MA - Professor Karen Read, 43, charged with murdering police officer boyfriend John O'Keefe by hitting him with car, Canton, 14 Apr 2023 #24 Retrial

[Warwick7]

Not so strange IMO, he wasn't the evidence officer. He shouldn't micromanage every one's job. He's informed of their jobs by them so he can, as a supervisor oversee them, not do their job FOR them, MO. Let the evidence officer testify to the evidence logs. It's called passing to buck to the person best able to testify about their particular duties. For accuracy it seems the logical way of not mudding up testimony and possible confusing the jury. AJMO

As a supervisor overseer he was negligent/inadequate M00

 

[waldojabba]

These so-called cops ,who are hired to protect and serve the public with our hard-earned money, are seemingly more cocky this time around, now that there is no longer an investigation by the FBI I suspect. They are acting like they're above the law. Gallagher presented as over confident, unapologetic and completely disinterested in what occurred. Why? Because he was the supervisor and overseer. He took no notes (or photos) because it wasn't his job. He's retired now too. He simply didn't care to do a proper job. Even him going to the wrong location (Meadows) showed his lack of urgency that morning. He didn't even get on scene until 1 hour after the 9-1-1 call was made, and yet he goes on to say "time was of the essence" so he didn't take notes or send cops back to get blood sample containers that might have taken 15 minutes.
I can't believe there was no photo of where the body was laying. He guessed at it for god's sake! Incompetent as a leader to that team. He simply did not care about doing a proper job.
MOO

I woke up still mystified by the excuses made for this guy.
He is not a rookie he is the Lieutenant. He's the guy I imagine the rookies might reach out to for advice on how to handle this type of situation.
I read here that the State Police handle evidence collection for Canton. So does that mean in the event there are no state police on scene that Canton's officers do not know how to collect evidence - do they have no training? The police dept was a mile and a half away where the supplies were.

"Paul Gallagher M in 2023 was employed at Town of Canton and had an annual salary of $322,389 according to public records. This salary was 581 percent higher than the average and 978 percent higher than the median salary in Town of Canton."
Let that sink in. Thats a lot of money.
At his rank he is being paid in part I imagine for leadership and good judgement, plus the ability to think on his feet. He exhibited none of those traits at the scene imo.
In any profession your manuals and protocols will only take you so far - then you have to pivot, punt, improvise, etc when you end up with a situation that does not fall into a neat box.
Hearing people say that it "was not his job" to take notes...well it was not his job to collect evidence either - and if you are going to perform that function do it right and take notes and take pictures or delegate the job to someone else.
Its prob not in the"manual" but in my world if I am the boss of the project,, I am responsible for the results - I dont pass the buck - if I am short employees we pick up the slack - including me the boss. Whatever it takes .
Maybe its Public vs Private.
Just boggles my mind. Manyof us have LE in our family etc. and we know what good police work looks like and this is not good police work. Tearing my hair out !!!
JMO

Paul Gallagher M | GovSalaries

Information about Paul Gallagher M working as Lieutenant for Town of Canton.

govsalaries.com

 

[Soulmagent]

I woke up still mystified by the excuses made for this guy.
He is not a rookie he is the Lieutenant. He's the guy I imagine the rookies might reach out to for advice on how to handle this type of situation.
I read here that the State Police handle evidence collection for Canton. So does that mean in the event there are no state police on scene that Canton's officers do not know how to collect evidence - do they have no training? The police dept was a mile and a half away where the supplies were.

"Paul Gallagher M in 2023 was employed at Town of Canton and had an annual salary of $322,389 according to public records. This salary was 581 percent higher than the average and 978 percent higher than the median salary in Town of Canton."
Let that sink in. Thats a lot of money.
At his rank he is being paid in part I imagine for leadership and good judgement, plus the ability to think on his feet. He exhibited none of those traits at the scene imo.
In any profession your manuals and protocols will only take you so far - then you have to pivot, punt, improvise, etc when you end up with a situation that does not fall into a neat box.
Hearing people say that it "was not his job" to take notes...well it was not his job to collect evidence either - and if you are going to perform that function do it right and take notes and take pictures or delegate the jog to someone else.
Its prob not in the"manual" but in my world if I am the boss of the project,, I am responsible for the results - I dont pass the buck - if I am short employees we pick up the slack - including me the boss. Whatever it takes .
Maybe its Public vs Private.
Just boggles my mind. Manyof us have LE in our family etc. and we know what good police work looks like and this is not good police work. Tearing my hair out !!!
JMO

Paul Gallagher M | GovSalaries

Information about Paul Gallagher M working as Lieutenant for Town of Canton.

govsalaries.com

Well Wow , he makes good money. I woke up mystified too..
Now I am just mad.

