Ripples of Doubt: S2-E5

Summary

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KAREN: THE RETRIAL

Podcast: KAREN: THE RETRIAL
Episode: Ripples of Doubt (Season 2, Episode 5)
Host: Kristin Thorne (Law&Crime | Wondery)
Date: August 25, 2025

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Overview

This episode, “Ripples of Doubt,” explores mounting questions and contradictions in the retrial of Karen Read, accused of killing Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe. With the original investigation under scrutiny, investigative reporter Kristin Thorne, legal analysts, and forensic experts dissect the weaknesses and potential biases in the state’s case. The focus is on the testimony of Sergeant Yuri Buchenik, who, in the absence of the disgraced Trooper Michael Proctor, became the linchpin witness defending the investigation’s integrity amidst allegations of a cover-up, evidence mishandling, and tunnel vision by law enforcement.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Testimony Under Scrutiny: Sergeant Buchenik’s Demeanor and Role

• Buchenik as Stand-in for Proctor: With Trooper Proctor fired and unlikely to testify, Buchenik, his supervisor, was left to defend the investigation's actions and decisions.
  • “He wasn't the one on trial, but to some in the courtroom, it sure felt like he was.” (Kristin Thorne, 00:26)
  • On the stand, Buchenik’s evasive, defensive behavior fed juror perceptions of possible bias.
• Display of Bias:
  • “It really highlights that there might be a bias here… he seems to favor the state and he seems to dislike the defense and that makes him look biased.” (Forensic Expert, 01:21)
  • Buchenik’s testimony may have reflected the tone and approach of an entire investigative unit.

2. Handling and Documentation of Physical Evidence

• Taillight Fragments — Clumsy Evidence Collection:
  • Buchenik admitted he neither photographed nor precisely located (via GPS coordinates or diagrams) the alleged taillight evidence.
    • “You didn't photograph it?”
      “No, I did not.” (Defense & Buchenik, 04:56-04:58)
  • Consequent inability to reconstruct the crime scene with confidence; foundational forensics protocols were not followed.
  • “We have this very vague, ‘Well, it’s in the general vicinity of the front yard,’ which is just… not good enough in a murder trial.” (Forensic Expert, 07:32)
• Downstream Impact on Forensic Analysis:
  • No way to confidently match debris patterns to the alleged car-pedestrian impact.
  • Opened the door for defense theories about planted evidence.

3. Timeline Gaps and Discrepancies

• Affidavit Time Error:

  • Conflict between sworn statements: Vehicle was seized at either ~4:15pm (Buchenik) or 5:30pm (Proctor).
    • “You knew when the vehicle was seized…stating under oath… 5:30pm and not 4:12pm, that was a false statement, correct?” (Defense, 10:12)
    • “There’s a discrepancy in time there. Yes.” (Buchenik, 10:26)
  • Critical because it affects when police had control of evidence—central to defense’s “planting” theory.
  • “A 75-minute discrepancy doesn’t just look sloppy, it invites deeper questions.” (Kristin Thorne, 10:52)

• Missing or Incomplete Surveillance Footage:

  • Sally Port video was shown—but was of poor quality, was mirrored, and could mislead about which side of the vehicle was damaged.
    • “The video becomes a false foundation… the entire reconstruction can collapse.” (Forensic Expert, 13:54)
  • Key surveillance footage was missing—e.g., a 42-minute gap when Higgins was at the police station.

4. Investigative Tunnel Vision and Ignored Alternatives

• Brian Higgins — The Overlooked Figure:
  • ATF agent with close connections to key parties, exchanged flirtatious texts with Reed.
    • Buchenik read intimate messages into the record (17:39).
    • Higgins appeared on camera at the police department in the early hours after the death.
    • Defense highlighted that, despite motives and opportunity, Higgins was never seriously investigated or treated as a suspect.
  • “The defense isn’t trying to prove Higgins did it. They don’t have to. Their strategy is simpler. Illustrate that the investigation was never impartial.” (Kristin Thorne, 21:31)
• Dog Bite Theory:
  • Some O’Keefe injuries potentially attributable to a German Shepherd (“Chloe”) owned by people at the party—not from a car.
  • Despite forensic opportunity, no dog DNA, hair, or dental impressions were ever collected.
  • “That’s a problem because…once a body is cleaned, once the fabric is rinsed, once a dog is relocated and dental records vanish, you don’t get that evidence back.” (Kristin Thorne, 24:57)

5. Unprofessional Conduct and Bias

• Endorsement of Offensive Language:
  • Buchenik affirmed a text from Proctor describing someone as a “retarded client,” responding with a thumbs up.
  • Defense confronted Buchenik on normalizing slurs.
    • “Through your response to that vile phrase, you encouraged it because you liked it with a thumbs up, correct?” (Defense, 27:56)
    • “I acknowledged the text message being sent.” (Buchenik, 28:19)
  • Legal analyst called out the culture of normalized offensive language—impacting credibility with both public and jury.
• Consequences of Lost Credibility:
  • “Once credibility starts to crack, everything that rests on it begins to shift.” (Kristin Thorne, 29:00)
  • Defense hammered that the case’s integrity was tainted at every procedural stage.

