MA - Professor Karen Read, 43, charged with murdering police officer boyfriend John O'Keefe by hitting him with car, Canton, 14 Apr 2023

[ch_13]

Judge delays Karen Read murder trial after thousands of pages of new federal evidence emerges

Prosecutors have alleged that Read backed over her boyfriend and left him to die in a blizzard in Canton.

www.boston25news.com

I watched today's brief hearing. The defense said that there were thousands of pages of documents from the Feds and they would be unable to meet the court's deadlines because there was so much to go through. They also said that the documents were almost all exculpatory. The prosecution on the other hand, said that they had already been through the documents, about 90-95% of which is consistent with the commonwealth's view of the case.

Edit -
Here's what the prosecution actually said: “I would say approximately 90% to 95% of the material that we received is consistent with the commonwealth’s theory of the case and the testimony that went into the grand jury of witnesses’ statements. There is some new information that counsel will use in their motion and the commonwealth understands that. However, I would say the evidence as a whole is very consistent with prior statements made by witnesses that testified for the commonwealth.”

Sounds to me like there were some irregularities in the police investigation and/or the witness statements but the prosecutors don't believe it will torpedo their case.

 

[arielilane]

A judge has pushed back the murder trial against #KarenRead to April 16 to give both sides more time to review new discovery.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1762210778139234360

 

[arielilane]

Good afternoon from superior court in Dedham, MA where a hearing in the Karen Read case is underway. I'm told what happens today will likely be dependent on what the Judge decides about the trial date. Both sides want it postponed


Karen Read trial has been postponed. Judge has moved it to April 16th. Its a 5 week delay


Read's attorney Jackson says the feds have released 3074 pages of information from their investigation of the Karen Read case.


Jackson asking Judge for more time review the federal findings. He says there's "no possible way" he will be ready to argue motion to dismiss the case in March.


Jackson says they will also not be ready to argue their motion to disqualify in the time given. Judge says put that in writing. Jackson says they need to add new arguments to those motions based on federal disclosure.



DA's office says they have gone through all the federal findings and the "evidence is consistent with prior statements". Essentially, Prosecution says there's not much new from the feds



That's it for today. Expect a request from the defense asking for more time to work on motion to dismiss and motion to disqualify.
@TedDanielnews

 

[arielilane]

CANTON – The Karen Read murder trial will be delayed for at least a month following an appearance by the defense and prosecution in the case at Norfolk Superior Court on Monday.

At issue at the Feb. 26 hearing was over 3.000 pages of new information on a federal investigation into the case that the defense said it could not read and respond to in the original timeline.

...


Judge delays start of Karen Read murder trial. What happened in court Monday

2.26.2024

 

[HarmonyE.]

Dying to know what's in those 3,000 plus pages.

The defense says it's nearly all exculpatory. The prosecution says it's 90% old news and it supports the case against Read.

One side is clearly lying.

 

[ch_13]

Dying to know what's in those 3,000 plus pages.

The defense says it's nearly all exculpatory. The prosecution says it's 90% old news and it supports the case against Read.

One side is clearly lying.

Actually, I think they might both be telling the truth, at least to some degree.

It stands to reason that much of the evidence that the Feds have gathered is duplicative of what the commonwealth already knew. After all, they interviewed many of the same witnesses, subpoenaed the same records, etc. So the prosecution wouldn't be wrong in stating that 90%+ is already known.

At the same time that means that 5-10% is new, which is still 150 - 300 pages of evidence that was previously unknown. Presumably this is what the defense was referring to when they said that nearly all seemed exculpatory.

I too am dying to know what all this means. The commonwealth seemed to agree that there was some new exculpatory evidence, but they believed it wasn't sufficient to blow a hole through their case. I guess we'll find out.

 

[themonk]

Snipped for focus.

She even goes far enough to claim that KR yelled at her to Google it immediately once finding the body, the implication that before EMTs, LE, etc. were on scene. The two searches on her phone that the prosecution is claiming are the "actual" searches were at 6:23am and 6:24am - to correct a typo. The 911 call was made at 6:04am. IMO, 20 minutes is a significant amount of time in this situation.

"Immediately after disconnecting with 9-1-1 dispatch," attorneys for Read say McCabe made two calls at 6:07 and 6:08 to a cellphone belonging to her sister — Albert's wife, who was also out with the group the previous night — and deleted them from her phone. She also made an unanswered call to Albert at 6:23, which was also deleted, Read's attorneys say.
Less than a minute after that call, the lawyers also allege McCabe opened an article titled "How Long Does It Take to Digest Food," which the defense connects with the digestion process often being used by investigators to calculate time of death."

