The latest on the Karen Read murder case
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Here’s what happened on the final day of witness testimony in Karen Read’s trial
Closings arguments are set for Friday.
On the stand Wednesday:
4:20 p.m. update: Closing arguments slated for Friday
After nearly eight weeks of testimony, closing arguments in Karen Read’s murder retrial are slated for Friday.
The scheduling update came after special prosecutor Hank Brennan backtracked on his earlier statement that prosecutors would call several rebuttal witnesses after the defense rested.
With jurors gone for the day, the lawyers clashed over the introduction of ARCCA expert Andrew Rentschler’s presentation into evidence. Brennan argued the presentation contained hearsay — an allegation defense attorney Alan Jackson adamantly denied.
Judge Beverly Cannone said she will meet with the lawyers at 10 a.m. Thursday for a charge conference without jurors present, followed by closing arguments Friday at 9 a.m.
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Jackson requested an hour-and-a-half for each side’s closing argument, and Cannone countered with an hour and 15 minutes. She ultimately said she would give the request some thought.
3:45 p.m. update: ‘I don’t think [John O’Keefe] even got hit by the car,’ ARCCA expert says
Nettling special prosecutor Hank Brennan as he answered questions on cross-examination, defense biomechanics expert Andrew Rentschler repeatedly reminded jurors of his belief that John O’Keefe’s injuries were inconsistent with having been struck by Karen Read’s SUV.
“We have no information that he was even hit by the Lexus,” the ARCCA expert testified at one point.
After Rentschler critiqued the work of prosecution accident reconstructionist and biomechanical engineer Judson Welcher, Brennan pressed Rentschler to agree that Welcher wasn’t claiming to know the angle of O’Keefe’s arm during the purported collision.
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“Well, it would be pretty odd if the one test he ran didn’t actually represent what he thought happened,” Rentschler said. “I don’t understand what the value of that would actually be.”
At Brennan’s prompting, however, Rentschler agreed Welcher gave no indication that his “paint transfer test” was an attempt to reenact how O’Keefe would have been standing, moving, or holding his arm during a collision. For the paint test, Welcher dressed in clothing identical to O’Keefe’s and used grease paint to determine where his body would make contact with the taillight on an exemplar Lexus SUV.
“In this case, you don’t know the position of Mr. O’Keefe’s arm at impact, do you?” Brennan asked Rentschler.
“Nobody knows,” Rentschler replied. “I don’t think his arm was even impacted by the car. So no, I don’t know the position of the arm at impact, because it wasn’t hit by the car.”
Brennan continued to press Rentschler on ARCCA’s use of a crash test dummy in its own simulated collisions, questioning whether a paper Rentschler cited in his May 7 report suggested the use of a crash test dummy to determine potential injuries to skin.
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“No, it didn’t,” Rentschler replied. “And that’s not what I did in this matter.”
During another line of questioning about collision debris fields, Rentschler said he knew investigators discovered debris at the scene outside 34 Fairview Road, where O’Keefe was found unresponsive in the snow. However, he said his analysis did not consider how the debris got there.
From a biomechanical standpoint, “you don’t need to look at the debris field or alleged debris field of a taillight cover,” Rentschler added.
Brennan pointed to a photo of O’Keefe’s discarded baseball cap, which investigators found buried in the snow outside 34 Fairview Road. Rentschler said there are a number of ways the hat could have gotten there.
“Is one of those ways being in a collision with a Lexus?” Brennan pressed.
“I suppose that’s a possibility. Or someone could put it there,” Rentschler fired back. “I mean, there’s a number of different possibilities as to when or how a hat may appear in a yard.”
“Who do you think put it there?” Brennan asked.
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“Well, I have no idea,” Rentschler replied. “I haven’t seen any evidence of how it got there, and frankly, it’s immaterial to a biomechanical analysis.”
“Do you have a theory you want to share with us about planting evidence? Is that what we’re getting at, sir?” Brennan demanded.
Judge Beverly Cannone sustained an objection from the defense before Rentschler could answer.
Brennan later played a clip from one of ARCCA’s tests with a dummy and an exemplar SUV, noting the dummy’s arm was outstretched and did not hold a drinking glass, as O’Keefe purportedly had. He asked whether Rentschler would expect different taillight damage if the arm angle were adjusted.
“It could look a little different,” Rentschler agreed.
Brennan also asked whether a pedestrian involved in a collision could catch their foot on the curb, lose a sneaker, stagger backward, and strike their head in a fall.
“I mean, I guess you could somehow predict or have a possibility of almost anything happening,” Rentschler answered skeptically. “You could say someone could get hit by a car and do a couple of somersaults into the yard. I mean, there’s no evidence of that, so it’s just supposition. But I won’t say it’s impossible.”
Brennan asked Rentschler if he thought O’Keefe did somersaults into the yard outside 34 Fairview.
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“No,” Rentschler replied. “I don’t think he even got hit by the car, sir.”
