A Massachusetts State Police sergeant who played a key role in the investigation that led to Karen Read’s original mistrial on murder charges testified Thursday that, early on, he told other authorities that John O’Keefe may have been hit in the face with a bar glass, causing injuries to his face and head.

Investigators, however, ultimately alleged that Read struck her Boston cop boyfriend with the back of her Lexus SUV and fled the scene, leaving him to die in the cold, on Jan. 29, 2022. Police arrested her on hit-and-run manslaughter charges days after she found him dead outside 34 Fairview Road in Canton, Massachusetts, and prosecutors secured an indictment for second-degree murder months later. 

Defense lawyer Alan Jackson got State Police Sgt. Yuri Bukhenik to concede on Thursday that he called the medical examiner’s office and said there was a possibility that O’Keefe could have been hit in the face with a cocktail glass.

“Knocked out of your shoes,” Bukhenik said.

Another component to that theory was Read’s broken taillight. Brennan played Ring camera video taken from O’Keefe’s driveway that showed the light was cracked when she left his house around 5 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022.

Bukhenik said he questioned Read about the broken taillight later that morning and quoted her as saying, “I don’t know how I did it last night.”

O’Keefe had significant injuries to his face and head as well as cuts on his right arm by the time Bukhenik saw him at Good Samaritan hospital, he said.

Bukhenik, who moved to the U.S. from Ukraine when he was 9 and joined the Marine Corps after 9/11, is expected to return to the witness stand Friday morning when court resumes at 9 a.m. ET.