MA - Professor Karen Read, 43, charged with murdering police officer boyfriend John O'Keefe by hitting him with car, Canton, 14 Apr 2023 #33 Retrial

[Malleeboy]

Good post.

Brennan’s opening seemed to imply a slower speed than 24mph. He mentioned spinning tires during the reverse, IIRC. I think he knew from reconstruction that there’s no possible way the arm could get hit without bruising or broken bones at 24mph. The problem is that once you slow it down, the taillight won’t sustain the damage. It’s a catch-22.

This is exactly the challenge the prosecution has...

To brake 5mm of polycarbonate, then a gap and then 3mm for the polycarbonate takes a lot of force. This requires the car going fast.

The impact to the body is light, which means a lower speed impact.

I wonder whether the prosecution will pivot (again), to a new solution,
Glass thrown by John brakes taillight.
Then Karen backs into John and give the arm injuries but it is a lower speed impact.
Then John walks some steps but the effects of the impacts causes him to fall over farther from the car.

 

[iamshadow21]

The thing that doesn't make sense to me with the 'she hit him at 20 odd miles an hour' that I haven't seen discussed yet is... lead up.

You hit reverse and someone is right there, you're not going to be going 20mph when you hit them. It takes time to get up to speed. Especially in reverse.

Was she meant to have driven a block away and reversed back? Surely if you did that, you'd loop around and hit them head on, making sure, rather than reversing for ages and guessing.

MOO

 

[mzmarymac]

Asked earlier and didn't get a lot of responses, but maybe some guilties can help? I cannot figure out what the CW is saying happened. I need someone to draw me a map. Where was she when she started to reverse. Where was he when he got hit? Where were the other cars when she hit him? Ryan Nagle? Brian Higgins' Jeep? And where do they think she did her 3-point turn? I really need a map because it makes no sense to me at all.

 

[AngTxGal]

This is exactly the challenge the prosecution has...

To brake 5mm of polycarbonate, then a gap and then 3mm for the polycarbonate takes a lot of force. This requires the car going fast.

The impact to the body is light, which means a lower speed impact.

I wonder whether the prosecution will pivot (again), to a new solution,
Glass thrown by John brakes taillight.
Then Karen backs into John and give the arm injuries but it is a lower speed impact.
Then John walks some steps but the effects of the impacts causes him to fall over farther from the car.

Well said, and the problem is in theory the story sounds plausible.

She was drunk, he was drunk, she was angry, she backed up the car to turn around and didn’t see him.
He was struck, tore up his arm, and fell and hit his head.
She has a broken taillight and pieces of her taillight are on the ground near his body.
All of that sounds plausible- slam dunk

But- It wasn’t possible, he does not have the injuries of an arm that broke that taillight.
Too much reasonable doubt- Not Guilty

And no one is explaining what it would take for taillight shards to cut an arm like that…
They could not be disconnected from the car- and would have to be disconnected if they are on the ground!
Imagine all of these shards moving independently of each other in the air- and they are moving at 25 mph- and they align themselves like dog teeth and cut through clothing and skin to create patterns of parallel lines in a human arm- but yet they aren’t connected to the car anymore or each other!!
Let’s throw those taillight shards at someone’s arm at 25 mph and see if it works- it doesn’t

But the family and city needs someone to blame and her guilt looks plausible. They are all done with the public attention, just let her go down and get this over with!!

The DA isn’t asking for the hard questions to be answered!!
How did JOK actually become hurt?
How did those taillight pieces from KR’s car become broken and near where JOK was found???

IMO

 

[Forest_Wood]

Asked earlier and didn't get a lot of responses, but maybe some guilties can help? I cannot figure out what the CW is saying happened. I need someone to draw me a map. Where was she when she started to reverse. Where was he when he got hit? Where were the other cars when she hit him? Ryan Nagle? Brian Higgins' Jeep? And where do they think she did her 3-point turn? I really need a map because it makes no sense to me at all.

The thing is that the CW has not explained it to make sense to us. We don't know where she started the reversing. We don't know where he was standing. We don't know if she did one or two 3-pt turns. We don't know if Higgins jeep was still on the street. We don't know if this happened before or after Ryan Nagel was there. The so-called evidence is so vague that we can't figure it out.
MOO

 

[TDoc72]

So rude! That lady might be a detective for the local police department, just out restocking supplies.

