Karen Read murder trial: Defense rests after 3 witnesses said science does not show vehicle strike
The Karen Read murder trial defense team has rested their case after a day of three witnesses who said that the basic science of victim John O’Keefe’s injuries and the damage to Read’s SUV were inconsistent with a pedestrian strike, regardless of other evidence.
First up was a medical examiner who maintained that a vehicle strike of any circumstance would carry significant bruising, which O’Keefe’s body did not show.
“If a vehicle hits you … and it’s going any speed at all, any significant speed, it’s going to cause bruising … and one of the things that struck me is a distinct lack of bruising,” Dr. Frank Sheridan testified on Monday. He added that he also didn’t see any injuries to O’Keefe’s legs, another common sign in pedestrian-vehicle strikes. “The absence of these, I believe, is important.”
The Dublin, Ireland-born physician served as the chief medical examiner for San Bernardino County in California from 1991 through 2017. During his career, he estimated, he has performed between 12,000 and 13,000 autopsies in his career as a forensic pathologist.
Next came forensic crash reconstructionists from the Pennsylvania-based consulting firm ARCCA. They also said that neither O’Keefe’s injuries nor damage to Read’s vehicle indicated a vehicle strike.
Read, 44, faces charges of second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter and leaving the scene of a collision causing the death of John O’Keefe, her boyfriend and a 16-year Boston Police officer when he died at age 46 in the early morning hours of Jan. 29, 2022.
Prosecutors have argued that taillight pieces found at the snowy scene of O’Keefe’s death on the front lawn of 34 Fairview Road in Canton, heavy drinking the evening before, and a demonstrated history of jealousy and unrest in the relationship between Read and O’Keefe points to her guilt. Prosecutor Adam Lally argues the Mansfield financial analyst and Bentley University lecturer purposely struck him with her car as she dropped him off at that house sometime after midnight.
Moving forward
“Jurors, that is the evidence in this case after all these weeks,” Judge Beverly Cannone said at the end of the trial day.
She will meet with attorneys at 2:30 p.m. today to go over jury instructions, but otherwise the day was done by a little after 1 p.m. She said jurors will hear closing arguments from both sides, an hour apiece, on Tuesday morning and that the jurors will then be handed the case and 12 will be selected to deliberate Read’s fate.
Medical examiner
Dr. Sheridan said he agreed with the reports of both Massachusetts Office of the Chief Medical examiner doctors as to O’Keefe’s death.
The main autopsy was performed by Dr. Irini Scordi-Bello, who testified last week that O”Keefe had died from blunt-force trauma to his head as well as hypothermia. A neuropathology examination and report was prepared by Dr. Renee Stonebridge, who said she detected significant injuries to O’Keefe’s brain itself — both bleeding as well as bruising to the front and temporal areas of the brain.
When defense attorney Elizabeth Little asked if the injuries were consistent with being struck by a vehicle, Sheridan responded “I would say no, it does not look like that at all.”
In cross-examination, prosecutor Adam Lally went through a stream of evidence that otherwise indicated Read struck O’Keefe with her vehicle.
Those were tiny pieces of plastic embedded in O’Keefe’s long-sleeved, hooded T-shirt that were consistent with Read’s Lexus’ taillight and that a hair found below that taillight tested for mitochondrial DNA found a well-over 99% match to O’Keefe.
Sheridan said he was not aware of any of that, but the added context did not alter his opinion of the matter. He insisted that a vehicle strike in any context would result in heavy bruising and leg injuries — and often bodily fractures — and that other than a pinpoint bruise to the side of O’Keefe’s right leg, none of that was present.
Lally asked if pieces of taillight, blunt objects as they are, could have shattered in a collision and led to small lacerations to O’Keefe’s head and face, which did have extensive injuries.
“I find that hard to even conceive of,” Sheridan said.
Crash reconstructionists
Lally presented the same evidence toward the two ARCCA scientists during his cross examination.
He also asked why, if they knew Read’s vehicle was in police custody before they issued their report on Feb. 12, 2024, they didn’t even look at it.
Both Daniel Wolfe, the director of accident reconstruction, and Andrew Rentschler, a biomechanical engineer who studies and analyzes “motion and the response of the body” in traumatic events, had the same answer: physical inspection “wasn’t necessary” in this case.
“I didn’t have enough evidence based on what I was provided in even looking at the additional evidence,” Rentschler said. “You can’t deny the science and the physics of what would happen if he was struck by the vehicle, so anything past that, you have to somehow overcome that hurdle, which is very difficult to do.”
This is a developing story.
from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/MTRitKC
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