Anybody following the Karen Read trial in Boston?

[Anonymous]

I think she’s innocent - hope the jury finds her not guilty.

[Anonymous]

I live very near by and have been following the case since O’Keefe’s death was first reported in local news.

I am also a former prosecutor and former defense attorney - and also a former domestic violence advocate which is relevant to how it shapes my lens.

I have zero doubt that Karen Read struck John O’Keefe with her vehicle and killed him. I have been watching the trial daily - in the evenings after work. I have seen all the testimony thus far. The only doubts I hold are as to whether the evidence will convince me of murder rather than DUI manslaughter - I’ll let you know when the commonwealth had rested its case.

This case has been fascinating to watch not just as a former criminal attorney but also as a lifelong student of literature - it has all the makings of a Greek tragedy, or maybe Shakespearean.

Read is clearly a deeply flawed person who is willing to throw dozens of other people under the bus - even innocent kids just starting out in life - in order to avoid taking responsibility for her own actions. Her brokenness is no doubt something John was beginning to see thus his attempts to break off the relationship in the months preceding his death. I think when we see the testimony of his niece and nephew who he was raising, we will see that he was being emotionally and verbally abused by Read and that it is very likely she lashed out in murderous rage because he was ending their relationship.

Meanwhile you have the chorus of people who are easily swayed by conspiracy theories, especially if it involves believing that the cops are corrupt - sadly the cops are at fault for cultivating this attitude in many people because they are too often corrupt, and much more often a bit bumbling, especially in small towns like Canton.

I have deep sympathy for the O’Keefe family, especially the young niece and nephew who are now three times over orphaned.

I also have a lot of sympathy for the friends and acquaintances of John who have endured more than a year of vile abuse online and in real life by the crazies who follow the Turtle Boy blogger she’s colluding with in spinning her sick defense.

[Anonymous]

Wow, fascinating. Care to share more about what shapes your opinion? Can you point to specific evidence?

Any good summaries?

Was nobody in and out of the house from the time he was allegedly hit?

What about all the deleted texts, disposed phones?

Scrapped up knuckles on the nephew?

The wounds on Okeefe’s arm?

[Anonymous]

No idea what you're talking about- any good summaries?

[Anonymous]

I haven’t been following it closely but my family is and fills me. I grew up in the area and went to high school with some of her “friends” who were directly involved and they all think she is guilty. Of course my mother, who loves conspiracy theories, believes turtle boy and thinks she is being framed.

I do agree that his niece and nephew are there bigs victims her a they have already lost so much.

[Anonymous]

https://www.newsnationnow.com/crime/karen-read-murder-trial-explainer/

[Anonymous]

I'm only middling following it, but I do think it's fascinating.

I think it's most likely she struck him. I do think it's also most likely accidental, and the DA is way overcharging.

I also think the police were very sloppy and I think there may be a touch of conspiracy in that his buds didn't like her and somehow (pressuring the DA, playing fast and loose with witness statements and evidence) that led to the overcharging.

I also think it's very common for sloppiness to occur in investigations.

That said, there's just enough here to also make me think I could be entirely wrong about everything.

[Anonymous]

I am local. Everyone I know is following it daily.

No one that I speak with - including my "back the blue" parents - thinks she should be found guilty. The feds have said his injuries were not caused by a car striking him.

The O'Keefe family has been brainwashed by the McAlberts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live very near by and have been following the case since O’Keefe’s death was first reported in local news.

I am also a former prosecutor and former defense attorney - and also a former domestic violence advocate which is relevant to how it shapes my lens.

I have zero doubt that Karen Read struck John O’Keefe with her vehicle and killed him. I have been watching the trial daily - in the evenings after work. I have seen all the testimony thus far. The only doubts I hold are as to whether the evidence will convince me of murder rather than DUI manslaughter - I’ll let you know when the commonwealth had rested its case.

This case has been fascinating to watch not just as a former criminal attorney but also as a lifelong student of literature - it has all the makings of a Greek tragedy, or maybe Shakespearean.

Read is clearly a deeply flawed person who is willing to throw dozens of other people under the bus - even innocent kids just starting out in life - in order to avoid taking responsibility for her own actions. Her brokenness is no doubt something John was beginning to see thus his attempts to break off the relationship in the months preceding his death. I think when we see the testimony of his niece and nephew who he was raising, we will see that he was being emotionally and verbally abused by Read and that it is very likely she lashed out in murderous rage because he was ending their relationship.