6. Delayed and Incomplete Interviews

• Witnesses Unquestioned for 18 Months:
  • Important eyewitnesses Ricky Dantano and Heather Maxson weren’t interviewed until September 2023, more than 18 months after the death.
  • “To wait almost two years. Again, what is the point?” (Forensic Expert, 32:41)
  • Dr. Santoro explained how long memory gaps corrode the accuracy and reliability of eyewitness testimony.
• No Search of Key Crime Scene (the House):
  • Despite reports of a party and inconsistencies in witness accounts, officers never formally searched the interior of 34 Fairview Road.
  • “That just does not make sense to me… even if there wasn’t a search warrant, you could have asked for consent to search.” (Forensic Expert, 33:28)
  • The episode emphasizes this as a critical, inexplicable missed opportunity.

7. Oversight Failures and “Poisoned” Evidence

• Buchenik’s Disciplinary Action:
  • Only received minor discipline for failing to oversee Proctor, who was central to the shoddy investigation.
• The Integrity Question:
  • “Everything that he [Proctor] touched in this case becomes poisoned. So the state is certainly aware that the integrity of their evidence is tied to the integrity of the investigator.” (Forensic Expert, 36:05)
  • Jurors may dismiss all evidence affected by these core failures.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the stand-in effect:

  • “Buchanak isn’t just testifying about the investigation. He’s standing in for the part of it that can’t be defended.”
    (Kristin Thorne, 03:13)

• On evidence handling:

  • “It’s really difficult to over document something…really all of those avenues failed.”
    (Forensic Expert, 05:33)

• On proper investigative practices:

  • “This is something you do with a measuring tape and a pad of paper…to say someone’s been investigating homicide for 10 years and they don’t know how to document the position of evidence, that’s really remarkable.”
    (Forensic Expert, 06:51)

• On structural bias:

  • “What that shows is there’s a culture in this unit where that type of language is not out of place…it’s just disgusting.”
    (Forensic Expert, 27:57)

• On the core problem:

  • “At the center of this case isn’t just a flawed investigation. It’s a broken chain of responsibility.”
    (Kristin Thorne, 34:15)

• On consequences for the prosecution:

  • “If the jury does not believe the testimony of the people on the stand, it doesn’t matter if they did a great job processing the crime scene.”
    (Forensic Expert, 36:23)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Buchenik’s demeanor and bias: 00:21–02:07
• Failure to document evidence (taillight fragments): 04:37–05:54
• Forensic protocol failures highlighted: 06:06–07:16
• Timeline and surveillance tape discrepancies: 09:23–14:42
• Defense focus on Brian Higgins: 16:07–19:13
• Dog bite theory and lost evidence: 23:07–25:25
• Buchenik endorses offensive language: 26:30–28:22
• Delay in witness interviews: 29:53–32:41
• Failure to search the house: 33:09–34:15
• Oversight failures and “poisoned” evidence: 35:38–36:23

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Summary of Episode’s Tone and Direction

The episode is sober, relentless, and probing—emphasizing missed opportunities, compromised credibility, and the cascading consequences of investigative failures. It reveals a trial in which not just evidence, but the entire process, is on trial.

• The hosts and guests blend factual critique with a sense of mounting incredulity—"I just can't wrap my mind around it" (Forensic Expert, 34:15)—while the defense’s strategy is laid bare: highlight every omission, every culture-of-bias misstep, and every procedural gap to plant doubt.
• The language is incisive: “what was never done,” “accountability... evaporated,” “once a body is cleaned, you don’t get that evidence back”—each reinforcing the theme that institutional shortcomings may have erased the possibility of justice.

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Next Episode Tease

Next week promises a critical medical perspective: “the body tells its story,” as prosecution witness Dr. Irini Scordibello, the medical examiner, reportedly delivers testimony that may unravel the prosecution’s case even further.

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For listeners seeking a concise but thorough breakdown, this episode of KAREN: THE RETRIAL lays out not only what is at stake for Karen Read, but for the very credibility of the system meant to ascertain the truth.

