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Updated 6/21/24 4:32 p.m.
DEDHAM, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — The prosecution rested its case in the Karen Read murder trial after nearly two months of testimony Friday.
Read, 44, is accused of killing her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, by hitting him with her SUV and leaving him to die in a snowstorm after a night out in Canton in January, 2022.
Read’s defense argues that she has been framed.
The final witness for the prosecution was Dr. Irini Scordi-Bello, the medical examiner who performed O’Keefe’s autopsy, who began her testimony on Thursday.
She told the court she determined O'Keefe's cause of death to be blunt impact and hypothermia, but could not determine the manner of his death.
"Would you agree that John O'Keefe's injuries, or lack thereof, are inconsistent with having been struck by a vehicle at 24 mph?" the defense asked Dr. Scordi-Bello. She responded that it was "likely and unlikely at the same time."
Dr. Scordi-Bello also said there was a possibly that O'Keefe's facial injuries were consistent with being punched.
The first witness for the defense was Brian Loughran. He was a snow plow driver who plowed Fairview Road in Canton around 2:45 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022. O'Keefe's body was found in the snow outside of a home at 34 Fairview Rd. just hours later.
Loughran told the jury that he did not see a body when he passed that location. Instead, he said he saw a Ford Edge in the spot where O'Keefe's body would have been at that time.
During cross-examination, the prosecution asked Loughran how did he "know where Mr. O'Keefe's body was found?" Loughran said he got that information from police reports, police interviews, and what he had seen in the news.
Read More: Several Witnesses Take The Stand Thursday In The Karen Read Murder Trial
The second witness for the defense was Dr. Marie Russell, a retired ER physician. She testified that the injuries on O'Keefe's arm were consistent with an animal attack. The defense used her testimony as a rebuttal to the prosecution's claim that the cuts on O'Keefe's arm were from a cracked taillight.
"I believe these injuries were sustained by an animal, possibly a large dog, because of the pattern of the injuries," Dr. Russell said.
When asked by the prosecution if she was certain the injuries on O'Keefe's arm were from an animal, and there was no other explanation, Dr. Russell said "to a degree of reasonable medical certainty, yes."
"I've seen thousands of people with injuries to their skin, from blunt to sharp, from all different mechanisms. Those injuries did not look like blunt force injuries," she said.
The last witness of the day was Richard Green, a cell phone expert for the defense. Green testified about health and location data taken from O'Keefe's cell phone, as well as a 2:27 a.m. google search made by another witness, Jen McCabe, for "hos [sic] long to die in cold?"
McCabe is the sister-in-law of retired Boston Police Officer Brian Albert. Albert and his wife, McCabe's sister, owned the Canton home where O'Keefe's body was found.
McCabe testified she did not make that google search until after O'Keefe's body was found, hours later, at the request of distraught Karen Read.
A cell phone expert for the prosecution previously testified that the 2:27 a.m. timestamp could have been linked to the time the browser tab was created on McCabe's phone, not the actual time of the google search. But, Green testified Friday that it is his opinion that the search happened at or before 2:27 a.m.
"What is the basis for your opinion?" the defense asked Green.
"By how this particular phone operates with that exact operating system, and comparing it to other data on that phone and the way it presented out itself, is all consistent with that search happening at or before that time," Green responded.
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