I am a super nerdy paralegal. Like, it's a problem... I live for lists and charts and timelines and graphs. So I made witness guides from Karen Read 1.0 that might be useful for y'all as we get ready for Karen Read 2.0.

There are photos and summaries of testimony for police, paramedics, medical, crime lab, etc. I did not include the main players (Alberts, McCabes) or the experts. Canton Police Department
Saraf, Mullaney, Gallagher, Goode, Lank and Rae

TRACKING THE TAPE🧵
Three Massachusetts State Police officers were questioned at Karen Read’s first trial about how the Commonwealth came into possession of videos from the sally port.

All three were clueless at best and cagey at worst.

These law enforcement officers leading the investigation into the murder of a fellow cop can’t remember anything, talk in circles and don’t know “chain of custody” from a hole in the ground.

Very few things are clear after going through this testimony but it seems that the defense received the dark, grainy sally port video and the exterior footage on April 4, 2024. That’s more than two years after the vehicle was brought to the Canton PD sally port and two years after the video had to be preserved on the recording system.

Then, stunningly, in the middle of the trial, they received the interior sally port video, which may or may not have been inverted, depending on who you ask.

Let’s take a look at what disgraced, soon-to-be former Trooper Michael Proctor, Detective Lt. Brian Tully and Sgt. Yuri Bukhenik said about the sally port video. The first date we get about the existence of sally port video is February 2024. Proctor was summoned by the Feds to appear before a grand jury, just a couple months before the start of the Read trial.

They asked him this question: Are you aware of whether there are any cameras in the garage, in the sally port, where Karen Read’s SUV was parked?

His answer: Yes.

Question: Have you reviewed the footage?

Proctor: Yes.

Proctor explained at the Read trial he was referring to exterior video, even though the question was about video “in” the garage, “in” the sally port.

“Yeah, I should have clarified it, sir,” he tells Alan Jackson.

When people talk about the Karen Read case in terms of conspiracy – that some people beat the crap out of a guy, threw him on the lawn to die and had their cop buddies plant evidence to frame the guy’s girlfriend – it sounds insane.

But even if you remove every bit of that from this case, you’re left with a scenario that’s just as absurd. And that makes it really hard for John O’Keefe to get justice.

Let’s take the taillight – the main piece of evidence – and walk through what we learned at the first trial. When you piece together all the testimony from different witnesses over the course of several weeks to create the big picture, you’re left with another outlandish story for a jury to consider. So you’ve got these small town cops who responded to a scene at 6 o’clock in the morning where a man was lying on someone’s front lawn in a blizzard. All they know is that the man is unconscious and has visible injuries. Paramedics take him to the hospital. It seemed unlikely that the man would survive.

Now, these cops don’t normally handle a case like this but the state police say “call us back if he dies.” So the cops decide to try to figure out what happened.

There was one woman on scene who was running around, screaming hysterically. She’s asking “Did I hit him? Could I have hit him?” The cops try to talk to her but she’s not making sense. They just send her home.

Another woman on scene says this is her sister’s house they’re standing outside of. They’re all friends with the guy in the snow. In fact, they were all at a bar the night before. The man and his girlfriend (the screaming woman) were invited to come over to the house for an after-party. The woman thought she saw their car pull up outside but no one ever came in.

So, the cops go in the house to talk to the homeowners and a couple other party-goers from the night before who showed up. One of them brought donuts. Everyone is sitting around the kitchen table, shrugging their shoulders, unable to figure out how the guy ended up on the lawn.

"TAINT" 🧵

Hank Brennan was downright indignant when Dr. Marie Russell questioned the validity of the swabs of John O’Keefe’s clothing that were sent to UC Davis to test for dog DNA. Outraged, even.

Like how dare anyone question the integrity of the Massachusetts State Police!

Here’s what he said in his closing arguments:

“Dr. Russell was comfortable taking the stand and providing information for Your Honor’s consideration that was totally baseless... She floated theories of taint in the DNA or manipulation of the DNA wasn’t handled properly. There was absolutely no good faith basis whatsoever for her to suggest for a second that that the DNA collection, preservation and testing wasn’t solid.”

