Was John O’Keefe alive to hear the “last words” from Karen Read when he died Jan. 29, 2022? That was a key question prosecutors and her defense sought answers to Friday in her retrial on murder charges in his death.
Each side sought to fit them into the context of their respective cases.
During an ambulance ride after Read, Kerry Roberts and Jennifer McCabe found O’Keefe under a pile of snow outside another officer’s house, Read told paramedics about an argument she’d had with her boyfriend, both sides agree.
But a key point of contention Friday arose during the testimony of a Canton firefighter and paramedic named Jason Becker.
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Prosecutors allege Read intentionally ran over O’Keefe after a drunken argument and left him to die during a snowstorm. She has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, manslaughter and fleeing the scene, and her defense denies she struck him at all.
Read conceded outside the courthouse that text messages between her and O’Keefe read in court Thursday depicted an “argument” she thought was “embarrassing” to have shared publicly.
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Special prosecutor Hank Brennan portrayed the remark Becker mentioned as a reference to an argument between the two.
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“When you spoke to the defendant, and she shared with you that her last words with her ‘husband’ were (an) argument, why didn’t you ask for more detail about that?” Brennan asked.
Becker and his partner, fellow firefighter and paramedic Daniel Whitley, both testified they were under the impression she was the victim’s wife when they responded to the incident.
“I didn’t feel it was my, you know — at the time, we went about the call as that we didn’t think we would be witnesses in a murder trial,” Becker replied. “We were there to support Karen and ultimately get her to the hospital safely.”
Alan Jackson, one of Read’s defense attorneys, questioned whether Read’s statement could have had different context, something she said over voicemail or earlier in the evening.
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“Sir, when you wrote the report of your notes, to put into your report, do you remember the word ‘argument?'” Brennan asked.
“I did,” Becker replied.
“Do you remember her actually saying the word ‘argument’?”
“I did,” he replied again.
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“Do you remember her ever saying any word about voice messages?” Brennan asked.
“I did not,” Becker said.
Becker agreed with Jackson, however, when he asked if “earlier in the night” could have referred to an argument with O’Keefe earlier in the evening, such as at 6 p.m., 7 p.m., rather than around midnight.
“Did she ever say whether or not she believed he received her last words from her?” Jackson asked.
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“There were no other details,” Becker said. He also testified that he didn’t ask her what her “last words” to O’Keefe were.
“But she did — when she was having this conversation with you about her last words to him — she did actually take out her phone and show you a bunch of missed calls to him at the same time, didn’t she?”
“She tried to, yes,” he said.
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“In your mind, did you put two and two together, that what she was actually talking about were the missed calls and her being upset about her last words to him being very angry on those missed calls, those voicemails. Did you put those two things together?”
“I didn’t,” Becker replied.
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Dr. Garrey Faller also tookx the stand Friday. He oversaw the pathology lab when Read arrived Jan. 29, 2022, the same morning O’Keefe was found dead.
Faller testified Read had a blood alcohol level of .093%. when hospital staff collected a sample just after 9 a.m.
She and O’Keefe left the Waterfall Bar and Grille in Canton around midnight. Prosecutors played a clip Thursday from an interview in which she discussed spiking her own drinks with extra shots.
Before the testimony kicked off for the day, jurors were transported to view the crime scene at 34 Fairview Road in Canton. Police also towed in Read’s Lexus SUV to place it in the street outside the house, so jurors could see it in place and where a broken taillight had been.
The first week of testimony is in the books. The trial was initially expected to take six to eight weeks.
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