Chris Albert in the Karen Read Case: Testimony and Aftermath

Chris Albert is a Canton, Massachusetts Select Board member and the owner of D&E Pizza and Subs who became a prosecution witness in the Karen Read murder case because his brother Brian Albert owned the Fairview Road house where Boston police officer John O’Keefe was found dead in the snow on January 29, 2022. He was with O’Keefe and Read at the bar earlier that night, he testified he walked home and never went inside his brother’s house, and the defense spent much of his time on the stand trying to tie him and his family to the lead investigator and to what they called a cover-up.¹

Who Chris Albert Is

Albert has lived in Canton his whole life and has run D&E Pizza and Subs in the downtown for roughly a quarter century.² In April 2023 he won a seat on the Canton Select Board as a political newcomer, defeating incumbent Lisa Lopez and challenger John McCourt and carrying four of seven precincts in an election that drew nearly 4,000 voters.³

His family is the reason his name kept surfacing in the case. His brother Brian Albert is a retired Boston police sergeant and the owner of 34 Fairview Road. Another brother, Kevin Albert, is a detective with the Canton Police Department. Chris Albert’s son Colin was 17 when O’Keefe died and was at the Fairview Road house that night for a cousin’s birthday.¹ His wife, Julie Albert, is close friends with Courtney Proctor, the sister of Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor, who led the O’Keefe investigation.⁴

What He Testified To

Albert took the stand on May 9, 2024, in Norfolk Superior Court during Karen Read’s first trial. He told the jury he had been at the Waterfall Bar and Grille in Canton the night of January 28, 2022, with a group that included his brother Brian and sister-in-law Nicole, his wife Julie, Jennifer and Matthew McCabe, and federal ATF agent Brian Higgins. He recalled Read arriving with O’Keefe and said she appeared to be carrying a glass with clear liquid and a lime under her jacket. Everyone, he said, seemed to be “having a good time.”⁵

He told jurors he left the bar around the same time as Read and O’Keefe and walked home in the opposite direction. Surveillance video put his departure at about 12:14 a.m. Under questioning, he conceded that his initial claim of getting home between 12:05 and 12:10 a.m. could not be squared with the video and a roughly five-minute walk.⁶ He said he never went inside his brother Brian’s house that night.⁷

He said he was in “shock” the next morning when his wife told him O’Keefe had been found dead on his brother’s lawn. He went to the Fairview Road house for about an hour that morning and saw his brother and Brian Higgins there. He also told the jury he “saw no signs that Read was drunk” at the bar.⁵

The Cross-Examination That Made Headlines

Defense attorney David Yannetti spent the cross-examination working to complicate Albert’s account of his relationship with O’Keefe. Albert confirmed that he and Julie had nicknamed O’Keefe “Mr. Nebbercracker,” after the cranky old man in the animated film Monster House who yells at children for walking on his lawn. He said the nickname started as a joke after O’Keefe yelled at his son for cutting across the property.⁷

Yannetti then put in front of him a text message Albert had sent O’Keefe the night of the incident: “Get over here or I’ll f— up your lawn.” Albert called it a joke. The defense also showed a photo of Chris and Julie posing on O’Keefe’s property while house-sitting, holding beers by a fence. Albert said that was a joke too.¹

Yannetti also pressed him on his connections to law enforcement. Albert confirmed he had known lead investigator Michael Proctor for roughly 15 years and had socialized with him, and that he had a long-standing acquaintance with former Canton Police Chief Kenneth Berkowitz, who had donated to his Select Board campaign. A photo of the two men, Albert said, was taken at a political fundraiser.⁶ When Yannetti tried to characterize the Alberts as a “powerful” family in Canton, prosecutors repeatedly objected and the judge called sidebars. The defense also raised a 2002 incident in which Canton Police Sgt. Michael Lank intervened in a fight on Albert’s behalf; no charges were filed against Albert, though others involved were charged.⁷

Why the Defense Kept Pointing at His Household

Read’s lawyers argued that O’Keefe was beaten inside Brian Albert’s home, possibly attacked by the family’s German shepherd, and left outside in the snow, and that people inside the house then worked with law enforcement to frame Read.⁸ In that theory, Chris Albert was cast as the link between the family and the trooper leading the case. The defense pointed to 2016 Facebook photos of Chris and Colin with Proctor’s mother and sister, and to Julie Albert’s friendship with Courtney Proctor, including that Julie provided childcare for Courtney’s children.¹ It cited 67 phone calls between Julie Albert and Courtney Proctor in the months after O’Keefe’s death.⁷

Chris Albert’s son Colin was one of three alternative suspects the defense named in the first trial, along with Brian Albert and Brian Higgins. In court, the defense played selfie videos Colin had recorded during his sophomore year of high school in which he used expletives and threatened violence against members of a rival hockey team. Colin acknowledged the videos depicted threats of physical violence but said they came out of an argument involving friends, and he denied any involvement in O’Keefe’s death.⁹ Ahead of the retrial, Judge Beverly Cannone allowed the defense to pursue a third-party culprit theory against Brian Albert and Brian Higgins, calling it “barely sufficient,” but barred them from naming Colin Albert as an alternate suspect.¹⁰

