Defense expert delivers devastating blow to prosecution theory in Karen Read murder trial as case nears end
A crash reconstructionist returned to the stand in Karen Read's murder trial Monday, the proceeding's 29th day, as her defense prepares to rest its case this week.
She is accused of killing her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe, by clipping him with her 2021 Lexus LX 570 SUV on Jan. 29, 2022, and leaving him to die on the ground in a record-setting blizzard.
Before jurors arrived, Judge Beverly Cannone heard motions regarding rebuttal testimony and to preclude or limit expert witnesses.
She said she would hold an additional evidentiary hearing to determine what Dr. Elizabeth Laposata, a Rhode Island forensic pathologist and professor at Brown University, can testify in front of jurors.
David Yannetti, one of Read's defense lawyers, told the court that her legal team believes O'Keefe was "placed" on the ground near a flagpole outside 34 Fairview Road in Canton, Massachusetts. Laposata is expected to discuss O'Keefe's injuries and how and where he could have suffered them.
The home is about 20 miles south of Boston. Read, O'Keefe and others went there for an after-party on Jan. 28, 2022.
Dr. Daniel Wolfe, the reconstrucitonist from a firm called ARCCA, testified last week that damage to Read's SUV is inconsistent with the type of impact that prosecutors allege left O'Keefe dead early the following morning.
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But on cross-examination, he conceded that flying fragments of a taillight could have been the source of injuries to O'Keefe's face and nose before he suffered a fractured skull from what prosecution experts testified was a backward fall.
Read has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder, drunken driving manslaughter and leaving the scene.
Her defense maintains that her vehicle never struck O'Keefe and that his injuries were caused in some other manner after she left.
Read could face life in prison if convicted of the top charge. Jurors deadlocked at her first trial last year on the same charges.
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