Followers of the Karen Read murder trial got an early preview Tuesday of the defense’s case, which the defendant hinted may even include her own testimony.
“I’m an outspoken person and I’ve never not been able to speak up for myself or my defense except when it matters the most. I’ve got to rely on them and their expertise and I’ll defer to the attorneys,” Read told reporters following a short court hearing Tuesday. She added that if her attorney’s decide she should testify, it would likely be in the “11th hour.”
She said that she feels “there is no case against me. … It’s smoke and mirrors and it’s going through my private life and trying to contrive a motive that was never there.”
The defense’s case will begin as soon as the prosecution rests their case, which defense attorney David Yannetti told the Herald could be as early as Thursday, but definitely on Friday.
The 27th day of the Read trial in Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham was a special day in which the jury was not present. Instead, the day was dedicated to voir dire of upcoming witnesses. It’s a process, according to Cornell Law School’s Wex Law Dictionary, in which lawyers perform an initial questioning of “witnesses (especially experts) to determine their competence to testify.”
Read, 44, of Mansfield, faces charges of second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter and leaving the scene of a collision causing the death of her boyfriend John O’Keefe, a 16-year Boston Police officer when he died at age 46.
While Judge Beverly Cannone had scheduled a full day to the process, the day lasted less than three hours and ended slightly before noon. Cannone expressed surprise herself and said that they could have had the jury there, after all, to speed up the trial.
Attorneys questioned three defense witnesses. Two of them will definitely take the stand, while a doctor who has published peer-reviewed articles on dog bites may or may not be allowed to testify. Cannone made no rulings during the hearing.
FBI-retained crash analysis
Two scientists from the company ARCCA, Daniel Wolfe and Andrew Rentschler, were submitted in the defense’s witness lists ahead of trial and are sure to take the stand.
The voir dire of these witnesses was to determine the scope of their testimonies. The scientists were retained to perform independent testing of law enforcement claims that O’Keefe’s injuries were the cause of a vehicle strike. While each of them used euphemisms for who had hired them, it came out that they were hired for the federal probe of the Read investigation.
Wolfe said that ARCCA’s services were retained by “the Justice Department, the FBI,” when directly questioned by Judge Cannone.
Wolfe and Rentschler, both PhDs, testified that the forensic consulting company they work for is hired on for both analysis and research in a variety of fields. In addition to analysis for legal teams — both prosecution and defense — the company has been hired by the military and even the National Hockey League. Rentschler testified that he worked with the NHL to develop safer glass so players would be less frequently injured when striking it during play.
Wolfe is ARCCA’s director of accident reconstruction and he said that the agency who hired his firm had “open-ended” questions about the likelihood that O’Keefe’s injuries were the result of a vehicle strike.
Lally said he had no problem with Wolfe and Rentschler testifying to three of the four conclusions they made on their report of the event, but said he did not feel that it was within the scope of their expertise to opine on a fourth conclusion, on what could have caused O’Keefe’s injuries.
Defense attorney Alan Jackson said that their finding of “insufficient evidence” to conclude what caused the injuries to O’Keefe is “completely within their expertise.” Lally said that he is more concerned with a “more definitive” conclusion as restated elsewhere in the report.
Dog bites
Read’s defense team has long maintained that Read was framed and the subject of a conspiracy by Canton locals and police agencies. They say that people within 34 Fairview Road in Canton, the address where O’Keefe was found nearly frozen on the lawn at around 6 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022, beat O’Keefe to death and put him out there to frame Read.
And, they have added in pretrial arguments, they believe several of O’Keefe’s wounds resemble dog bites and scratches. Attorneys have pointed to Chloe, the 70-pound German shepherd mix who was the household dog at 34 Fairview Road at the time, as a likely candidate for those wounds.
The defense hopes Judge Cannone will allow Dr. Marie Russell to testify for the defense in explanation of those wounds. Russell was the first — and most controversial — witness questioned Tuesday.
Russell, a retired medical doctor who is one of the few, Jackson says, to publish on dog wounds, does not appear on the defense’s submitted witness list. Her late-stage entry to the case, prosecutor Lally argues, is problematic.
Should Cannone allow Russell to testify that wounds to O’Keefe’s arms are dog bites, Lally argued, she should not allow Russell to offer her opinion on what the wounds are not, as that would be outside the scope of her expertise.
