MA - Professor Karen Read, 43, charged with murdering police officer boyfriend John O'Keefe by hitting him with car, Canton, 14 Apr 2023 #30 Retrial

[AngTxGal]

If we didn’t have so much evidence of the coverup, I would actually be ok with Jen’s demeanour outside of not identifying John as a friend or a cop. When someone is hysterical and another person is there, it’s better that they be somewhat calm.

However in this case, Jen knew exactly what happened inside and was part of, if not the head of, this coverup. Someone, somewhere needs to be charged with their physical crimes, and the rest of them need to be charged with letting him die.

So where is the motive for JOK to be killed or even beat up? What was the issue between JOK and JM, or the family, or Canton cops? I’ve not heard JOK was a fighter, had a temper, had a confrontation with anyone. No motive
A coverup could be shotty police work, or even cops feeling threatened trying to make a case more solid. That does not support that he went into the house and they killed him.
JM text to see if he had arrived, no one says he came into the home.
The simplest explanation is she hit him. For some reason on the drive she changed her mind, didn’t want to stay, they argued about something, KR clearly was angry and jealous as per her voicemail and texts- and she was drunk. She blew a 0.093% hours after the incident. She was over the limit of 0.08% the next morning. No way she wasn’t impaired

 

[AngTxGal]

We don’t know when she left the house though. However, we know when she arrived at his house and she would have had to drive like a maniac to make your theory work.

As far as the glass goes, they knew he entered the home and they wanted to make it seem like he didn’t so they easily could have taken that glass and dropped it to the ground so that it would break. Make sure his hat and second shoe are also outside. End of story from their point of view, no sign of him inside, case closed. Except Karen fought back.

There is no dispute she was intoxicated, as she was still over the legal alcohol limit when she was tested the next morning. The voicemails and texts she sent him that night, sounds like an intoxicated maniac to me, and not someone who should have been driving. And 50 texts? Yeah, that is a maniac to me.
We know she hit his car when backing up the morning she went to look for him- it is on video. She was still impaired and blew a 0.09% BAC. What time was that test? It was after 6AM, did she continue to drink when she went to John’s house?

Is it possible she hit him with her car hard enough to hurt him and he hit his head on something- yes.
Do I buy that cops may have tried to make the case stick more solidly- Yes.
Do I buy that the cops and family killed him and tried to cover it up? No.
Do I think she hit him on purpose? Not really, many people do things with cars when they are intoxicated that they do not mean to do.
Of course she may get off because she is fighting it- but common sense to me says she hit him with her car because she was intoxicated and angry.
The one question I have is this- Did she know she hit him with her car? Did she get out and check on him? Did she leave so quickly she didn’t know?

 

[mrjitty]

So where is the motive for JOK to be killed or even beat up? What was the issue between JOK and JM, or the family, or Canton cops? I’ve not heard JOK was a fighter, had a temper, had a confrontation with anyone. No motive
JM text to see if he had arrived, no one says he came into the home.
The simplest explanation is she hit him. For some reason on the drive she changed her mind, didn’t want to stay, they argued about something, KR clearly was angry and jealous as per her voicemail and texts- and she was drunk. She blew a 0.093% hours after the incident. She was over the limit of 0.08% the next morning. No way she wasn’t impaired

It's interesting on X yesterday, Alessi inadvertently teased out that we don't know where the Lexus started backing from, because it was already going forwards at 13mph when trigger 2 started recording the data. So she might have driven forward as much as 75 feet before she started the high speed reverse, in which case in the dark and possibly poor visibility, she might not have seen him.

I think you are correct - she was drunk, reversed too hard (also why it triggered for the 3pt), in poor viz, hit him a glancing blow - likely never saw him in my view.

IMO

 

[justbeachy]

Good morning and "Happy 1st Day of KR Defense" Day to all who celebrate! LOL! I'm really interested to see how they approach things this time around. Those videos (although taken completely out of context IMO and I would love to hear more of the accompanying questions) are not doing her any favors! Why why why would her defense team "let" her do those?? They have to cringe each time one is played.

