witnesses and so she is “reluctant to tie the defense’s hands in any way in regards to cross-examination.”