Legal experts are handing Karen Read’s defense team the win for Friday’s heated cross-examination of Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Yuri Bukhenik – who returned for his second day on the stand as prosecutors look to convince the jury that Read fatally struck her boyfriend, Boston cop John O’Keefe, and left him to die in a blizzard in January 2022.

During hours of cross-examination from defense attorney Alan Jackson, the homicide investigator was asked to read a long string of text messages exchanged between Read and Brian Higgins, a Canton-based ATF agent with whom she was flirting behind O’Keefe’s back. 

Having Bukhenik read the texts allows the defense to introduce hearsay statements into the case, according to Grace Edwards, a Massachusetts defense attorney who is following the case closely. They also raise questions about the integrity of the investigation, something the defense has aimed to discredit entirely.

Local police also testified that they used red Solo cups and a grocery bag to collect evidence, removed snow with a leafblower and continued to be involved on the outskirts of the case despite a conflict of interest – one of their detectives is Brian Albert’s brother.

“The prosecution is going to go home this weekend and reevaluate things, because this week couldn’t have been worse,” said David Gelman, a former prosecutor and Philadelphia-area defense attorney who is following the case.

Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Proctor faces a tough cross-examination by lawyer Alan Jackson. The Karen Read murder trial in Norfolk Superior Court, Dedham, Massachusetts, on Wednesday, June 12, 2024 (© Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger/IMAGN)

He previously told Fox News Digital he was surprised the commonwealth even moved forward with a new trial after the first case fell apart.

On the other hand, digital evidence has not supported defense claims.

Two experts have testified that Albert’s sister-in-law, Jennifer McCabe, made a key Google search about hypothermia shortly after Read and two other women found O’Keefe unresponsive in the snow – not hours earlier, before anyone should have known he was dead, as the defense has claimed.

And reading the texts in court could be a “double-edged sword,” said Paul Mauro, a former NYPD inspector. Did Higgins have a reason to get into an altercation with O’Keefe? Or do they paint Read as manipulative and untruthful?