Dr. Russell was talking about contamination of forensic specimens in general and didn’t have all the specifics about possible issues with the collection of evidence in this case.

But we do.

We have all the specifics from the first trial that show there is indeed a good faith basis to question the validity of pretty much any piece of evidence in the Karen Read case (i.e. reasonable doubt). But in particular here, the focus is on the canine DNA.

Let’s go through them. First, let’s talk about how John O’Keefe’s clothing was collected and processed by the Massachusetts State Police.

On January 29, 2022, the clothes were cut off in the ambulance and tossed on the floor before being collected from the hospital by none other than soon-to-be-former Trooper Michael Proctor.

A disgraced officer collecting the evidence - that’s one fact for Brennan that provides a good faith basis to suggest the process wasn’t solid.

Proctor bagged the clothes and left them in the back of Trooper Bukhenik’s truck for at least eight hours before taking them back to the temporary evidence room and laying them out on butcher paper to dry.

Wet items that had been on the floor – that’s a second fact for Brennan that provides a good faith basis to suggest the process wasn’t solid.

The clothes were kept there in that open area where all troopers had access to for several days, right next to where the pieces of taillight were sitting.

It wasn’t until February 4th, when Trooper DiCiccio processed the clothing and taillight into permanent evidence.

Clothing lying in an open area for six days where multiple people had access – that’s a third fact for Brennan that provides a good faith basis to suggest the process wasn’t solid.

If you’ve forgotten who Trooper DiCicco is, let me remind you. He’s the one who mocked Proctor for not being able to convince the medical examiner to classify O’Keefe’s death as a homicide. In another text exchange about Karen Read, DiCicco texted “Oh, fuck her. Bitch.”

Another less-than-stellar trooper processing evidence - that’s a fourth fact for Brennan that provides a good faith basis to suggest the process wasn’t solid.

THE CANTON TWILIGHT ZONE 🧵

Followers of the Karen Read trial are well-versed in the “hos long to die in cold” debate.

Jen McCabe’s cell phone records show she searched – then deleted – this phrase at 2:27 am as John O’Keefe lay dying in the snow outside 34 Fairview Road.

McCabe denies this, of course. And the Commonwealth brought in multiple experts to say Cellebrite, which is the gold standard in digital forensics, was wrong.

They claim that McCabe was actually searching local basketball teams at 2:27 am, then simply reopened the same tab four hours later when she was sitting in the back of a police cruiser with Karen Read who was hysterically screaming for her to look it up on Google.

Never mind that the first search on that tab was at 6:23:51 am for “how long ti die in ckld” which brought up a suggested search for “how long to digest food.” So she searched again for “how long ti die in ckld” at 6:23:57 am and finally searched “hos long to die in cold” at 6:24:18 am. (And she didn't delete that one.) Yet that is the one that took the place of the basketball search in the middle of the night on the extraction…

This may be the biggest technology mystery of the Karen Read trial, but there are more - lots more - making Canton some sort of upside-down world where we are told that the hard data prosecutors typically rely on isn’t what it seems, that it’s wrong even.

Here are more examples: Allie McCabe’s Life360 data

Jen McCabe’s daughter Allie testified that she picked up Colin Albert at 34 Fairview around 12:10 am on January 29, 2022, dropped him off at his house and went straight home and stayed there.

Her Life360 data tells another story. It shows her leaving her house at 1:08 am and driving to an area in or around Canton High School before going back home at 1:30 am.

When confronted with this data on the stand, Allie McCabe looked mystified and confused. It’s wrong, she said. She suggested maybe the error was a result of the phone not being hooked up to the wifi.

A KATIE MCLAUGHLIN 🧵
Canton Firefighter Katie McLaughlin is one of many controversial figures in the #KarenRead case. She is one of four people who claims to have heard Read say “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him, I hit him” the morning John O’Keefe was found on the lawn of 34 Fairview.

There’s a thread pinned to my profile that breaks down what all 13 people on scene heard. Short version – the four people who heard the declarative “I hit him” have potential issues with credibility. The other nine heard variations of “Did I hit him?” or “Could I have hit him?”

