MA - Professor Karen Read, 43, charged with murdering police officer boyfriend John O'Keefe by hitting him with car, Canton, 14 Apr 2023 #31 Retrial

[Linda7NJ]

It is worse , I believe the behavior of the LE oifficals in the entire state ,actively support the behavior and use it as a tactic to discredit better behaving people. ll moo ..

What’s msp?

 

[Soulmagent]

What’s msp?

Mass state police.

 

[Linda7NJ]

Mass state police.

Oooooh !!!

 

[mrjitty]

Maybe Hank should ask why LE didn't do a chain of custody. That way LE could state as fact there was no dog dna or dog hair etc...

Becauseeeeeee it was testified to that there were concerns about the chain of custody of the clothing and debris collected from the clothing.

NBC Boston reports that the clothing was submitted by former Trooper Proctor.

And the forensic scientist, Ashley Vallier, could not verify the chain of custody between when the clothing was collected and when it was submitted to her lab.

NBC Boston reports that the clothing debris was also scraped off O'Keefe's clothing, but the bags that contained the debris were not documented and not examined.
On top of that Yuri testified the clothing was stashed in the back of Proctor's truck for days.

If you can not verify the chain of custody between when the clothing was collected and when it was submitted to her lab then that negates what was or what wasn't on it like dog dna and dog hair etc...

Yuri never testified to that. I’ve posted his exact testimony before.

Not even AJ claimed the clothes were in the back of Proctors truck.

 

[missy1974]

oh they brought in the photo from Welcher's report, with a pedestrian accident, and major damage to the victim. Dr. Russell pointing out the the visible injuries she can see, no xrays needed.

Showing the list again...

 

[mrjitty]

It’s not Ashley’s job to verify chain of custody

IMO

She can only verify her part of the chain. Which is always the case.

The evidence was in the evidence room before being transferred to the crime lab where Ashley works.

The evidence was put out to dry at the station by Yurij and Proctor on the same day it was seized. Then it was tagged and bagged some days later. The Defence did not dispute it was in the evidence room and custody of the evidence officer once the tag/ sticker was printed. It then stayed in the evidence room until march, when it was transferred to the crime lab.

I will find the link as I already posted all this before last time this came up.

IMO

 

[Soulmagent]

Notice how comfortable Russel is on the stand. leaning back , nothing to hide . no change of shifts in attitude to either side.

 

[Warwick7]

Yuri never testified to that. I’ve posted his exact testimony before.

Not even AJ claimed the clothes were in the back of Proctors truck.

I heard him with my own ears! He had to concede JO's clothing bag was in Proctor's truck for an unspecified amount of time.

 

[MerlinFalcon]

I understand your view as well. Personally, I saw her a rightfully angry at the defense for trying to twist her words. Personally, I would have just relaxed during the questioning and trust that the CW would sort it out on cross, but she chose to be combative. I'm just saying that I feel a normal person on the jury, perhaps even more so a woman, might see her as being pressured by defense and being tough enough to stand up for herself. Everyone sees things differently, and my point is that I am concerned that the jury might see her as sympathetic.

That said, and maybe more legal expert minds could tell me the ramifications, but I feel that it is quite significant that they were able to get her to mention the "first trial" and the "FBI" several times.

P.S. I still don't understand why they didn't pressure her to ask where that "memory" came from. It's fairly specific to be a false memory, so my thought is, did she see this happen at another time, which would still look bad for the CW.

I watched her testimony in bits and pieces and just watched it in whole when I got home. I felt like her superiors were the ones who strong-armed her into changing her testimony.

I am surprised at how obnoxious she was on the stand. She was defiant when she didn’t need to be. All the non-answers regarding cameras in the sallyport weren’t needed.

 

[Spider92]

oh they brought in the photo from Welcher's report, with a pedestrian accident, and major damage to the victim. Dr. Russell pointing out the the visible injuries she can see, no xrays needed.

Showing the list again...

View attachment 590929

Yeah, what a mistake by the cw- that came back to bite them (no pun intended). Does the cw have anyone to counter Dr Russell other than the ME and Welcher?

 

[LvsAMystry]

I’m back from some time away and oh what a re-introduction to the workings and mechanizations of the underbelly of this case. Dever. She somehow imagined having seen Higgins and Berkowitz in the Sallyport for a “wildly long time”? How extraordinary that this young rookie local cop suddenly recalls the “truth” of not having seen any of that right around the time she moves from CPD to BPD and manages to get a day shift as a newbie. Nothing to see here though.

 

[missy1974]

Notice how comfortable Russel is on the stand. leaning back , nothing to hide . no change of shifts in attitude to either side.

Brennan hasn't questioned her yet She is visibly annoyed when he objects though.

I didn't watch her voir dire, but I'm going to guess, she doesn't like him lol JMO

 

[Soulmagent]

That is a tooth hole from a dog. I am a dog person and I have lost some really nice hoodies in dog training and playing .

 

[mrjitty]

Here is one of my posts about this. Includes link to YB's testimony about the seizure of the shirt and putting it out to dry on the night of the 29th.

As we know, AJ's main attack seems to be that following recovery of the shirt from the hospital it did not go straight in the evidence room but was dried in a room on butcher paper from 10pm 29 Jan until 4 February. MP & YB laid them out together, then individually left the office later that night. On the 4th the dry shirt was bagged, tagged and went into the evidence room. Later in March, the Shirt was transferred from the evidence room to the Crime lab by Proctor.

AJ claims, that because there was no "drying room log" (a thing he just invents), there is a chain of custody issue. This strikes me as a logical leap, which YB points out. He then goes on to argue with the witness about who bagged the items - we know the evidence officer printed the labels, so it seems they went into the evidence officers custody and storage that day regardless of who bagged the shirt.

Post in thread 'MA - Professor Karen Read, 43, charged with murdering police officer boyfriend John O'Keefe by hitting him with car, Canton, 14 Apr 2023 #29 Retrial'

May 22, 2025

The microscopic tail light debris in John's shirt is a core component of the CW's circumstantial case. (We still need the detailed accident evidence from Welcher).

At a high level we have:

1162 + SERT Recovery + Body at Scene + Microscopic Fragments

This is easily enough, prima facie (i.e. before D evidence) to infer vehicle involved homicide (e.g manslaughter/M2). IMO the jury will infer vehicle involved unless they really think there was staging.

Even if there could be some other explanation for the SERT recovery, the fragments really can't get in the shirt fibres except via the...

• mrjitty

• 

ETA - better link

 

[BUF]

Sustained, sustained, sustained……

Is this a lesson on how many times you can structure a new question?

 

[Angelwatch]

oh they brought in the photo from Welcher's report, with a pedestrian accident, and major damage to the victim. Dr. Russell pointing out the the visible injuries she can see, no xrays needed.

Showing the list again...

View attachment 590929

Great idea to bring this back. I remember thinking at the time how dissimilar the injuries were to JOK.

 

[Younger Sister]

Sustained, sustained, sustained……

Is this a lesson on how many times you can structure a new question?

Anything that can be done to derail the progress of the defense to present important information will be done.

 

[Soulmagent]

Rebuttal call back , she need a nap now.
'' before this case have you ever lied about testifying as an expert or have you lied about your education?

My adlib.

 

[Linda7NJ]

Dr. Russell seems to be a whole legend in her own mind.
IMO

 

[BUF]

In case anyone is interested in Dr. Laposata….

Professor at Brown University to testify for defense in Karen read Trial. Who is she?

The professor has served as an expert witness in court cases regarding criminal law before.

www.providencejournal.com