Commonwealth v. Read — Trial ArchiveLouis Jutras
Testimony Impact
Louis Jutras served as the manager of Canton's information systems division for 25 years and was responsible for all municipal technology, including the town's security cameras. He was called by investigators after John O'Keefe's death to extract surveillance footage from Canton Town Hall, the Public Library, and Pequitside Farm covering key time windows on the night of January 28–29, 2022. His testimony addressed both what footage was captured and what happened to it after it left his possession, as well as the failure of DPW truck GPS systems on the night in question.
Notable Quotes From The Record
“I work for the town of Canton. I'm the manager of the information systems division of the finance department.”
Establishes Jutras's authority over all Canton municipal technology systems including security cameras.
“The system is linked to a time server which is remote and is used from the national standards.”
Establishes timestamp accuracy of surveillance footage — critical for correlating vehicle movements with other timeline evidence.
“No one.”
When asked who else could remove footage from the cameras — establishes Jutras had sole access, supporting chain of custody.
“On February 1st I received notification from the operations manager that the GPS information was not working.”
Documents that DPW truck GPS was down during the snowstorm, meaning no GPS data exists for town plow/salt truck routes that night.
“No.”
Confirms no trooper requested preservation, despite the footage being evidence in a death investigation.
“I had a phone call with what I thought was Trooper Dunn, asking for another copy of the data and telling him that I did not have it and I couldn't recreate it.”
Shows that when the defense later sought the footage through Trooper Proctor, it had already been permanently deleted.
Key Moments
- Jutras established that Canton's surveillance cameras synchronized their timestamps to a national time server, lending credibility to the footage's timeline correlation with other evidence such as cell phone data and witness accounts.
- Jutras confirmed that the DPW truck GPS system was reported non-functional on February 1, 2022 — meaning no GPS records existed for town plow and salt truck routes during the snowstorm on the night O'Keefe died.
- During cross-examination, Jutras confirmed that no state trooper ever asked him to preserve the raw surveillance footage beyond its standard 30-to-60-day automatic retention window, a significant omission in a death investigation.
- Jutras testified that when he later received a call he believed was from Trooper Dunn requesting a duplicate copy of the footage, he informed the caller that he no longer had it — the footage had already been permanently deleted by that point.
- Jutras acknowledged he could not verify the integrity of the footage after it left his possession, meaning no witness could confirm whether the video provided to state police had been altered or remained complete.