Karen Read’s second murder trial continued Tuesday with testimony from a defense expert who says John O’Keefe likely smashed his skull during a fall backward, but did not die from hypothermia as a medical examiner previously suggested.
After retaking the stand, Elizabeth Laposata, a forensic pathologist and former medical examiner, told jurors she believes O’Keefe fell unconscious immediately after hitting his head on a ridged object and was bitten and scratched by an animal, based on an analysis of his injuries.
Her testimony is pivotal to Read’s defense and directly counters testimony from prosecution witnesses.
Prosecutors allege the 45-year-old Massachusetts woman backed into O’Keefe, her Boston police officer boyfriend, with her Lexus SUV in a fit of jealousy after a night of drinking and then left him to die in the snow outside the home of another cop.
But her defense has long maintained that Read was framed for the crime by people inside the house, who they say beat O’Keefe, let a dog attack him and then dropped his body on the front lawn. They’ve argued that police purposefully bungled the investigation into O’Keefe’s death.
Misty Marris, a New York-based legal expert who has followed the case closely, told USA TODAY Read’s case is shaping up to be a “true battle of the experts.”
Jurors will soon deliberate on the mountains of evidence presented over the last two months. They’ll decide if Read is guilty of second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and leaving the scene of a collision resulting in death.
This is Read’s second trial after her first ended in July 2024 in a hung jury.
Lawyer Alan Jackson, one of Read’s defense attornies, said Monday he expects to call biomechanist Andrew Rentschler Tuesday as the eleventh and final defense witness. Questioning Rentschler should take about three hours, Jackson told Judge Beverly Cannone.
The prosecution will then call several more witnesses to rebut the defense’s arguments, before closing arguments.
The defense called Andrew Rentschler, an accident reconstructionist and biomechanist, a few minutes before 3 p.m. He is expected to be their last witness.
Brennan, the commonwealth’s attorney, briefly questioned Elizabeth Laposata about criticism she received for her handling of a high-profile case during her time as Rhode Island’s chief medical examiner.
Laposata is a clinical associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Brown University’s Warren Alpert School of Medicine.
Laposata said she received a “flurry” of negative press for “erroneous” reasons in the position and resigned after learning about budget cuts. She now works as a consultant for civil and criminal cases.
Turning back to O’Keefe’s injuries, Brennan asked Laposata if she knew where the scratch on his nose came from. Earlier in the trial, Brennan played a clip of Read saying she saw a piece of glass wedged into O’Keefe’s nose when she found him lying in the snow in the early morning of Jan. 29, 2022.
“As soon as I pulled it, it just gushed blood down his face,” Read said in the clip.
If O’Keefe was dead, his body would not have squirted blood when the piece of glass was removed because there would be no blood pressure, Laposata said. She said the blood could have trickled out of the wound.
Brennan’s questions appeared aimed at establishing O’Keefe was still alive when Read found his body.
The judge said she will allow the prosecution to question Laposata about a 2005 audit into the medical examiner’s office Laposata led. Brennan suggested the audit, which alleges maleficence, will call Laposata’s credibility into question.
Read’s lawyer said the prosecution was falsely characterizing the report’s findings. The judge said Jackson could seek to show that and “rehabilitate her” as a witness during his redirect.
The defense and prosecution also presented motions relevant to the next expected witness, Andrew Rentschler.
Laposata became argumentative at the beginning of cross examination, responding to the prosecutor’s “good afternoon” greeting by saying “it’s six minutes until afternoon.”
During the ensuing back-and-forth, Laposata disagreed with nearly everything the prosecutor said. In his most impactful line of questioning, Brennan asked Laposata whether frozen ground could cause a skull fracture. She said it could but argued the O’Keefe’s injuries didn’t match the pattern she’d expect to see if he fell outside.
Laposata said she looked at photos of 34 Fairview Road in Canton, Masssachusetts, where O’Keefe’s body was found, and didn’t see ridged surfaces, such as rocks or bumps needed to cause O’Keefe’s injury.
When Brennan asked about what evidence she reviewed, including the speed of Read’s vehicle, Laposata responded: “Well it didn’t hit him, so it doesn’t matter.”
“By looking at the body I could tell there was no evidence of impact with a vehicle so whether the vehicle was going slow or fast was not relevant.” she said.
Read’s defense team has repeatedly told jurors O’Keefe’s injuries were not caused by a car crash. Their case largely revolves around large, horizontal gashes found on O’Keefe’s right arm and fractures to his skull, as well as the lack of bruises on his body.
Laposata’s testimony Monday was critical to their argument. She told jurors the spoiler on Read’s car likely would have caused a ribbon of bruises on O’Keefe’s forehead if he was hit, but his body showed no such injury.
Based on O’Keefe’s skull fracture and brain damage, she said he likely fell unconscious immediately after he hit his head, causing brain swelling and then death. He sustained the wounds on his arm while he was still alive, she said, and told jurors she doesn’t believe O’Keefe died of hypothermia and instead froze after his death.
That counters prosecution witness Aizik Wolf, a Miami-based neurosurgeon who said it is “impossible to know” whether O’Keefe became immediately unconscious from his injuries.
In one of the most impactful pieces of her testimony, Laposata echoed findings from defense witness Marie Russell, an emergency physician and former forensic pathologist, who said the surface-level cuts on O’Keefe’s arm came from an animal’s teeth and claws.
Prosecutors have suggested O’Keefe’s injuries were caused by Read’s car smashing into him, causing her taillight to shatter and scrape O’Keefe before sending his body hurtling backward onto the frozen ground.
Elizabeth Laposata is a clinical associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Brown University’s Warren Alpert School of Medicine.
Judge Beverly Cannone previously ruled Laposata was unqualified to testify about whether markings found on O’Keefe’s arm are consistent with dog bite wounds, but can discuss what she believed caused O’Keefe’s injuries. On Tuesday, Cannone said Laposata could testify that O’Keefe’s injuries were consistent with animal bites she has seen throughout her career.
Cannone’s ruling came after the prosecution tried to prevent Laposata from testifying, arguing she did not have the proper expertise.
Laposata is expected to support the defense’s argument that O’Keefe did not die in the cold by explaining how his body did not suffer from hypothermia.
Read’s defense team previously presented testimony from Marie Russell, an emergency physician and former forensic pathologist, who told jurors she believed surface-level gashes found on O’Keefe’s arm came from canine claws and teeth. They have suggested a German Shepard, which lived at 34 Fairview, attacked O’Keefe.
Jury instructions filed by Read’s lawyers suggest the Massachusetts woman may not testify in the retrial. They include a section informing the jury of Read’s Fifth Amendment right not to testify, telling them they “may not hold that against her.”
Christopher Dearborn, a law professor at Suffolk University in Boston who has followed the case closely, said the instructions are likely a “harbinger” that Read’s attorneys are not going to call her to the stand, though he noted they could change their mind.
“Frankly, I don’t think it would make a lot of sense to call her at this point,” Dearborn said, noting the number of public statements Read has made that could be used against her.
The court has already heard from Read in the trial through clips prosecutors played of interviews in which she questioned whether she “clipped” O’Keefe and admitted to driving while inebriated.
Dearborn told USA TODAY there are two schools of thought around whether to include a section on a defendant’s right not to testify in jury instructions. Some defense lawyers don’t include the section because they don’t want to “draw a bull’s eye” around the fact the defendant didn’t testify and cause jurors to “speculate,” Dearborn said.
Other times, he said, it is the “elephant in the room,” and the specific instructions telling the jury they can’t hold the defendant’s lack of testimony against them are necessary.
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 begin at 9 a.m. ET.
