Karen Read trial day 29: Will this be the final week of testimony?
Editor's note: This page summarizes testimony in the Karen Read trial for Monday, June 9. For the latest updates on the Karen Read retrial, visit Paste BN's coverage for Tuesday, June 10.
Karen Read’s second murder trial entered its eighth week, with more testimony from a defense accident reconstruction expert who says Read’s SUV never hit John O’Keefe and a denied mistrial motion.
Daniel Michael Wolfe retook the stand after having previously shown jurors simulations of how Read's Lexus could have struck O'Keefe and what damage his body would have caused to the vehicle at different speeds.
Wolfe claimed the small holes found on O’Keefe’s sweatshirt did not match the large gashes created on a nearly identical fabric during his crash tests.
Prosecutor Hank Brennan’s contentious cross-examination of Wolfe led Read’s defense team to call for a mistrial, alleging that Brennan knowingly sought to mislead the jury about how cuts on the back of O'Keefe's sweatshirt formed. The judge denied the motion after Brennan admitted he made a “mistake.”
Read, 45, is accused of backing into O’Keefe, her Boston police officer boyfriend, in a drunken rage and then leaving him to die in the snow outside the home of another cop after a night drinking with friends. She has been charged with second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and leaving the scene of a collision resulting in death.
Read’s defense team maintains she was framed for O’Keefe’s 2022 death. They say O’Keefe was beaten by law enforcement officers who were having a house party inside the home, then bitten by a dog and thrown outside in the middle of a blizzard. The defense’s case largely rests on accusations that the investigation into O’Keefe’s death was mired by deceit, incompetence and bias.
A jury will soon deliberate over Read’s fate – again. Her first trial ended in July 2024 in a mistrial after the jury could not come to a unanimous verdict.
Read told local media the defense in this case could wrap up its testimony by Tuesday, June 10.
Here what you missed from Day 29 of the trial.
O’Keefe fell backward, defense expert says
Elizabeth Laposata, a forensic pathologist and former medical examiner, testified about the cause of O’Keefe’s head, brain and face injuries. She told defense attorney Alan Jackson the tearing on the back of O’Keefe’s scalp showed he “went backwards onto something that had a little ridge, but also had some irregularity to it.”
Based on that, Laposata said O’Keefe’s injuries could not have resulted from a fall on a flat surface.
She echoed testimony from a prior forensic analyst who said O’Keefe’s black eyes were caused by internal bleeding, not from a “punch to the face.” However, she said the small cut on his eyelid was caused by something else.
Laposata is expected to return to the stand on Tuesday, June 10.
New witness takes the stand
The defense called John Tedaman, a private investigator and former federal agent, to discuss measurements he took around the home at 34 Fairview Road in Canton, Massachusetts, where O'Keefe's body was found underneath a pile of snow.
Tedman told jurors he was asked to testify after another investigator was unable to for health reasons. He visited 34 Fairview about a week ago, on June 3. He said the distance between a mailbox in the front yard and several of the house's entrances ranged from 66 feet to about 78 feet.
Read's attorney's have suggested O'Keefe's walked 80 steps and climbed three flights of stairs after arriving at the home, based on health data from his phone. A digital forensics expert previously testified O'Keefe was still in Read's vehicle at the time the phone showed him making those movements.
Defense’s dog expert details qualifications for judge
Judge Beverly Cannone ruled Laposata was unqualified to testify about whether markings found on O'Keefe's arm are consistent with dog bite wounds, but he can discuss other topics.
Cannone's ruling came after the prosecution tried to prevent Laposata from testifying, arguing she did not have the proper expertise. Laposata told Cannone earlier in the day she has conducted at least 50 autopsies in cases involving dog bites.
Read's defense team previously presented testimony from Marie Russell, an emergency physician and former forensic pathologist, who told jurors she believed surface-level gashes found on O’Keefe’s arm came from canine claws and teeth. They have suggested a German Shepard, which lived at 34 Fairview, attacked O'Keefe.
Judge denies motion for mistrial
Judge Cannone denied a motion for mistrial made by the defense team on June 9, after a key crash expert accidentally misidentified holes on O’Keefe’s battered sweatshirt during his cross-examination.
Cannone said she would instruct the jury the holes were created by a criminalist who examined the sweatshirt.
The defense motion came a few minutes after 12 p.m. Defense attorney Robert Alessi argued Brennan displayed the evidence with the “purposeful intention” of leading the jury to believe the holes were caused by Read hitting O’Keefe on Jan. 29, 2022, when they “well know” the holes were caused by a forensic scientist.
“What could be more misleading than that?” Alessi asked. “This is intentional, this is irremediable, this is on the key issue of this case – whether there was any collision at all.”
Brennan admitted he “made a mistake” and said he agreed the holes were made by a crime lab technician.
It was at least the third time Read’s defense has asked for a mistrial since the criminal proceedings began in April.
Holes found on the back of O'Keefe's sweatshirt
Wolfe testified for more than an hour about inconsistencies he found between the results of his crash-test-dummy analysis and evidence from the crime scene.
Read’s defense displayed photos of cuts and gashes on the dummy’s sweatshirt after it was hit by a Lexus SUV identical to Read’s moving at 29 mph. He said they were inconsistent with small holes found on the arm of O’Keefe’s sweatshirt, which the defense argues were caused by a dog bite.
Upon cross-examination, the commonwealth asked Wolfe to examine the back of O’Keefe’s sweatshirt, which was suspended inside a clear frame, and he confirmed that there were multiple holes in the fabric.
Wolfe told Prosecutor Hank Brennan he did not know about the holes and did not consider the possibility that O’Keefe could have fallen backward onto frozen grass after he was hit by an SUV when conducting his analysis. He added the cuts on the sweatshirt were still inconsistent with road rash.
Judge allows prosecution's crash expert to retake the stand
The defense and prosecution presented multiple motions Monday morning about witnesses they expect to soon testify.
Cannone ruled prosecutors could call witnesses back to the stand to rebut one of the defense’s dog bite experts.
She also said the court will meet without the jury present to determine whether to allow another defense dog bite expert to testify.
Will Karen Read testify in her trial?
Jury instructions filed by Read’s lawyers suggest the Massachusetts woman may not testify in the retrial. They include a section informing the jury of Read’s Fifth Amendment right not to testify, telling them they “may not hold that against her.”
Christopher Dearborn, a law professor at Suffolk University in Boston who has followed the case closely, said the instructions are likely a “harbinger” that Read’s attorneys are not going to call her to the stand, though he noted they could change their mind.
“Frankly, I don't think it would make a lot of sense to call her at this point,” Dearborn said, noting the number of public statements Read has made that could be used against her.
The court has already heard from Read in the trial through clips prosecutors played of interviews conducted in which she questioned whether she “clipped” O’Keefe and admitted to driving while inebriated.
Dearborn told Paste BN there are two schools of thought around whether to include a section on a defendant's right not to testify in jury instructions. Some defense lawyers don't include the section because they don't want to "draw a bull's eye" around the fact the defendant didn't testify and cause jurors to "speculate," Dearborn said.
Other times, he said, it is the "elephant in the room," and the specific instructions telling the jury they can't hold the defendant's lack of testimony against them are necessary.
How to watch the Karen Read trial
CourtTV has been covering the case against Read and the criminal investigation since early 2022, when O'Keefe's body was found outside a Massachusetts home.
You can watch CourtTV’s live feed of the Read trial proceedings from Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, Massachusetts. Proceedings begin at 9 a.m. ET.