Who Killed John O'Keefe? Understanding the Latest Claims in the Legal Saga

The legal wrangling in the case of the killing of John O’Keefe, a Boston police officer found dead last winter outside a home in Canton, Massachusetts, has attracted outsized attention before the trial’s even begun. Attorneys for the Mansfield woman charged with second-degree murder in the death...

www.nbcboston.com

TBH I really haven't read too much about this case or even this whole thread. But making moves to delete calls/texts after strange stuff goes down is suspicious AF

This is a coverup IMO

 

[imstilla.grandma]

As Boston police officer John O’Keefe lay dying outside a home in Canton, left mortally wounded in the rapidly accumulating snow, prosecutors say his girlfriend, Karen Read, sent him a series of telling messages.

“John, I f—ing hate you!” Read allegedly screamed in one voicemail. In others, she reportedly called her boyfriend of roughly two years a “pervert” and accused him of having an affair

While searching for O’Keefe, prosecutors say Read asked McCabe, “Could I have hit him?” and “Did I hit him?” Read allegedly told another friend, “John’s dead. … I wonder if he’s dead. It’s snowing, he got hit by a plow.”

A Canton firefighter who responded to Fairview Road that morning alleged that Read stated repeatedly, “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him,” when asked how O’Keefe had been injured. Several other witnesses also testified that they’d heard Read say, “I hit him,” according to prosecutors

Some of Read’s supporters have argued that she could have broken her tail light bumping into another car while backing out of O’Keefe’s driveway, and prosecutors did acknowledge that home surveillance video shows Read’s SUV coming close to O’Keefe’s parked car. Yet officials did not find any pieces of Read’s tail light in O’Keefe’s driveway, according to the Feb. 21 motion.

Prosecutors also highlighted other evidence that allegedly ties Read’s car to the crime scene. For example, O’Keefe was seen leaving the Waterfall with a cocktail glass in his hand, and officials allegedly found pieces of a broken glass in the snow where his body was found, as well as shards of glass on Read’s rear bumper.

Prosecutors say a doctor with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner documented wounds on O’Keefe’s forearm, two swollen black eyes, cuts on his face and the back of his head, and multiple skull fractures that caused bleeding in his brain.

The doctor determined that O’Keefe’s black eyes were linked to his skull fractures and the resulting bleeding, prosecutors said. His pancreas was reportedly dark red, indicating hypothermia contributed to his death, according to officials.

“The doctor opined that the extensive injuries to his head likely rendered Mr. O’Keefe incapacitated,” prosecutors said. “The doctor further opined that upon viewing Mr. O’Keefe’s injuries and her examination of the body, she observed no signs of Mr. O’Keefe being involved in any type of physical altercation or fight.”

Read is due back in court for a hearing on March 12

Unpacking the murder case against Karen Read, as told by prosecutors

DNA evidence implicates Karen Read in her boyfriend John O'Keefe's 2022 death, prosecutors said in a new motion.

www.boston.com

 

[ch_13]

As Boston police officer John O’Keefe lay dying outside a home in Canton, left mortally wounded in the rapidly accumulating snow, prosecutors say his girlfriend, Karen Read, sent him a series of telling messages.

“John, I f—ing hate you!” Read allegedly screamed in one voicemail. In others, she reportedly called her boyfriend of roughly two years a “pervert” and accused him of having an affair

RSBM.

Wouldn't these voicemails track with her not knowing that she hit him? It seems like she believed that he hooked up with someone at the party and went home with them. IMO, they don't sound like the sort of messages that you would leave if you purposefully killed someone and were trying to establish an alibi.

I suppose the prosecutors could argue that she killed him in a drunken haze and later forgot. But then I guess she'd have to remember her actions the next morning in time to spot his body before anyone else and to scream "I hit him" to everyone around her.

 

[themonk]

TBH I really haven't read too much about this case or even this whole thread. But making moves to delete calls/texts after strange stuff goes down is suspicious AF

This is a coverup IMO

Ok, I can't stop thinking about this aspect of the case.

Again, I haven't read the whole thread but did the defendant make efforts to 'cover her tracks', delete texts/calls etc? Or is it just these others who are trying to make their actions 'disappear'?

Who deletes texts if not for some nefarious reason?? It just does not pass the smell test.

What are these people trying to hide exactly?

 

[Mert]

RSBM.

Wouldn't these voicemails track with her not knowing that she hit him? It seems like she believed that he hooked up with someone at the party and went home with them. IMO, they don't sound like the sort of messages that you would leave if you purposefully killed someone and were trying to establish an alibi.

I suppose the prosecutors could argue that she killed him in a drunken haze and later forgot. But then I guess she'd have to remember her actions the next morning in time to spot his body before anyone else and to scream "I hit him" to everyone around her.

