VERDICT WATCH MA - Professor Karen Read, 43, charged with murdering police officer boyfriend John O'Keefe by hitting him with car, Canton, 14 Apr 2023 #35 Retrial

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Hank, this is where you lose me. Why would she leave angry emails thinking John was with another woman if she knew she hit John?
And yet in the next breath he's telling the jury to use their common sense?? Seems impossible to me that the jury could ever put integrity and credibility in the same sentence with so called lead 'prosecutor' Brennan. Antics not unlike Proctor FGS.
 
He not only doesn't speak clearly, he makes silly choices in the words he uses. Tons of taillight. GMAB.
Bumbling and fumbling along as he bangs the podium. And the whine keeps finding it's way into his voice. Moo there is honestly just no comparison with what Jackson just accomplished. This goes way beyond presentation style. They are not in the same ballpark. Jmo
 
And wow... did he ever go after it... calling it a fraud ...

I was surprised he was allowed to say all he did
Oh well, when it comes down to it Jackson was talking about where truth fits into this farce of a trial after all!. I think both sides stipulated to no objections and open slather on closings ( defense team smiles during earlier delay when the judge no doubt announced 'I'll allow it'). Jmo

I remember cannone instructed the jury carefully that if an attorney made a statement of fact which conflicted with their notes/memory they're free to discard that in favour of their own notes. Closings are not evidence etc. Moo
 
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What was all that about Jen would have run inside to see if her sister was alive? Ridiculous, IMO. Jen knew John never made it inside the house
She has no idea where John had gone. But there is a dead friend on her sister's lawn, and he sister and husband have not woken to all the noise, nor her two phone calls. No care for her family. Furthermore, her brother-in-law is a trained first aider, whilst you're waiting for the ambo's to arrive. Don't get his urgent help to save John's life, but waste precious minutes.
 
She has no idea where John had gone. But there is a dead friend on her sister's lawn, and he sister and husband have not woken to all the noise, nor her two phone calls. No care for her family. Furthermore, her brother-in-law is a trained first aider, whilst you're waiting for the ambo's to arrive. Don't get his urgent help to save John's life, but waste precious minutes.
It would have been wasting precious minutes wandering off to check something she wasn't even worried about, at the same moment Kerry physically needed her to take over chest compressions. I haven't seen any evidence she didn't care for her family, that's just defence hyperbole, IMO.

Karen knew 20 minutes after getting back to Meadows that nobody knew where John was. Then changed her story from 'Waterfall' to 'John's dead, he's been hit by a snow plow' after she found out she'd been seen outside the house.

MOO
 
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I feel like the jury is being tortured.
This has got to be the most mind blowing case I have seen.
I get to somewhere and then I trip on something stupid.
The mail box was at the back bumper of BH's jeep ,the plow should have been where Jen is talking about.
It's a true effing of the mind because KR's Lexus had nothing to do with JO's death. Jackson made sure to tell the jury it's not your job to sort that 🤬🤬🤬🤬 out, that was the prosecution's burden, they failed and failed and failed, there is no option here but Ng. And he is correct. Jmo
 
Whilst I think Karen is innocent based on the evidence (not just not guilty)
However, I was thinking what if she did hit him but the crack was minor as said Barros said, but Proctor broke and planted the taillight to "cinch" the case. This skewed the impact needed to cause the damage and this may cause Karen Read to go free.
I get what you're saying here speculatively. To me it's the nature of those arm wounds that seals her factual innocence. I believe absolutely that she is innocent.

If the dog bit, you must acquit. And the dog bit.
 

6/13/25

Earlier, the defense raised concerns about the slips — having the slips shows what Yannetti meant by there being more options for guilty verdicts than not guilty — there are three lesser charges that Read could be guilty of under the umbrella of the manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence of liquor charge.

Verdict forms at MSM link.
This is still a problem as per trial x1 imo. Seems if the jury hung on the stand alone Oui lesser at the bottom of the manslaughter slip, they cannot tick not guilty to the other lessers, therefore theoretically she could be recharged with manslaughter if mistrial declared. ICBW and welcome any clarification. Is there a stand alone option for oui in this slip? Jmo

ETA having checked the verdict slips linked in the article, the stand alone Oui lesser is number 5 on the manslaughter slip
 
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It would have been wasting precious minutes wandering off to check something she wasn't even worried about, at the same moment Kerry physically needed her to take over chest compressions. I haven't seen any evidence she didn't care for her family, that's just defence hyperbole, IMO.

