A forensic scientist from the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab revealed during Karen Read's murder trial that evidence collected in red Solo cups was never tested in the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend, John O'Keefe.

Testimony Wednesday came from O'Keefe's niece, whom he was caring for after her parents died within months of one another, as well as forensic experts involved in the search for Read's Lexus SUV and crime lab testing.

Maureen Hartnett of the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab testified she found broken glass, scratches and at least one dent on the back of Read's vehicle, as well as blood and debris recovered from O'Keefe's clothes.

She also swabbed the evidence that Canton Police collected in red Solo cups, although she testified that it had never been tested. As a result, she couldn't even identify it as blood.

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She collected samples for additional testing but testified that she did not perform testing herself. That was someone else's responsibility.

She also testified she could not rule out that any of the damage to Read's SUV happened before Jan. 29, 2022, the morning O'Keefe died.

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The red substance, described as "red-brown" by the time she saw it, was collected by Canton Police from the front lawn at 34 Fairview Road under a dusting of snow at the spot where investigators believed O'Keefe had been found.

"I think you test it anyway, even if there is no chain of custody, just to contextualize the case," said Paul Mauro, a retired NYPD investigator who is following the case. "If there was a fight inside the house, presumably O'Keefe would've fought back. If the blood in the snow came back to one of the Alberts or Higgins, if you're the defense, you're doing backflips."

If the swabs still exist, however, the defense could ask for them to be tested today, he said.

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But police could also have done a better job collecting and documenting evidence, especially after a series of instances when officers had to defend making unusual decisions, including having someone else fill out the level of an evidence bag, using a grocery bag instead of an evidence bag and sending someone home to grab a leaf blower without sending anyone to the police station to get proper evidence-gathering containers.

Other awkward moments included an evidence bag with the wrong number of broken taillight shards and a brief delay after a state police sergeant was asked to open a mislabeled evidence bag with one of the victim's sneakers inside.

"You don't have to be doing homicide investigations daily to know that if you gathered a bunch of stuff from a crime scene, preserve it and make sure it's logged into evidence so you can retrieve it later since you don't know where this is going," Mauro said. 

"If they knew enough and cared enough to take samples from the scene, however imperfect they did it … and they put each cup in a separate Stop and Shop bag, initialed it, closed it as good as they could in a blizzard. It is unorthodox. Not perfect, but defensible."

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Defense attorney Robert Alessi also asked Hartnett about two photos purported to show the same lone hair sample recovered from the back of the SUV. 

"You could argue that the snow sealed it in there," Mauro said. 

Read faces charges of second-degree murder, drunk driving manslaughter and fleeing a deadly accident in O'Keefe's death.

Prosecutors allege she reversed her Lexus SUV into O'Keefe and left him to die on the ground during a blizzard.

She has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and her lawyers say she never hit O'Keefe.

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While prosecutors have shown photos of her broken taillight, and investigators have testified that it played a role in their allegations against Read, her lawyers played a close-up video of her appearing to back into O'Keefe's parked car before she and two other women found O'Keefe on the ground outside the Fairview Road house.

A group of people had been there the night before for an after-party following a night out drinking.

Read, speaking with reporters outside the courthouse, claimed she saw O'Keefe leave the party before she left.

Other witnesses, testifying under oath, told jurors that he did not go inside.

Mexican officials said Wednesday that 17 family members of drug cartel leaders crossed into the United States last week as part of a deal between a son of the former head of the Sinaloa Cartel and the Trump administration.

Mexican Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch confirmed a report by independent journalist Luis Chaparro that family members of Ovidio Guzmán López had entered the U.S. Lopez, the son of imprisoned Sinaloa Cartel boss Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, was extradited to the U.S. in 2023. 

Among the family members allowed into the U.S. was Guzman's former wife, Griselda López Pérez. 

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In a radio interview, García Harfuch said it was clear to Mexican authorities the deal was made during negotiations between Guzmán López and the U.S. government.

"It is evident that his family is going to the U.S. because of a negotiation or an offer that the Department of Justice is giving him," García Harfuch said.

None of the family was being pursued by Mexican authorities. 

Video footage posted online Tuesday by Spanish-language outlet Radio Formula shows Guzmán's family carrying luggage as they wait to be processed at the Tijuana/San Diego border crossing. They reportedly packed $70,000 in cash with them.

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The confirmation by García Harfuch came the same day the office of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced it was charging a number of top cartel leaders with "narcoterrorism" for the first time since the Trump administration declared a number of cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

"Let me be direct, to the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, you are no longer the hunters, you are the hunted," U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon for the Southern District of California said. "You will be betrayed by your friends, you will be hounded by your enemies and you will ultimately find yourself and your face here in a courtroom in the Southern District of California."

Guzmán López, 35, also known as "the Mouse," is one of the four of Guzmán's sons known as "Los Chapitos," who ran the Sinaloa Cartel in their father's absence. At his peak, the elder Guzmán was one of the most powerful drug traffickers in the world, turning the Sinaloa Cartel into a major force and one of the largest groups responsible for illegal drugs pouring into the U.S. 

He was arrested and extradited to the U.S. in 2017 and convicted of drug trafficking and other crimes. He is imprisoned in Colorado. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.