Transcript

[Kristin Thorne]

Wondery subscribers can binge all episodes of Karen early and ad free right now. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. This podcast is a law and crime production. It may contain harsh language and references to violence and death. Please listen with care.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

His demeanor on the witness stand was really just very problematic.

[Kristin Thorne]

He wasn't the one on trial, but to some in the courtroom, it sure.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

Felt like he was on direct examination. He was fairly agreeable. He was able to answer questions pretty quickly. He didn't think that he was about to be tricked and so he just answered the question on cross. There was a huge shift in his demeanor. He came across as kind of rude, a little bit snippy. He seemed to think that he was getting the upper hand in a couple of exchanges. There was a little bit of smirking, maybe seemed a little bit too clever with some of the ways that he was being so evasive.

[Kristin Thorne]

This was the man tasked with overseeing the state police's lead investigator, a sergeant on the stand in a high profile murder trial. And as jurors watched his testimony unfold, what they saw may have said more than what they heard.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

It really highlights that there might be a bias here that even if he is not aware of it, Buchennick seems to favor the state and he seems to dislike the defense and that makes him look biased. And in this case where there's a huge undercurrent of potential bias, lack of integrity and maybe this blue wall standing up for each other and Trooper Proctor helping the officers who were in this house to be part of this conspiracy in this cover up, if that's something that a juror is willing to buy into. And then you see Buchanan on the witness stand endorsing that by being pro prosecution and anti defense, that's going to be a little bit tricky for a.

[Kristin Thorne]

Juror to ignore because sometimes the most revealing testimony isn't what's said, it's how it's said said. This week, contradictions on the stand, gaps in the record, and a case showing signs of strain from law and crime. I'm Kristin Thorne and this is Karen. The retrial. Let's get into it. In March 2025, Trooper Michael Proctor was fired from the Massachusetts State Police. And now midway through the retrial of Karen Reed, did the question still lingers? Will he testify at all? So far, the Commonwealth has refused to say. His name is still on the witness list, but not on the calendar. Even Karen Reed herself shared her suspicions outside the courthouse.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

Do you think Proctor will testify?

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

Karen I don't believe so. But you've seen this afternoon how much evidence has not been shown to this jury. And we've had to work really hard. Alan's had to work really hard to organize it so that they can prevent presented with the actual evidence in this case.

[Kristin Thorne]

But someone else stepped in to represent the department. Sergeant Yuri Buchenik. He's not just a colleague. He was Proctor's supervisor, the person who signed off on his work, praising his professionalism in glowing evaluations. Buchenik may not have written the offensive text Proctor has become synonymous with, but his fingerprints are all over the Commonwealth's timeline. Buchanan's testimony is doing double duty. He's there to walk jurors through the physical case, but he's also absorbing the cross examination that would've, or some say should've landed on Proctor. The criticism, the scrutiny, the bias. In that sense, Buchanak isn't just testifying about the investigation. He's standing in for the part of it that can't be defended. And as Buchenik took the stand, the weight of that substitution became clear. Because once Proctor was removed from the equation, it was Buchenik who had to answer for the investigation's foundation. What was done and perhaps more importantly, what wasn't. And one of the most glaring omissions, the taillight fragments, the very pieces of evidence the Commonwealth claims link Karen Reed's SUV to John O' Keefe's injuries.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

And on February 10th, you went out to the scene and you indicate that you found six pieces of black, clear and red plastic material and 14 pieces of glass material and some other plastic material as well, correct?

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

Yes.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

You didn't photograph it?

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

No, I did not.

[Kristin Thorne]

He confirmed something that had already been suspected by critics of the investigation. He didn't document the GPS coordinates of the now infamous tail light fragments. Not with a diagram, not with measurements. Just a vague assertion. They were found in the, quote, same general vicinity. But in a murder case, that hinges on whether John o' Keefe was struck by a vehicle or. Or whether the scene was manipulated after the fact. Imprecision isn't just sloppy, it's destabilizing.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

For forensic science, it's really difficult to over document something. We take hundreds of photographs of things. We take notes. Those should be contemporaneous notes. So as we're doing something, we're taking notes about what we're doing, we're writing reports and we're taking measurements, and really all of those avenues failed.

[Kristin Thorne]

Dr. Amy Santoro is a forensic scientist with nearly two decades of experience. She has followed this case closely from the first trial and says what happened at the crime scene breaks from basic protocol.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

The measurements, or the lack of measurements, is really pretty stunning, considering this is supposedly a vehicle versus a pedestrian. In any crime scene, where a piece of evidence is located has to be documented, and measurements are part of that.

