Karen Read trial nears its finale: What each side is banking on

With closing arguments scheduled for Friday morning, jurors will soon begin deliberating Karen Read’s fate after 31 days of testimony in her second trial over the death of Boston cop John O’Keefe, her former boyfriend.

Read, 45, is accused of clipping the 46-year-old outside a house party and leaving him to die on the ground during a blizzard on Jan. 29, 2022. Her defense denies that a collision ever happened, suggesting he was attacked by someone at the party and a dog instead.

Judge Beverly Cannone denied the defense’s second motion for a finding of not guilty Thursday – clearing the way for deliberations to begin.

The following includes core evidence presented by both the prosecution and the defense.

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The prosecution case:

• Taillight fragments in O’Keefe’s clothes
• Experts say a glancing vehicle strike caused O’Keefe to fall on the back of his head
• Phone data aligns with prosecution timeline
• Read’s alleged, repeated statements, “I hit him. I hit him. I hit him.”
• Read’s many public statements played in court

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Former Whitey Bulger defense lawyer turned special prosecutor Hank Brennan, derided as a “mob lawyer” by Read’s vocal supporters, came in to take over the case after last year’s mistrial. Assistant Norfolk County District Attorneys Adam Lally and Laura McLaughlin returned from the first trial.

Central to Brennan’s case is that O’Keefe had plastic fragments that matched Read’s taillight embedded in his clothes.

Dr. Aizik Wolf, a renowned brain surgeon, said O’Keefe’s injury is consistent with a “classic” fall backward on frozen ground. And a biomechanist named Dr. Judson Welcher testified that Read likely hit him with a glancing blow to the right arm and sent him stumbling backward before he cracked his head on the lawn at 34 Fairview Road in Canton, where he was found under a pile of snow hours later.

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And in Read’s own alleged words, she repeatedly said, “I hit him. I hit him. I hit him.”

The timing of Jennifer McCabe’s Google search – “hos long to die in cold” – is another key factor, according to Paul Mauro, a retired NYPD inspector who is following the case.

“If at 6:23 a.m., it corroborates Jen McCabe’s testimony,” he told Fox News Digital. “If you believe Jen McCabe, you pretty much have to convict. You could perhaps acquit on the top charge, but certainly you would have to convict on the manslaughter.”

The defense case:

• Read asserts the crash never happened
• The Bowden defense – investigation was too sloppy to be adequate, and the lead detective got fired
• Experts say dog bites caused arm injuries, head injury did not happen on lawn and no signs of hypothermia
• Brennan’s reference to holes in O’Keefe’s hoodie that were put there by crime lab

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Read’s legal team includes big-city lawyers from three states – Boston’s David Yannetti, New York City’s Robert Alessi, and Alan Jackson and Elizabeth Little from Los Angeles.

In her first trial, Yannetti and Jackson argued that Read had been “framed” by local and state police. This time around, they focused on the theory that Read’s 2021 Lexus LX 570 SUV never struck O’Keefe.

They also deployed a “Bowden defense” – attempting to show the police investigation was “inadequate.” Investigators collected evidence in red Solo cups and shopping bags, used a leaf blower to move snow, mislabeled evidence and did not seek a search warrant for the house at the address where they recovered O’Keefe’s remains.

Former Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Proctor, a homicide detective on the case, later lost his job for sharing confidential and law enforcement sensitive information on an R-rated text chain that also included lewd remarks about the defendant.

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Defense experts testified that the minor abrasions on O’Keefe’s right arm were not caused by contact with Read’s broken taillight, but rather by dog or animal bites. Dr. Daniel Wolfe and Dr. Andrew Rentschler disputed Welcher’s findings with testing of their own, using a crash dummy arm that they said could not reproduce the same damage to a Lexus taillight.

The blow to the back of his head – which fractured his skull – did not come from contact on the frozen lawn, but rather by contact with a ridged, grainy surface, according to Dr. Elizabeth Laposata, a forensic pathologist and clinical professor at Brown University.

Laposata also disputed autopsy findings that indicated O’Keefe had hypothermia – testifying that his internal injuries came from resuscitation attempts and not damage from the cold.

“The defense case is science, science and then more science,” said Mark Bederow, a New York City attorney representing Read ally and Canton blogger Aidan Kearney. “No car accident, then no crime.”

What’s next?

Read faces 15 years to life in prison if convicted on the top charge. If convicted of drunken driving manslaughter, she would face 5 to 20.