IMO MOO and all that good stuff

 

[Izzylizzy]

test

 

[MerlinFalcon]

So where is the motive for JOK to be killed or even beat up? What was the issue between JOK and JM, or the family, or Canton cops? I’ve not heard JOK was a fighter, had a temper, had a confrontation with anyone. No motive
JM text to see if he had arrived, no one says he came into the home.
The simplest explanation is she hit him. For some reason on the drive she changed her mind, didn’t want to stay, they argued about something, KR clearly was angry and jealous as per her voicemail and texts- and she was drunk. She blew a 0.093% hours after the incident. She was over the limit of 0.08% the next morning. No way she wasn’t impaired

I don’t believe he was intentionally murdered. Jen tried to separate Karen from John at the bar when they were leaving. Higgins was gesturing to John to come to the house and had to be physically restrained by two of the Alberts. He wanted to confront John and I think he reasoning was he was going to show John the texts between Karen and himself. John went inside, there was pushing and shoving and he likely was punched in the face and fell backwards, opening the wound to the back of his head. Chloe got involved and ripped up his arm because she wasn’t good with strangers and he had never been in the house before. Suddenly they have to figure out what to do and they came up with a plan to put him outside in the middle of the night.

Notice that every single person except Julie N said they didn’t see his 6’1” 216 pound body on the lawn? The plow driver drove past and knew the house. He didn’t see a body on the lawn. A couple of hours later he saw a ford edge parked in front of the house right by the area that the body ended up.

Where was the rest of this glass? Could it be it broke in the house and they swept up the pieces and only left part of it ever so handily on the road? How did the taillight break into 47 pieces? Try knocking on the taillight of your own vehicle and see how hard it is.

There is so much evidence pointing to a coverup but that isn’t the defence’s burden. They are working to get their client freed. Once that hopefully happens, someone above the Canton and state police need to dive in. There won’t be justice for John until that happens.

 

[MerlinFalcon]

Good morning and "Happy 1st Day of KR Defense" Day to all who celebrate! LOL! I'm really interested to see how they approach things this time around. Those videos (although taken completely out of context IMO and I would love to hear more of the accompanying questions) are not doing her any favors! Why why why would her defense team "let" her do those?? They have to cringe each time one is played.

IMO MOO and all that good stuff

Did they let her or did she just go ahead and do it? She is very strong willed and it wouldn’t surprise me if she just did it against their advice. Who knows but in any event, it was a bad decision.

 

[Tortoise]

We don’t know when she left the house though. However, we know when she arrived at his house and she would have had to drive like a maniac to make your theory work.

RSBM

Reversing at over 23 mph is dangerous driving.

It has been calculated that she would have had to have driven at speeds between 32.5 mph and 39.5 mph (depending on route taken which is not known) to get to his house in 4 mins and 15 secs, and that's not allowing for a WiFi connection before she pulled in to the drive. That is easily doable, IMO, in a modern car, on largely empty roads.

MOO

 

[mrjitty]

Yes it was a memory. From seeing him at on the ground, in the snow at 6am on January 29th. There's a reason the CW has to play clips cut up and without any context

Some of the clips are unaired takes. We can even see from other edits, she has multiple takes on the same sound bite.

The defence has had opportunities to make arguments about context/completeness and the ultimate edit - we've seen that play out.

IMO

 

[AngTxGal]

It's interesting on X yesterday, Alessi inadvertently teased out that we don't know where the Lexus started backing from, because it was already going forwards at 13mph when trigger 2 started recording the data. So she might have driven forward as much as 75 feet before she started the high speed reverse, in which case in the dark and possibly poor visibility, she might not have seen him.

I think you are correct - she was drunk, reversed too hard (also why it triggered for the 3pt), in poor viz, hit him a glancing blow - likely never saw him in my view.

IMO

We can guess where the car was when JO got out. She doesn’t say he walked in front of her car, so he must have walked behind it. If he was walking to the door- and walked behind her car, she must have been near the mailbox. If she was parked way back near the flagpole- he would have gotten out and walked around the front of the car.
I think she was near the driveway- he got out and walked around the back of the car with the glass in his hand. This means his right arm was bent to hold the glass.
What I can square is the force required to break the tail light on his arm. Did he drop the glass and bend down to pick it up and she hit him in the head with the car?
Did she catch him with the bumper? Did he stagger across the yard and fall and hit his head?
Did she back up and injury him and continue to back up quickly, angry and drunk and hit him more than once while he was staggering around?
It is a long ways from the driveway to where he was found, near the glass, and tail light plastic.
I don’t know- but seems clear to me that she is responsible.
IMO

 

[justbeachy]

Did they let her or did she just go ahead and do it? She is very strong willed and it wouldn’t surprise me if she just did it against their advice. Who knows but in any event, it was a bad decision.

