Karen Read Murder Trial Week 9.5: Just Because the Evidence Wrapped Up Monday Doesn't Mean the Past Two Days Haven't Been Insane

I've mentioned this before, but one of the aspects that has made the Karen Read murder trial so fascinating to people who live around here has been watching the rest of the country try to come to grips with Masshole culture. The townies referring to "Can-UHN" and drinking "Jamesons and gingahs." A cat fight breaking out at 30-Masshole holiday trip to Aruba. Guys texting each other to come out to the pub by calling anyone who wants to stay home in a blizzard "pussy" and enticing him with "Sully's here." The Mass. State Police's lead officer in a murder investigation calling his prime suspect a "cunt" with "a leaky balloon knot" who should do him and everyone else a favor by killing herself. A bunch of guys named Brian. A witness with a missing tooth calling the defendant "a babysittah with benefits." And practically every prosecution witness have long term relationships with every other one.

It's all been so bonkers that even Court TV, who seemed incredibly pro-prosecution during the pretrial phase is now, at the very least, both-sidesing this. Skip to the 12:00 mark and watch the host of this recap throw up his hands and say he's never seen anything like it.

This came after an end to the trial that was as dramatic, contentious, surreal and clownish as the previous nine weeks. 

We're two days into jury deliberations without a verdict yet. And it's worth revisiting the absolute clownshow that's taken place since the evidence concluded Monday afternoon.

Closing arguments were pretty much the Captain of the Debate Team:

... against the kid having to give the presentation for a group project he didn't help out with. 

ADA Lally managed to complete the trifecta of offering an awkward beginning:

Middle, which consisted of changed timelines and proof of Read's guilt in the form of her not having to take off her shoes in O'Keefe's house because she knew he was too dead to do anything about it:

And end:

All the while looking on, sitting with the Proctor family facing the jury, were Brian Albert, Colin Albert, and Jenn McCabe:

And it wasn't lost on the Free Karen Read side that these same prosecution witnesses couldn't be bothered to come out of the house when the emergency vehicles came rolling up Fairview Road. Or go to O'Keefe's funeral:

And speaking of the Free Karen Read segment of the population, they are a vocal, energized, highly engaged constituency. And they turned out for this in droves. Usually you have to make a billion dollars singing bittersweet love ballads and date a 3-time Super Bowl champion to build this kind of following:

And speaking of Turtleboy, he and some of his followers showed up to Canton Town Meeting to give them a demonstration of how representative democracy works:

Including this lady's impassioned speech on behalf of one of the true heroes of this tale, Lucky Loughran, the Frankentruck-driving Jack Burton of the saga:

And Rita Lombardi will not be silenced. She is ungovernable: 

Then today, a major legal skirmish broke out because the defense lawyer Alan Jackson - who mainly practices in California, had never seen a verdict sheet that didn't give the jurors the option of finding the defendant Not Guilty of the lesser included charges:

And he was essentially given the "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown" treatment by Judge Cannone, who did the judicial equivalent of "That's how we roll in the Bay State." Until she did a 180. Because she was "tired":

Then the last we heard from the jury was that they were looking for more evidence. Which I've found to be incredibly common. No exaggeration, in 99% of all OUI cases, they want to know if there was a Breathlyzer test. We live in a CSI/NCIS world, and every jury wants the comfort of knowing their verdict is backed up by some irrefutable piece of evidence like it is on TV. It's human nature. In this case, they wanted a report from the investigation's Special Emergency Reaction Team (SERT). Which they won't be getting. Because the Canton Police never bothered with one. I am not kidding:

A police officer found lying near death in the snow outside the house of another police officer is a big deal, obviously. Just not big enough to justify a bunch of paperwork:

I suppose the same department that didn't have a way to collect blood samples at the crime scene so they borrowed red solo cups from the cop who lived across the street can't be expected to put the new cover sheet on their TPS reports, either. 

Deliberations continue Thursday. And I'm here for all of it. Stay tuned.