Defense questions investigation, witness memory

The jury may have heard a quarter of the testimony in a trial that could last two months, but Judge Beverly J. Cannone says it is moving particularly slowly. They still need to hear testimony from a phalanx of experts from both sides who will handle DNA and the autopsy report. The prosecution’s proceedings are expected to last at least two weeks before a defense trial lasting several weeks begins.

Still, there were important testimonies in those first weeks: local police officers and paramedics said they responded to the scene and collected evidence in Solo cups, and friends of Read and O’Keefe discussed the night before his death. Both groups include long-time canton residents, many of whom grew up together.

More than a dozen emergency responders who testified said they arrived at the Fairview Road home shortly after 6 a.m. to find a “hysterical” Read with blood on her face from trying to give O’Keefe CPR. Some didn’t remember her saying anything about hitting O’Keefe.

Part of her testimony revolved around the specific words Read said after O’Keefe’s body was found. Some said they heard Read say, “I hit him, I hit him!” Others said, “Could I have hit him?” while others remembered hearing, “Is that my friend?” Is he dead?” or “This is all my fault. I did this.”

Prosecutors from Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey’s office allege that after a night of bar-hopping Read drunkenly and intentionally backed her SUV into O’Keefe after dropping him off at a meeting with friends at 34 Fairview Road, then left him to die in the snow on the front lawn. You claimed The evidence will show that their relationship fell apart due to cheating allegations and that O’Keefe attempted to end the relationship.

Read, 44, of Mansfield, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident risking injury.

Her lawyers claim she is being framed. They say she simply dropped O’Keefe off at that after-hours meeting at the home of then-Boston police colleague Brian Albert and left – and then, they claim, he was beaten by people in the house and possibly bitten by Chloe, the Dog belonging to the Albert family before being left outside.

“It certainly looks like the defense is sticking to its extremely aggressive approach in this case,” said Brad Bailey, a defense attorney and former murder prosecutor who is not connected to the case. Regarding their targeted investigations, he said: “Their questions are not evidence, but the questions are a way to get the jury to think.”

Still, said another defense attorney and former prosecutor, Ilir Kavaja, convincing a jury of the kind of framework the defense is proposing would be a difficult, if not impossible, task.

“Jurors and judges like to assume that people are the best and you really have to show them concrete evidence that there is a cover-up,” Kavaja said. “In every criminal case, the devil is in the details.”

Among the most striking details revealed during the trial was a photo of red Solo cups in a Stop and Shop bag, each vessel filled with red liquid. Several police officers testified that it was O’Keefe’s frozen blood. The canton police collected it in cups, which they took from a neighbor because the police had nothing else.

When asked if this was standard procedure, Lieutenant Paul Gallagher replied: “Of course not”, but: “Nothing about the scene was standard.”

“We improvised,” he said.

The defense also pressed officers that they used a sergeant’s personal leaf blower to clear snow, that officers did not seek a warrant to search the home and that records were inconsistent.

Dennis Galvin, a retired state police major and president of the Massachusetts Association for Professional Law Enforcement who worked not on the Read case but in crime scene investigation, told the Globe: “Homicide crime scenes are the foundation of every investigation you will do. They must be secured, methodically maintained and cultivated.”

And the chain of evidence must be clear and clean, he said, otherwise “if there is a break in that chain, the chain of evidence is lost.”

Defense attorneys have also focused on connections between witnesses. They sharply pressed paramedic Katie McLaughlin, one of the emergency responders who said Read said “I hit him,” about her connection to Caitlin Albert, Brian Albert’s daughter, and even accused her of committing perjury by downplayed their friendship.

They also suggested that police Lt. Michael Lank, a longtime friend of one of Brian Albert’s brothers, would be willing to help a friend and fellow police officer, just as he had participated in a brawl with people who were harassing Chris Albert 22 years ago.

“Questions that raise credibility concerns, if asked correctly, can really resonate,” said David Christopher Dearborn, a defense attorney and professor at Suffolk Law School who is not connected to the case. “Motives for lying and bias are always relevant.”

He said Cannone did it The defense was given “quite a bit of leeway to see if there is enough wiggle room to invite a legitimate third-party perpetrator defense.”

That’s a stated goal of Read’s lawyers – to say that someone else killed O’Keefe.

Defense attorneys also pointed out inconsistencies in the statement. Some involved larger issues, such as people not immediately reporting Read’s comments at the crime scene but not doing so until months or years later. But Read’s lawyers, Alan Jackson and David Yannetti, also pounced on small details.

“Memory is a funny thing,” Jackson said while questioning paramedic Tim Nuttall, who incorrectly remembered O’Keefe wearing a winter coat when he was found wearing a lighter sweatshirt. Jackson had tried to use this inconsistency to cast doubt on Nuttall, recalling that Read had said: “I beat him.”

Bailey, one of the defense attorneys not involved in the case, said many small inconsistencies can add up in the minds of jurors. “After a while, molehills can turn into mountains,” he said.

Elizabeth Kensinger, a professor at Boston College and chair of the department of psychology and neuroscience, said in an interview that the brain prioritizes certain details in these memories. Consider the “gun focus effect,” she said, where someone might have a good memory of the gun drawn on them, but not a good memory of the person holding it, she said.

“Two years has been a long time. Details fade from memory pretty quickly – we all experience that,” she said. “It can certainly be worrying if someone remembers something that happened in a completely inconsistent place, but inconsistencies in small details are actually the norm.”

She added that when you store memories, you’re essentially storing a blueprint, and since your brain uses that to reconstruct a memory, “it’s very easy to grab the wrong building block.”

A number of experts on both sides have yet to make decisive statements. They are expected to discuss the results of O’Keefe’s autopsy, DNA allegedly found on the bumper of Read’s SUV and the timing of an Internet search about how long it takes to die in the snow.

Kavaja said he looks forward to hearing from these experts.

“In general, the prosecution’s case is very dry unless it involves drugs, money and sex,” he said. “The crucial part will come during the defense case.”

The Globe’s Travis Andersen contributed to this report.

Sean Cotter can be reached at [email protected]. follow him @cotterreporter.