DEDHAM, MASS. (WHDH) - Karen Read and her defense team returned to court in Dedham Wednesday for another day of testimony in her murder retrial.
Judge Beverly Cannone announced she would speak to each juror individually at sidebar Wednesday morning, with lawyers present. The reasoning for this is unknown.
“An issue has come to my attention that is going to make it necessary that I talk to each one of you individually with counsel at sidebar,” Cannone said. “It may take a while.”
After more than an hour, court was back in session. The jurors’ seating was shifted, but no one was dismissed.
Testimony then resumed with brain surgeon Dr. Aizik Wolf, from Miami, detailing Boston police officer John O’Keefe’s injuries.
“Do you have an opinion to a reasonable degree of medical certainty whether this injury, the laceration and the basal fracture, was caused by Mr. O’Keefe falling backwards on the ground?” asked prosecutor Hank Brennan.
“My opinion is that that’s what caused his whole injury,” Wolf said. “Raccoon’s eyes occur because there’s leakage through the orbital fractures into the periorbital space. Normally, it takes about 24 to 48 hours to develop. It has been noted as early as one to three hours.”
“The only way he could get this kind of injury was to fall backwards, hit the back of his head, and then the resulting energy forces going into his brain and to the base of his skull,” he continued.
Wolf said a wound would include a depressed skull fracture, which O’Keefe did not have, if he were hit over the head with a weapon. Wolf said this was a classic blunt trauma injury.
As photos of O’Keefe’s head injury were displayed in the court, his mother got up and left the courtroom.
Read is accused of killing O’Keefe, her boyfriend, by hitting him with her SUV in January 2022. Prosecutors say she left him to die in the snow outside a home in Canton. Her lawyers argue she is being framed in a police coverup.
The first trial ended in a hung jury.
Forensic scientist Christina Hanley also continued her testimony from Tuesday. She testified that she found plastic debris from Read’s broken tail light inside the clothing that O’Keefe died in.
Due to the long holiday weekend, court will not resume until next Tuesday.
This is a developing news story; stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest details.
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