Chris Albert has denied every version of that theory, denied any feud with O’Keefe, and denied any conspiracy. Brian Albert has done the same, saying the alleged cover-up would require the participation of “30-50 people” across multiple agencies.¹¹

Harassment, Protests, and Albert’s Own Outburst

The case drew an unusually large public following, and much of it landed on Albert’s shop and his son. Blogger Aidan Kearney, who writes as “Turtleboy,” became one of the loudest promoters of the defense theory. On March 4, 2024, Kearney went to D&E Pizza, pressed his face to the window, and spoke into a camera saying, “It was Colin, Chris.”¹² A Norfolk County grand jury later indicted him on two counts of witness intimidation tied to his encounters with Chris and Colin Albert. Kearney pleaded not guilty and says his conduct is protected journalism under the First Amendment.¹³

In November 2023, protesters gathered outside the pizza shop with signs reading “Colin Albert was in the house” and chants including “Chris Albert killed a man.” Albert called police and said he was worried about what might happen if protesters came inside. Several were charged with witness intimidation, though a clerk magistrate later dismissed those charges for lack of probable cause.¹⁴

Albert did not always keep his composure through it. At a Canton Select Board meeting on July 9, 2024, he apologized for two “inappropriate” and “unbecoming” verbal altercations with members of the public, including a June 2024 encounter with Kearney outside D&E Pizza in which Albert told him, “Two seconds, I would beat your face up and down this sidewalk.”¹⁵ When his brother Kevin was placed on paid administrative leave in June 2024 over conduct tied to Proctor, and when the Select Board voted in September 2024 to impose discipline, Chris Albert recused himself from every board matter involving the case.¹⁶

After the Acquittal

On June 18, 2025, a jury acquitted Karen Read of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence, and leaving the scene of a collision causing death, convicting her only of operating under the influence and sentencing her to a year of probation.⁸ A separate federal investigation into law enforcement conduct in the case had closed in February 2025 with no charges against any officer or investigator.¹⁷

After the verdict, Albert sat with four other prosecution witnesses for an ABC News interview. He said the public had “dehumanized us to the sense where we’re not real people. We’re almost like caricatures. We’re pawns,” and acknowledged that “you get down, you get depressed.” He said he had no plans to leave: “This is the town we grew up in. We didn’t do anything wrong. We all contributed to our town, we love our town. Why should we have to go anywhere?”¹⁸

The legal fight has moved into civil court, and Chris Albert is not named as a defendant. In November 2025, Read filed suit in Bristol Superior Court against Brian and Nicole Albert, Jennifer and Matthew McCabe, Brian Higgins, and former investigators Michael Proctor, Sgt. Yuri Bukhenik, and Lt. Sgt. Brian Tully, alleging malicious prosecution, conspiracy, civil rights violations, and intentional misconduct.¹⁹ Attorneys for the Alberts, McCabes, and Higgins have denied the allegations, calling the suit a “continuation of a baseless conspiracy narrative” and its claims “entirely false, defamatory, and without merit,” and have signaled they intend to bring defamation claims of their own.²⁰

1
Court TV. Key Players in the Karen Read Murder Case
2
The Canton Citizen. Albert for Select Board
3
The Canton Citizen. Election Results
4
NBC Boston. Canton Police Suspend Det. Kevin Albert
5
Boston 25 News. Chris, Julie Albert Take the Stand in Karen Read Murder Trial
6
NBC Boston. Karen Read Trial Day 8
7
CBS News Boston. Karen Read Murder Trial Day 8 – Chris Albert
8
NPR. Karen Read Acquitted at Trial
9
NBC Boston. Karen Read Trial Day 13
10
CBS News Boston. Karen Read – Colin Albert, Brian Albert, Brian Higgins Ruling
11
WHDH. Brian Albert Speaks Out After Karen Read Verdicts
12
Boston Globe. Turtleboy Indictment – Karen Read – Chris Albert
13
WCVB. Turtleboy Witness Intimidation Charges – Karen Read
14
Telegram & Gazette. Karen Read Supporters Appeals Court Case
15
Boston Herald. Canton Select Board Member Witness in Karen Read Murder Trial Apologizes for Verbal Altercations
16
Boston 25 News. Kevin Albert Facing Discipline, Canton Select Board
17
WCVB. Karen Read Case Federal Investigation
18
E! News. Karen Read Trial Witnesses Speak on Murderer Claims
19
NBC Boston. Karen Read Lawsuit – Jennifer McCabe
20
CBS News Boston. Karen Read Lawsuit – Proctor, McCabe, Higgins