[Kristin Thorne]

Even Buchanak's courtroom exchange on this raised eyebrows.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

You didn't do any plotting of cross coordinates, which would have been easy to do to determine exactly where each piece was found, correct?

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

It would not be easy for me. I don't know how to do that.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

You've never learned how to plot cross coordinates?

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

I don't have the tools to GPS coordinate.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

Do you know what cross coordinates are?

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

No.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

Do you know how to plot cross coordinates?

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

You just demonstrated it to me.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

And you didn't do that?

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

I did not.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

This is something that you do with a measuring tape and a pad of paper. I mean, it's not an advanced investigative technique at all. It's a very basic technique that you are taught in a basic crime scene processing class. So for somebody to say they've been investigating homicide for 10 years and they don't know how to document the position of evidence, that's really remarkable.

[Kristin Thorne]

That move has downstream consequences. It means experts can't reconstruct what happened with certainty. There's no way to validate whether the pattern of debris was consistent with a tail light shattering on impact or if the evidence was placed there later.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

From a reconstructive standpoint, that causes a huge issue. I think a reconstructionist in this case would want to look at what happens if a vehicle and a taillight of a vehicle actually strikes a person. What does that debris field look like? How would the taillight shatter? How many pieces? And about how far could we expect to see these pieces travel? And we would then be able to theoretically compare that debris field to what you have on the crime scene. The problem is, on this crime scene, there's no photos, there's no measurements, so there's nothing to compare to. And we don't even really have good testimonial evidence about this. We just have this very vague. Well, it's in the general vicinity of the front yard, which is just, frankly, not good enough. In a murder trial and in a.

[Kristin Thorne]

Case already shadowed by allegations of bias and misconduct, acts like this can fuel much darker theories.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

It seems like Hollywood drama to believe that somebody would plant evidence in a crime scene. The reality is it does happen. It's just sick to think about, but it's not outside of the realm of possibility. That's why we have documentation. That's why law enforcement officers have dash cameras and body cameras, which we didn't see in this case. This is why we take photos and we do diagrams and we take notes and we write contemporaneous reports. And we have a really robust chain of custody so that everything is ironclad. That chain of custody has to exist. Those photos have to exist so that people can look back and say, all right, this piece of evidence was collected at this location by this person at this date on this time, and really feel confident that evidence is genuine. And that just didn't happen.

[Kristin Thorne]

In a case built on data. Phone logs, surveillance video, GPS pings, the timeline isn't just important, it's the crux of the case. And during his testimony, Sergeant Yuri Buchanak confirmed something that complicates that timeline. Trooper Michael Proctor's sworn affidavit misstated the time Karen Reed's SUV was seized.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

You testified that you seized the SUV somewhere. I think your testimony on direct examination was somewhere around 415, 417, something like that, correct?

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

Yes, sir.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

You're also aware as the supervisor of Michael Proctor, that he swore under oath in multiple affidavits in support of search warrants that the SUV was seized at 5:30pm Correct?

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

Yes.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

And you knew at the time, because you were actually there and you knew when the vehicle was seized, that stating under oath in an affidavit that it was 5:30pm because and not 4:12pm that was a false statement. Correct.

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

There's a discrepancy in time there. Yes.

[Kristin Thorne]

Buchenik acknowledged the mistake, but he never corrected it.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

What we saw in the first trial with this affidavit issue was this allegation that the time was basically a transcription error. Somebody basically just made a typo and typed 5:30, when what they really meant was 4:12. Which seems like an unusual typo.

[Kristin Thorne]

A 75 minute discrepancy doesn't just look sloppy, it invites deeper questions. And it also opens the door for conspiracy theories.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

When you go before the court, before a judge with a sworn affidavit, you are swearing that what you write in that affidavit is true. And in this case, it just wasn't.

[Kristin Thorne]

Why does that matter? Because one of the defense's core theories is that key evidence, like the tail light fragments, may have been planted. For that theory to hold water, they'd need to show law enforcement had access to Reed's vehicle before the evidence was allegedly Found that means the exact time of seizure matters a lot.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

The main issue with this is how long did the state have the vehicle in custody, and what could they have done with the vehicle at the time that was in their custody?

[Kristin Thorne]

The problem is there's no clean paper trail, no photo of the SUV in the driveway before it was towed, no clear image of it on the flatbed. And in a trial that hinges on digital timestamps and forensic sequencing, the ripple effect of that one affidavit error can be enormous. And that ripple doesn't stop with paperwork. Anyone who followed the first trial knows surveillance video from the Canton Police Department's Sally Port does exist.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

We're kind of all squinting and zooming in and trying to see what we can see of the taillight.

