Karen Read trial: Defense rests its case, prepares for closing arguments
Editor's note: This page summarizes testimony in the Karen Read trial for Wednesday, June 11. For the latest updates on the Karen Read retrial, visit Paste BN's coverage for Thursday, June 12.
Karen Read's defense team rested its case Wednesday in the Massachusetts woman's second murder trial over the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend John O'Keefe, after contentious cross-examination of its final witness.
Andrew Rentschler, a biomechanist and accident reconstruction expert, delivered potentially critical testimony about his analysis of O’Keefe’s head, brain and body injuries. O'Keefe, he told jurors, didn't appear to have been hit by a car as prosecutors allege.
After the defense wrapped up its questioning of Rentschler, Prosecutor Hank Brennan told the judge he did not plan to call any more witnesses, reversing an earlier request to recall a different crash expert. The lawyers agreed to begin their closing arguments at 9 a.m. Friday. They'll then hand the case to the jury.
Throughout the eight-week-long trial, jurors have heard from more than 40 witnesses about the days and hours before O'Keefe's body was found lying frozen and unconscious outside the Canton, Massachusetts home of another cop, Brian Albert, on Jan. 29, 2022.
Prosecutors have accused Read, 45, of backing into O’Keefe, her boyfriend at the time, with her Lexus SUV while dropping him off at a house party after a night out drinking with friends and then leaving him to die outside in the middle of a historic blizzard. 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 has argued she is the victim of an elaborate police conspiracy. They say law enforcement officers at the party beat O’Keefe, let a dog attack him, threw his body on the front lawn and then used their power to plant evidence and frame Read.
Here's what you missed from the last day of witness testimony.
Questioning of defense's final witness wraps up
Prosecutor Hank Brennan wrapped up his cross-examination of Rentschler by questioning the crash expert about a piece of glass found inside O'Keefe's nose. Rentschler said he considered this evidence as part of his analysis, but it was not mentioned in the report.
Under questioning by defense attorney Alan Jackson, Rentschler agreed that plastic shards, drinking straw and other debris found near O'Keefe's body weren't important to his analysis. If there was no collision, he said the items couldn't have been a result of the impact.
"In your opinion, were any of the injuries that you saw suffered by John O'Keefe consistent with having been struck by the subject Lexus?" Jackson asked.
"No, they are not," Rentschler replied.
After a few more questions from Brennan about Canton police's search for evidence and the injuries to the right side of O'Keefe's body, Cannone dismissed Rentschler and the jury for the day.
'Details matter,' prosecutor tells witness
Prosecutor Hank Brennan repeatedly told Rentschler “facts matter” and “details matter” during an at times combative cross-examination in which he questioned the foundation of the crash expert’s analysis.
Brennan said Rentschler had “no idea where the point of impact” occurred in O’Keefe’s alleged collision with Read’s car, to which Rentschler replied: “Nobody does.”
Rentschler later confirmed he did not know some of the details of the alleged crash, including the speed of the car and O’Keefe’s body position. Rentschler appeared to claim that the lack of evidence fed into his conclusions.
“If you don't know something occurred, how can you conclude it actually occurred,” he asked. “It scientifically makes no sense.”
The prosecutor also suggested Rentschler’s report didn’t account for potential soft-tissue damage O’Keefe sustained, injuries often not often shown in X-rays.
Brennan also took aim at Rentschler’s reputation. He asked if Rentschler talked with the defense team about presenting himself as unbiased during Read’s first trial and noted that Rentschler once went to lunch with Read’s lawyers.
"I ate, people were talking, I really didn't talk much at all,” Rentschler said. “How would I remember a conversation from over a year ago?”
Rentschler criticizes prosecution's crash expert
Defense attorney Alan Jackson asked Rentschler to critique the methods used by the prosecutor’s crash reconstruction expert, Judson Welcher, in an attempt to sow doubt into their case against Read.
Rentschler questioned Welcher’s use of a 1979 study finding head trauma to be the most common type of car crash injury and argued it was misleading. The more than 40-year-old study published before the first modern SUV was manufactured, making it outdated, Rentschler said.
Welcher’s technique to determine how O’Keefe obtained his head injury was also “inconsistent” with how a person would have moved after being hit by an SUV, Rentschler argued.
The defense finished questioning Rentschler around 11:30 a.m.
O'Keefe's arm showed no signs of fracture, bruising
Rentschler, a senior biomechanist at the Pennsylvania-based firm ARCCA, told jurors O’Keefe did not have the type of injuries he would expect of a pedestrian car crash victim.
Pointing to an autopsy photo, Rentschler said the 36 superficial abrasions on O’Keefe’s arm did not look like scrapes from a broken taillight. If the injuries came from Read’s vehicle, he suggested O’Keefe’s arm would have needed to hit the taillight in 36 separate places. He also said the cuts would have appeared in a different orientation, more parallel to the wrist, if they came from the car.
Rentschler also spent several minutes discussing the lack of bruising and fractures on O’Keefe’s arm, which he said should have occurred if O’Keefe was hit by a car moving faster than 10 mph. Based on car crash simulations he conducted, Rentschler said he expected to see trauma, fractures, lacerations and bruising on O’Keefe’s right hand and arm. The absence of those injuries suggested O’Keefe was not hit, Rentschler said.
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 began at 9 a.m. ET.