Next Karen Read witness is a private investigator hired just last week

Karen Read’s defense called a private investigator hired just last week to the witness stand Monday, the 29th day of her trial, to discuss measurements taken outside 34 Fairview Road in Canton, Massachusetts – the Boston suburb where her police officer boyfriend was found dead on Jan. 29, 2022.

Read is accused of clipping him with a 2021 Lexus LX 570 SUV and leaving him to die during a blizzard. She denies striking him at all, and her defense is expected to illustrate how O’Keefe could have walked into the home before his death contrary to prosecution claims.

Toward the end, they called John Tedeman, a private investigator hired on June 3, after their previous investigator suffered a health issue and could not testify.

Prosecution witnesses have testified that he never made it inside and that she allegedly backed into him before she went to his house and left him a series of angry voicemails as he died on the ground from blunt trauma to the head and hypothermia.

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While the medical examiner could not rule O’Keefe’s death a homicide, a brain surgeon named Dr. Aizik Wolf testified that his skull fractures were consistent with falling backward and striking his head on the ground. Another witness for the commonwealth, Dr. Judson Welcher, testified that scratches on O’Keefe’s arm were consistent with an impact from Read’s taillight, which was broken when police seized it.

But a defense dog bite expert, Dr. Marie Russell, testified that the injuries are consistent with dog bites and scratches, not a vehicular strike, and a crash reconstructionist testified that the damage to her taillight could have come from someone throwing a bar glass like the one found shattered near O’Keefe’s remains.

The defense believes O’Keefe suffered his mortal injuries somewhere else and was “placed” on the lawn where Read and two other women found him about 5 and a half hours after she left the scene. 

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Earlier in the day, Read defense attorney Robert Alessi moved for a mistrial again over special prosecutor Hank Brennan’s handling of O’Keefe’s hoodie during cross-examination of a defense expert witness.

“Your honor, the defense moves for a mistrial with prejudice based upon intentional misconduct that just occurred before the court and before the jury,” Alessi said.

He said the motion came in response to representations Brennan made while questioning Dr. Daniel Wolfe, a crash reconstructionist from a firm called ARCCA.

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Brennan, while cross-examining Wolfe about damage to O’Keefe’s hoodie, showed him the actual piece of clothing, which had a series of holes in the back.

WATCH: Karen Read defense moves for a mistrial again

Alessi contended that the holes were created by a criminologist during lab testing and that they did not exist when police took the sweatshirt.

Read is accused of killing her boyfriend O’Keefe, a Boston police officer, by clipping him with her 2021 Lexus LX 570 SUV on Jan. 29, 2022, and leaving him to die on the ground in a record-setting blizzard.

‘CANNON’ TEST BOOSTS KAREN READ’S DEFENSE, SHOWING TAILLIGHT DAMAGE CONSISTENT WITH THROWN BAR GLASS

Brennan told the court that he was not disputing that a criminologist made the holes and asked the judge to give a jury instruction rather than declare a mistrial.

“It appears that I made a mistake,” Brennan said.

Judge Beverly Cannone denied the motion but said she is going to put photos illustrating the mix-up into evidence and that she is would instruct jurors that they are not permitted to draw any inference that the holes happened on Jan. 29, 2022.

At the start of the day, Cannone heard motions regarding rebuttal testimony and to preclude or limit expert witnesses.

She said she would hold an additional evidentiary hearing to determine what Dr. Elizabeth Laposata, a Rhode Island forensic pathologist and professor at Brown University, can testify in front of jurors.

David Yannetti, one of Read’s defense lawyers, told the court that her legal team believes O’Keefe was “placed” on the ground near a flagpole outside 34 Fairview Road in Canton, Massachusetts. Laposata is expected to discuss O’Keefe’s injuries and how and where he could have suffered them.

The home is about 20 miles south of Boston. Read, O’Keefe and others went there for an after-party on Jan. 28, 2022.

Wolfe, the reconstructionist from a firm called ARCCA, testified last week that damage to Read’s SUV is inconsistent with the type of impact that prosecutors allege left O’Keefe dead early the following morning.

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But on cross-examination, he conceded that flying fragments of a taillight could have been the source of injuries to O’Keefe’s face and nose before he suffered a fractured skull from what prosecution experts testified was a backward fall.

Read has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder, drunken driving manslaughter and leaving the scene.

Her defense maintains that her vehicle never struck O’Keefe and that his injuries were caused in some other manner after she left.

Read could face life in prison if convicted of the top charge. Jurors deadlocked at her first trial last year on the same charges. 

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