[Kristin Thorne]

It's low quality close up, and, as we've learned, mirrored, evidenced by the backwards number four painted on the wall. For the defense, this wasn't just a discrepancy. It's a distortion that could mislead more than just the jury. It could mislead the experts trying to reconstruct the truth. After all, the prosecution claims John o' Keefe was struck on a specific side of the vehicle.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

In this case, since everybody cares about the right rear tail light and the inverted video purports to show it, it really isn't people, in my opinion, a fair and accurate representation of the condition of the vehicle being that it's inverted.

[Kristin Thorne]

Dr. Santoro says the error isn't just cosmetic, it's foundational. Because when a forensic expert examines footage like this, they rely on it as a true record of reality. Which side of a vehicle was damaged, where a body might have made contact, what sequence of movements unfold, folded, flip the image, and the entire reconstruction can collapse.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

A reconstructionist or forensic expert is going to have to look at this video and rely on it as being accurate. And if they are misled, then everything that follows could be a misinterpretation.

[Kristin Thorne]

In other words, the video becomes a false foundation. And if you're using it to assess things like impact zones, vehicle alignment, or injury patterns, any conclusion you draw could be fatally flawed.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

If we're trying to figure out which part of the vehicle could have aligned with a certain injury on Mr. O' Keeffe's body. If we're trying to make a determination about where a piece of evidence was on relation to the vehicle, you know, the height of the bumper, the height of the spoiler, the height of this taillight, or the height of this taillight as it relates to the area on Mr. O' Keeffe's vehicle that was supposedly impacted, all of that is now based on incorrect input information.

[Kristin Thorne]

And here's what's even more troubling.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

The fact that we're even relying on Sally Port video in the first place is really problematic. It really underscores the lack of proper documentation. In an ideal world, there should be hundreds of photos of that vehicle from the moment it gets into police custody. And those photos should have metadata in them that are timestamped. And so it should be really clear what the condition of the vehicle is. We shouldn't have to be guessing like this, but we are. And now we might be basing our conclusions off of incorrect information if we take that video at face value.

[Kristin Thorne]

In the video, what you can make out of it anyway, Trooper Michael Proctor can be seen walking directly to the right rear of Reed's suv. On the inverted video, he appears to be on the left side. That detail might have gone unnoticed in a different trial, but in this trial, it really matters. That's the very taillight in question. Its fragments were found on the lawn of 34 Fairview Road about two hours after the vehicle was seized. But neither Proctor nor Buchanak, according to earlier testimony, say they ever touched or examined that part of the vehicle during the initial processing. And when the footage was shown to jurors, Buchenik doubled down on that claim.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

Sergeant, when you were asked previously whether the prior video fairly and accurately depicted what you recall as it pertains to the SUV and the Sally Ford, that was not quite true, Correct?

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

The way I understood the question is what I'm watching accurately depicts what's taking place. It is. Just because it's a mirror image doesn't mean that it's not recording what the actions and what, what is transpiring.

[Kristin Thorne]

It was a moment that begged more questions than answers. Why approach the one part of the vehicle no one admitted to examining? What was the purpose of presenting a reversed video to the jury as evidence? And why, in a case this reliant on surveillance and digital proof, were so many pieces of the footage missing? Buchanan's three day testimony didn't just raise doubts about what the police did. It raised even more about what they didn't. About the people. They didn't pursue the leads. They didn't fly, follow. And that brings us to Brian Higgins, the ATF agent who's friends with the Alberts, the guy with an office in the Canton Police Department. He was at the bar and the party the night John o' Keefe Died and knew both the victim and the accused. Reed and Higgins had even exchanged flirtatious texts. Texts that included talk of a kiss and late night meetups. Texts that Buchen was was asked to read on cross.

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

We are attracted to each other, right? Reasonable question. Yes, 100%. Okay. We did kiss earlier. No. I think you initiated that. No. Yep. Do I owe you an apology? Omg. No. Why are you being sensitive? I am not. Kinda. No. Excuse me? Never. What do you want from me? What's on the table? What do you want? Ideally, the real deal.

[Kristin Thorne]

And yet, despite the intimate exchange this witness had with the defendant, Buchanak testified that he never considered Higgins a suspect. He found no signs of animosity between Higgins and o'. Keefe. No motive. Therefore, no reason to investigate him further.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

You were asked about any evidence of Brian Higgins having a motive to murder John O' Keefe just a few minutes ago by Mr. Brennan, right?

