In an expletive-filled Day 13 of testimony in the Karen Read murder trial, Colin Albert said he had never fought anyone in his life and a slip-and-fall on ice outside of another party injured his knuckles weeks after John O’Keefe’s death.
Albert, one of the three people who the defense has suggested could have been involved in beating O’Keefe to death, also testified that he never had any animus or made threats toward the 16-year Boston Police officer and Read’s boyfriend of about two years.
O’Keefe was found the morning of Jan. 29, 2022, either dead or dying on the front lawn of 34 Fairview Road in Canton, a property that Albert’s uncle, Brian Albert owned at the time with his wife Nicole.
Read, 44, of Mansfield, faces charges of second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter and leaving the scene of a collision causing O’Keefe’s death.
Prosecutors say that after a night out drinking, Read and O’Keefe argued, and she killed him by backing her Lexus SUV into him at high speed, leaving him to die in the cold during a major snowstorm.
The defense has developed a third-party killer theory and has alleged a massive frame-up job used to ensnare their client. During a hearing last month, defense attorney David Yannetti gave three names of people he said were at the home when O’Keefe died and who had motive and opportunity to kill him: Colin Albert, his uncle Brian Albert, who has testified O’Keefe never entered his home after midnight that morning, and Brian Higgins, an ATF agent who allegedly had a romantic connection with Read.
On Thursday, the defense presented the jury with a photo of Colin Albert with two friends at Fenway Johnnies taken by a staffer at the Boston bar on Feb. 26, 2022. Albert, who was a senior in high school at the time, was seen with bruised and cut-up knuckles on his right hand.
Albert, in response to a question from defense attorney Alan Jackson on the validity of the photo, acknowledged it was a “true and accurate depiction” of his condition.
“I was at a party my senior year, and I remember it being icy out, and it was a steep hill of a driveway, and I was walking up the driveway and I slipped down the driveway,” Albert recalled, “and I tried to catch myself but I had something in my left hand, so I had to try to brace myself with my right hand and I ended up sliding a little bit down the driveway.”
The recollection came as a surprise to Jackson, who responded, “Seriously?” and “Those injuries to your knuckles look an awful lot like the kind of injuries you’d get …,” to which Judge Beverly Cannone sustained an objection from prosecutor Adam Lally.
“Have you ever been in a fight, sir,” Jackson asked Albert. “Other than with my brothers, no,” the 20-year-old responded.
Albert went on to claim that he has never boxed nor been trained to box before, and he only hits “the bag for cardio.”
Expletive-laced
Cannone shortly called the jury to recess as Jackson and the rest of the defense team presented videos that they said showed Albert as a “fighter by nature.”
In the first video, Albert is heard saying, “Yo, you’re Advantage Boys. I’ll beat all of your asses. I promise I’ll (expletive) you all up. Pull up, bitch.” In the second video, he says, “You’re a bitch, bro. (Expletive) you. … You’re a (expletive), bro. Clean code, boy. You’ll be knocked out. KO, bang bang.”
The Advantage Boys, Albert later claimed, are members of a club hockey team who called him and his friends names. He said he never played hockey and that he never met them face-to-face, with the beef stemming from some of his female friends hanging out with them.
Expletives started to be slung as Jackson cross-examined Albert on the videos.
“Did you say you’d beat them up or did you say ‘I’ll (expletive) you up?,’” Jackson said to which Albert responded, “I said ‘I’ll f you up.”
“No, you didn’t say ‘I’ll f you up,” Jackson said. “What did you actually say?”
“That I’d (expletive) them up,” Albert said. He explained that he wouldn’t call the message a threat, and only if someone said it while walking up to him.
Albert then left the stand as Jackson looked for Cannone to accept the videos as evidence to be presented to jurors during the half-day session, which the judge did.
“It is very clear that these videos are highly, highly relevant given the sensitized testimony that this witness has tried to present to this jury,” Jackson said. “He’s indicated he’s never been in a fight, doesn’t have any violent tendencies.”
The attorney highlighted how he felt Lally opened the door for him to bring in the videos when the prosecutor Wednesday presented a photo in front of the jury showing Albert with his family after the night and morning of Jan. 28-29, 2022.
State police slammed
In response to Cannone asking how the videos were relevant to the case, Jackson argued investigators from Massachusetts State Police did not do their “due diligence” by failing to investigate witnesses at 34 Fairview Road until months, if not a year, after O’Keefe’s death.
“They did nothing to investigate whether there was someone in the house who tended to fight,” Jackson said,” who wanted to get into physical altercations … who was a fighter by nature, who threatened to fight, who threatened violence.”
Lally disagreed. “There’s no evidence whatsoever that he was even present at the same place, at the same time, with John O’Keefe on the night that John O’Keefe was killed,” he said.
Albert testified Wednesday that he never saw O’Keefe inside 34 Fairview Road the night of Jan. 28, 2022 or early the following morning. He said he went to the Canton home to celebrate his cousin Brian Albert Jr.’s 23rd birthday around 10:30 p.m. after drinking beers at his friend Mike’s house for a few hours that night.
Albert recalled going only to the bathroom at his cousin’s and not upstairs or downstairs, where the defense has alleged, in pre-trial hearings, O’Keefe was attacked.
Allison McCabe, who testified Wednesday that she picked Albert up from 34 Fairview Road around 12:10 a.m. and dropped him off at his family’s home minutes later, said there’s no truth to the defense’s claim that Albert played a part in O’Keefe’s death.
“Colin wasn’t at the house when John was there … I drove him home,” she said. “People are harassing him saying that he was at the house when it’s not true.”
McCabe confirmed investigators questioned her last year after the defense and supporters alleged Colin Albert helped kill O’Keefe. She also testified she provided investigators with screenshots of messages she and Albert exchanged regarding the ride home, between 11:54 p.m. and 12:10 a.m., when Albert was picked up.
Jackson pressed for details from Albert on why he did not exchange texts with McCabe until Feb. 20, 2022, a “gap after ,,. you found out a man had ended up dead on your uncle’s lawn,” the defense attorney said.
Albert disagreed with Jackson’s assertion, saying he and McCabe “text on other platforms” but he wasn’t sure why the messages couldn’t be found.
When asked when he started thinking about the case, Albert said only when people “started writing about me” on social media.
“I’d say a little over a year (ago) it started,” he said, “when people on Twitter, Instagram, social media, were just coming after my family, calling us murderers, harassing us, showing up to our doorsteps, our sports games. We couldn’t leave the house without people taking pictures of us, and it’s very terrible.”
