Where Things Stand in the Karen Read Trial
It’s been a long few weeks in the Karen Read trial, and emotions are definitely running high. The case has brought a lot of tension, with people watching closely to see where the truth lies. Now that the prosecution has wrapped up its side, the defense is trying to flip the narrative and make the jury question everything they’ve heard so far.
Defense Experts Try to Break the Prosecution’s Story
So the defense brought in some experts, and they didn’t hold back. One of them, a retired medical examiner, looked at the injuries John O’Keefe had and said they didn’t really line up with someone being hit by a car. He described them as more like friction injuries—possibly from something else.
Then there was another doctor who studies dog bites. She looked at photos of O’Keefe’s wounds and said, honestly, they looked a lot like they could’ve come from a dog. It wasn’t just a hunch—she pointed out the shape and pattern of the injuries and seemed pretty confident.
There was also a digital forensics guy who focused on O’Keefe’s phone. He said the phone showed that John was walking around at about 12:21 a.m., which doesn’t totally line up with the timeline the prosecution gave. On top of that, there was a big moment when the expert brought up a strange Google search someone made that night—"how long to die in cold." That happened around 2:27 a.m., and the defense is using it to ask: why would someone be searching that before they even claim to have found his body?
A Lot of Eyewitness Testimony Doesn’t Quite Match Up
One of the most talked-about witnesses was Jennifer McCabe. She says she heard Karen Read say, “I hit him, I hit him,” which would obviously be huge if true. But the defense is raising eyebrows over that claim. They’re pointing out that Jennifer also made that weird Google search and questioning if her timeline even makes sense. There’s definitely doubt being cast on whether her memory is reliable—or if there’s more going on.
Some first responders also shared what they saw and heard. One officer said Karen had blood on her and looked totally out of it. A paramedic mentioned someone at the scene said, “I hit him,” but couldn’t say for sure who said it. The defense picked apart those stories too, pointing out things they left out in earlier reports or changed later on.