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

Yes.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

And you said, no, I didn't find a motive that Brian Higgins would want to murder John o'.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

Keefe.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

Is that right?

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

That's right.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

After weeks of communicating with Ms. Reed in a romantic manner and then seeing her walk in the door with John o' Keefe and sending the text message. Well, after having been intoxicated, you see that detective as an investigator, as a reasonable, objective investigator, as a possible scenario for Brian Higgins to be jealous about John o'. Keefe.

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

There's a possibility there, but I didn't see it.

[Kristin Thorne]

In Reid's first trial, Brian Higgins testified that he had gotten rid of his phone, inexplicably on a military base, before ever being asked to preserve it as evidence. At another point during Higgins cross examination, he was tied to the now infamous butt dials. Early morning calls between him and Brian Albert exchanged in the wee hours of January 29, 2022, before John OKeefe's body had been discovered. And get this. These mysterious butt dials and flirtatious texts with Karen Reed aren't the only digital footprint connecting Higgins to the case. This time around in the retrial, there's no Higgins. At least not yet anyway. But he's been invoked in Sergeant Yuri Buchanak's cross. In a revelatory moment, jurors were shown surveillance footage of Brian Higgins at the Canton Police Department's sally port in those early hours of January 29, 2022. The footage depicts Higgins entering the sally port around 1:30am brushing snow off vehicles and moving cars. The prosecution, however, maintains that Higgins actions were routine, that there was no evidence implicating him in any wrongdoing. They argued that the surveillance footage did not show any tampering with evidence or involvement in o' Keefe's death. But the defense isn't trying to prove Higgins did it. They don't have to. Their strategy is simpler. Illustrate that the Massachusetts State Police investigation was never impartial. That from the start, police narrowed in on Karen Reed and never looked elsewhere. By invoking Higgins, the defense laid out the pillars of its alternate theory all over again. A compromised investigation and a key figure, Brian Higgins, who not only shared intimate messages with the defendant, but also appeared on camera at the Canton Police Department in the early morning hours after the party. And that raises a host of questions. Why was Brian Higgins at the police station in the middle of the night, brushing snow off cars and moving vehicles around? Why was that surveillance footage not fully preserved? And what, if anything, was happening during the fourth 42 missing minutes? Why was Higgins never treated as a serious subject of inquiry, despite a personal connection to both the victim and the accused? And why did he discard his cell phone, the one containing those texts, after the investigation had begun? In a case built around digital forensics, timelines, and surveillance, Buchenik's testimony isn't shaping up to be just background. It's the battleground. And in the defense's telling, Brian Higgins might not be the killer, but he might be the ghost in the machine. While Higgins was never seriously questioned, never pursued, and eventually vanished from scrutiny, the defense argues he's just one example of a broader issue. A pattern of ignoring anything that didn't point to Karen Reed. And that includes the physical evidence. Because some of John Okeefes injuries, they argue, may not have come from a car at all. They may have come from a dog. It's another theory the prosecution calls absurd, but it refuses to go away. It hasn't been proven, but it's also never been properly ruled out. According to Dr. Amy Santoro, some of John Okeefes injuries, particularly to his arm, weren't from a car at all, but from a dog. Specifically, Chloe, the German shepherd owned by Nicole and Brian Albert.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

At some point during the course of your investigation, did you find out that the Albert family got rid of Chloe?

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

We learned that they no longer owned Chloe, yes.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

Other than some veterinary records that. And by the way, the dog's not even named Chloe, correct?

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

The new owners renamed the dog. Yes, Cora. That's correct.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

Do any of those records, any of the veterinary records, the four pages that you're holding, even include the name Cora or the name of the new owner.

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

I browse through it and no, it does not appear that Cora or the new owner are included in any of these four pages.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

You don't have any rehoming records?

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

I don't know.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

You don't have any purchase records?

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

I don't know.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

The only records you do have are those four pages of veterinary records that don't have the name Cora and don't have the new owner's name.

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

That's correct.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

In a situation where there's a potential to have been a dog attack, a dog bite, a dog scratch, whatever the situation was, there are certainly types of evidence that should be preserved, should be documented, and that needs to be done contemporaneously so close in time to the event. The gold standard is gonna be DNA. And just like we can look at human DNA, we can look at canine DNA, and I know that was attempted in this case. The other things that we could have done would have been to look at John o' Keeffe's sweatshirt for hair, for trace evidence, for dog hair, look at his shirt, look at his pants to see if there's dog hair. That's a really simple thing to collect. It's just noticing it and collecting it with a trace lift, which is really just a glow glorified lint roller. So somebody in this case should have been doing that. They should have been preserving that evidence and collecting it. That's something that needs to be done. At the beginning of the investigation, none.