I'm much more interested in how Karen knew 20 minutes after getting back to Meadows that nobody knew where John was. Then changed her story from 'Waterfall' to 'John's dead, he's been hit by a snow plow' before they'd found him.

MOO
Precious minutes wasted not getting her trained brother-in-law, let's be clear compressions are tiring and a trained male immediately available would be invaluable.
 
It would have been wasting precious minutes wandering off to check something she wasn't even worried about, at the same moment Kerry physically needed her to take over chest compressions. I haven't seen any evidence she didn't care for her family, that's just defence hyperbole, IMO.

Karen knew 20 minutes after getting back to Meadows that nobody knew where John was. Then changed her story from 'Waterfall' to 'John's dead, he's been hit by a snow plow' after she found out she'd been seen outside the house.

MOO

I’m trying to square KRs behavior and BAC with testimony from witnesses.
Was she more intoxicated than she appeared?
Did she continue to drink when she arrived back at JOKs home at Meadows, when she was there to be present for his daughter?
Why did she jump to conclusions rather than consider he was simply asleep on someone’s couch?
I’ve seen interviews where she said she saw him walk into the house, and others where she did not see him walk into the house. Why are there discrepancies?

I think the defense has plenty for reasonable doubt, but no matter what the verdict is we still don’t have an explanation as to what happened.
IMO
 
I get what you're saying here speculatively. To me it's the nature of those arm wounds that seals her factual innocence. I believe absolutely that she is innocent.

If the dog bit, you must acquit. And the dog bit.

Of course there is Reasonable Doubt, and I expect KR to be found Not Guilty.
There is still a need for answers, What Happened?
Isn’t it possible-
1- KR bumped him with her car, toppling an already drunk guy down without injuring him or her car, but shoving him off balance.
2- JOK fell and hit his head on the curb, incapacitating him.
That curb is a six inch raised ledge made of asphalt. As I can’t see the pics I’m not sure what patterns Dr Laposada describes- and if they could have come from asphalt. That question wasn’t explored
3- Someone let out Chloe and she ran over and grabbed his arm.

And following you have panic- dog bites and a dog with a history and a need to cover up? Possible, but is it plausible?

IMO
 
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Precious minutes wasted not getting her trained brother-in-law, let's be clear compressions are tiring and a trained male immediately available would be invaluable.
Jackson's ridiculous (IMO) point, which was what I posted about, was that she would have thought they were all dead.

Jen made a decision, in the face of a traumatic life or death situation, and being asked to take over, to spend every second available trying to save John's life. Any CPR is better than no CPR.

MOO
 
1- KR bumped him with her car, toppling an already drunk guy down without injuring him or her car, but shoving him off balance.
2- JOK fell and hit his head on the curb, incapacitating him.
That curb is a six inch raised ledge made of asphalt. As I can’t see the pics I’m not sure what patterns Dr Laposada describes- and if they could have come from asphalt. That question wasn’t explored

It's true that asphalt ledge may be theoretically capable of causing that wound pattern had John fallen backwards onto it.
The main problem with the theory is that the head injury was so severe that John was immediately incapacitated. He was out cold. You need to ask yourself, how did he get up and move himself over to the flagpole?

3- Someone let out Chloe and she ran over and grabbed his arm.
And following you have panic- dog bites and a dog with a history and a need to cover up? Possible, but is it plausible?

The evidence suggests that the dog bites / scratches happened when John was still alive, heart beating. So sure, maybe it happened in the seconds or minutes after the head injury. But I just can't imagine any scenario when this dog attacks an incapacitated man lying on the ground.
 
The idea that JOK was bumped by KR in a way that doesn't shatter the tail light (rather than not hit at all) doesn't fit with many cw so-called facts ...
1 It proves a lie of their claim that the tail light pieces landed where JOK landed (a thesis that really doesn't work on all kinds of levels) -- raising the question of how those pieces got there, and why,
2 For the vehicle to strike JOK in a way that propelled him somewhere, it had to actually HIT him with some force, and that force would create damage to his body - yet JOK didn't have so much as a bruise or broken bone that could have been caused by a vehicle [which raises the side issue of, if you want to say KR vehicle gently nudged him so lightly that there's no harm to him whatsoever, can that even be considered her causing his death rather than him being so impaired by alcohol that he stumbled and fell and hit his head? but we can't really even land there either, because ....],
3 It doesn't account for the dog bites on the arm,
4 The dog bites had to have happened while the blood was circulating according to the medical testimony (the nature of the wounds show it was to a living person, not dead) while the blow to the head was an immediately-incapacitating injury that would have led to death very soon thereafter.

