Karen Read trial features tense questioning of defense crash experts
Monday may have been a key day in the Karen Read trial. A half day of witness testimony focused on Jen McCabe's "how long to die in cold" Google search and John O'Keefe's movements the night of his death. Then defense crash reconstruction experts were questioned without the jury present. In addition, the United States Supreme Court announced that it will not take up Read's appeal.
Read is standing trial for the second time, accused of hitting and killing her Boston police officer boyfriend with her SUV and leaving him to die outside a Canton home in 2022. Read argues she is being framed as part of a coverup involving law enforcement. Her first trial in 2024 ended with a mistrial due to a hung jury.
The only witness called on Monday with the jury in the room was Ian Whiffin, who works for Cellebrite, a company that does forensic phone extractions.
After Whiffin's testimony was completed, Daniel Wolfe and Andrew Rentschler were questioned without the jury present about their relationship with defense attorneys. Both men work for ARCCA, an engineering consulting firm.
Special prosecutor Hank Brennan handled direct questioning on Monday while Bob Alessi conducted cross-examination for the defense.
ARCCA witnesses testify
The voir dire hearing centered around the crash reconstruction experts who were hired as part of the now-closed federal investigation into the handling of O'Keefe's death.
Judge Beverly Cannone required Wolfe and Rentschler appear for the hearing without jurors present. The defense witnesses testified during Read's first trial and are expected to testify again that in their opinion, O'Keefe's injuries are not consistent with having been hit by a vehicle.
Cannone said at a recent hearing that she believes the defense has continued to violate her orders about discovery with the witnesses and wants to hear from them directly.
The majority of the Monday hearing centered on attorneys questioning Wolfe. Rentschler was called toward the end of the session, but Cannone ended the hearing just before 4:30 p.m.
No rulings were made following the voir dire hearing.
Defense witness deleted text messages
There appear to be 100 or more text messages that were deleted and not provided to the prosecution, Cannone said previously. Wolfe said that he switched phone carriers and was unable to locate the text messages prosecutors are looking for.
Brennan asked Wolfe Monday if he ever deleted text messages he had with defense attorney Alan Jackson.
"After the trial concluded, that's something that I routinely do. I'm not going to keep texts from Mr. Jackson, especially now that we're past a year. I have no reason to keep them sir," Wolfe said.
"I think I just told you that I did delete the texts," he added to another question from Brennan.
Wolfe said he does not know the number of text messages he deleted.
"I delete texts routinely," Wolfe said.
Wolfe added that in March 2025 he also communicated with Jackson on the Signal app. He said Jackson told him that is his preferred method of communication.
Tense exchange with Hank Brennan
In a tense exchange, Brennan asked Wolfe about a message he sent to the defense where he says, "Not sure if you want to put this somewhere in the direct examination" and another where he says "I have a feeling they are going to argue I didn't personally inspect the vehicles."
Brennan asked if he was trying to help the defense.
"It was more or less to make sure the jury can understand that because I didn't physically inspect the vehicle it did not matter for my analysis, sir. I wanted to make sure the jury understood that," Wolfe said.
"Don't hide behind the jury. I'm talking about your communications with the defense," Brennan responded, raising his voice.
Crash reconstruction expert on stand
Read's attorneys portrayed the experts as neutral witnesses who they had little contact with during the first trial, but Brennan said the court obtained a bill from ARCCA to the defense for nearly $24,000. Brennan also said there are emails between Read's team and the experts, with Wolfe writing in one email, "If you don't want me to say this, that's fine."
During questioning from Brennan, Wolfe described the case as a "very abnormal situation" where he was hired by the federal government but testifying for Read's defense.
"When did you become an advocate for the defense?" Brennan asked, prompting an objection that was sustained. "Do you feel like you're an advocate for the defense?" Brennan said, rephrasing his question. "No sir," Wolfe said. "Are you sure about that?" Brennan responded.
"Sir I'm on the science and the analysis that I've done. That's the side I'm on," Wolfe said.
Brennan noted that there was a nine minute call on April 24, 2024 with Read's defense and then two more shorter calls to the ARCCA main phone line.
On May 1, there was a 40-minute phone call. Wolfe said that during that phone call he did not discuss any of his findings in the case. He said he recalls that most of the conversation was about his background and ARCCA.
