Karen Read Murder Trial, Week 9: After Demolishing the Prosecution in the Battle of Experts, the Defense Quickly Rests. Now the Wait for a Verdict Begins.
It took more or less 29 days of testimony - spread out over eight weeks and consisting of over five dozen witnesses - for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to present its evidence that on the night of January 29th, 2022, Karen Read did willfully, intentionally, and with malice aforethought, murder her boyfriend Officer John O'Keefe. By ramming him with the right taillight of her Lexus SUV outside of 34 Fairview Road Canton, and leaving him to freeze to death in a blizzard.
On that day, which was Friday of last week, Read's defense was then given the opportunity to present its case. And wrapped it by the close of business on Monday. Essentially, keeping things short and sweet. The Hawk Tuah of criminal trials.
By way of background, here's where we left off in the middle of the day Friday.
And this being the murder trial of the Commonwealth vs. Karen Read, there was no way we'd get to spend the two days between court dates without people acting like colossal fecking imbeciles. Specifically, people in the 34 Fairview sphere of influence - meaning friends and family of the Alberts and the McCabes - verbally and physically assaulting Turtleboy and his girlfriend for the crime of having dinner in Canton:
And picking up criminal charges for the same:
Note that second clip, in which some mouth-breathing goon makes non-consentual physical contact with Turtleboy's girlfriend, thus meeting the Mass. General Law's definition of Assault & Battery. And this young lady, who leapt out of the vehicle to go full Wax On/Wax Off on a public sidewalk, is Jill Daniels:
She would be the sister of Julie Albert of "Trooper Bukkake" fame:
Making her the sister-in-law of Canton Selectman Chris Albert and aunt of Colin, who gained notoriety with his famous "Pull up, bitch! Bang! Bang!" videos after testifying he's basically a Thoreau-like pacifist. This was all done by them - captured on video - in order to make their case that they're not the stupid apes with crippling anger issues and zero self control they've been portrayed as by the haters on social media. They're actually the nice ones.
And here's the thing about that. Your opinion may vary, but I absolutely think that, of all the Irish pubs in all the towns in all the world, Turtleboy chose that particular restaurant next door to that family pizza joint for the soul purpose of dunking on them. Which is his right as a free American. And if you're trying to present yourself as non-violent, non-raving, non-lunatics, the sorts of people who would never cover up your family's involvement in a homicide, let him be. If you'd like the world to think you're NOT part of a weirdly cloistered, cliquey, incestuous little community where people who are friendly with certain cops can get away with anything, don't take the cheese and harass a blogger who's spent two and a half years trying to prove you are. But these half-witted suburban hillbillies couldn't control their worst impulses, and got their feeble brains tied into balloon animals.
Now back to our regularly scheduled court proceedings.
When we left off Friday, the defense had called its first witness, Brian "Lucky" Loughran, who was plowing the roads around Fairview that night. And in one of the great little nuances of this trial that will have to make it into the final script of all the docudramas it will surely follow, was behind the wheel of Frankentruck:
Because of course he was.
Loughran's testimony is significant because he made several passes by the Albert's house in the six or so hours between the time Read allegedly left O'Keefe on the front lawn to die and the time the first responders were called, and never saw a body lying there.
I'm going to come right out and admit my own bias here. One, because I've already begun work on my Lucky and the Frankentruck screenplay, where he's a sort of cross between Burt Reynold's Bandit and Kurt Russell's Jack Burton from Big Trouble in Little China. And two, because I like this guy. At least I like what he represents. He strikes me as the kind of blue collar guy we all tend to take for granted, but without his effort and professionalism, pulling all-nighters in a raging blizzard, the rest of us can't function. The sort of guy with dirty hands and a clean soul.
Lucky's also been through tragedy in his life. And even though, like seemingly everyone else in Canton, has personal connections to the Alberts and the McCabes:
… he's one of the few who took the stand without an agenda. With no involvement other than to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about what he observed on the night in question. And he did. Give his testimony whatever weight you wish to, but it resonates with me.