There's one other thing that regularly keeps being ignored (or falsely stated), and imo helps obscure the truth, and AJ did well to try to make it clear in closing: there is a LOT of evidence, all of which fits together, which showed that JOK almost certainly went inside (inside the house, or garage). That evidence is fact and cannot be ignored.

The circular-reasoning claim that "JOK went inside must not be true because where's the evidence' ignores the very clear truth that Proctor deliberately chose not to look for any evidence in the house, because he decided in advance that cops couldn't have been involved.

However, despite the cw's best efforts, the very tech data that the cw used DID offer helpful evidence
1 There is no evidence in the tech data of the moment of JOK death or of him being hit as he exited the vehicle at a supposed time,
2 In fact, it shows JOK movement after exiting the car included 36 steps (which obviously he didn't take while in the car), which, not coincidentally imo, is the distance from the road to the house/garage,
3 It showed that movement was toward the house generally,
4 The data from the phone disappeared for 12 minutes at 12:24 - the cw expert called it a "low accuracy" stream of data but further explained there was basically no signal or info being transmitted during that time - and then explained a main reason this happens is when a phone goes inside a building (!!!),
5 We have no way to know, after that point, if JOK was actually in possession and control of his phone for any subsequent "actions" (I would suggest he was not).
6 If we consider all of the above, in the context of dog bite injuries, and no vehicle-caused injuries, the truth of what must have happened is completely different from the story the cw wants us to believe.

Oh, and by the way, once we consider all that, then it further destroys any possibility that JOK could have been bumped by KR in a way that didn't shatter the tail light. He was elsewhere when she was backing up or whatever, dealing with a dog attack and who knows what else. Why? I dunno, but a ROBUST investigation needs to figure it out. JOK deserves much better than this lazy and inaccurate drek the cw has offered.
 
Sorry if this was already discussed, but do we know why Hank called for a sidebar Friday morning just before closing arguments were set to begin? It led to an ~ hour delay, during which KR was reported to have been smiling.

We were never told, but my prior speculation was that it had to do with motions that had been submitted and decided by JudgeB overnight, and I think the content of the closing (particularly by AJ) supported that idea.

Among those motions (whose decisions were never revealed in open court afaik) were:
1 The cw investigation was improper, incomplete, and biased. So the def is allowed to argue that the nature of that non-investigation is evidence FOR the defense and for unknown-but-real contrary evidence, inasmuch as the cw has an obligation to investigate fully, and failure to properly investigate and rule out other alternatives to the crime leaves it reasonable to assume something else could have happened that the cw failed to look for.
2 The cw essentially "hid" significant cw actors who had evidence that was part of the case - ie Proctor, Higgins, Albert- from the jury. So, based on the cw's failure to call them to present their evidence and be subject to cross, the def is allowed to offer the presumption to the jury that the cw is hiding something, and further elaborate on what that may have been and why, and/or use that in whatever other way the def felt it would help their case.
3 HB deliberately lied to the jury and everyone else about the holes in the hoodie and the JOK x-rays too. The def felt that more should be allowed on those topics and they should be able to personally de-pants HB himself and his actions.

Within his closing, AJ clearly hammered the cw's case in ALL of those areas, emphasizing the shoddy failure to even look in the house at all for evidence of what may have happened, speaking extensively of Proctor the lead investigator and his bias and unexplained misdeeds, and talking at length about how HB didn't tell the truth to the jury because of his desperation to get a conviction when the evidence clearly shows KR didn't even do anything wrong.

The permissions to make those points vividly (which were very much REQUIRED by the law, under the circumstances of the cw's actions, although you never know with JudgeB) is what I think the def was celebrating, and the cw was bummed about. Although the evidence itself was compelling for the def as AJ outlined, I think it was incredibly helpful for the jury to hear WHY this case was even tried with such crappy evidence and lying witnesses that really didn't hold up to scrutiny. (It also leaves the jury with the comfort that if you want someone to pay for what happened to JOK, it's the cw's deliberate fault you didn't get that.)
 
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