The 10th day of testimony in the Karen Read murder trial began with a rapid-fire cross-examination of Brian Albert, the owner of the home where Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe lay dead or dying on the yard in the early morning of Jan. 29, 2022.
“All that chaos on the front lawn, you never came out to assist in any way whatsoever, did you, Mr. Albert?” defense attorney Alan Jackson said.
Jackson was questioning Albert’s testimony on Friday that neither he nor his wife had heard neither Karen Read screaming nor the commotion of first responders at around 6 a.m. He said he was asleep and the curtains to his windows were closed.
Read, 44, of Mansfield, faces charges of second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter and leaving the scene of a collision causing the death of O’Keefe, a 16-year Boston Police officer and her boyfriend of about two years when he died at age 46. Prosecutors say that after a night out drinking the pair 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.
Albert is a recently retired Boston Police sergeant, last assigned to the department’s fugitive unit. He testified that he had met O’Keefe a few times before he died and that he “considered him a co-worker, even though we never worked together.”
Albert is also one of three people that defense attorney David Yannetti in a pre-trial hearing identified as being in 34 Fairview Road — the house Brian Albert then owned with his wife Nicole Albert — when he alleges O’Keefe was onsite and had motive and opportunity to kill him. The defense has developed a third-party killer theory and has alleged a massive frame-up job to ensnare their client.
The other two Yannetti identified are ATF Agent Brian Higgins, who is a friend of Albert’s and allegedly had a romantic connection with Read; and Colin Albert, Brian Albert’s nephew, whom Brian Albert testified under cross Friday was a large, athletic teenager who played on the football team.
The dog and the boxer
Also playing into the defense’s theory is Chloe, a 70-pound German shepherd mix the Alberts owned for “six or seven” years before re-homing the dog just months after O’Keefe died.
Defense attorneys have suggested that wounds on O’Keefe’s arms could be dog bites and that the dog — who both Albert and his wife said was re-homed after biting a woman — participated in an attack on O’Keefe in the home’s basement.
Jackson on Friday said that the Alberts would have also been alerted to the commotion by Chloe, who slept in their bedroom and who, Brian Albert testified, doesn’t like strangers. He said that, yes, Chloe would “hypothetically” perceive O’Keefe as a stranger if she encountered him.
Albert stood by his statement from Friday: “John never came into my house that night.”
“He, and the defendant,” he said with a glance to Read, “would have been welcome with open arms if they did. I wish they had.”
Jackson also brought up Albert’s fight training. Albert agreed that he had hand-to-hand combat training from his time in the military and had defensive tactics training as a BPD officer. He also said that he has boxed before and has training in that.
Jurors viewed once again internal surveillance footage from Waterfall Bar and Grill in central Canton that showed Albert and Higgins squaring off in boxing stances, which Jackson stressed was just hours before O’Keefe would die. Albert maintained the two men were “just fooling around.”
“Just having fun with my friends, hanging out, being silly,” he said.
The butt dials
Jackson also questioned Albert about what have become known as the “butt dials.”
Multiple phone calls were placed between Higgins and Albert in the early morning hours, beginning with a call Albert described as “inadvertent … kind of like a butt dial” to Higgins that lasted one second.
Other calls would come later, each lasting a matter of seconds. Jackson peppered Albert with questions to establish the timing and the whys of these calls, leading to a heated exchange.
“We’re both guessing here,” Albert said.
Jackson responded: “I think only one of us is trying to guess.”
The children
Two of Brian Albert’s adult children who were there that night also took the stand on Monday: Brian Albert Jr., whose 23rd birthday came that midnight, and Caitlin Albert.
Brian Albert Jr. — who Caitlin Albert said is called “Little Brian, sometimes, even though he’s not so little” — testified that when one of his friends went out to the driveway to meet her brother to be picked up, he looked out and saw a dark SUV he didn’t recognize parked near the mailbox. The car, presumed to be Read’s, had moved farther up the street, toward where O’Keefe’s body would later be found, when he looked out next.
He said that his family were “cheerful, fun, everyone was having a great time” when they arrived at the house following their outing to Waterfall earlier that night.
Caitlin Albert was at the Waterfall gathering, with Read and O’Keefe, who she testified she didn’t know, and also reported there was no tension there and everyone was having a good time.
She said, as others have testified before her, that she was the last to leave 34 Fairview Road, putting her departure at sometime around 2 a.m.
She also testified that the primary State Police investigator, Trooper Michael Proctor, didn’t interview her until 18 months after the incident.
Caitlin Albert will be back on the stand when the case resumes Tuesday and she’ll face additional questions, including about her relationship with Canton Fire paramedic Katie McLaughlin, who testified last week that she heard Read say “I hit him” repeatedly while pacing O’Keefe’s body at the scene.
