Oddly enough, just as I was reading your post, I watch watching a Court TV YouTube video from 5 months ago about this case. Vinnie had a few people on, including Melanie Little, who said she'd never seen it in 30 years.
Having not followed this case until the trial started, I'm shocked they went ahead with trial after the feds got involved. For those of you who have been following since the beginning, is that kindof the consensus? Did most of you think there was no way this was going to trial?
I've been following the case since the news of John's death hit the Boston Globe. The police told the Globe they had video of Karen hitting John, so like everyone else I assumed they had their woman, but was curious to know if it was likely intentional or an accident. But like everything else associated with the police here, this alleged video turned out to be deliberate misinformation.
I knew there was a lot of noise once Turtleboy got involved in 2023. My daughter told me, you don't understand, he was killed in that house. And I was like, dear child, that's what good defense attorneys do. They muddy things. And TB isn't someone to pay attention to. So she showed me those autopsy photos and the second I saw his arm I knew that wasn't caused by a car, but appeared to be animal marks.
We had no way of knowing at the time, but TB, aside from being a rabble rouser, was little more than a conduit for information that the defense got from the FBI and passed on to Karen. The FBI had been involved since very early on, but no one knew. Read likely couldn't find a legitimate news source (the Globe has done a terrible job reporting the case since the start) and he was all she could get, IMO.
TB is shrewd and knew he'd struck gold with the story. He quickly gathered, as one district attorney called them, "his minions". They made a ton of noise, bought billboard space, printed posters and business cards and set up what they call stand-outs of protestors all over the state. Nine of these protestors in Canton were arrested for picketing in front of Chris Albert's pizza shop. They still haven't gone to trial.
All of this appears to have enraged Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey. He took the step of releasing a prerecorded statement in August of last year fully vouching for Michael Proctor (ouch!) and telling protesters it all needs to stop. (fighting words for First Amendment lovers). And then he took the extra step of vouching for the people in the house that night. Good people trying to be good citizens telling what they know. The full statement can be found on YouTube.
Many think, myself included, think Michael Morrissey is the one who wanted the trial pushed through. He wrote letters to the FBI trying to find out what they were up to, and they just pushed back on him, telling him nothing. My guess is this further upset - and possibly enraged - Morrissey to the point that he wanted this over and done as soon as possible.
This may also be why the judge rushed the trial through. Both sides requested a continuance and she refused. She doesn't technically report to Morrissey, but may have gotten a clear message that his needs to be done now. I'm not sure anyone really anticipated the world-wide interest in the case. Or how bad things would turn out for all of the Commonwealth witnesses.
Sorry for the long story, but this is the context from my perspective.