Commonwealth v. Read — Trial ArchiveKevin O'Hara
Also known as: O'Hara
Lt. Kevin O'Hara is a Massachusetts State Police Special Emergency Response Team officer who commanded the evidence search at 34 Fairview Road nearly ten hours after O'Keefe's body was discovered. His team recovered taillight pieces and a sneaker from beneath undisturbed snow near the curb during blizzard conditions. O'Hara testified in both trials, with his account of the search conditions, the concentrated evidence cluster, and the absence of any follow-up search forming a contested piece of the physical evidence record.
Trial 1 vs Trial 2
In Trial 2, Alan Jackson conducted the cross-examination in place of Yannetti, and the defense added a recross examination — a phase absent from Trial 1. Jackson's recross zeroed in on the narrow scope of findings: only a small cluster of evidence recovered across 60 feet of searching, and the fact that O'Hara had been told the vehicle was already secured before he arrived on scene. The core cross themes — delayed SERT activation, unsecured scene, absence of follow-up — remained consistent between trials, but Trial 2 also saw the prosecution's redirect (by Brennan rather than Lally) address scene integrity and outside interference more directly than in Trial 1.