Things to know about the retrial of Karen Read in the killing of her police officer boyfriend
A former medical examiner testified Tuesday during Karen Read’s second murder trial that she did not think hypothermia contributed to Read’s boyfriend’s death, contradicting the official autopsy report.
Read, 45, is accused of striking her boyfriend, Boston police Officer John O’Keefe, with her car outside a suburban house party and leaving him to die in the snow in January 2022. She has been charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene.
Read’s lawyers say O’Keefe, 46, was beaten, bitten by a dog, then left outside a home in Canton in a conspiracy orchestrated by the police that included planting evidence against Read.
Read’s second trial has so far followed similar contours to the first, which ended in a mistrial last year.
Former medical examiner says O’Keefe died of trauma, not hypothermia
The medical examiner’s report said O’Keefe died from hypothermia and blunt impact injuries to the head. But on Tuesday, an expert witness for the defense called that autopsy into question.
Elizabeth Laposata, a forensic pathologist, said O’Keefe died from blunt force trauma alone.
“The body did not have any hypothermia,” Laposata said.
The medical examiner who performed O’Keefe’s autopsy, Irini Scordi-Bello, testified earlier that she could not determine the cause of O’Keefe’s death to a reasonable degree of medical certainty but that hypothermia was a contributing factor.
Laposata also said she didn’t think eye injuries suffered by O’Keefe were consistent with being hit by the rear of Read’s SUV.
The judge barred Laposata from testifying about potential dog bite wounds, but allowed her to say that some of O’Keefe’s injuries were consistent with an animal bite. She said they were “very much” consistent with bite or claw marks, and appeared to be inflicted before death.
Prosecutor’s ‘mistake’ leads to another call for mistrial
Read attorney Robert Alessi accused the prosecution of “intentional misconduct” Monday while cross-examining a crash reconstruction analyst.
Daniel Wolfe, who works for the accident reconstruction firm ARCCA, testified about the numerous tests he and others conducted of a dummy colliding with a replica of Read’s SUV taillight at various speeds.
Prosecutor Hank Brennan held up the hoodie O’Keefe was wearing that night and asked Wolfe if the holes in it could have been caused by road rash. Alessi subsequently accused Brennan of trying to mislead the jury by not disclosing that investigators had cut holes into the back of the garment.
“I don’t believe one could come up with more misleading, misdirecting elucidation of testimony than this, on the key issue in the case,” Alessi said.
Brennan asked the judge to clarify the issue for jurors rather than declare a mistrial. Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone agreed, telling the jury that they couldn’t draw “any inference” that holes came from the incident on the night O’Keefe died.
Crash expert says damage to the SUV and clothing are inconsistent with a collision
Wolfe, who testified at Read’s first trial for the prosecution but this time is being paid to speak in her defense, also described a test in which an SUV backed into an crash test dummy’s arm suspended in the air and a full-body dummy wearing clothing that matched O’Keefe’s on the night he died.
A prosecution expert testified that O’Keefe’s injuries were consistent with having been struck by a vehicle. But Wolfe said the damage to Read’s taillight and O’Keefe’s clothing was inconsistent with striking an arm or a body.
Wolfe acknowledged that the dummy arm he used for some of the tests weighed more than 2 pounds (0.9 kilogram) less than O’Keefe’s arm likely weighed, based on his height and weight. But he denied that it made a difference in his conclusions and noted that the actual weight of O’Keefe’s arm was not known.