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DEDHAM, MASS. (WHDH) - State police Det. Sgt. Yuriy Bukhenik returned to the witness stand Thursday after an intense day of testimony in the Karen Read murder trial Wednesday.
Bukhenik, who served as one of the primary investigators in the Read case, faced cross examination and remained on the stand when proceedings ended for the day near 12 p.m.
Bukhenik previously recalled interviewing Read at her father’s home just hours after John O’Keefe’s body was found on the morning of Jan. 29, 2022.
In earlier testimony, he also displayed the clothing O’Keefe wore when he died, prompting emotional responses from some in the courtroom on Wednesday.
On Thursday, Bukhenik said he and State Police Trooper Michael Proctor returned to the Albert home on Feb. 3, days after O’Keefe died, to do a secondary search for evidence after recent snowfall melted.
Proctor has been the subject of questions from Read’s defense as attorneys seek to bolster their allegations of a cover-up and frame job. He has not testified so far in the trial.
With Bukhenik on the stand, defense attorney Alan Jackson at one point incorrectly referred to Bukhenik as Proctor.
“I am not Trooper Proctor,” Bukhenik said.
“I’m sorry,” Jackson responded. “No, you’re not.”
Bukhenik said he and Proctor recovered evidence on Feb. 3, including O’Keefe’s police baseball cap, shards of glass and tail light plastic.
He said he was also alerted to a piece of evidence discovered by then Canton Police Chief Ken Berkowitz even after Berkowitz decided Canton police should not question witnesses in the Read case.
Brian Albert, the Boston police officer who owned the home where O’Keefe was found, has a brother working for the Canton police.
“I did not find it suspicious at all,” Bukhenik said of Berkowitz’s discovery, when asked. “He’s the chief of police in the town where he works and he’s driving down the street. That’s not suspicious.”
Read, 44, of Mansfield, is facing charges including second degree murder after prosecutors said she hit O’Keefe with her SUV and left him to die after dropping him off outside the Canton home of Brian and Nicole Albert.
O’Keefe, a Boston police officer, was dating Read when he died.
Read’s defense has said she is being framed, saying O’Keefe was actually beaten to death during a party inside the Albert home.
Prosecutors have highlighted damage to one of Read’s tail lights after O’Keefe died, suggesting the tail light broke when Read allegedly hit O’Keefe.
But as cross examination continued Thursday, Read’s defense team grilled Bukhenik about a video showing Read’s car tapping O’Keefe’s vehicle as she backed out of his garage.
Read’s lawyers said her right tail light was cracked when she hit O’Keefe’s car. Her lawyers suggested Proctor later shattered the plastic.
Proctor, who is at the center of a state police internal affairs investigation, is seen in video standing near the rear of Read’s car after it was seized and towed to Canton police headquarters.
Jurors first saw video of Read’s car at the Canton police station on Wednesday.
A day later, defense attorney Alan Jackson got Bukhenik to testify the video is actually a mirror image of real life, meaning jurors were looking at the driver’s side of the SUV, not the passenger’s side, as it appears.
The mirror effect was not mentioned Wednesday when Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally went through the video with Bukhenik.
“Mr. Lally didn’t ask you if it was inverted, correct?” Jackson asked.
“That’s correct,” Bukhenik said.
“And if I hadn’t got up here and begun questioning you, that would be left uncorrected, correct?” Jackson asked.
The prosecution objected to Jackson’s final question and Judge Beverly Cannone sustained the objection.
Jackson said he learned the video was inverted Wednesday night and said he saw a number on a sally port door, as well as writing on a police car, that appeared to be backwards.
Jackson noted that, when jurors first saw the video, they heard testimony that Bukhenik and Proctor were never near the right tail light, which jurors know was shattered at some point.
“In an inverted video, it doesn’t look like they are. Now that we get the truth out, who is the guy in the watch cap in the winter cap back there by that right rear tail light the entire time by himself?” Jackson said while leaving the courthouse. “That’s Proctor.”
Jackson also claimed there are suspicious gaps in the sally port video.
With no proceedings scheduled on Friday, Bukhenik is expected to return to the witness stand on Monday.
More than a month into Read’s trial, Judge Cannone on Thursday said the case should head to the jury before the end of June.
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