Completely agree! That's why I put "let" in quotes since I don't think they can really stop her (or any defendant) from doing whatever they want. It's also why I think they cringe every time one is played. If I was her attorney I would want to strangle her every time. LOL! If she is convicted, I think those clips will play a large part in the reason. IMO

 

[mrjitty]

RSBM

Reversing at over 23 mph is dangerous driving.

It has been calculated that she would have had to have driven at speeds between 32.5 mph and 39.5 mph (depending on route taken which is not known) to get to his house in 4 mins and 15 secs, and that's not allowing for a WiFi connection before she pulled in to the drive. That is easily doable, IMO, in a modern car, on largely empty roads.

MOO

I was disappointed Welcher didn't take a crack at the 3.43 record with Karen's Lexus!

I have actually seen a case where detectives took it on themselves to try a speed run - the Judge was not that amused lol.

 

[AngTxGal]

I don’t believe he was intentionally murdered. Jen tried to separate Karen from John at the bar when they were leaving. Higgins was gesturing to John to come to the house and had to be physically restrained by two of the Alberts. He wanted to confront John and I think he reasoning was he was going to show John the texts between Karen and himself. John went inside, there was pushing and shoving and he likely was punched in the face and fell backwards, opening the wound to the back of his head. Chloe got involved and ripped up his arm because she wasn’t good with strangers and he had never been in the house before. Suddenly they have to figure out what to do and they came up with a plan to put him outside in the middle of the night.

Notice that every single person except Julie N said they didn’t see his 6’1” 216 pound body on the lawn? The plow driver drove past and knew the house. He didn’t see a body on the lawn. A couple of hours later he saw a ford edge parked in front of the house right by the area that the body ended up.

Where was the rest of this glass? Could it be it broke in the house and they swept up the pieces and only left part of it ever so handily on the road? How did the taillight break into 47 pieces? Try knocking on the taillight of your own vehicle and see how hard it is.

There is so much evidence pointing to a coverup but that isn’t the defence’s burden. They are working to get their client freed. Once that hopefully happens, someone above the Canton and state police need to dive in. There won’t be justice for John until that happens.

I think you’ve done a great job creating a story that seems possible, and this may work for the jury to get her off, but that doesn’t mean it is what happened.

KR says she saw JO walk into the house, yet all of the people in the house say they didn’t see him. So that means all of them were willing to perjure themselves in court? I don’t think that is likely.

I don’t think the wounds on his arm look like dog bites. Google dog bites on an arm- they don’t look like that and the side of your arm is not where you get hurt defending yourself. Those bites should be on the underside of his lower arm- not outside of upper arm.

Others have testified that they never even met the dog and had gone to the house many times. Where was this dog kept that it attacked him but others came in the house and never had seen the dog?

His face wounds do not look like a fist fight- he barely had any skin broken. They look to me like he hit the back of his head on a curb and got a skull fracture and concussion.

Do I think the cops jumped in to try to make the case more ‘solid’ ? Yes, that is possible. But I think the entire situation began with an argument and a drunk woman who was angry and jealous backed up and hit him with her car. Is it in debate if she was angry? No, Drunk? No. Jealous? No. She may have not done it on purpose- still she is responsible

All my opinion

 

[missy1974]

IMO Welcher clearly explains the following on X

1. Ignition on event creates a key cycle. Unlike in Trial 1, we now have the ignition on/off timestamps and odometer read. This stuff is saved in the infotainment system and since recovered from the SD card redundancy. So in this case we do know the time 1162 was created.

2. Separately the EDR diagnostics system (the so called black box airbag module) monitors the Lexus data stream in realtime. When it sees something it considers interesting, it creates a marker with elapsed time and odometer read, for the particular key cycle. and saves the stream 5 seconds plus and minus from the trigger.