Someone on Reddit referred to the officer as “red solo cop” and now I think about it and laugh every time someone mentions those cups.

Asked earlier and didn't get a lot of responses, but maybe some guilties can help? I cannot figure out what the CW is saying happened. I need someone to draw me a map. Where was she when she started to reverse. Where was he when he got hit? Where were the other cars when she hit him? Ryan Nagle? Brian Higgins' Jeep? And where do they think she did her 3-point turn? I really need a map because it makes no sense to me at all.

I agree! I need a 3d animation or even a little colored map w/Matchbox cars & a Lego minifig because nothing makes sense. If he was hit, the tailight would be at the place of impact not by the body and his head was pointed towards the road not the flagpole. I don’t even have many photos or measurements to even try to make a rudimentary one myself.
I’m reminded of one of the crime shows that recreated the deadly car accident from the rich kid/affluenza case. They had an animation that showed exactly what happened. It explained so much. And this case has “ it just did.”

 

[Spider92]

Asked earlier and didn't get a lot of responses, but maybe some guilties can help? I cannot figure out what the CW is saying happened. I need someone to draw me a map. Where was she when she started to reverse. Where was he when he got hit? Where were the other cars when she hit him? Ryan Nagle? Brian Higgins' Jeep? And where do they think she did her 3-point turn? I really need a map because it makes no sense to me at all.

I wouldn’t call myself a guilty and I’m not saying the cw is right, but those answers are pretty simple:
1. She was in front of 34FV.
2. He was about 60-80 feet behind her car
3. Ryan had already left the scene. The Jeep was in the driveway.
4. She did the 3-point turn on a nearby street.

 

[AngTxGal]

The thing that doesn't make sense to me with the 'she hit him at 20 odd miles an hour' that I haven't seen discussed yet is... lead up.

You hit reverse and someone is right there, you're not going to be going 20mph when you hit them. It takes time to get up to speed. Especially in reverse.

Was she meant to have driven a block away and reversed back? Surely if you did that, you'd loop around and hit them head on, making sure, rather than reversing for ages and guessing.

MOO

Exactly- she would have to accelerate from a stopped position!
So they need a long distance to give the car room to accelerate, which makes backing straight very difficult as cars maneuver using front wheels not back wheels.

So mental note- if I want to mow someone down with my car and not miss, I don’t choose
- intoxicated
- night time
- snow blizzard, and
- reverse!

IMO

 

[TDoc72]

I wouldn’t call myself a guilty and I’m not saying the cw is right, but those answers are pretty simple:
1. She was in front of 34FV.
2. He was about 60-80 feet behind her car
3. Ryan had already left the scene. The Jeep was in the driveway.
4. She did the 3-point turn on a nearby street.

Respectfully asking, why would he be behind her car? Standing in the roadway? Just holding his drink with his arm out waiting to be hit?

 

[iamshadow21]

Respectfully asking, why would he be behind her car? Standing in the roadway? Just holding his drink with his arm out waiting to be hit?

Especially given the weather and his light clothing. I'd be briskly walking to the source of central heating.

And didn't she sit for some time in her car alone with the dome light on? Why would he hang about?

MOO

 

[AngTxGal]

Someone on Reddit referred to the officer as “red solo cop” and now I think about it and laugh every time someone mentions those cups.

I agree! I need a 3d animation or even a little colored map w/Matchbox cars & a Lego minifig because nothing makes sense. If he was hit, the tailight would be at the place of impact not by the body and his head was pointed towards the road not the flagpole. We don’t even have many photos or measurements to even try to make a rudimentary one myself.
I’m reminded of one of the crime shows that recreated the deadly car accident from the rich kid/affluenza case. They had an animation that showed exactly what happened. It explained so much. And this case has “ it just did.”

And any good Prosecution with a slam dunk case would be able to put that together if it worked!
Problem is- it doesn’t work!

If they tried to create a visual attempt to show how it all fell in line to convince anyone KR is guilty, it would reveal all of the holes in their case.

So they are stuck with 2 mph and blue paint on someone’s arm wearing similar clothing.
It is a large ceramic crock of bovine feces

IMO

 

[Angelwatch]

The thing is that the CW has not explained it to make sense to us. We don't know where she started the reversing. We don't know where he was standing. We don't know if she did one or two 3-pt turns. We don't know if Higgins jeep was still on the street. We don't know if this happened before or after Ryan Nagel was there. The so-called evidence is so vague that we can't figure it out.
MOO

Higgins himself testified in trial #1 the jeep was at the mailbox. Several others inside also corroborated this for whatever nefarious reason they needed during the cover-up, IMHO. I don't personally believe it was there, but the placement makes the scenario of Karen backing up and hitting JOK even more implausible.

