Latest news with #DrElizabethLaposata
Fox News
2 days ago
- Fox News
John O'Keefe did not die where prosecutors claim in Karen Read trial, doctor testifies
John O'Keefe did not hit the back of his head and suffer fatal injuries on the lawn where Karen Read found him the morning after prosecutors allege she clipped him with her Lexus SUV and left him to die in a blizzard, according to a defense expert. "If you fall back on a flat surface, you get, many times the tear you get in the scalp can be more like a star because you just hit one part, and then the tears go and kind of a star pattern," testified Dr. Elizabeth Laposata, pointing to an evidence photo not shown on the courthouse video stream. "And also, because you would not have those vertical, discrete vertical scraping of the skin, you, you would tend to if you fell back on grass, you would tend to see, you might see grass in the wound, or you would tend to see an irregular kind of crisscross pattern of the flattened grass. And that's not what we have here on Mr. O'Keefe." She said he must've hit his head on an uneven surface. "But that ridge also, it wasn't smooth," she testified. "It had some little grainy, grainy things sticking up on it." While she agreed that blunt force trauma to the head killed O'Keefe, she also said she did not see signs of hypothermia, contradicting the second cause of death in his official autopsy. Laposata's testimony contradicts the testimony of Dr. Aizik Wolf, a brain surgeon who took the stand for the prosecution earlier in the trial. "The only way he could get this kind of an injury was to fall backwards, hit the back of his head, and then the resulting energy forces going into his brain, into the base of his skull," said Wolf, who testified that he'd seen numerous injuries, often fatal, from backward falls in icy Minnesota weather early in his career. "This is what happens when soft tissue hits a solid ground," he testified. Read's defense scored a minor victory before jurors arrived in court Tuesday for the 30th day of her murder trial in the death of O'Keefe, her former boyfriend and a Boston police officer. Attorney Alan Jackson asked Judge Beverly Cannone to reconsider and order yesterday blocking defense witness Laposata from testifying about dog bites. After a contentious back and forth with Brennan, which saw the two talking over one another and raising their voices, Cannone denied the request but also offered a compromise. "In her experience, Mr. Jackson, you have to lay a foundation in her experience saying animal bites," Cannone said. "This is consistent with what she has seen in an animal bite." GET REAL-TIME UPDATES DIRECTLY ON THE TRUE CRIME HUB Laposata is a forensic pathologist and professor at Brown University's medical school, whom Jackson described as "absolutely peerless," although she resigned from her prior role as Rhode Island's chief medical examiner amid an audit that found her office let hundreds of incomplete autopsies languish under her watch, according to local reports from the time. She returned to the stand once jurors arrived, and she explained the internal injuries to O'Keefe's brain and said pressure on the brain stem from internal swelling and bleeding as a result of the fracture is what killed him. The cut over his right eye, however, was caused by a different impact. She said it did not appear to have been inflicted by the spoiler on the back of Read's SUV.
CBS News
2 days ago
- CBS News
Watch Live: Karen Read trial continues as defense could call final witness
Karen Read's attorneys are likely to call their final witness on Tuesday as the case appears to be entering its final days inside Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, Massachusetts. You can watch testimony live on CBS News Boston when it begins at 9 a.m. by clicking on the video player above. Read is facing trial for the second time, accused of hitting and killing her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe, and leaving him to die in the snow outside a Canton home. She claims she is being framed by several people, including law enforcement. Testimony is expected to begin Tuesday with Dr. Elizabeth Laposata, a Brown University professor who was previously the chief medical examiner for Rhode Island, back on the stand for direct questioning. She was on the stand when court ended for the day Monday answering questions from Read's attorney Alan Jackson. Jackson told Judge Beverly Cannone he expects to question Laposata for less than an hour on Tuesday. Special prosecutor Hank Brennan said he will likely cross-examine her for about 30 minutes. When Laposata's testimony is complete, the defense is expected to call its final witness, Dr. Andrew Rentschler. When will Karen Read's defense rest? Rentschler worked with crash reconstructionist Dr. Andrew Wolfe at the engineering consulting firm ARCCA, which has been at the center of contentious hearings throughout Read's trial. Wolfe finished testifying Monday after two days on the stand. Jackson said he expected to question Rentschler for about three hours, possibly more, as the final defense witness. When Rentschler is done on the stand, Brennan said he plans to call several rebuttal witnesses. Once all witness testimony is finished in the coming days, closing statements will be held and the jury will get the case. Rentschler will be the 11th defense witness called. Brennan called 38 witnesses so far, with more now expected. Read has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of personal injury and death. Read's first trial in 2024 ended with a mistrial due to a "starkly divided" hung jury.
