A defense expert in the Karen Read case spent hours on the stand Tuesday explaining and defending her work on dog bite analysis ahead of Read's second trial later this year.
Read is accused of hitting her Boston police officer boyfriend John O'Keefe with her SUV and leaving him to die in the snow in Canton, Massachusetts, outside the home of Brian Albert — another Boston police officer — in January 2022. Read's team claims she was framed, the victim of a police conspiracy. She faces charges of second-degree murder, knowingly leaving the scene of an accident and involuntary manslaughter.
Dr. Marie Russell, a defense dog bite expert who testified at Read's first trial, returned to the stand Tuesday morning to continue answering questions from prosecutors. She was questioned by the defense team at a hearing last month but prosecutors did not get a chance to finish.
Prosecutors don't want Russell to testify in the retrial, citing inconsistencies in her testimony. They spent the day trying to discredit her expertise and previous testimony.
"You really didn’t have the experience in car accidents to decide whether or not a car accident is the cause of these injuries did you?" Special Prosecutor Hank Brennan pressed during Tuesday's hearing.
"Mr. Brennan I’ve seen thousands of car accident victims," Russell responded.
Read’s attorneys say O’Keefe’s injuries were caused by a German Shepherd named Chloe owned by Brian Albert. They maintain that O’Keefe was killed in Albert’s basement and his body was put on the front lawn to frame Read.
Russell testified at the first trial that the wounds on O'Keefe's arm were consistent with a dog bite.
Russell testified for several hours on Tuesday, and was even shown the injuries to O'Keefe's arm as prosecutors attempted to make the case that her testimony would amount mostly to speculation. She was also again questioned by the defense team, in response to some of the points made by prosecutors on Tuesday.
Brennan says the state has examined the dog and asked the defense expert if she wanted to do the same thing.
"I don’t think it’s necessary for so many reasons," she said.
In a court filing last week, prosecutors also asked the judge to prevent forensics expert Richard Green from testifying at Read's second trial. Green testified at the first trial about a Google search by Jennifer McCabe, a key witness in the case.
Green testified at the first trial that the search "hos long to die in cold" was made around 2:30 a.m., hours before O'Keefe's body was found in the snow. But McCabe and prosecutors maintain that search happened after O'Keefe's body was found at 6:23 a.m.
Prosecutors also filed a notice Tuesday of their intention to seek to exclude Daniel Wolfe and Andrew Rentschler, two accident forensic reconstruction experts from the firm ARCCA, from testifiying in Read's second trial. They testified during Read's first trial about the injuries suffered by O'Keefe and whether they were consistent with being struck by a vehicle.
Read's second trial was initially set to take place in January, but it was recently delayed until April at the request of both the defense team and prosecutors.
