Special prosecutor grills Karen Read's final witness, turning up the heat on his credibility
Cross-examination is underway of Karen Read's final witness - a crash reconstructionist and biomechanical engineer who testified that John O'Keefe's injuries were inconsistent with being struck by the defendant's SUV as alleged by prosecutors.
The witness is Dr. Andrew Rentschler, the second expert from a firm called ARCCA to take the stand. Special prosecutor Hank Brennan tried repeatedly to have the firm's findings limited or withheld completely in the case.
Using Rentschler's own words, Brennan asked him if "facts matter."
"You said it many, many times, 'facts matter,' Isn't that correct?" Brennan asked.
"It was details," Rentschler said. "But facts matter too."
Brennan pressed Renstchler on details about his testimony under direct questioning from defense lawyer Alan Jackson earlier in the day, when he said O'Keefe's remains were found between 10 and 20 feet from the side of the road. Then he showed a still image from police dashcam video of the initial response, showing witnesses near the side of the road, presumably over O'Keefe's remains.
"Details matter, don't they?" Brennan asked.
Brennan has accused ARCCA of destroying text messages with the defense they were ordered to give to prosecutors as well as slow-walking discovery disclosures.
He also grilled Rentschler on whether he considered broken pieces of taillight in the yard where O'Keefe was found dead.
He said he hadn't.
"That wasn't part of my analysis," he testified.
He also hadn't considered how O'Keefe's hat wound up on the ground or the taillight fragments recovered from his clothes.
Rentschler's testimony began Tuesday and kicked off again Wednesday morning with a series of objections from Brennan that led Judge Beverly Cannone to interrupt the witness after he told jurors he had three children and wished his 10-year-old a happy birthday.
"So I was going to say I have three kids, a 9-year-old who's actually turning 10 today -- happy birthday Kai -- and I have two older ones," Rentschler began.
"All right, I'm going to, we're going to stop this -- [use] another example," said Judge Beverly Cannone after an objection from special prosecutor Hank Brennan.
Read is accused of mowing down O'Keefe after a night of drinking and leaving him to die as she went to his house and left him raging voicemails as his niece and nephew slept in the home. He had taken them in after they were orphaned when his sister and brother-in-law died within months of one another.
"Was it appropriate? I think it's his personality," said David Gelman, a Philadelphia-area defense attorney and former prosecutor who is following the trial. "It may have missed the mark, but it's a breath of fresh air since experts are usually boring."
Grace Edwards, a Massachusetts trial lawyer who is also following the case, said the judge likely Rentschler off because narrative answers can distract from the facts of the case.
"The story can lead to a long answer that could be potentially off-topic or the jury could take from it something else that was not intended, like 'Happy Birthday,' and only remember that part," she told Fox News Digital. "The judge wanted the witness refocused to specific questions with focused answers rather than potentially rambling about his three kids."
Rentschler insisted that "details matter" repeatedly as he explained the basics of the scientific method and took issue with another expert report from the firm Aperture, retained by the prosecution.
Aperture labeled the injuries to O'Keefe's arm "lacerations," he said -- a term that he testified contradicts the findings of the official autopsy, which described them as "superficial abrasions."
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"The superficial abrasions and abrasions occur when there's rubbing or scraping of the skin, and it just rubs away the top layer, the epidermis of the skin," he testified. "Now, a laceration is an actual a jagged, ripping or tearing of the skin which gets down through the epidermis into the dermis. So abrasions take much less force. They're less severe than what a laceration actually is."
Based on his testing, he said that he ruled out an impact with Read's 2021 Lexus LX 570 SUV and O'Keefe's arm as the cause of those injuries.
"They're inconsistent with striking the tail light or being produced as a result of contact with the tail light," he testified.
The prosecution claims that these minor injuries came from an impact with Read's broken taillight after she allegedly drove into him on Jan. 29, 2022 and left him to die on the ground in the snow.
The defense denies a collision and has claimed the injuries came from dog teeth and claws.
Aperture's Dr. Judson Welcher testified earlier, based on digital forensics of phone and vehicle data, that Read's SUV reversed at 75% throttle right before O'Keefe's last conscious interaction with his cellphone.
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