Editor’s note: This page summarizes testimony in the Karen Read trial for Wednesday, May 28. For the latest updates on the Karen Read retrial, visit USA TODAY’s coverage for Thursday, May 29.
A crash reconstructionist resumed testimony Wednesday in Karen Read’s second murder trial, as prosecutors appear poised to soon wrap their case against the Massachusetts woman accused of killing her cop boyfriend.
Expert Judson Welcher clashed with Read’s defense team during cross examination about his analysis of what occurred the night Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe died in January 2022 using data from Read’s Lexus SUV, O’Keefe’s phone and crime scene evidence.
Prosecutors have built their case on the argument that Read, 45, deliberately struck O’Keefe, 46, with her SUV in a drunken rage and left him to die in the snow outside the home of another cop after a night out drinking with friends.
They’ve presented evidence of a bombshell admission Read allegedly made the morning O’Keefe’s body was found, damage discovered on her Lexus SUV and a timeline that puts Read at the scene of the crime. Welcher’s findings that the damage to Read’s Lexus was consistent with a collision and O’Keefe’s injuries match those of a car accident victim are the linchpin of their case.
But Read’s attorney, Robert Alessi, disputes that the car crash ever even happened. They allege that O’Keefe was beaten by Massachusetts police officers inside the home of Brian Albert and then attacked by a dog.
Read has long said she was framed. Her first trial ended in July 2024 after jurors could not come to a unanimous verdict.
Here’s what happened on Day 22 of the trial.
Judge Beverly Cannone dismissed the jury a few minutes before 4 p.m., allowing Alessi to question whether evidence from Welcher would be admissible.
Alessi asked where Welcher got an aerial image, which he believed was from a report compiled by Massachusetts State Police Trooper Joseph Paul. Welcher said the image was not from Paul’s report, but came from a folder emailed to him by police.
Brennan then asked Welcher whether he relied on Paul’s report to build his analysis, and he responded that he did not.
Cannone, who did not immediately rule on the evidence, said the court will be in session for only a half day on Thursday to accommodate one of the jurors schedules.
The mood in the courtroom became contentious as Alessi began asking Welcher about where, and how far Read’s SUV traveled outside 34 Fairview, based on his analysis.
“How many feet do you believe the Lexus went in reverse?” he asked, to which Welcher responded, “Your question doesn’t make any sense.”
Welcher explained that the car moved forward, and then switched gears into reverse.
Alessi later turned to whether it was “reasonable” or “possible” for Read’s car to have gone up onto the yard at 34 Fairview. Welcher said it was “possible,” noting that in engineering, nearly any event has some statistical possibility, but he said he did not have enough data to know whether it was probable.
When asked if O’Keefe would have had vertical, rather than horizontal, lacerations from being hit by the vehicle, Welcher said “absolutely not.” He stood up to demonstrate how the car would have pushed O’Keefe’s skin and then told Alessi “my slide shows this quite clearly.”
Welcher’s dizzying day of testimony ended after he told jurors he tries to “eliminate all confirmation bias” in his analyses.
Alessi zeroed in on Welcher’s review of scientific studies about bodily harm caused by car collisions. On Tuesday, Welcher told jurors that the studies he reviewed showed that brain trauma is the most common injury caused by car accidents. But Alessi pointed out that one of the studies Welcher reviewed was published in the 1970s and is more than 45 years old.
Alessi questioned the validity of experiments Welcher conducted to determine whether O’Keefe’s injuries could have been caused by Read’s Lexus. He suggested that Welcher did not account for a roughly 4-inch berm on the lawn at 34 Fairview Road near where O’Keefe’s body was found in his analysis. That small hill, Alessi alleged, would have put O’Keefe’s body at a different position in relation to Read’s vehicle.
Welcher reiterated that he couldn’t model exactly how O’Keefe could have been injured, because he did not have the precise location where or know how O’Keefe was standing. Welcher said data from Read’s car showed that her tires spun for a few seconds during her back up maneuver, and he hypothesized that this could have resulted from her car rising onto the berm.
Alessi then asked Welcher to calculate the force it would take for a car to break bones in the hand. Welcher pushed back on the wording of the question and said he needed more specifics to answer.
“Is there any part of the back of the Lexus in any manner where you can get a break to the hand from 300 to 400 pounds of force?” Alessi asked.
Welcher said “probably,” and then pointed to pieces of the car where there would have been enough force to cause a hand fracture, including near the license plate.
Alessi questioned Welcher about changes he made to his report during the midst of the trial. Welcher said he added another possible route Read could have driven based on an interview clip he received from the prosecution in mid-April.
At times, the cross-examination became combative as Welcher struggled to explain the technical aspects of his report within the confines of Alessi’s questions.
Judge Beverly Cannone interrupted the questioning multiple times for long sidebar discussions with attorneys about the way they were probing the witness.
Welcher presented evidence from an unrelated case where a pedestrian was killed by a car backing up at roughly 25 mph. In that case, the victim had lacerations on his right arm, but his bones were not broken. Similar to O’Keefe, the victim did not have injuries on the lower part of his body, but did suffer severe brain damage.
He testified that he believed the damage to Read’s Lexus was consistent with a collision and that the lacerations on O’Keefe’s arm were consistent with being hit by a car.
The prosecution ended their questioning of Welcher at about 10:30 a.m.
Cannone ruled Wednesday morning against admitting into testimony Welcher’s conclusion that Read hit O’Keefe with her vehicle. Her problem with the testimony was not that it pertained to the “ultimate issue” in the case, but rather that Welcher drew “an inference based upon more than scientific method.”
“The jurors are as well positioned to draw, or object the inference as any expert,” she said.
Welcher is allowed to testify that the damage to Read’s SUV is consistent with a collision and that the injuries sustained by O’Keefe are consistent with being struck by a Lexus that is “physically identical” to Read’s car, Cannone said.
The ruling comes after defense attorney Robert Alessi forcefully objected Tuesday after Welcher said he believed to a “reasonable degree of scientific certainty” that Read hit O’Keefe with her vehicle, arguing that the answer infringed on the jury’s decision-making duty.
He and Prosecutor Hank Brennan sparred about whether the fundamental question in the case hinges on whether Read hit O’Keefe deliberately, accidentally or whether she hit him at all.
CourtTV has been covering the case against Read and the criminal investigation since early 2022, when O’Keefe’s body was found outside a Massachusetts home. You can watch CourtTV’s live feed of the Read trial proceedings from Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, Massachusetts. Proceedings began at 10 a.m. ET.