[Kristin Thorne]

Of that was done. The shirt was soaking wet when it was recovered. Okeeffes body had already been washed. Chloe, the dog in question, has been out of reach for years. Her DNA never collected, her teeth never measured. And that's a problem because once a body is cleaned, once the fabric is rinsed, once a dog is relocated and dental records vanish, you don't get that evidence back.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

All of this is stuff that needed to be looked at. January, February, March, timeframe of 2022. And not in between the last trial and this current trial. It's just too late.

[Kristin Thorne]

So even if Chloe wasn't involved, even if this theory goes nowhere, its forensic value can't be measured anymore because the opportunity to prove or disprove it was lost almost immediately. Not because it couldn't be done, but simply because it wasn't. And that's what so much of this weighs on what was never done. Evidence never collected, leads never followed. But even more damaging than what's missing is what's been revealed. Because when you pair overlooked alternatives with open displays of bias, the issue isn't just an incomplete investigation. It's compromised credibility. And on the stand, Sergeant Yuri Buchenik confirms something that doesn't just raise eyebrows. It erodes trust.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

You responded to the phrase, funny, I'm going through his retarded client's phone, correct?

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

I acknowledge that text message being sent.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

You acknowledged it by liking it, correct? With a thumbs up.

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

I acknowledged it by responding with a thumbs up emoji.

[Kristin Thorne]

Buchanak didn't report it, didn't object.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

What that shows is that there's a culture in this unit, in this office, where that type of language is not out of place, where they use those types of slurs to refer to people, where they use the C word to refer to women. It's just disgusting. But that is a culture that's obviously accepted in that unit. And Trooper Proctor obviously knew that. And what makes it worse is that his supervisor, Buchenik, liked it. And thumbs up that message.

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

I have no memory of reading that. I acknowledged him going through the phone on my Apple watch. I have no memory of him writing retarded on a text message.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

And you'll agree that that is one of the most vile and insensitive and incendiary terms one could use in modern society, correct?

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

That is correct.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

And in fact, through your response to that vile phrase, you encouraged it because you liked it with a thumbs up, Correct? Did you encourage that statement by Michael Proctor by liking it with a thumbs up? Thumbs up.

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

I don't know if it encouraged him, but. So I cannot. I cannot speak.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

But that's what you did.

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

I acknowledged the text message being sent.

[Kristin Thorne]

In that moment, accountability didn't just fail, it evaporated. And that has consequences beyond workplace conduct.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

As a forensic investigator, you really need to be above reproach. Part of being a crime scene investigator or being a homicide detective is this appearance that you are an upstanding citizen and you're not breaking the rules. People have to trust that. The community needs to trust that in order to have any sort of faith in their law enforcement departments. And the jury has to be able to trust these people in order to believe their testimony.

[Kristin Thorne]

Because once credibility starts to crack, everything that rests on it begins to shift. You start to question not just how evidence was handled, but. But how decisions were made from the very beginning. Who was interviewed and when, what was documented and what was simply left alone. And in this case, some of the most critical steps weren't taken for months or not at all. In the days after John O' Keefe was found dead outside 34 Fairview Road. Time was everything. Time of death, time of impact, time of discovery. But as we've heard in court, not everyone was questioned right away. In fact, key witnesses weren't interviewed until September of 2023, more than 18 months after the incident.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

Obviously, as you just said, you became aware that Ricky Dantono and Heather Maxson were witnesses in your homicide investigation. Important witnesses, you'd agree, correct?

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

They were witnesses.

[Kristin Thorne]

Heather Maxson, along with two others, testified to seeing Karen Reed's SUV stop with the engine running and brake lights illuminated outside 34 Fairview Road. Ricky Dantano was driving the truck Heather Maxson was in, along with Ryan Nagle, another witness who remembers seeing Reed's suv.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

Okay, so it would be important, obviously, to interview witnesses in a timely manner.

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

In some instances, yes. Yes.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

Do you remember when Triple Proctor actually interviewed Ricky Dantono and Heather Jackson?

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

This report authored by me states that on Saturday, September 2, he was interviewed what year? 2023.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

So that would have been a year and a half later, correct?

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

Yes.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

Do you believe that's a timely report or rather a time timely interview for an eyewitness, the gravity of which is described in your report?

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

Again, perfect ideal world scenario, it would be quicker.

