DAY 13: Karen Read Retrial

Cringe text messages, security footage from a bar, and much more.

Sorry, I’m late guys…

I was in full Friday mode after yesterday’s long day of testimony.

Here’s the recap…

Sgt. Yuri Bukhenik (MSP Homicide Investigator) was on cross-examination from morning until late afternoon when court ended for the weekend.

The questioning was a hodgepodge of many different topics regarding different witnesses, which felt a bit disorienting at times.

1. Evidence collection

2. Karen cheating (text messages)

3. Alternate suspects

4. Bar footage - rough housing

5. Ring footage of John’s vehicle

6. Albert family dog

EVIDENCE COLLECTION:

• Yuri is questioned about the collection of taillight pieces that occurred over a span of days and weeks as the snow melted post-blizzard.

• As testified to on Thursday, Yuri said the shards of plastic found were all documented and photographed. However, when more pieces were discovered on February 10th, 2022, Yuri decided calling the photographer back out to document them was unnecessary because they’ve photographed so many already, and they were in the same search area zone as the others.

• Jackson asks if he could have used his phone to document them, and Yuri agrees he could have.

• Jackson asks who bagged those pieces, and Yuri said he did. Jackson asks who wrote on the bag the log info, and Yuri is unsure. He says it wasn’t him. Jackson shows him the handwriting, and Yuri said it has to be one of the 4 men in their unit. Jackson wants him to compare the handwriting to Trooper Proctor’s and Yuri concedes the handwriting appears similar.

• Jackson says if you don’t know exactly who it was that wrote the log info on the bag, how can you say it was handed over properly? Yuri pushes back saying he wouldn't just hand it off to a stranger.

• Jackson asks if he plotted out where the taillight shards were located that day, and Yuri said no, he’s not trained in grid documentation. The pieces were all in the same vicinity of where John was located.

• Jackson asks why the pieces were not booked into evidence until March 14th, and Yuri explains they were logged as evidence, and the booking date was regarding them being sent to the lab.

• Jackson and Yuri battle over the semantics of words like “theory” and “assumption” when discussing the investigation process.

  (Opinion: The battle over word choices felt ridiculous to me, and both men appeared stubborn and prideful in the argument. Personally, I think despite Jackson being snarky in his questioning process, Yuri should have handled the questioning with less defensiveness.)

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KAREN CHEATING:

• Defense Attorney Jackson had Sgt. Yuri Bukhenik read a long stream of text conversations between Karen Read and ATF Brian Higgins.

In those texts, we learn things like…

• Karen was the initiator (she went out her way to get Brian Higgins’ phone number).

• Karen shares that she does not ‘feel guilty’ about cheating and/or flirting behind John O’Keefe’s back.

• Karen was asking Higgins to come to her house several times.

• Karen talks about alcohol quite a bit.

• Karen considered herself ‘single’ and childless despite being in a 2-year relationship with someone with two kids.

The entire text thread took about an hour for Yuri to read to the court, so if you want the full experience, here’s a LINK. I highly recommend listening to the whole thing because despite the cringy flirtation, it does give insight into Karen’s personality and mental state around that time, as well as Brian Higgins’ demeanor.

👉Here are just a few screenshots (not in any particular order) of the many texts shown in court.

(Higgins is the blue bubble, Karen is the grey):

AND, yes — this photo below is of the murder defendant with her middle finger up as SGT Bukhenik testifies about her text messages with ATF Brian Higgins.

Was it an intentional bird flip?

That’s for you to decide.

Here’s the clip…

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ALTERNATE SUSPECTS:

• Defense digs in on why the investigators didn’t consider Higgins a potential suspect. Yuri says that they corroborated his cell phone texts with Karen and John’s cell phone extraction conversations, and nothing was amiss. Higgins provided everything with transparency.

• Yuri says the evidence pointed to the defendant due to her statements about hitting John, her broken taillight, and the shards found at the scene.

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WATERFALL BAR & GRILL FOOTAGE:

• Defense has Yuri point out who is who in the footage.

  (I added the names to a screenshot for you to reference)

  

• Defense plays a clip of Brian Higgins and Brian Albert play-fighting, or “roughhousing”, with one another a few times. Yuri uses the term “squaring off” in regard to their stances.

• Defense plays a clip right before everyone starts trickling out of the bar.

• Defense plays another clip of Higgins facing towards the bar area and making a waving motion right before exiting.

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RING FOOTAGE OF JOHN’S CAR:

• The ring camera footage showing Karen backing out of John’s garage around 5:30 AM on 1/29/22 is played for the court.

• Jackson says that last trial Yuri stated the vehicles came close to one another. He asks him if his stance has changed on this now that the video is sharper.

  Do you see the vehicle strike John’s car?

  Yuri concedes that the ‘right rear area of the SUV comes into contact with John’s vehicle’, but also states that the vehicles slowly came in contact. Yuri says that his assessment is focused on the totality of information, and there is no sign of damage caused between those vehicles at that time.

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THE ALBERT DOG:

• Jackson asks Yuri if he eventually became aware that the Albert family ‘got rid of’ their dog. Yuri says he became aware that they put it up for adoption or re-homed it. He’s not sure on the proper terminology about them no longer owning the dog.

• Jackson asked if he received records of adoption or transfer of care, and Yuri says no, but he received vet records and investigated the animal’s whereabouts.

• The new owners renamed the dog.

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The day ended with Yuri still under cross-examination.

It appears like the defense is using Yuri to explain many of the witnesses statements and behaviors, lending to the conclusion that the defense may not intend on actually questioning many of these witnesses directly on the stand. Time will tell.