DEDHAM, MASS. (WHDH) - The judge in the Karen Read murder retrial once again rejected the defense’s request for a mistrial Monday.
Read and her defense team arrived at Norfolk District Court in Dedham, marking the beginning of a new week of testimony.
However, testimony was delayed when defense attorney Robert Alessi objected to special prosecutor Hank Brennan’s actions Monday morning, specifically regarding testimony concerning Boston police officer John O’Keefe’s hooded sweatshirt.
Read is accused of killing O’Keefe, her boyfriend, by backing into him with her car after a night of drinking and leaving him to die in the snow in January 2022. Read’s defense argues she is being framed in a police coverup.
The first trial ended in a hung jury.
Alessi said prosecutors improperly asked about holes in O’Keefe’s sweatshirt being caused by him falling backwards after being hit by a car. However, the defense said those holes were from the prosecution’s expert at the Mass. State Police Crime Laboratory cutting the fabric.
“What could be more egregious? What could be more misleading than that? And what could be more important for a context than the alleged collision that never occurred?” asked Alessi.
The jury was instructed that they cannot consider that testimony when deliberating. The pictures of the sweatshirt before it was cut will be entered into evidence.
“It appears that I made a mistake,” Brennan said in regard to the evidence. “The court should strike the questions and the answers and you should instruct the jury they are to completely disregard any questions or answers about the holes in the sweatshirt.”
Read’s team showed the judge documents from a criminalist who examined the clothing. They show she damaged the shirt, as she made cuts in the fabric to do her examination. Alessi claimed the state intentionally misled the jury.
“The commonwealth has no case, they have no collision,” said Alessi. “They are desperate.”
Brennan admitted he made a mistake in this line of questioning.
Two other witnesses took the stand on Monday. One, a private eye who took measurements at 34 Fairview, including the garage. The second, Rhode Island’s former Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Elizabeth LaPosata. She testified about autopsy photographs of O’Keefe’s head. She noted irregularly placed scrapes of the skin that look like pencil marks.
“Would you expect to see that in a person who fell backward and hit their head on a flat surface?” Jackson asked LaPosata.
“No, it has to be a surface that has some small ridges in it to make those,” said LaPosata.
On Friday, defense expert Dr. Daniel Wolfe, director of crash reconstruction at ARCCA, testified that damaged to Read’s SUV is not consistent with striking a person. Wolfe, who also testified during Read’s first trial, used a nearly identical Lexus SUV to recreate the alleged impact with O’Keefe at 34 Fairview Road in Canton.
Wolfe resumed his testimony Monday before Alessi moved for a mistrial.
This is the third time the defense has requested a mistrial in this retrial.
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