I was just about to post the same. It does not seem likely that she would call and leave angry messages.
There are definitely curious things to this case to support both sides. I am currently not convinced that it was Karen.
*My opinions.

 

[HarmonyE.]

I was just about to post the same. It does not seem likely that she would call and leave angry messages.
There are definitely curious things to this case to support both sides. I am currently not convinced that it was Karen.
*My opinions.

The FBI has been investigating this matter for quite awhile now, and have only released limited information on what they've been working on, none of which is currently public. Not even the judge has seen it. It is not even remotely routine for them to get involved in hit and run matters, even when a cop is the victim.

Something is very wrong here.

 

[ch_13]

Ok, I can't stop thinking about this aspect of the case.

Again, I haven't read the whole thread but did the defendant make efforts to 'cover her tracks', delete texts/calls etc? Or is it just these others who are trying to make their actions 'disappear'?

Who deletes texts if not for some nefarious reason?? It just does not pass the smell test.

What are these people trying to hide exactly?

In fairness to the witness, I think a lot of people have stuff on their phone that they'd rather the cops not see. Sexts, messages to their drug dealer, etc. Not that I'm justifying deleting data, it just makes someone look more guilty. But I can see someone doing that in a panic after being asked to turn over their phone on an unrelated matter.

I should also note that in the commonwealth's recent filing, they say that Cellebrite (the company that makes the forensic software used to examine mobile devices) backs up their claim that the witness's "Ho(s) long to die in cold" google search occurred the next morning, not that night at the party. Unlike the defense expert's report, I don't think the company's report has been made public. I'd like to read it (although I probably wouldn't understand it). It'll be interesting to see if the defense drops that claim or if they double down and we get dueling experts at the trial.

 

[STLBlues]

Who deletes texts if not for some nefarious reason?? It just does not pass the smell test.

RSBM: I'm on the fence on this one. One day I think she did accidently hit him, the next I think something happened at the party. That said, in reference to your question above, I'm a tiny bit of a type A personality I regularly delete text chains, emails, etc. I cannot stand my text or email inbox to be full of items.

 

[LvsAMystry]

In fairness to the witness, I think a lot of people have stuff on their phone that they'd rather the cops not see. Sexts, messages to their drug dealer, etc. Not that I'm justifying deleting data, it just makes someone look more guilty. But I can see someone doing that in a panic after being asked to turn over their phone on an unrelated matter.

I should also note that in the commonwealth's recent filing, they say that Cellebrite (the company that makes the forensic software used to examine mobile devices) backs up their claim that the witness's "Ho(s) long to die in cold" google search occurred the next morning, not that night at the party. Unlike the defense expert's report, I don't think the company's report has been made public. I'd like to read it (although I probably wouldn't understand it). It'll be interesting to see if the defense drops that claim or if they double down and we get dueling experts at the trial.

I may be wrong but I thought the issue with Cellebrite is the opposite. Defense used Cellebrite on JM phone and it confirmed the 227 AM search “ Hos long to die in cold,” which the prosecution now questions the Cellebrite findings despite that it’s typically the gold standard so to speak. For whatever reason LE did not use Cellebrite in their data investigation but KR defense did. Again, maybe I have wrong though.

 

[louvillian08]

I may be wrong but I thought the issue with Cellebrite is the opposite. Defense used Cellebrite on JM phone and it confirmed the 227 AM search “ Hos long to die in cold,” which the prosecution now questions the Cellebrite findings despite that it’s typically the gold standard so to speak. For whatever reason LE did not use Cellebrite in their data investigation but KR defense did. Again, maybe I have wrong though.

Regarding the time stamps of the google searches: here is a video of the defense refuting the prosecution's argument - starts around the 25:50 mark.

Here are links to the best court documents I could find about this issue: Prosecution's Filing (Pages 31-32), Defense's Rebuttal (pages 4-6) - the defense's filing includes the table of google searches from the prosecution's expert's report.

After reading through those a few times and listening to the video - IMO, it sounds like the prosecution is basically (certainly simplifying things a bit here) arguing that since other websites/searches have the same time stamp, the 2:27am search comes from a suspended state tab, AND the search about "hos long to die in cold" also identically appears at 6:24am, the time stamp of the first search at 2:27am is wrong. However, as quoted in the defense's filing, the prosecution's expert says the reason for this is "unknown" and also cannot give a reason why the other searches do not appear earlier than they "actually" occurred.

