Day 21 - June 6, 2024

Sergeant Bukhenik resumed his direct examination covering several investigative threads. He testified that bar surveillance showed Karen Read consuming nine drinks between C.F. McCarthy's and the Waterfall. He described the secondary search of 34 Fairview Road on February 3, 2022, where investigators dug through melting snow and recovered John O'Keefe's BPD baseball hat, a cocktail straw, and numerous pieces of colored plastic, glass shards, and taillight fragments on the lawn near the flagpole. Additional evidence was recovered on February 4, 8, 10, 11, and 18. Bukhenik testified that two Ring doorbell videos from 1 Meadows Avenue were missing — Read arriving home after midnight on January 29 and Read showing McCabe and Roberts the taillight damage — while videos immediately before and after those gaps were present. He described interviewing Brian Higgins on February 3, who voluntarily provided Cellebrite-extracted text messages, and interviewing Nicole Albert at 34 Fairview Road with Brian Albert present. The prosecution played a brief audio recording from June 9, 2022 in which Read made a statement about her taillight, after which Bukhenik advised her not to speak further. The examination concluded with Bukhenik confirming he and Proctor voluntarily submitted DNA via buccal swabs on January 16, 2024.

Attorney Alan Jackson challenged Sergeant Bukhenik across multiple investigative fronts. Jackson established that Ring Corporation activity logs were provided but never reviewed, and showed no evidence Karen Read accessed the Ring account. He pressed Bukhenik on the failure to secure 34 Fairview Road as a crime scene, send forensic criminalists inside, or even visit the location for days. Jackson highlighted chain-of-custody problems: O'Keefe's clothing sat on butcher paper for six days before being logged, and plastic evidence collected February 10th was not booked until March 14th — with no sign-in/sign-out log for the interim. He questioned why Canton PD Chief Berkowitz was at 34 Fairview collecting evidence despite the department's recusal for conflict of interest. The cross-examination concluded with Jackson demonstrating that a sallyport video shown during direct examination was completely mirrored/inverted — a fact never disclosed by the prosecution — and that it appeared to show someone near the right rear taillight of Read's vehicle.