The main issue cited toward McLaughlin’s credibility is that she lied about knowing Caitlin Albert, the daughter of the homeowner and someone who was in the house at the time in question. On the stand, McLaughlin tried to downplay it by saying “I went to high school with somebody named Caitlin Albert.”

In reality, the two had been on overnight trips to Maine, had gone to the beach and other parties, visited at a college apartment and attended a baby shower a few months before January 29, 2022.

But there are several other issues with her story. Let’s go through them… McLaughlin testified on direct that she was instructed to get information from Read about who the patient was, if he was on any medication, etc. She also asked this:

“So at that point, I asked her if, uh, there had been any significant trauma that happened before this.”

Lally then asked, in Lally style: What, if anything, did she say?

“So, she said ‘I hit him.’ She repeated it. Um, there was a woman standing across from her who I believe at that point said, uh, ‘you’re hysterical, you need to calm down, you’re hysterical.’ She repeated ‘I hit him.’ There was a police officer who was in that vicinity kind of with us, who replied ‘you what?’ She repeated it one more time, um, and that officer then signaled to somebody ‘get Goode down here,’ which I’m assuming would be the sergeant.”

On cross, Alan Jackson showed her a still image from the dash cam video, which McLaughlin confirmed captured the moment when she was talking to Read. McLaughlin pointed out herself, Read, a “civilian female” who was Jen McCabe, and the officer she said heard the statement. McLaughlin didn’t know the name of the officer.

He was later identified as Steven Saraf, the first officer to arrive on scene. According to McLaughlin, he not only heard Read say “I hit him,” but he asked her “you what?” and then called for another officer to come to the scene.

EMBEDDED TAILLIGHT 🧵
During the #KarenReadTrial, Prosecutor Adam Lally told the jury that John O’Keefe had microscopic pieces of taillight embedded in his clothes. On its face, it’s a damning statement. So I wanted to take a closer look…

I went through all the testimony related to this topic that came in through a number of witnesses over several different days to try to see the big picture. Let’s go through it, and you can decide if the prosecution proved it or if the defense raised enough doubt to call it into question. It’s a long read because there was A LOT so I made a few graphics with the main points if you want to skip. First, I’ll start with the end, which is the forensic testing. It’s pretty straightforward. Science is science. The clothes and pieces of taillight were delivered to the crime lab by Proctor on March 14, 2022, and they tested what they were given.

I do want to note that no witness uttered the word “embedded” in regard to taillight in the clothes. That is Lally’s term and he gets that from the form of testing done by Maureen Harnett in May 2023. She examined the gray sweatshirt and orange T-shirt and took what she called “scrapings” with a flat metal spatula and collected the debris from both shirts in a single envelope.

The debris was then sent to Ashley Vallier, who looked at it under a microscope and found some pieces of apparent red plastic and one piece of apparent clear plastic. The measurements ranged from 1/8thx1/16th inch to less than1/16th x less than 1/16thinch.

The items were sent to Christine Hanley, who compared it microscopically to pieces of taillight. Her conclusion was that they were consistent in color and instrumental properties and could haveoriginated from the taillight.

*I would be interested in knowing a couple things about the science. How determinative is a finding of could havecome from the same thing? And perhaps if there’s a retrial, the Crash Daddies could answer how much force would be needed to cause the taillight to break into microscopic pieces, is that possible with an impact of a human body and, if so, would there be more extensive injuries to the human? And if, as Trooper Paul opined, the taillight shredded O'Keefe's arm, wouldn't there be taillight embedded in the arm?

"I hit him. I hit him. I hit him."
A deep dive 🧵into one of the leading pieces of evidence against #KarenRead.
I'm a paralegal and I treated this trial like one of my cases. The first thing I looked at is the claim Karen Read said she hit John O'Keefe.
Here is what I found: There were 13 people who interacted with Karen the morning of 1/29/22. Four said they heard her say "I hit him." A review of the testimony & reports shows these four may have some issues that could compromise their credibility.