In the video, the defense argues that a system of iPhone time keeping (Cocoa) is what further confirms the search time. Essentially, dating the searches to a nano-second of time. The middle school basketball webpage that is often alleged as the "true" search at 2:27, actually occurred a few nanoseconds after the search for "hos to die in the cold." It sounds like this method can't tell us exactly when the search was made but was used in conjunction with 5 other methods to confirm the search time. What this specific method can tell us though is when the tab was closed, which is where the 2:27am time stamp comes from - AKA the latest the search could have occurred.

This was impactful information to me since the prosecution's only argument has been that the search happened four hours LATER, on the instruction of KR. Speaking of which, McCabe's argument is that right when they found the body, KR screamed at her to google that. The body was discovered around 6am and the 911 call came in at 6:04am. Even if we entertain her version of the story, the searches still happen substantially later than she claims they did (6:23 and 6:24am)

Attaching my comment from page 9 of this thread with links to the filings from the prosecution and defense filings from October. Not sure if the new filings give a different story?

The prosecution says: "As detailed in Trooper Nicholas Guarino’s report (see attached at Par. 5), the
Commonwealth ran Ms. McCabe’s phone through a Cellebrite UFED reader (Ver. 7.53.0.29), that was created on May 4, 2022. The defense expert used Cellebrite Physical Analyzer Ver. 7.61.0.12, a newer updated version of the software utilized to download said material. The purportedly “incriminating” search in question does not appear in the
downloaded material using the earlier version of the software and was therefore not in the earlier extraction. The updated version of Cellebrite, that was not in existence at the time of the trooper’s initial download, does show such a search. However, the Google search, “Hos long to die in cold”, did not occur at 2:27:40 a.m." then goes on to describe their WAL theory about the timing of the search - (see my original comment for a quick summary of the defense's rebuttal to that)

The defense also claims they were the ones to discover the search after running the phone through Cellebrite and Axiom.

 

[ch_13]

I may be wrong but I thought the issue with Cellebrite is the opposite. Defense used Cellebrite on JM phone and it confirmed the 227 AM search “ Hos long to die in cold,” which the prosecution now questions the Cellebrite findings despite that it’s typically the gold standard so to speak. For whatever reason LE did not use Cellebrite in their data investigation but KR defense did. Again, maybe I have wrong though.

I think you're correct that the original prosecution expert's analysis was inadequate. But there was a recent filing by the prosecution where they stated they consulted with Cellebrite to refute the defense.

Forensic evidence implicates Karen Read in death of Boston police officer, prosecutors say in court filing - The Boston Globe

Analysts found the victim’s DNA on pieces of the broken taillight of Karen Read's car, prosecutors said.

www.bostonglobe.com

“The Commonwealth’s three experts, including the Senior Digital Intelligence Expert from Cellebrite, ... have opined based on testing, artifact knowledge, and the most accurate timestamps, that the Google searches for ‘how long ti die in cild’ [sic] and at ‘hos long ti die in cold’ were within the witnesses’ cell phone records and occurred at approximately 6:23 a.m. and 6:24 a.m., following the discovery of the victim’s body,” prosecutors wrote.

 

[louvillian08]

I think you're correct that the original prosecution expert's analysis was inadequate. But there was a recent filing by the prosecution where they stated they consulted with Cellebrite to refute the defense.

Forensic evidence implicates Karen Read in death of Boston police officer, prosecutors say in court filing - The Boston Globe

Analysts found the victim’s DNA on pieces of the broken taillight of Karen Read's car, prosecutors said.

www.bostonglobe.com

“The Commonwealth’s three experts, including the Senior Digital Intelligence Expert from Cellebrite, ... have opined based on testing, artifact knowledge, and the most accurate timestamps, that the Google searches for ‘how long ti die in cild’ [sic] and at ‘hos long ti die in cold’ were within the witnesses’ cell phone records and occurred at approximately 6:23 a.m. and 6:24 a.m., following the discovery of the victim’s body,” prosecutors wrote.

Wasn't the search allegedly at 2:27am "hos long to die in cold" ?

EDIT: this was a typo from Boston Globe. The filing has the correct spelling of the search

 

[AmandaSkis]

Wasn't the search allegedly at 2:27am "hos long to die in cold" ?

EDIT: this was a typo from Boston Globe. The filing has the correct spelling of the search

And why would there by confusion by the experts at Cellbrite as to what time the Google search occurred? It should not be difficult to ascertain that.

 

[louvillian08]

And why would there by confusion by the experts at Cellbrite as to what time the Google search occurred? It should not be difficult to ascertain that.

Exactly. Very strange both sides are alleging Cellebrite confirmed their time of the Google search. When briefly discussing with @ch_13 the one thing I was curious about is whether the prosecution is saying that Cellebrite is confirming there were ONLY two searches - at 6:23am and 6:24am.

The defense has never said there weren't searches at those times, but that there was an additional "hos long to die in cold" at 2:27am.