Returning for redirect examination, defense attorney Alan Jackson confirmed the updates Rentschler received about Read’s case prior to his initial testimony did not come from the defense or ARCCA, but the entity that originally hired ARCCA. The engineering consulting firm was initially retained to look into O’Keefe’s death as part of a secretive federal probe.
Jackson asked Rentschler if he knew when or how the plastic shards landed on the lawn outside 34 Fairview Road, and Rentschler said he didn’t.
“Do you know who put those pieces of plastic at 34 Fairview?” Jackson pressed.
“I do not,” Rentschler answered.
Asked for his opinion on whether any of O’Keefe’s injuries were consistent with having been struck by Read’s Lexus, Rentschler was adamant they were not.
Back for additional questioning, Brennan asked Rentschler whether O’Keefe could have been clipped in a collision.
“I don’t believe that’s consistent with the evidence and what occurred,” Rentschler replied. Rentschler was the final defense witness, just as he was during Read’s first trial last summer. After he left the stand, Jackson announced Read’s defense would rest its case subject to a final ruling on evidence.
12:45 p.m. update: Prosecutor’s comments spark outrage from defense
Special prosecutor Hank Brennan began his cross-examination of ARCCA’s Andrew Rentschler by hammering the biomechanics expert’s earlier comment that “details matter.”
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“You have no idea where the point of impact was in this collision, do you?” Brennan asked early in his questioning.
“Nobody does,” Rentschler pointed out.
He confirmed the anthropomorphic test device, or crash test dummy, ARCCA used was shorter and lighter than O’Keefe but said he wasn’t aware the dummy’s size was one of the issues previously raised during his colleague Daniel Wolfe’s testimony.
During a tense line of questioning, Brennan grilled Rentschler about the information and updates he received about Read’s case prior to his testimony. Rentschler said the information didn’t make a difference in his analysis or conclusions.
He confirmed he had a few phone conversations with Read’s defense, though he said they largely concerned planning and scheduling. Brennan asked whether there was any discussion about how Rentschler could portray himself as independent, an apparent attempt to paint ARCCA as more of an advocate than an impartial entity.
“I don’t believe there was,” Rentschler replied. “There was no need to.”
He confirmed Read’s team offered him lunch following his testimony in her first trial last year and said he ate a ham sandwich before waiting in a corner for his ride. At Brennan’s prompting, he agreed a camera crew was present at the time.
“I really didn’t talk much at all,” Rentschler recalled. He also said he has no idea how much ARCCA has been paid for its work on Read’s case, as he’s a salaried employee and is not involved in the company’s billing.
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As Brennan pivoted to O’Keefe’s injuries and apparent lack of fractures, Rentschler confirmed X-rays typically don’t depict soft tissue damage, muscle tears, ligament tears, or nerve injuries.
“Does the absence of a bruise necessarily indicate there was no blunt force trauma to an area?” Brennan asked.
“No. You have to look at all the evidence, and you have to look at the force,” Rentschler explained.
Brennan suggested similar pedestrian collisions could result in “totally different injuries.”
“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a case where two people were hit with the same car, at the same speed, with the same force, with different injuries,” Rentschler answered. “I don’t even know if you can correlate that.”
Brennan’s cross-examination turned hostile at times, replete with snarky asides and commentary that earned him several objections from the defense table and a warning from Judge Beverly Cannone.
Minutes later, as Rentschler finished giving an answer to one of his questions, Brennan shot back, “Now that you’ve shared your opinions, can I get back to my question?”
Outraged, defense attorney Alan Jackson demanded Cannone admonish Brennan for his “editorializing,” and Cannone called the lawyers to sidebar before dismissing the jury for lunch. Rentschler’s testimony will resume following the break.
11:30 a.m. update: John O’Keefe’s injuries inconsistent with striking Karen Read’s taillight, defense expert says
The trail of abrasions on John O’Keefe’s right arm was inconsistent with striking Karen Read’s taillight, a defense biomechanics expert testified Wednesday, asserting evidence in Read’s case goes against prosecutors’ theory of an alleged collision.
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Resuming his direct examination, defense attorney Alan Jackson pitted ARCCA’s Andrew Rentschler against prosecution accident reconstructionist Judson Welcher. At Jackson’s prompting, Rentschler walked jurors through the basic steps of his biomechanical analysis.
“In this case, it’s a little more involved,” he said of O’Keefe’s death. “We have, ‘Was he hit by the car? What happened after that? Did he somehow move into the yard? And then did something happen in the yard to actually cause the skull fracture?’”
Rentschler emphasized the need to pore over the finer points, telling jurors, “details matter.”
“You have to explain how things happened,” he said, adding, “If you don’t have details, if you haven’t performed a proper analysis, then you can’t come to a conclusion that something happened. You can’t depend just on your experience.”
Rentschler turned his attention to Welcher’s paint transfer test, which saw the Aperture expert dressed in clothing identical to O’Keefe’s and using grease paint to see where his arm would make contact with a taillight on an exemplar Lexus SUV.