The CW's reconstruction expert couldn't answer where he was hit, how fast she was going, or where she started. Too many unknowns, apparently. And they were paid a heck of a lot of money to figure out a way to make sense of the supposed accident. All they came up with is that his arm aligned with the height of the SUV. That was it! They couldn't put any more pieces together because it simply didn't happen.

 

[themonk]

The CW know it didn't happen the way they are arguing it did. THEY KNOW THIS.

That's why their case is garbage and pretty much anyone involved in prosecuting this case has completely torpedoed their reputation.

 

[mzmarymac]

I wouldn’t call myself a guilty and I’m not saying the cw is right, but those answers are pretty simple:
1. She was in front of 34FV.
2. He was about 60-80 feet behind her car
3. Ryan had already left the scene. The Jeep was in the driveway.
4. She did the 3-point turn on a nearby street.

Thank you. This is somewhat helpful. However, if she hit him after Ryan Nagle left where was he? He was sitting behind her for several minutes and when he passed her car he saw her in there alone. Where was he for those 5 minutes or so? (Not arguing with you...just thinking out loud.)

 

[mzmarymac]

Someone on Reddit referred to the officer as “red solo cop” and now I think about it and laugh every time someone mentions those cups.

I agree! I need a 3d animation or even a little colored map w/Matchbox cars & a Lego minifig because nothing makes sense. If he was hit, the tailight would be at the place of impact not by the body and his head was pointed towards the road not the flagpole. I don’t even have many photos or measurements to even try to make a rudimentary one myself.
I’m reminded of one of the crime shows that recreated the deadly car accident from the rich kid/affluenza case. They had an animation that showed exactly what happened. It explained so much. And this case has “ it just did.”

To be fair, we do have Blue Man Dude's recreation so there's that....

 

[iamshadow21]

Thank you. This is somewhat helpful. However, if she hit him after Ryan Nagle left where was he? He was sitting behind her for several minutes and when he passed her car he saw her in there alone. Where was he for those 5 minutes or so? (Not arguing with you...just thinking out loud.)

Exactly - if I'm choosing between central heating and mooching about in someone's front yard in the middle of the night in the snow for no reason for minutes when I'm not wearing a substantial amount of outerwear, the central heating is going to win, every time. There was no logical reason for him to be there.

MOO

 

[Malleeboy]

The thing is that the CW has not explained it to make sense to us. We don't know where she started the reversing. We don't know where he was standing. We don't know if she did one or two 3-pt turns. We don't know if Higgins jeep was still on the street. We don't know if this happened before or after Ryan Nagel was there. The so-called evidence is so vague that we can't figure it out.
MOO

Welcher did have some pics that should 34 feet forward and 53 feet back, but she has to get to 29 mph (at end of but wonder how much of that is wheel spin. Problem was he basically wouldn't provide any other details, as the police didn't record things, so we don't have enough details.

Where was JoK precisely? We have in testimony 6 to 8 feet, or 10 feet etc but issue is police didn't actually properly measure his location, nor was the pieces of plastic properly located.
The ARCCA reconstruction at high speeds does show a debris area, but it was not more than 1.5m or 4 feet from the car. Where the debris here whilst not precisely located it was spread over a larger area.

 

[Malleeboy]

Respectfully asking, why would he be behind her car? Standing in the roadway? Just holding his drink with his arm out waiting to be hit?

They had had a fight about BH, and he was yelling at her (whichno one heard) maybe daring her to hit him??

 

[iamshadow21]

They had had a fight about BH, and he was yelling at her (whichno one heard) maybe daring her to hit him??

But then you have the witnesses who saw her sitting in her car alone, with the dome light on.

Surely a belligerent man walking around yelling and provoking her would have been noticed?

MOO

 

[Pipersand]

My fear. The jury will try to fill in the gaps left by the CW: Karen was there and angry. JOK was there, having just exited the vehicle. The tail light was shattered (no other testified explanation), and JOK was struck, falling and suffering serious injury. She said "she hit him". Ignore the science. Ignore the arm lacerations. Ignore the burden on the state. Guilty. That is my fear.