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.
Challenges & Responses
What attorneys challenged during examination and how the witness responded.
Yannetti used Jutras's testimony to challenge evidence preservation. Jutras said no trooper asked him to make a separate long-term municipal download, that the town's system later no longer held the footage, and that he could not recreate another copy when one was requested. He also said he had supplied State Police with the raw motion-activated footage and had no personal knowledge of what State Police did with that exported copy after receipt; his testimony did not establish alteration, incompleteness, or loss of the State Police copy.
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.”
Jutras confirmed that no trooper asked him to preserve a separate municipal copy beyond the local retention period.
“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.”
Jutras said that a caller he believed was Trooper Dunn requested another copy of the data, but Jutras did not have it and could not recreate it.
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.
- Yannetti used Jutras's testimony to challenge evidence preservation. Jutras confirmed that no State Police trooper asked him to make a separate long-term municipal download of the raw surveillance footage beyond the town system's ordinary retention period.
- Jutras recalled a later call from someone he believed was Trooper Dunn asking for another copy; he said the town no longer had the footage and he could not recreate another municipal copy. That answer described the town system's retention limit, not what happened to the raw copy he had already delivered to State Police.
- Jutras testified that he provided state police with the raw footage in his possession and did not retain a separate municipal copy beyond local retention. He later said he could not recreate another copy and had no personal knowledge of the footage's handling after handoff; he could not testify whether any video was removed.