Editor’s note: This page summarizes testimony in the Karen Read trial for Thursday, May 29. For the latest updates on the Karen Read retrial, visit USA TODAY’s coverage for Friday, May 30.
Prosecutors in Karen Read’s second murder trial rested their case Thursday after more than six weeks of intensive testimony from witnesses in the trial over whether the Massachusetts woman killed her Boston police officer boyfriend in 2022.
Jurors over the past 23 days have heard from witnesses alleging Read said “I hit him” after John O’Keefe’s body was discovered outside the home of another cop, forensic scientists who analyzed taillight fragments from Read’s Lexus SUV at the crime scene and medical experts who said O’Keefe’s injuries were consistent with being hit by a car.
Together, prosecutors believe the testimony proves their argument that Read, 45, 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. Read has been charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene of a crime.
Read’s first trial ended in a hung jury in 2024.
Judge Beverly Cannone dismissed jurors at noon on Thursday, telling them that Read’s second trial is ahead of schedule. Cannone previously said the trial would take between six and eight weeks.
Next, Read’s defense team will have a chance to lay out their own version of events. They have long said she was framed for the murder in an elaborate conspiracy devised by Massachusetts police officers. At the heart of that theory, are allegations that O’Keefe was beaten by cops inside the home he was found near and then attacked by a dog.
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Here are the latest updates from Day 23 of the trial.
The prosecution rested its case at about 11:30 a.m.
The trial entered its sixth week on Tuesday, May 27.
Cannone dismissed the jury at noon on Thursday. She said the trial is ahead of schedule.
Prosecutors played a clip for the jury of an interview with Read for an ID Docuseries that aired in April 2024, in which she questions whether she ran O’Keefe over.
“I thought, could I have run him over? Did he try to get me as I was leaving and I didn’t know it?” Read said. “I mean I’ve always got the music blasting.”
“When I hired David Yannetti, I asked him those questions,” Read continued. “[Yannetti] said, ‘Yeah, then you have some element of culpability.”
Prosecutor Hank Brennan took only a few minutes to question Welcher upon redirect, asking him whether he had any concerns about his analysis and data being tainted or impacted by confirmation bias.
Welcher said he was confident the data was correct.
Alessi then pressed Welcher about confirmation bias and the data he used to which Welcher responded: “I suspect I’ve bored these people to death already.”
Welcher finished his testimony a few minutes before 11:30 a.m.
Alessi trained his first line of attack for the day on Welcher’s analysis of Ring camera footage captured outside of O’Keefe’s home in Canton, Massachusetts, the morning of Jan. 30, 2022.
The video showed Read’s Lexus SUV hitting O’Keefe’s parked Chevrolet Traverse as it backed out of the driveway. Welcher previously testified that he believed “to a high degree of engineering certainty” that the “impact did not break or crack” Read’s taillight.
The testimony is significant because pieces of Read’s taillight were discovered near O’Keefe’s body and are a key piece of evidence the prosecution has used to connect her to the crime.
Alessi pointed out that the Ring camera outside O’Keefe’s home had been replaced between Jan. 2022 and the time that Welcher conducted his analysis. He grilled Welcher on whether his team of engineers accounted for potential differences in the location and models of the two Ring cameras in their analysis and suggested that a difference of even a few inches could have impacted their analysis.
Welcher said his team did not physically measure differences in the two cameras but used computer-assisted processes to adjust their analysis based on the discrepancies.
A similar back-and-forth ensued when Alessi asked whether Welcher had the exact suspension measurement for Read’s Lexus at different points along the timeline, again arguing that a difference of a few inches could throw off the entire analysis.
Welcher said his team based its analysis of the suspension height of the vehicle while it was in police possession and suggested that it would have been roughly the same height it was at the morning of Jan. 30, 2022. But Alessi cast doubt about whether those measurements were, telling Welcher he was missing pertinent data.
Before the jury was allowed into the courtroom, Alessi continued arguments from Wednesday, May 28, asking Judge Beverly Cannone to allow him to cross-examine Welcher about pieces of information he received from Massachusetts State Police Trooper Joseph Paul and medical examiner Irini Scordi-Bello. Alessi argued that Welcher relied on the information in his analysis.
Cannone rejected the arguments, prohibiting Alessi from using the line of questioning in his cross-examination.
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.