Brennan asked Wolfe if he became friendly with Jackson.
"I talked to him like I talk to all the attorneys I work with," Wolfe said.
Defense questions Daniel Wolfe
After about an hour, Brennan completed his questioning and Alessi took over for the defense. He asked Wolfe if he complied with the court order he received asking for all communications in the case.
"Yes. Everything I had in my possession and that ARCCA had in our records, we produced," Wolfe said.
Alessi asked Wolfe if he ever had any discussion with the defense about the invoice for his services before it was received by Read's attorneys after the first trial.
"No sir. I will note, I am not a part of the invoicing or accounting at ARCCA. When a bill goes out, how much it goes out for, who it goes to, I'm not a part of that at all," Wolfe said.
Alessi asked if he had any belief that he was retained or engaged by Read's defense attorneys.
"No and as I mentioned earlier, the Department of Justice forbid that. So we could not be retained or in a contract with the defense," Wolfe said.
New crash testing in Karen Read case
Wolfe said under questioning from Alessi that he needs until May 7 to finish his reports after completing new testing for Read's second trial.
On re-direct questioning, Brennan asked if he knew why the defense waited until February 2025 to inform him that ARCCA could be called to testify for a second time. Wolfe said he did not.
At the end of the day, Cannone asked Rentschler if he could have his report done earlier than May 7. He said he could try to do so.
Crash expert says he was harassed
Wolfe said that he spoke to Jackson this year for the first time on February 13.
He said the phone call was due to harassment he was receiving following his testimony in Read's first trial.
"I also know that around that time, unfortunately I ended up getting a significant amount of harassment through emails," Wolfe said. "Unfortunately, it even spread into my personal life where my wife was affected. They were posting pictures of my four kids all over the internet. It was somewhat of a difficult time on my end. I think what prompted me to reach out to Mr. Jackson was to figure out what's going on. Why is my family all over the internet? Why are they talking about me? Why am I getting all these hate emails."
Cellphone expert cross-examination begins
Testimony with jurors present ended for the day just before 1 p.m. with Alessi still questioning Whiffin, the cellphone data expert who is expected to be back on the stand Tuesday.
Alessi began cross-examination of Whiffin after Brennan completed just over three hours of direct questioning.
The defense attorney pointed out a phone call that O'Keefe received from McCabe that lasted seven seconds. He also attempted to show that O'Keefe's device turned in a westerly direction toward Brian Albert's house.
John O'Keefe's cellphone temperature
During his opening statement last week, Brennan told jurors that data showing the temperature of O'Keefe's cellphone battery would be critical in the case. Whiffin introduced that data, which was not presented in Read's first trial, earlier Monday.
According to Whiffin, O'Keefe's cellphone battery was at 82 degrees Fahrenheit at 12:13 a.m. on January 29, 2022, but from that point on it decreased. By 12:45 a.m., the phone battery was at 66 degrees, Whiffin said, and it continued to plummet overnight.
O'Keefe's phone was unlocked and then locked for the final time at 12:32 a.m., Whiffin said.
Whiffin also said data from the phone shows the times when the camera was blocked by something like being in a pocket or another object. The camera was clear as of 12:31 a.m., blocked at 12:33 a.m., and then never cleared until around the time his body was discovered just after 6 a.m.
Starting at 12:33, O'Keefe's phone logged multiple calls from Karen Read that were not answered.
Brennan asked his final question of direct examination if the data allowed Whiffin to make a determination of where O'Keefe's phone was from about 12:24 a.m. on January 29, 2022 until after 6 a.m.
"Based on the totality of all of the information that we described, my opinion is that the device never moved far away from the flagpole," Whiffin said, referring to the flagpole in the yard of 34 Fairview Road in Canton where O'Keefe's body was found.
Did John O'Keefe enter Brian Albert's home?
Read's defense attorneys have said that O'Keefe's Apple Health data proves that he went inside Brian Albert's home at 34 Fairview Road in Canton, where they claim he was killed during a fight.
O'Keefe's phone logged him as climbing up and down stairs at 12:22 a.m. During the first trial, a Massachusetts State Police trooper testified that O'Keefe was in a car using his GPS and over a half-mile away from the home when that happened.
