Karen Read trial: Key takeaways from week 7 as the retrial begins to wind down

Week seven of the Karen Read retrial saw the defense team continue to develop its theories of the case and give jurors reasons to question the prosecution.

The week opened with some of the most damaging text messages from the now-fired lead investigator, Michael Proctor, who prosecutors did not call during their case-in-chief.

“She’s a whack job c-word,” read Special Prosecutor Hank Brennan in court, quoting Proctor’s texts to old friends from Canton High School.

Witnesses included a former Canton police officer who clashed with defense attorney Alan Jackson and a doctor with more than 35 years of experience in emergency medicine and forensic pathology, who said John O’Keefe’s arm injuries were consistent with dog bites.

A Dighton police officer also testified, directly contradicting the claims by investigators about Read’s taillight being smashed on the morning of Jan. 29, 2022 — the morning O’Keefe was found unresponsive and died.

Read told reporters on Wednesday that she anticipates the defense to call its final witnesses next Tuesday.

With the trial nearing the final stretch, here are the key takeaways from week seven.

Prosecutor reads Proctor’s texts: ‘Homeowner is a Boston cop too.’

Jonathan Diamandis, a friend of Proctor, testified about the text messages Proctor sent in a group chat that spanned several years and contained more than 38,000 texts.

Proctor sent some of the texts the day he began investigating O’Keefe’s death.

Brennan attempted to prevent the text messages from being read in court, arguing the defense should call Proctor himself, but ultimately, Judge Beverly Cannone allowed the text messages into evidence Monday morning.

Reading from a printout, Diamandis said Proctor told his high school buddies that the “powers that be want answers ASAP” about what happened to O’Keefe.

When a friend asked Proctor if the homeowner where O’Keefe was found would face scrutiny, Proctor replied, “Nope. Homeowner is a Boston cop too.”

Read’s lawyers have argued that the Massachusetts State Police investigation focused on her from the start and never considered other possibilities.

“She waffled him,” Proctor wrote, meaning he believed Read struck O’Keefe. “She hit him with her car,” he wrote.

A friend asked if O’Keefe was beaten up, but Proctor said, “Nope.”

One friend wrote back that something “stinks,” but Proctor said, “There will be some serious charges brought on the girl.”

Other texts included:

• “She’s a whack job [expletive]”
• “A babe” with a “weird Fall River accent”
• “She’s [expletive]”
• “Nutbag” with a “leaky balloon knot,” a reference to medical conditions

At one point, Proctor told his friends he was “writing a warrant.”

Former Canton police officer claims ‘false memory’

Kelly Dever, a former Canton police officer, took the stand on Monday and delivered tense and, at times, combative testimony.

She currently works for the Boston Police Department, but she worked an overnight patrol shift in Canton the night into Jan. 29, 2022.

Dever went to the station that night to work as a dispatcher.

She spoke with federal agents in August 2023 — the only investigators who questioned her as part of an investigation into O’Keefe’s death. Neither the state police nor Canton police interviewed her.

She told the agents she saw then-Canton Police Chief Ken Berkowitz and federal agent Brian Higgins inside the station’s sally port, where police brought Read’s SUV. Higgins had been at the bar with Read and O’Keefe and later went to 34 Fairview Road, where O’Keefe’s body was found.

However, under questioning by the prosecutor, Dever called the statement a “false memory” that she provided in “good faith.” She said it wouldn’t have been possible because she left her shift before the SUV arrived.

At some point before her testimony, Dever told the prosecutor, a defense attorney threatened to charge her with perjury if she didn’t repeat the statement about Berkowitz and Higgins.

“It was very clear, given the timeline, it could not be correct,” Dever said about why she refused to repeat what she told federal investigators.

Jackson said that she told federal investigators the two men were in the garage “for a wildly long time.”

Doctor says O’Keefe’s injuries consistent with dog attack

Dr. Marie Russell was the third witness to take the stand on Monday. She currently works for the Medical Board of California.

She described O’Keefe’s arm injuries as “scratches on the surface of the skin” and that she believes the bites are “incomplete.”

“They don’t penetrate the full thickness of the skin,” she said.

She described seeing evidence that the bites occurred while he was still alive and at about the same time, but admitted she didn’t physically view O’Keefe’s body, only looked at photographs. She defended the practice as accepted in the medical field.

A dramatic moment occurred during Russell’s testimony after Brennan asked her about swabs taken from O’Keefe’s sweatshirt for dog DNA.