 

[waldojabba]

Could they not have pounded on doors and asked for freezer baggies or something that you could seal, instead of solo cups with no lids? This is assuming they couldn't get to another police station, whether state or local, to get proper evidence bags? The leaf blower would have had debris on it so I think either way, the blood samples would have been contaminated.

It bears repeating:
The police station was one and a half miles away....even in a blizzard- an easy drive. One officer was dispatched for the bizarre blower. Gallagher stopped by the precinct for his LE snow gear. Absolutely no urgency being exhibited. He has no boots hat and coat at home ?
This is New England we get snow we get wind with white out conditions..
Lots of bad judgement on this day by LT
Accountability is important
IMO

 

[Tortoise]

There is evidence they were there. SERT recovered them from under the snow as we've discussed many times. The evidence was photographed in situ.

Your theory requires Proctor to take the Lexus to the sally port, break out pieces, then bring them down and plant them under the noses of the SERT team who are already onsite.

Such a busy chap. Tweezing a root hair from John at the hospital to go plant on the bumper, collecting pieces of glass from the road in the snow to place on the bumper, and collecting pieces of plastic debris from somewhere to stick to John's sweater in the evidence room.

 

[Wishbone]

I woke up still mystified by the excuses made for this guy.
He is not a rookie he is the Lieutenant. He's the guy I imagine the rookies might reach out to for advice on how to handle this type of situation.
I read here that the State Police handle evidence collection for Canton. So does that mean in the event there are no state police on scene that Canton's officers do not know how to collect evidence - do they have no training? The police dept was a mile and a half away where the supplies were.

"Paul Gallagher M in 2023 was employed at Town of Canton and had an annual salary of $322,389 according to public records. This salary was 581 percent higher than the average and 978 percent higher than the median salary in Town of Canton."
Let that sink in. Thats a lot of money.
At his rank he is being paid in part I imagine for leadership and good judgement, plus the ability to think on his feet. He exhibited none of those traits at the scene imo.
In any profession your manuals and protocols will only take you so far - then you have to pivot, punt, improvise, etc when you end up with a situation that does not fall into a neat box.
Hearing people say that it "was not his job" to take notes...well it was not his job to collect evidence either - and if you are going to perform that function do it right and take notes and take pictures or delegate the jog to someone else.
Its prob not in the"manual" but in my world if I am the boss of the project,, I am responsible for the results - I dont pass the buck - if I am short employees we pick up the slack - including me the boss. Whatever it takes .
Maybe its Public vs Private.
Just boggles my mind. Manyof us have LE in our family etc. and we know what good police work looks like and this is not good police work. Tearing my hair out !!!
JMO

Paul Gallagher M | GovSalaries

Information about Paul Gallagher M working as Lieutenant for Town of Canton.

govsalaries.com

Photo of premier evidence collection. JMOO

Photos: Jurors in Karen Read's retrial see evidence from scene of John O'Keefe's death

www.boston25news.com

 

[arielilane]

I suspect the jury is wondering why Jackson drilling a first responder (again) who was simply doing a job, trying to save the life of John O’Keefe.

Dont aggressively cross every witness - you look like youre a bully.

Jackson can mention MP all he wants and he'll be called as a witness, but the facts, science, and data won’t be ignored.

Memory doesnt have to be exact. Its questionable if memory is exactly the same from last trial.

Dont argue things you cant prove.

Jackson hammering away the "I hit him" said by his client, is ringing in the ears of the jurors, why is he reminding the jurors every chance he gets his client said that... The defendant admitted to saying "I hit him on video (played in court to the jury).

A matter of opinion as always

 

[Forest_Wood]

Not so strange IMO, he wasn't the evidence officer. He shouldn't micromanage every one's job. He's informed of their jobs by them so he can, as a supervisor oversee them, not do their job FOR them, MO. Let the evidence officer testify to the evidence logs. It's called passing to buck to the person best able to testify about their particular duties. For accuracy it seems the logical way of not mudding up testimony and possible confusing the jury. AJMO

No! Gallagher testified in cross that HE was the person in charge of where the body lay, and was the person who collected the coagulated blood. Who would have documented this information then? Nobody else was responsible for doing that. He wasn't just overseeing as the leader here. He was the person actively doing that job. Therefore, he should have photographed, videoed and documented those details, which as we can see, have muddied this entire case. He testified the body was 8-10 ft from the road. AJ said that was an estimate. It could have been 12 ft, or possibly less that 8 ft for that matter. He did not do a proper investigation here.
One other point I noticed in terms of positioning, the Firefighter/EMS lady Katy McLaughlin (sp) said something interesting. She said when she was at the curb, the head of JOK was closet to the curb. If a person gets hit by a vehicle, would't it make more sense that his feet were closest to the curb and his head further into the grass where he fell?
The positioning of JOK was such an important detail and every one of those service people failed in their duties to document accurately.
MOO

 

[BaeScallops]

There is evidence they were there. SERT recovered them from under the snow as we've discussed many times. The evidence was photographed in situ.

