Fox News True Crime Newsletter: Karen Read's cocktails, Scott Peterson's conviction, Lori Vallow's verdict
WEAK DRINKS: Karen Read says she poured extra shots into her cocktails before John O'Keefe's death.
'SENSE OF CHAOS': New England serial killer fears addressed by Massachusetts district attorney after 8th body discovered.
'FIRST STEP': New York police ID murder victims linked to Gilgo Beach serial killer investigation.
'MERITLESS CLAIMS': Kristin Smart killer's Hail Mary attempt for reduced sentence criticized by AG: 'Meritless claims'.
CREDIBILITY CRISIS: Key Karen Read witness admits grand jury testimony wasn't true.
VALLOW VERDICT: Arizona jury finds 'cult mom' Lori Vallow guilty of conspiring to murder late husband.
'SUBSTANTIAL NEW EVIDENCE': Scott Peterson asks for murder conviction to be tossed, citing 'substantial new evidence'.
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COURTROOM DRAMA: Karen Read retrial kicks off with wire-to-wire drama, lawyers brawl in tense hearing after jurors sent home.
'WORST OF WORST': New 'America's Most Wanted' puts migrants, 'worst of the worst' on notice.
MONEY AND MURDER: 'Cult mom' Lori Vallow, who killed 2 kids, laments 'family tragedy' in closing arguments of 2nd murder trial.
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NO WAY OUT: Oklahoma City bombing survivor was 'getting ready to die' after being trapped in 10 feet of rubble.
GET OUT OF JAIL CARD: Menendez brothers could get freedom under California law signed by Gavin Newsom: expert.
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Fox News
an hour ago
- Fox News
The Karen Read Retrial: The Defense's Turn
Wednesday marked Day 27 of the retrial of Karen Read. Last week, special prosecutor Hank Brennan rested the state's case, leaving it now to the defense. On Tuesday, defense attorney Robert Alessi requested a mistrial with prejudice, though it was later denied by Judge Beverly Cannone. Award-winning trial attorney and host of the Courtroom Confidential Podcast Joshua Ritter provides his legal analysis of the events that took place this week in court. Later, they discuss the manhunt for a Washington father wanted for murder after his 3 daughters were found dead. Follow Emily on Instagram: @realemilycompagno If you have a story or topic we should feature on the FOX True Crime Podcast, send us an email at: truecrimepodcast@ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit
New York Post
3 hours ago
- New York Post
Karen Read defense gets boost as plow driver testifies he saw no body in snow during Boston cop death case
Karen Read's lucky charm may be a plow driver who saw nothing during multiple passes by the address where she is accused of leaving her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe, to die on the ground in a blizzard in January 2022. Brian 'Lucky' Loughran testified Wednesday that he didn't see a body on the lawn as he cleared snow on the street in the hours after prosecutors allege the victim stopped moving. Advertisement According to prosecution experts, O'Keefe's last known activity came to a stop around 12:30 a.m., and his body allegedly did not move until first responders arrived around 6 a.m. 'I saw nothing,' Loughran told defense attorney David Yannetti, speaking of his first pass around 2:45 a.m. He cleared that side of the block, turned around at the end and saw nothing again when he went back the other way. He testified that he passed by 34 Fairview Road, the home of Brian Albert where John O'Keefe was found dead in the snow, in both directions multiple times between 2:40 a.m. and around 6 a.m. Advertisement Prosecutors allege Read hit her boyfriend outside and drove off, leaving him to die in blizzard conditions. Loughran said he had good visibility despite the blizzard conditions due to multiple lights on the plow truck and a high seat. 6 Brian Loughran testified that he didn't see John O'Keefe's body on the lawn. AP When asked if he saw a body in the snow, he said he did not, but he added that he did see a Ford Edge SUV parked outside the address during a later pass around 3:30 a.m. Advertisement 'Loughran's adamance that there was nobody on the lawn after 2:30 a.m., one day after an active-duty officer was adamant that the taillight he saw before the [Massachusetts State Police] had it was not destroyed, are major blows to a prosecution case that already has had severe problems,' said Mark Bederow, a New York City defense attorney closely following the case. Loughran said the Ford Edge stood out to him because he was from the area and knew the Albert family, and he said he had to maneuver around the vehicle as he cleared the road. 'For as long as I can remember, they have never parked a vehicle in front of their house,' Loughran testified. 'They've always had enough ample parking in the driveway.' Special prosecutor Hank Brennan asked Loughran during cross-examination about purported threats from an online blogger and inconsistencies in his timeline. Advertisement 6 Prosecutors claim Read hit her boyfriend with a car in blizzard conditions and drove off. AP Loughran said he never felt threatened by the blogger and denied having a bad memory when Brennan confronted him with multiple statements that offered different times for when the driver passed by Fairview Road. 'Mr. Loughran was adamant that he was not intimidated or threatened in exchange for his testimony, which substantially favored Karen Read,' said Bederow, who represents Aidan Kearney, the blogger known as 'Turtleboy.' Loughran now follows the blog but said he had met with a private investigator working for the defense before Kearney ever contacted him, but he added that he barely paid attention to the posts beforehand. 'I did not know I was being required to testify a certain way,' he said. 'I was also, at the time, dealing with the loss of my wife. I was not paying any attention to any social media.' Overall, he came off as sincere and sympathetic, according to Grace Edwards, a Massachusetts trial attorney who is following the case. 6 Loughran drove past the address multiple times during the blizzard. AP 'Lucky said, 'I was doing my job and I did not want the attention, I did not welcome the attention,'' she told Fox News Digital. 