Jurors were asked to leave the courtroom and defense attorney Robert Alessi argued passionately for a mistrial due to Brennan’s questions.

Prosecutors did not call any witnesses to testify about the dog DNA swabs that came up negative, even though they did the first trial.

The judge denied the request for a mistrial and Brennan was allowed to question the doctor about the negative DNA swabs.

Brennan spent a long time questioning Russell about her opinions of various pieces of evidence, and often made statements that damaged the prosecution’s theory of the case.

The prosecutor asked Russell whether O’Keefe’s injuries could’ve been from a “side swipe.” Russell said, “They could be.”

“I didn’t see any medical evidence that there was an impact. There were no significant injuries from the neck down. No fractures, no bruise, no internal injuries, no, you know, lacerated organs. There is no collection of fluid in the lung cavities, the abdominal cavities,” she said.

Dighton police officer on Read’s taillight

Dighton Police Sgt. Nicholas Barros gave testimony that could be a game-changer for the trial.

Barros responded to Read’s parents’ house on Jan. 29, 2022, at about 3:27 p.m., to help retrieve her SUV parked there.

Barros said he observed the rear of Read’s SUV for a “good amount of time” and noted that the rear right taillight was damaged.

“There was a crack missing, but it was not completely damaged,” Barros testified. “A piece was missing,” about 3 by 6 inches.

When Jackson showed him a photograph of the taillight taken while parked in the Canton police garage, Barros said it didn’t match how it looked in Dighton.

“That taillight is completely smashed out,” he said. “That middle section was intact when I was there.”

Defense crash experts rebut collision

The defense called arguably its most important witness yet on Friday when Daniel Wolfe, the director of accident reconstruction at ARCCA, took the stand.

Wolfe and another expert testified at Read’s first trial about testing they undertook for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Massachusetts. While jurors in either trial won’t hear anyone say ARCCA was hired by the FBI, Read’s defense lawyers made sure to stress ARCCA was not initially hired by them.

For this second trial, ARCCA was formally retained by the defense and undertook a series of tests responding to work performed by the prosecution’s accident reconstruction expert, Judson Welcher. Wolfe said his specific focus was the damage to Read’s taillight.

Wolfe testified about six tests he and his team conducted for the case. The tests involved various crash dummies or crash dummy arms, suspended a distance away from a car that was the same make, model and year as Read’s SUV.

ARCCA reversed the car at speeds ranging from 10 to 29 mph, and cameras captured the impact of the dummy into the SUV’s taillight. Multiple videos of the tests were played for the jury.

Photos showing damage to the test car’s taillights were also displayed in court alongside an image of Read’s taillight. Wolfe testified that none of the tests he and ARCCA conducted resulted in damage as severe as what was seen on Read’s light.

All the testing involving the dummies was new for the retrial.

Prosecutors have claimed data from Read’s SUV showed she was traveling at 24 mph when she hit O’Keefe. In Wolfe and ARCCA’s fifth test, they reversed the test SUV at that speed into a suspended crash dummy. The crash dummy’s impact caused some splintered glass, but Wolfe said many of the internal components of the light were not damaged — unlike Read’s.

In his cross-examination, Brennan attacked Wolfe over communications with the defense team, which Wolfe brushed off as usual conversations focused on logistics.

Brennan also pointed out potential miscalculations in the testing due to discrepancies in the weight of the dummy’s arm. O’Keefe’s arm weighed 11.86 pounds, while the dummy arm was just 9.38 pounds.

But Wolfe said the difference of about a pound wouldn’t make a major impact when considering the force of a 6,000-pound SUV.

In Jackson’s redirect, he clarified further, “When that vehicle is coming in at 24 mph, 29 mph, at those speeds, that arm is going to get accelerated up to that velocity. You’re not going to somehow affect the vehicle speed.”

Jackson also brought up Brennan’s claims that holes caused by road rash in the sweatshirt the scientists put on the dummy during testing — an exact material replica to O’Keefe’s the night he died — could have been like ones caused by frozen ground.

But Wolfe said the damage to O’Keefe’s sweatshirt was clearly inconsistent with that of the sweatshirt on the dummy.

The hoodie was “mangled” in the 24 mph test, he said, with the front and both arms covered in holes and “significant road rash.” O’Keefe’s had just one area with holes different than the “distinct” road rash seen in testing.

Wolfe’s testimony will resume when the trial picks up at 9 a.m. Monday.

Irene Rotondo and Charlie McKenna of the MassLive staff contributed to this report.

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