Watch the full coverage of the live stream on The Emily D Baker YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/live/Fpf2EGgVDzg

Day 13 of the Karen Read Retrial happened on May 9, 2025. Sgt. Yuri Bukhenik is back on the stand with Cross Examination and Defense Attorney Alan Jackson keeps cornering him about Proctor's true involvements. At one point he says that he gave evidence bag to someone but didn't know who.

A significant portion of the day involved reading text messages between Brian Higgins and Karen Read into evidence. These texts were described as potentially "flirtatious" and revealed details about Karen's relationship with John O'Keefe, her feelings about children, and the presence of ring cameras at O'Keefe's house. The defense aimed to highlight these texts to suggest the investigation should have looked more closely at Higgins.

Trooper Bukhenik was assigned to find the location of the Albert's dog, Chole, who was shortly rehomed after John O'Keefe's death. Chloe is supposed now named Cora but we are not sure if that is the same dog because they were rehomed twice after the Albert's. There were not transfer records, rehoming records, purchase records and the validity of the veterinary records are questioned because the dog's name and current owner were not on the document.

Alan Jackson asked if he was aware that there were more than 20 official police reports were not recorded for more than 100 days from the time of the event in question? There were 11 reports that were more than 300 days from the time of the event? Three reports were more than 400 days from the time of the event? Four reports were more than 500 days from the time of the event? The longest delay of any report in this investigation was 581 days? Bukhenik acknowledged that he was not aware of the exact dates and delays. He tried to explain that in a perfect world, reports would be written as events happen but implied there were reasons for the delays.

It was revealed during the cross-examination of Sergeant Yuri Bukhenik that there were significant delays in interviewing witnesses from Ricky D'Antuono's truck. While Ryan Nagle, who was also in the truck, was interviewed in February 2022, Ricky D'Antuono, who drove the truck, were not interviewed until September 2023. This is approximately a year and a half later!

The defense appears to be anticipating that the Commonwealth will not call certain witnesses (Brian Albert, Brian Higgins, Ricky D'Antuono, and potentially Trooper Proctor), and they are trying to introduce their desired information through Sergeant Bukhenik's testimony. Cross Examination continues on Monday.

RESOURCES

What You Need to Know About the Retrial - https://youtu.be/89Jpa8vz1RQ

Karen Read Retrial Playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsbUyvZas7gKOJlfL__9F027hlETVU-vo

Karen Read Trial - 2024 - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsbUyvZas7gKUeCUzApgsEuQRXu5IXeTS

Watch the full coverage of the live stream on The Emily D Baker YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/live/Tag0fJcx9ZI

Day 12 of the Karen Read Retrial happened on May 8, 2025. Sgt. Yuri Bukhenik was the only witness to take the stand as he walked in with bins of evidence. There was confusion regarding John O'Keefe's sneakers being initially misidentified a being the one from from 34 Fairview versus from the hospital. Special Prosecutor Hank Brennan and Bukhenik talked briefly in the beginning about Proctor, calling him Mr. Proctor instead of Trooper Proctor but we know Defense Attorney Alan Jackson will call him Former Trooper Proctor.

Sgt. Yuri Bukhenik explained that there was an investigation against him due to failure to properly Supervise Michael Proctor. His punishment was that he lost 5 vacation days. He continues to work in homicide and has not been demoted from Sargent. When Bukhenik read the text message thread from Proctor, which contained horrible messages that he said he acknowledged with a thumbs up emoji, we can only image what was going through the jurors minds.

Bukhenik presented a video timeline of Karen Read drinking at CF McCarthy's and The Waterfall before we got to Cross Examination!

Sgt. Bukhenik refused to call Proctor the Lead Investigator of this case and said he was only a "Case Agent' and/or "Case Officer." He was questioned about the integrity of the investigation and whether Michael Proctor's involvement tainted it, to which he responded that the investigation was done with honor and integrity. When asked if Proctor handled the case with honor and integrity, Bukhenik relented and only said yes with integrity.

Access to evidence, specifically John O'Keefe's clothing, was discussed, noting that "anyone with a key card" had access to the room where it was stored for six days.

The timing and documentation of evidence collection, particularly clothing and items from 34 Fairview, were questioned. It was noted that reports about the searches weren't written until November 4th, 2023, despite the events happening in February 2022!

RESOURCES

What You Need to Know About the Retrial - https://youtu.be/89Jpa8vz1RQ

Karen Read Retrial Playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsbUyvZas7gKOJlfL__9F027hlETVU-vo

Karen Read Trial - 2024 - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsbUyvZas7gKUeCUzApgsEuQRXu5IXeTS

Watch the full coverage of the live stream on The Emily D Baker YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/live/QZlJIBMCSsM

Day 11 of the Karen Read Retrial happened on May 7, 2025. It feels like Deja Vu for Emily because it is her birthday and last year she was covering Day 6 of the first Karen Read trial! The Prosecution's case said it would take 3 weeks and half to present their case and they are more than halfway through, but several key witnesses, such as Former Trooper Michael Proctor, have not yet been called.

Trooper Connor Keefe took the stand and displayed physical evidence, including pieces of tail light and a shoe, was shown to the jury. There was an issue with the evidence bag containing tail light pieces being marked as "two pieces" when there were actually three. Defense Attorney David Yanetti had an effective Cross Examination and Keefe tried to distance himself from Former Trooper Proctor or even say that he does good work. Yanetti pointed out that Keefe is a junior detective, and he was the only person who attended John O'Keefe's autopsy. It is usually the Lead Investigator that attends the autopsy and the fact that his partner, Trooper Bukhenik, didn't attend either is also strange. The fact that a fallen officer, John O'Keefe, was not treated with respect is baffling.

Jessica Hyde, the Digital Forensics Examiner, took the stand to take about the Cellebrite data of Jen McCabe and John O'Keefe's phone. She talked about the various tools she used to decipher the information and her opinion on the "Hos long to die in cold" Google Search began at 6:23:49am because that is when Apple Suggested Term gave her, "How long does it take to digest food." After that, is when other variations of search happens like "how long ti die in cikd" at 6:23:51am, 6:23:57am, 6:24:18am, & 6:24:47am. Hyde also explained that a browser tab cannot be deleted and that Jen McCabe didn't manually delete any calls from her log. The phone has a limitation that it only stores 200 calls records and from Jan 29 to February 1st, when her phone was imaged, she must have made over 200 calls because the older calls were being erased from the phone in order to store new incoming calls. This is believable because we've heard her make 5 calls in 10 mins when the FBI unexpectedly showed up at her house for questing. Another notable instance is that Jessica Hyde noted in her report that John's phone interaction is at 12:20am but Ian Whiffin's report showed that the phone was locked with a button at 12:32am. In Jessica Hyde's testimony indicated that John O'Keefe's phone did not appear to have been secured in a Faraday bag or placed in airplane mode, as evidenced by the fact that SMS messages and ring notifications were still being received on the phone. This raised concerns about whether the phone was properly handled and secured by law enforcement, as new information could potentially still be added to the device.

Special Prosecutor Hank Brennan played a clip from ID Docuseries, April 30, 2024, where Karen Read says, "Jen McCabe- It's me or her. Either I'm going down, Jen, or you are!” The implications of these statements and how the jury might interpret them are considered. The Prosecution can infer that Karen is using Jen as a scapegoat and with more videos he will use at his disposal, make it to where she has no choice to take the stand to clarify her statements.

The Prosecution is presenting a stronger case in this retrial compared to the previous trial. However, concerns are raised about upcoming testimonies, such as the accident reconstructionist and medical experts.

RESOURCES

Day 6 of the first Karen Read Trial -