Whiffin testified on Monday that he recently tested his own phone and found that Apple Health can log a person as climbing stairs if they are holding their phone while in a vehicle riding up a hill.
According to Whiffin's testimony, after moving constantly, O'Keefe's phone came to a complete stop at 12:24:38 a.m. on January 29, 2022. Whiffin said that O'Keefe's phone never came near the driveway of 34 Fairview Road.
Whiffin compiled a map with a satellite image of the property showing several dots that give a general area where the phone was located throughout the night. Brennan asked Whiffin if the dots are consistent with O'Keefe's phone being near the flagpole on the home's lawn and not moving the night he died.
"I think that's a reasonable assumption," Whiffin said.
Brennan asked Whiffin if he believes based on his research that the data shows O'Keefe climbed three flights of stairs.
"Based on the location data, the health data, and the research that I did and the testing, I believe it is more likely that the device was in a vehicle traveling on a road going up an incline versus the location data being incorrect and the person walking up physical steps," Whiffin said.
"How long to die in cold" Google search
During Read's first trial, and again on Monday, Whiffin testified about the timestamp on Jen McCabe's Google search about how long it would take a person to die in the cold. Prosecutors and defense attorneys agree that the search was made on January 29, 2022, but they disagree on the time.
McCabe testified previously, and will likely be called during the retrial, that she made the search at Read's request after O'Keefe was found in the snow. Defense attorneys argue that the search was made at 2:27 a.m., hours before O'Keefe's body was found.
Whiffin testified that McCabe was searching something unrelated at 2:27 a.m. and left the internet browser tab open on her phone. Because of that, Whiffin testified, when McCabe opened the tab back up to make the Google search at 6:23 a.m., it registered the timestamp as when the tab was originally opened.
"It's not until you actually close the tab that the information gets written into the database," Whiffin said.
Whiffin said McCabe was searching "Hockomock sports scoreboard" just before 2:30 a.m. A short time later, McCabe searched "Ozone Basketball," which Whiffin said was the tab that was later used to search "hos long to die in cold," a search that included a misspelling.
According to Whiffin, there were five records that were deleted from McCabe's search database, and based on the data that likely happened sometime on January 31, 2022.
"Cellebrite says 2:27, and it was deleted. Cellebrite does," Read said outside court Monday.
But Whiffin said it does not appear McCabe deleted those entries herself.
"Ultimately I wasn't able to say what caused these deletions at these particular times, but I'm confident that it wasn't as a result of user interaction that's something that was brought on on purpose," Whiffin said, later being asked specifically by Brennan if he believes it was done by someone manually. "I don't believe it's possible given the situation and the information that's available that it would have been possible for the user to delete it. I believe it was more than likely a system event that caused that, but I've not been able to replicate that system event."
U.S. Supreme Court won't hear Karen Read's case
The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday it will not take up Read's appeal to the nation's highest court. Read's request was heard in private on Friday, and the court announced Monday it was denied.
The 45-year-old faces charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence of alcohol, and leaving the scene of personal injury and death.
Read's attorneys appealed the verdict of her first trial, arguing that two of the charges against her should be thrown out due to double jeopardy. Attorneys for Read have said that the murder and leaving the scene charges should be dropped because, behind closed doors, jurors said they unanimously agreed to acquit Read on those charges. Those discussions were never revealed in open court.
Read's attorneys unsuccessfully turned to the Supreme Court after being denied at all lower level courts. Read asked the Supreme Court for a delay in her state trial until a decision was made on whether the appeal would be heard, but that request was rejected.
Karen Read trial latest
On Friday, the jury visited 34 Fairview Road in Canton, the home where O'Keefe's body was found in the snow.
When jurors and attorneys returned to the courtroom, Dr. Faller, the former chief of pathology and lab medical director at Good Samaritan Hospital in Brockton, took the stand and testified that Read's blood sample was taken at 9:08 a.m., hours after O'Keefe was found. According to Faller, Read had a blood alcohol content (BAC) of 0.093%, above the legal limit for driving in Massachusetts, which is 0.08%.
How to watch the Karen Read trial
You can watch Karen Read's second trial streaming live on CBS News Boston or in the video player above when court proceedings start at 9 a.m. Testimony is expected to go until about 1 p.m. Monday, followed by the hearing without jurors present.