Rentschler asserted Welcher’s paint test had nothing to do with force and did not indicate how O’Keefe’s arm would have moved as it hit the taillight, or how the taillight might fracture. He also alleged that in order to get the pattern of paint Welcher documented during that experiment, someone would have to push their arm forward and lean into the impact.
Discussing O’Keefe’s injuries, Rentschler noted no fractures to his right hand or arm, although ARCCA’s simulated collisions indicated forces strong enough to break a bone. He said O’Keefe’s right arm had “conservatively” 36 different superficial abrasions.
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In other words, Rentschler explained, “You need 36 different points of contact … to get through [O’Keefe’s] sweatshirt and get to the skin to actually cause abrasion to the skin.” There were nine documented defects in the right sleeve of O’Keefe’s sweatshirt, according to Rentschler.
Asked whether O’Keefe’s abrasions were consistent with contacting the right taillight of Read’s Lexus, he replied, “They’re inconsistent with striking the taillight or being produced as a result of contact with the taillight.”
Jackson asked Rentschler whether he would expect to see O’Keefe’s pattern of abrasions if the arm made contact with the taillight while bent at a right angle, as it was during Welcher’s paint test.
“You would not,” Rentschler replied. He displayed an image that rotated O’Keefe’s wounded forearm to a bent angle, noting the abrasions were still oriented in different directions.
Rentschler also asserted Welcher took no steps to demonstrate it’s even possible that an arm could sustain abrasions and shatter a vehicle’s taillight during an impact.
Pivoting to ARCCA’s simulated collisions, Rentschler said the evidence indicated O’Keefe was not struck at his center of mass and that the kinematics were inconsistent with his arm fracturing the taillight cover. He suggested it was not physically possible for broken shards of taillight to “out-accelerate” someone’s arm during an impact.
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Rentschler also testified he does not believe a scrape to the side of O’Keefe’s right knee was consistent with being struck by an SUV at approximately 24 mph — the speed at which prosecutors allege Read backed into O’Keefe.
At another point in his questioning, Jackson asked Rentschler whether a glancing blow to just O’Keefe’s arm would propel him perpendicularly seven to 10 feet. O’Keefe was found unresponsive in the snow outside 34 Fairview Road on Jan. 29, 2022, his body several feet from the street.
“It would not be possible,” Rentschler replied. “Our testing demonstrates that; peer reviewed articles demonstrate that. I’ve seen no evidence anywhere in this case that would suggest or even indicate that if you get a glancing blow or a sideswipe blow, that somehow would produce enough force to push you eight to 10 feet into the yard.”
Jackson asked Rentschler for his conclusion on whether the biomechanical evidence in Read’s case is consistent with prosecutors’ collision scenario.
“My opinion is that the evidence is inconsistent with Mr. O’Keefe being struck on the right arm by the SUV and then moving laterally into the yard and falling backward onto the back of his head,” Rentschler opined.
Livestream via NBC10 Boston.
The finish line is in sight for Karen Read’s retrial as ARCCA biomechanics expert Andrew Rentschler, the last defense witness, continues his testimony Wednesday.
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Read, 45, is accused of backing her SUV into her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, in a drunken rage while dropping him off at an afterparty in Canton following a night of bar-hopping in January 2022. Prosecutors have pointed to the broken right taillight on Read’s SUV and her purported cries of “I hit him” after finding O’Keefe unresponsive in the snow outside 34 Fairview Road.
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According to Rentschler, however, O’Keefe’s skull fracture likely did not occur as a result of a collision with Read’s taillight, nor were the abrasions on his arm consistent with contacting the taillight. ARCCA, an engineering consulting firm, was initially hired by the Department of Justice and FBI as part of a federal investigation into the state’s handling of Read’s case.
“We were kind of constrained in what we were asked to do and to review, but we were asked to evaluate whether the injuries sustained by Mr. O’Keefe were consistent with being struck by [Read’s] Lexus,” Rentschler explained Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, defense forensic pathologist Dr. Elizabeth Laposata testified that O’Keefe did not die of hypothermia and that a fall onto hard ground — such as the grassy lawn outside 34 Fairview Road — would not have caused the injury to the back of his head.
She described the skull fractures and brain stem herniation O’Keefe sustained, explaining, “He would be immediately incapacitated with a decreased level of consciousness once he received that impact on the back of the head. He would not be able to make any purposeful movements.”
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Laposata believes O’Keefe struck the back of his head on something with a ridge, contrary to the opinion offered by prosecution expert and neurosurgeon Dr. Aizik L. Wolf. Defense attorney Alan Jackson asked Laposata for her opinion on whether the pattern of wounds on O’Keefe’s right arm was consistent with animal bite or claw marks.
“Yes, it is,” she answered. “Very much.”
As she dismissed jurors for the day Tuesday, Judge Beverly Cannone said the trial is “definitely winding down.” She later told the lawyers it appears Read’s case may be in the jury’s hands by Friday, or Monday at the latest. While Rentschler is expected to be the final defense witness, prosecutors have said they plan to call multiple rebuttal witnesses.
The ongoing trial is Read’s second, following a mistrial last summer as a result of a hung jury.
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