So while the EDR does not save the absolute time, you know what it is via the key cycle time stamp in the infotainment. This is just obvious stuff. Toyota wouldn't build a diagnostics system where you couldn't reconcile the data to the trip.

What Alessi tries to do, is go on to introduce the Trooper Paul cross about 1164 and 1167. But we know Paul simply was confused about that because he didn't have timestamps. All his testing is in fact in 1167 post impoundment. Then the Judge shut it down. My guess is Welcher had no idea what Alessi was even trying to imply about "trip counting" as presumably he doesn't spend his days deep in the folklore of this case.

Even if you disagree somehow on all of the above, 1162 simply cannot be the tow truck load as AJ argued in T1. The reason is that the tow truck load is only 70 seconds long and the timing is independently confirmed by video.

It does seem like in his case in chief, Alessi will try to jazz hands this, because I guess what else can he do. We have video footage from the Waterfall to corroborate the beginning of key cycle 1162, Ring video for 1163 and 1164 (Dighton), tow truck video for 1165 and 1166 AND the odometer corroboration AND the 3 point turn GPS.

Relevant X from Welcher

All my opinion based on the trial testimony of Welcher.

This is from Welcher's direct examination ...

in the maintenance software what we see is and this is noted in the report too that when the vehicle gets into the Canton Police Department after this event you can see the mileage is 12,665 miles so that shows up um in Trooper Paul's report it shows up in the photographs and it shows up as matching the mileage in the text stream data both at triggers 1164 and triggers 1167

Even Welcher said it was in the possession of Canton Police Department for 1164. I do not think they have the times matched with the key cycles precisely, I still think they have a list of key cycles, they have a list of times, they matched what fit. But it doesn't mean it's right.

That isn't jazz hands, that seems to be the evidence at this point, no? Even their own expert said it. (Brennan quickly moved on)

 

[missy1974]

For anyone saying it doesn't matter that key cycle 1162 wasn't challenged during the cw's case, and that defence didn't challenge the expert's opinion that an arm can shatter a taillight of a car travelling over 8 mph, this is incorrect.

Defense counsel has a duty to challenge the commonwealth's evidence during cross-examination of cw's experts, if it is their case that the expert's evidence is wrong.

See -

Kulbicki v. State

In 1995, Petitioner was convicted of first-degree murder and the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. In 2006, the Supreme Court determined in Clemons v. State that, under the Frye-Reed standard, Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis (CBLA) evidence was not generally accepted by the...

law.justia.com

Kulbicki v. State​

In 1995, Petitioner was convicted of first-degree murder and the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. In 2006, the Supreme Court determined in Clemons v. State that, under the Frye-Reed standard, Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis (CBLA) evidence was not generally accepted by the scientific community. Within a few years of his conviction, Petitioner sought post-conviction relief, arguing that the admission of “unreliable” CBLA evidence during his trial in the form of testimony from Agent Ernest Peele of the Federal Bureau of Investigation constituted a due process violation and that his attorneys provided ineffective assistance for failing adequately to cross-examine Agent Peele. The circuit judge denied relief, and the court of special appeals affirmed. The Court of Appeals reversed Petitioner’s conviction and remanded for a new trial, holding that Petitioner’s attorneys rendered ineffective assistance when they failed to investigate a report Peele co-authored in 1991 that presaged the flaws in CBLA evidence and to challenge the State’s scientific evidence on cross-examination at trial.


Driscoll, 71 F.3d at 709.

71 F3d 701 Driscoll v. Delo Driscoll | OpenJurist

openjurist.org

[...] Considering the circumstances as a whole, defense counsel's failures to prepare for the introduction of the serology evidence, to subject the state's theories to the rigors of adversarial testing, and to prevent the jury from retiring with an inaccurate impression that the victim's blood might have been present on the defendant's knife fall short of reasonableness under the prevailing professional norms.

Interesting considering that Alessi wanted to do exactly that yesterday but was DENIED by the judge.

JMO

 

[AngTxGal]

To me her speaking in public and on the documentary shows a lack of self awareness, she doesn’t realize how bad she looks. She comes across pretty cocky and too self assured. She also seems to enjoy all of the attention.