Your theory requires Proctor to take the Lexus to the sally port, break out pieces, then bring them down and plant them under the noses of the SERT team who are already onsite.

They literally broke the pieces and planted them. There are no photos of them “under the snow” at the scene. No one found pieces until after the car was in custody and they lied about the timing it was seized. They inverted the sallyport video. They have all the pieces except the ones KR admits to poking out in John’s driveway. The non-Canton cop testified to a “cracked taillight with a missing piece.” The other pieces were all found in perfect grouped sections and it took WEEKS to find them.

The cw’s timeline doesn’t even work, she’s back at JOs house at 12:36. Nagel just testified he was there till 12:35.

<modsnip - rude>

 

[mrjitty]

They literally broke the pieces and planted them. There are no photos of them “under the snow” at the scene. No one found pieces until after the car was in custody and they lied about the timing it was seized. They inverted the sallyport video. They have all the pieces except the ones KR admits to poking out in John’s driveway. The non-Canton cop testified to a “cracked taillight with a missing piece.” The other pieces were all found in perfect grouped sections and it took WEEKS to find them.

The cw’s timeline doesn’t even work, she’s back at JOs house at 12:36. Nagel just testified he was there till 12:35.

<modsnip - rude>

The recovery was testified to by the leader of SERT team O'Hara. The located tail light pieces were photographed in situ by Tully and are in evidence.

It's not clear to me how Proctor could get break out the pieces at the Sally Port, then plant them under the noses of a dozen people for them to find.

Or are you alleging SERT and Tully are in on it? You allege a lot of facts here without links so I can't respond in any more detail I am sorry.

 

[arielilane]

The left blower was a great idea. Creative and resourceful. They found the cocktail glass in the snow right next to the lifeless body of John O'Keefe. moo




@Angenette5


I just don't see the Stop & Shop bags being a winning issue. I've covered other cases where they ran out of bags (no, that's not what happened here) and cops went to a grocery and got paper bags. Is it 100% ideal, no.
Is it a huge deal? No.


4:01 PM · May 5, 2025


Solo cups are not ideal but it was better to collect the evidence than not collect it. And, the video I've seen of the leaf blower being used looked nothing like that GIF


4:04 PM · May 5, 2025


If I had the background I had in covering as many trials as I've had and knowing what is truly probative and what isn't? Yes. No investigation is perfect. Some are better than others. But making a huge deal out of these paper bags in this case is a non-starter for me.


4:38 PM · May 5, 2025





Not supposed to use plastic bags. They always say paper is better. Plastic bags are what you see on police tv shows


8:38 PM · May 5, 2025

 

[Wishbone]

 

[arielilane]

Is this what the jury believe to be second-degree murder:


“I WAS LOOKING TO FIND HIM ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD.” This may be the most damaging of all the defendant’s statements introduced at her trial!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1919394125155090657

https://www.findlaw.com/state/massachusetts-law/massachusetts-second-degree-murder-law.html

Second-Degree Murder in Massachusetts​

In the Commonwealth, a person commits second-degree murder when he or she intentionally kills another person, but does so without any premeditation. The killing must be done with with malice aforethought.

These sorts of killings occur in the heat of the moment, but do not involve any premeditation on the part of the perpetrator. At the moment the murder occurs, the killer definitely intends to kill the victim, but up to that moment, the killer had no intent or plan to commit murder.

Example of Second-Degree Murder​

Let's say Betty goes to visit her husband Don at the Madison Avenue office one day and finds him sleeping with his secretary, Megan. If Betty kills Megan in the heat of passion, that's second-degree murder. Why? Betty didn't have any plan to kill Megan when she went to Don's office that day, so there was no premeditation. At the time of the murder, however, Betty fully intended to kill Megan because of her anger over the affair, so there was malice aforethought.

 

[Forest_Wood]

I suspect the jury is wondering why Jackson drilling a first responder (again) who was simply doing a job, trying to save the life of John O’Keefe.

Dont aggressively cross every witness - you look like youre a bully.

Jackson can mention MP all he wants and he'll be called as a witness, but the facts, science, and data won’t be ignored.

Memory doesnt have to be exact. Its questionable if memory is exactly the same from last trial.

Dont argue things you cant prove.