[Cross-Examiner / Defense Attorney]

So that would be not. No excuses, not throwing bars, but that would be untimely.

[Sergeant Yuri Buchenik]

We do the best we can.

[Kristin Thorne]

And Dr. Santoro says, in forensic terms, that kind of gap isn't just unusual, it's corrosive.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

When you remember an event the first time you remember it, you're having an authentic memory of that event. Every subsequent time you remember, you're remembering your previous memories of that event. This is why eyewitness testimony is really just not reliable. Your memory does not get better. Things get worse over time. And you can truly believe that you saw or heard or did something that just did not happen, especially if it's been a long time and you're starting to misremember. You're remembering things from different events and kind of melding them together, or you're hearing other people talk about an event, reading things about an event, and you're starting to adopt those into your own memory without even knowing it.

[Kristin Thorne]

A timeline built on memories blurred by media coverage, shaped by other testimonies and eroded by time, simply can't be trusted with the same weight or certainty. And that means when investigators finally do come around asking questions, the value of what they get is often diminished, especially in a case where so much depends on second by second sequencing.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

What that means for an investigation is that right at the very beginning People need to be contacting these witnesses and interviewing them and memorializing those interviews. That would be recording them, either with an audio recording or on a body camera or in some sort of interview room that's being recorded, taking notes and writing that down in a report. To wait almost two years. Again, what is the point?

[Kristin Thorne]

But it wasn't just interviews that were delayed. Some other tasks never happened at all. Despite reports of a party inside, multiple people drinking, and inconsistent accounts about who was where, no formal search of 34 Fairview was ever conducted.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

That just does not make sense to me. I've worked plenty of crime scenes where somebody has been located in the front yard or in the backyard. But in those situations, we always go into the house, even if we don't have any information to believe that something happened in the house. Even if there wasn't a search warrant, you could have asked for consent to search. And even if law enforcement did not want to ask for consent to search the residents at 34 Fairview, a reasonable thing for a law enforcement officer to do would be say, hey, we just. We need to do a sweep and go through and secure the residence and make sure that everybody's okay and look in every room to ensure that everybody was okay. And that just didn't happen. I just can't wrap my mind around it, put together.

[Kristin Thorne]

The picture that emerges is not just one of missing evidence, but missed opportunity. The longer you wait to gather witness statements, the fuzzier the narrative becomes. And when you fail to secure the scene, when you don't look inside the house at all, you aren't just missing what might might be there. You're limiting what the truth is allowed to be. Missed interviews, unsearched rooms, lost evidence. These weren't just isolated oversights. They were patterns ignored by the very people in charge. At the center of this case isn't just a flawed investigation. It's a broken chain of responsibility. And the link that keeps coming loose is Michael Proctor. But he wasn't operating alone. Trooper Michael Proctor has become a lightning rod in this trial. But what's received less attention until now is the person who was supposed to be supervising him. Sergeant Buchanak was formally disciplined, five vacation days docked for failing to properly oversee Proctor and for giving him a glowing evaluation in a case now riddled with inconsistencies and gaps. And in the world of forensics, that kind of oversight failure doesn't just stay in the personnel file.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

Even if everything was done properly and even if the chain of custody was ironclad and the documentation was ironclad and all of this evidence was technically sound and properly collected and properly packaged. Even if that happened, which it did not, but even if it did, the quality of the evidence and the integrity of the evidence is tied to the integrity of the person who collected it.

[Kristin Thorne]

She's talking about Proctor.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

Everything that he touched in this case becomes poisoned. So the state is certainly aware that the integrity of their evidence is tied to the integrity of the investigator.

[Kristin Thorne]

Buchanak's failure to supervise wasn't just administrative. It could be existential to the case.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

If the jury does not believe the testimony of the people on the stand, it doesn't matter if they did a great job processing the crime scene. If the jury is listening to this person and saying, I think he's just full of bs, then they can discount everything he has to say.

[Kristin Thorne]

Next week, the body tells its story. Medical examiner Dr. Irini Scordibello takes the stand. She was the prosecution's witness, but her words may have just unraveled their entire case. This has been a law and crime production. I'm your host, Kristen Thorne. This episode was written and produced by Cooper Maul. Our executive producer is Jessica Lowther. Our editor is Anna McLean. Our associate producer is Tess Jagger Wells. Guest booking by Diane Kay and Alyssa Fisher. Legal review by Elizabeth Voulai. Key art designed by Shawn Penzera.

[Forensic Expert / Legal Analyst]

Follow.

[Kristin Thorne]

Karen in the Wondery app. You can binge the entire series early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.