I don’t think she did it on purpose. But it isn’t up for debate that she was angry, jealous, and drunk.

I think she likely hit him with her car. The situation is a result of bad choices, why would it be a shock that more bad choices are to follow? I’m not shocked.

KR also opens up the possibility that she could have hit him, run over his foot. Hmm, that isn’t possible if she saw him walk into the house!- which is what she states as true.

She is contradicting her own words. Hmm. Not smart

Completely agree! That's why I put "let" in quotes since I don't think they can really stop her (or any defendant) from doing whatever they want. It's also why I think they cringe every time one is played. If I was her attorney I would want to strangle her every time. LOL! If she is convicted, I think those clips will play a large part in the reason.

 

[geevee]

Legally, the defense cannot play any clips to provide context. The only way Karen can say anything during the defense's case is if she decides to testify.

Yet another good reason why they never should have been allowed into the trial, and a very good appeal issue should the jury convict her of anything.

After seeing the CW's entire case I generally wouldn't be too concerned with a conviction, but after the 8-4 split of Trial #1 on the lesser included, you just never know how a jury is collectively going to see things.

 

[missy1974]

This is who Karen said their first witness will be... Matt DiSogra... hoping for an interesting day!

I do hope he is asked if the Lexus went into space

Since he is an expert with EDR's, I am hoping we can get some clarity on a few things. After listening to him on a podcast yesterday, I learned that the data that they get off the vehicle is only as good as the person reading it. He doesn't fault the person/people reading it, he basically said that there is so much data that vehicles can spit out now, that someone, like an accident reconstructionist, cannot be expected to be on top of all the new things coming out, including the programs to read it, and that there is a high demand for people like him to extract and read the data for them.

I hope if the defense is able to address the key cycles, they keep it simple for the jury (not like Trooper Paul's testimony lol).

 

[Tortoise]

Interesting considering that Alessi wanted to do exactly that yesterday but was DENIED by the judge.

JMO

Are you referring to the ruling on questioning Welcher about Trooper Paul's report from trial 1? Or something else?

Alessi had Dr Welcher's report and he was freely able to cross-examine him on his methods. He testified he did not use Trooper Paul's work. How is that a denial of opportunity?

 

[justbeachy]

To me it shows a lack of self awareness, she doesn’t realize how bad she looks. She comes across pretty cocky and self assured and not at all looking for JO’s justice but focusing on her own. Yes, she should be focusing on her own- but two kids lost their uncle/father, and she cared for those kids. A lot of people have been drug through the mud in addition to her.
I don’t blame her for resisting being drug through the mud- as I don’t think she did it on purpose. But it isn’t up for debate that she was angry, jealous, and drunk. I think she likely hit him with her car. The situation is a result of bad choices, why would it be a shock that more bad choices are to follow? I’m not shocked at all, we all know people like that.
KR also opens up the possibility that she could have hit him, run over his foot. Hmm, that isn’t possible if she saw him walk into the house- which is what she states as true. She is contradicting herself.

I don't think she hit him and honestly, after 3 years of fighting for her freedom and listening to all of the lies and coverups, I'm not surprised that she isn't showing a lot of emotion. I wouldn't be either. I would be furious with the cops, the "friends," the system as a whole, and even though I would mourn JO's death, after 3 years I wouldn't have the emotions I had when it initially happened.

They were both jealous people as shown in their text messages. They had both been drinking that night as had the whole lot of them. She clearly was angry about something as evidenced in her voice messages. We don't know about what. I do know that I've left some pretty scathing voicemails when I was PO'd that looking back I thought to myself, "Dang girl, calm down. You sound like a lunatic." LOL

KR also opened up a lot of other possibilities for what could have happened. She rattled off a laundry list of scenarios because she obviously didn't know what happened. I would have done the same thing. And among them would have been, "OMG could I have hit him" because that's a reasonable thing to ask when you are frantically searching for answers. However, once a proper investigation had been done (one without a coverup and with correct investigative methods) that showed I had not hit him, and I had to sit through listening to how the keystone cops bungled (even planted?) evidence, and the coverup and lies, I would not be a wilting, emotional flower in court either.

IMO