'I'm sure some people in the courtroom wanted to give him a hug after he said, 'I wasn't paying attention to social media because my wife had died.'' Advertisement Brennan played police dashcam video taken outside 34 Fairview Road that showed heavy snowfall and the distance between the house there and Cedarcrest Road, where a plow truck drove by multiple times in the background, in an attempt to illustrate for the jurors how far the nearest pass would have been from the lawn. Loughran agreed that some of the passes were him in the plow dubbed 'Frankentruck,' but he said he couldn't be sure at other moments. 'Overall, great day for the defense,' Edwards said. 'I didn't think there was any big moment today, and Brennan didn't even cross Ms. Kolokithas.' 6 Loughran said he had good visibility during the storm due to multiple lights on the plow truck and a high seat. AP Advertisement After Loughran's testimony, the defense called Karina Kolokithas, a friend of both O'Keefe and Read who saw them at the Waterfall Bar and Grille the night before his death. 'One important piece of evidence from Ms. Kolokithas was that she did not perceive Karen Read to be so intoxicated,' Edwards said. Kolokithas, who said she only drank water that night, testified that she spent nearly an hour talking with the defendant and did not feel that she seemed too drunk to drive. Kolokithas also testified that it seemed strange when Jennifer McCabe, a key witness in the case, pulled Read aside at the end of the night. Advertisement 6 Read spoke with her parents during a break in the court proceedings in Tuesday. AP 'Jen went over to Karen, kind of put her arm around her, and she's like, 'Karen, you're coming with me. You're coming with me,'' Kolokithas testified. 'And Karen's like, 'What? Where are we going?'' That, combined with surveillance video from the bar, illustrates part of the defense's effort to sow reasonable doubt. 'The defense is trying to develop possibilities, and they were trying to get the possibility that something was going on with John O'Keefe and the other men,' Edwards said. Advertisement Kolokithas discussed another interaction that stood out to her that night: O'Keefe kissing Read on the forehead. 6 Read exchanged flirty messages with ATF agent just weeks before her boyfriend was found dead. AP 'I'd never seen something like that before; a boyfriend do [that] to a girlfriend in public,' she said. 'Never saw that, so it just stood out to me. I was like, 'Wow, that's the sweetest thing I've ever seen.'' That nugget could also boost the defense, Bederow said, after Read's team introduced evidence that ATF Agent Brian Higgins, another man at the bar that night, was exchanging flirtatious text messages with their client behind her boyfriend's back. 'Kolokithas' description of John being affectionate with Karen right in front of Higgins minutes before Higgins seemingly was agitated towards John and had to be calmed down by Chris Albert, around the time Jen McCabe oddly told Karen she was leaving with her, was also helpful to the defense,' he said. Surveillance video appeared to show Higgins and O'Keefe gesturing at one another from across the room shortly before the group left and headed to Brian Albert's house at 34 Fairview Road. There is no audio, and Kolokithas did not testify about an argument between the men. However, Chris Albert, Brian's brother, can be seen pushing Higgins' arms down during the exchange.
CNN
5 hours ago
- CNN
Filing by Karen Read's defense appears to signal she won't testify in her retrial
A new court filing by Karen Read's defense team could indicate she will not testify in her retrial for the January 2022 death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe, as questions swirl about whether she will take the stand in the case's waning days. Proposed jury instructions filed by Read's defense attorneys Monday include a section on Read's 'Right not to Testify,' directing jurors not to hold that choice against her during their deliberations. Read has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and leaving the scene of a collision resulting in death. 'As you know, Ms. Read did not testify at this trial,' the instruction – which would be read to jurors by Judge Beverly Cannone – begins. 'You may not hold that against her. Ms. Read has an absolute right not to testify because, as I've explained, she is presumed to be innocent and does not have to do anything to convince you she is innocent.' The filing, released by the court Wednesday morning, is not final, and it does not prevent the defense from ultimately putting Read on the stand. The defendant, when speaking to reporters in recent days – including as recently as Tuesday, after the proposed instructions were filed with the court – has not ruled out testifying. Asked whether she would testify, Read told reporters, 'I'm ambivalent,' according to CNN affiliate WCVB. 'And by ambivalent, I could get on board with either one,' she said. 'I could feel strongly either way.' Prosecutors have accused Read of drunkenly striking O'Keefe with her SUV by reversing into him outside a Canton, Massachusetts, home shortly after midnight on January 29, 2022. But Read's defense contends she has been framed, and that off-duty law enforcement officers inside that home were responsible for O'Keefe's death – allegations they have strongly denied. Read did not testify in her first trial, which ended when her deadlocked jury repeatedly informed Cannone it could not come to a unanimous decision on the charges. But jurors in the retrial have already heard from Read multiple times. Throughout their case, prosecutors played numerous clips taken from interviews Read provided journalists or documentary film crews. One such film, 'A Body in the Snow: The Trial of Karen Read,' was produced by Investigation Discovery, which is owned by CNN's parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery. Prosecutors have used those clips to rebut the defense's arguments or to highlight inconsistencies in Read's own statements. For instance, though her defense's contends she is the victim of a cover-up, the final clip played before the Commonwealth rested its case in chief showed Read wondering aloud whether she had, in fact, struck O'Keefe, acknowledging that her attorney said she may have 'some element of culpability.' Referring to her attorney, David Yannetti, Read says in the clip: 'I said, 'David, what if … what if I ran his foot over? Or what if I clipped him in the knee and he passed out or went to care for himself and threw up or passed out?'' 'And David said, 'Then you have some element of culpability,'' Read says. This story has been updated with additional information.
