The judge overseeing the Karen Read case denied a motion by her defense attempting to bar a dog bite expert hired by prosecutors from testifying at Read’s second trial next month.
The expert, James Crosby, “is an expert in dog-bite wounds; there is an appropriate basis for his opinion in the record; and the proposed testimony, principles and methods employed are reliable,” Judge Beverly Cannone wrote in a brief order published Thursday afternoon. The objection by Read and her defense goes to “the weight of the evidence, not its admissibility,” Cannone wrote.
Crosby, a retired police lieutenant who worked in the Jacksonville, Fla. Sherriff’s Office, will be called by prosecutors to offer rebuttal testimony to defense expert Dr. Marie Russell.
Prosecutors sought to bar Russell from the second trial, but Cannone allowed her testimony. Russell has testified across multiple hearings that the wounds to the right arm of Read’s boyfriend, Boston Police officer John O’Keefe, are consistent with a dog attack — and not with being hit by a car, as prosecutors have suggested.
Crosby, on the other hand, believes the injuries could not have come from the dog Read’s defense has suggested attacked O’Keefe: Chloe, a German shepherd formerly owned by Brian Albert, whose home O’Keefe was found dying outside of on Jan. 29, 2022.
Special prosecutor Hank Brennan told Cannone that prosecutors located Chloe, who was rehomed in 2022, and Crosby took measurements of her claws and teeth.
Those measurements show the wounds on O’Keefe’s arm are too far apart to have come from Chloe, Brennan said.
Read’s defense has also asked Cannone to bar Robert Gilman, a meteorologist, from testifying about the hardness of the ground outside the Canton home O’Keefe was found outside of and from testifying about how ground freezes.
At a pair of hearings set for March 18 and March 19, Cannone will hear arguments on an effort to keep out another prosecution expert, Dr. Aizik L. Wolf, a neurologist.
Read, 45, is accused of intentionally striking O’Keefe with her car and leaving him to die in the snow outside a Canton home on Jan. 29, 2022 following a night of drinking.
Her lawyers say she was framed and that O’Keefe was fatally beaten inside the home before his body was planted outside.
Read’s second trial is scheduled for April 1.
