Karen Read judge blocks Sandra Birchmore mentions; expert says cases should be wake-up call for police

A Massachusetts judge has agreed to bar references to an unrelated botched murder research in Karen Read s second trial on murder and other charges in the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend John O'Keefe Police in Canton a suburb about miles south of Boston inaccurately determined the Feb death of Sandra Birchmore was a suicide before federal investigators stated she had been strangled and charged a Stoughton officer with her murder The FBI arrested former Stoughton Police Officer Matthew Farwell in August in Birchmore's murder KAREN READ DEFENSE FLOATS THEORY THAT JEALOUS BRIAN HIGGINS FOUGHT JOHN O'KEEFE BEFORE DEATHHe is accused of grooming her since she was a teenager maintaining a sexual relationship for years and then killing her when she informed him she'd become pregnant and staging the murder to look like a suicide Canton Police were also the first to respond after O'Keefe was announced unresponsive outside another Boston Police officer's house Jan during a blizzard Local police collected bloody snow evidence in red Solo cups and placed them in a Stop and Shop grocery bag A Canton lieutenant used a leaf blower to move snow from where O'Keefe's body had been uncovered Spectators were interviewed informally off camera and not at the police station KAREN READ TRIAL REVEALS FLIRTY TEXT MESSAGES WITH ATF AGENT BEHIND BOYFRIEND'S BACKO'Keefe was unveiled dead on Brian Albert's front lawn Albert's brother is a Canton Police detective State police took over the examination later that day But their involvement wasn't without dispute The lead detective was fired earlier this year after an internal analysis into unprofessional text messages revealed in court during Read's first trial which ended in a mistrial Read the motion STATE TROOPER POINTS TO VIABLE WEAPON IN JOHN O'KEEFE DEATH AND IT'S NOT KAREN READ'S CAR Gov Maura Healey should have ordered the revamping of police training in the state after the debacle in Karen Read explained Joseph Giacalone a retired NYPD sergeant and criminal justice professor at Penn State Lehigh Valley Everything from response to the scene by patrol officers to securing the scene to identifying evidence the proper collection of evidence the proper containers for that evidence and so on The two cases prompted town residents to demand an audit into their own police department and the town board hired a firm called Stones Intelligence or Si KAREN READ'S GOOGLE TIMELINE DERAILED AGAIN AS ND EXPERT DISPUTES DEFENSE CLAIMSThe firm issued its findings in a -page assessment April the same day jury selection began in Read's retrial It exposed no evidence that Canton Police had conspired to frame Read but the auditors recommended that all death cases be reviewed by supervisors in the future In the assessment Si recommended that Canton detectives undergo advanced training on crime scene investigations and that all patrol vehicles be equipped with crime scene kits and evidence collection bags They called for an increase in the police department's budget GET REAL-TIME UPDATES DIRECTLY ON THE TRUE CRIME HUBThere was also a federal review into the handling of O'Keefe's death Read remains the only person charged She faces charges of second-degree murder drunken driving manslaughter and fleeing a deadly accident for allegedly striking O'Keefe with her Lexus SUV during an argument and leaving him for dead around a m She and two friends returned at a m and uncovered O'Keefe on the ground covered in snow that had intensified throughout the day An autopsy determined his cause of death was trauma to the head and hypothermia The manner was undetermined FOLLOW THE FOX TRUE CRIME CREW ON XRead has denied striking O'Keefe at all pleaded not guilty and suggested she is being framed by local police and their allies She was first tried on the charges last year but jurors deadlocked and Judge Beverly Cannone declared a mistrial So far in the retrial at least one evidence bag appears to have been mislabeled and another had more pieces of broken taillight than expected Massachusetts State Police Sgt Yuri Bukhenik was also grilled about a lack of photographs for selected evidence and a delay of hundreds of days for selected reports in the review If nothing else they should be taught documentation documentation and documentation Giacalone narrated Fox News Digital These aren t small mistakes These are errors that will cost you cases will cause lawsuits in the state of Massachusetts and it just makes everybody in the criminal justice system look bad If Massachusetts has this difficulty what about other states Giacalone commented Now's the time to nip them in the bud before we find out another Karen Reed trial mishap Special prosecutor Hank Brennan a high-profile defense attorney whose clients have included mobster Whitey Bulger was brought in to lead the second trial He solicited Cannone last week to block the defense from bringing up the Birchmore event as Read's lawyers look to paint the analysis as unreliable and corrupt She agreed unless the door is opened by prosecutors They're not gonna open that door announced Linda Kenney Baden a high-profile defense attorney who squared off against Read lawyer Alan Jackson a prosecutor during the first trial of record producer Phil Spector in Like Read's it ended in a mistrial WATCH Zoomed-in clip appears to show Karen Read backing into parked SUVStill she mentioned she believes there is plenty of room for jurors to find reasonable doubt They gotta prove she hit him she commented It's really as simple as that It's a drunk-driving hit-and-run Read's SUV has a broken taillight and police bystanders described finding matching pieces on Albert's front lawn But the defense also played surveillance video from O'Keefe's garage that appears to show her backing her SUV into his parked motorcycle shortly before she uncovered his remains along with two other women Kerry Roberts and Jennifer McCabe Still the veteran trial attorney praised Brennan's handling of the matter and how he's left out key observers who may have tanked the prosecution in the first trial and gave the defense less room to maneuver The way Brennan has tried this situation is that he's not letting any of the bad stuff in so whenever Alan Jackson goes to the stuff that really hurts them he doesn't have a place to go there she reported For one he left former Massachusetts State Tpr Michael Proctor off the prosecution's witness list Proctor sent a series of rude lewd and unprofessional text messages about Read and the scrutiny which led to his firing He is still on the defense's witness list and could be called to the stand later