Next up was Rick Green, a data analyst who presented his opinion that Jen McCabe's legendary "hos long to die in cold" Google search happened long before O'Keefe was found lying near death the next morning. Making it all the more horrifying:
And that O'Keefe was actively walking up and down stair cases long after he stepped out of Read's Lexus:
Yet, for all the credible testimony and professionalism Green brought to bear on this grave, solemn proceeding, there was no listening to him speak without all of us thinking the same thing:
From there, the defense went to its Mortal Kombat "Choose Your Fighter" screen of expert witnesses to refute the claims made by the prosecution's forensics people. And if you'll forgive me mixing video game analogies with sports metaphors in the same paragraph, in football terms, this was Bears vs. Patriots in Super Bowl XX. The major difference being that at least the Pats kicked a field before they gave up the next 46 unanswered. I can't recall a single Commonwealth expert putting points on the board. Compare for a second witness for the prosecution Trooper Joseph Paul with Dr. Daniel Wolfe, who was brought into this by the federal investigation:
Dr. Wolfe is an accident reconstruction expert with no ties to the Commonwealth or the defense. That the Crash Daddy also happens to be a tall glass of Prosecco was not lost on any of the ladies watching. Which created this instantly viral moment:
And my personal favorite, for its exquisite needle drop:
Anyway, Dr. Wolfe used actual physics, backed up by data points and measurable results instead of just mumbling his way through the questions, to back up his conclusion that John O'Keefe could not have suffered the injuries he did from being hit with the back corner of an SUV. To the point he tested a theory O'Keefe may have thrown his cocktail glass through the taillight:
… by building a fricking cannon:
As the female audience swooned:
The prosecution calls Mushmouth to present its case. The defense answers with a Mythbuster with a knack for building kickass gadgets, actual expertise in his field, and the ability to articulate it in layman's terms. There's your difference. And it even left the ADA speechless:
From there they called Dr. Andrew Rentschler, who has worked with both the NHL and the Department of Defense to do things way more important sounding than anything I've ever been involved in:
If nothing else, he was among the people who suggested that maybe Max Pacioretty's injury wasn't the fault of Zdeno Chara as much as it was whoever decided to put a stanchion next to a hockey rink at head level:
And Rentschler's independent findings didn't do the Commonwealth's theory of the case any favors:
Specifically, Dr. Rentschler, who it's safe to assume knows his way around a head injury, pointed out that there's no way John O'Keefe could have a deep laceration on his occipital bone (ie the round part on the back of your skull) from getting hit by a taillight. Not without being contorted in such a way that would cause major broken bones all over his body.
Which brings us to the obvious questions about his injuries. I won't post any of the autopsy photos here, just out of a sense of respect and because I don't think they're appropriate for a goofy, irreverent humor blog. But as far as the massive cuts all down Officer O'Keefe's arm? Friday, Chloe the dog did finally enter the chat:
And I'll add that a lawyer friend of mine who lives out of state talked to a K-9 officer who wasn't aware of this case and showed him the marks on O'Keefe's arm. First, the officer immediately identified them as coming from a dog, and not shards of polycarbonite plastic from a shattered taillight. Second, he pointed out that the victim had to be unconscious when he was bitten. Because a dog will bite down to hold onto you, and the pain makes you pull away, which causes tearing of the flesh. Meaning that this highly trained professional dog expert took one look at a photo and could tell the person in it was knocked out in a fight, then mauled by a dog while he was too out of it to defend himself.
But don't take his word for it. For sure, don't take mine. But I don't see how the jury is going to go into deliberations with this All Pro lineup fresh in their memories:
… and come away thinking the Commonwealth proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Karen Read murdered John O'Keefe.
After two months, 30 days of trial and somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 witnesses, we've finally reached the point of closing arguments, the judge's instructions to the jury, and then deliberations. So we'll know soon enough. Let justice be done though the heavens fall.