Jackson hammering away the "I hit him" said by his client, is ringing in the ears of the jurors, why is he reminding the jurors every chance he gets his client said that... The defendant admitted to saying "I hit him on video (played in court to the jury).

A matter of opinion as always

I hit him. I hit him. I hit him. (and possibly another) I hit him. To which JMc was trying to cover up since she's a concerned citizen and all, and not one, not two, not how many police personnel or EMS or firefighters NEVER once documented it!
It makes each of these people look so so so foolish and so so so so incompetent in their roles.
You are the only person I see here calling AJ a bully and seemingly taking his words to heart. He's absolutely not a bully. He's doing an amazing job at questioning the witnesses.
MOO

 

[BaeScallops]

The recovery was testified to by the leader of SERT team O'Hara. The located tail light pieces were photographed in situ by Tully and are in evidence.

It's not clear to me how Proctor could get break out the pieces at the Sally Port, then plant them under the noses of a dozen people for them to find.

Or are you alleging SERT and Tully are in on it? You allege a lot of facts here without links so I can't respond in any more detail I am sorry.

There are zero photos of the pieces at the scene where they were found—who cares if they photographed them back at the station? They were all found in groups that fit together.

If you threw a puzzle in your yard and had to go pick up the pieces, would different people find groups of exact matching pieces?

Yes, I think all of them framed her. Why are all of the CW witnesses lying, and to the FBI? Why does the CW timeframe not work? Why do his injuries not match being hit by a car? <modsnip>

 

[Forest_Wood]

Is this what the jury believe to be second-degree murder:


“I WAS LOOKING TO FIND HIM ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD.” This may be the most damaging of all the defendant’s statements introduced at her trial!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1919394125155090657

https://www.findlaw.com/state/massachusetts-law/massachusetts-second-degree-murder-law.html

Second-Degree Murder in Massachusetts​

In the Commonwealth, a person commits second-degree murder when he or she intentionally kills another person, but does so without any premeditation. The killing must be done with with malice aforethought.

These sorts of killings occur in the heat of the moment, but do not involve any premeditation on the part of the perpetrator. At the moment the murder occurs, the killer definitely intends to kill the victim, but up to that moment, the killer had no intent or plan to commit murder.

Example of Second-Degree Murder​

Let's say Betty goes to visit her husband Don at the Madison Avenue office one day and finds him sleeping with his secretary, Megan. If Betty kills Megan in the heat of passion, that's second-degree murder. Why? Betty didn't have any plan to kill Megan when she went to Don's office that day, so there was no premeditation. At the time of the murder, however, Betty fully intended to kill Megan because of her anger over the affair, so there was malice aforethought.

Bogus charge!

 

[OldCop]

I have siblings and cousins who are police officers in the same area. Do you realize who collects evidences of crimes for Canton and other towns? The state police. But that morning the state police told Canton they would not be responding. The blood drops would not have been collectible later. It was now or never, so he used ingenuity to preserve evidence in a way that did not compromise its integrity.

Gallagher testified that evidence is logged, controlled, and tracked. It's done with a computer track. He described exactly what Jackson referred to as an "evidence log". Gallagher didn't have access to view it because it is secured. The state police took over the case that same day, which means Gallagher had no involvement beyond that.

Police officers follow the department's protocols. Every officer does not do the same thing. It's an organized approach. Gallagher did not take notes or write reports because it was not his function. The officers who were charged with writing reports did so.

No matter your rank, you damn well better write a report if you are out collecting evidence where a body was found.

 

[Warwick7]

No matter your rank, you damn well better write a report if you are out collecting evidence where a body was found.

BAM!!! Thank you for this post. You may be retired, but I'm grateful you are verified Law Enforcement!

 

[kuromiiiilove]

AJ starting strong right out the gate: ‘Did you check inside the house for a matching glass to the one found with John?’
Lt. Gallagher: ‘No, I did not.’

 

[arielilane]

The Sixth Amendment guarantees the rights of criminal defendants to a fair trial; so common sense would ask why defense not playing fair... their client is a criminal defendant. jmo

Bbm

Read's lawyers said at the time that the crash experts were not hired by the defense. But before court was suspended Tuesday, Brennan told the court that he had obtained a bill from ARCCA to the defense for $23,925. He also said there are emails between Read's team and the ARCCA experts, with Wolfe telling the defense in one instance "if you don't want me to say this, that's fine."

"That's not trial by ambush, that's getting duped," Brennan said.

Judge in Karen Read case suddenly suspends hearing after new information causes "grave concern"

The judge in the Karen Read case suddenly suspended a hearing after she said she got information that caused her "grave concern."

www.cbsnews.com

2/18/2025