Meanwhile you have the chorus of people who are easily swayed by conspiracy theories, especially if it involves believing that the cops are corrupt - sadly the cops are at fault for cultivating this attitude in many people because they are too often corrupt, and much more often a bit bumbling, especially in small towns like Canton.

I have deep sympathy for the O’Keefe family, especially the young niece and nephew who are now three times over orphaned.

I also have a lot of sympathy for the friends and acquaintances of John who have endured more than a year of vile abuse online and in real life by the crazies who follow the Turtle Boy blogger she’s colluding with in spinning her sick defense.

Hmmm.

[Anonymous]

For those of you who are following this trial so closely, why do you think it's gotten so much attention? What's so compelling about this case? My husband is from the area and I've been following the case casually and am just curious about why so many people feel so passionately for/against the defendant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, fascinating. Care to share more about what shapes your opinion? Can you point to specific evidence?

Any good summaries?

Was nobody in and out of the house from the time he was allegedly hit?

What about all the deleted texts, disposed phones?

Scrapped up knuckles on the nephew?

The wounds on Okeefe’s arm?

What shapes my opinion:

Lifelong fascination with an following true crime.

Decades of experience in the criminal justice system, including much of that time in smaller cities and towns and thus extensive familiarity with the bumbling mistakes of small town cops in collection of evidence, etc.

Having handled over a thousand DUI cases - sadly - and hundreds of domestic violence cases as a criminal lawyer, and hundreds more as a DV advocate before that.

More than five decades as a keen observer of the human condition.

More to the specifics you asked:

There were no scraped knuckles on the nephew just days after O’Keefe died - social media pictures show him with undamaged hands in multiple photos. Defense presented a photo from a month later which depicts him with scraped knuckles and he explained how it happened in his testimony. The throwing of that young man under a bus is particularly sickening to me.

Scrapes on John’s arm are consistent with contact with glass, sharp plastic or metal as in from the underside of a vehicle. A broken cocktail glass and broken taillight pieces were found by his body.

I suspect that there was stuff on Brian Albert’s and Brian Higgins’s phones that they didn’t want the world to see - but I don’t believe those things had anything whatsoever to do with the death of John O’Keefe. It will be heartbreaking if their missteps get Karen Read acquitted for killing a decent man who was raising his orphaned niece and nephew.

Yes, people were in and out of the house after the time John O’Keefe was struck and laying on the edge of the lawn. I’m surprised by the people who express shock that nobody would have seen him laying there - anyone who is familiar with suburbs on the south coast, the limited lighting in most such neighborhoods, and the fact that on the night in question it was very dark because of snowy cloud cover - how often are you looking in the darkest corners at the edge of someone’s yard as you pull away on a dark snowy night with poor driving conditions? Never, I’m sure. People are thinking about that aspect as Monday morning quarterbacks.

Listen, I’ve met some really really really dumb cops in my time. Never have I met one dumb enough to dump a body on his own front lawn and cross his fingers and hope that a frantic still drunk girlfriend will show up at the crack of dawn hollering about how she must’ve hit him. It’s really a ludicrous defense theory if you think about it dispassionately.

The thing is, people are not dispassionate about cops - they never have been, but since the George Floyd reckoning, some people are ever more suspicious and inflamed. Massachusetts has had her fair share of cop corruption cases so many are quick to believe it. But the notion that all the people the defense is alleging are in on a conspiracy could actually be and keep it quiet- it really is laughable, or would be if this trial wasn’t putting the O’Keefe family and so many other innocent people through life changing hell.

I’m interested to see what the FBI report says. The FBI is not always right, to begin with. One of the biggest scandals and corruption cases in Massachusetts history involved the Boston FBI and their handling of Whitey Bulger, who they basically allowed to murder multiple people while he was an informant for them.

I’m curious to see their report on John and the allegations he wasn’t hit by a car. John didn’t have the classic impact injuries of being hit full on by a vehicle, but his injuries are consistent with having been knocked down and hitting his head hard on the ground which caused fracturing, black eyes, brain bleed leading to death with complication of hypothermia. His injuries apart from the arm are not dissimilar to how Bob Saget died from hitting his head likely on a table or the marble floor of his hotel bathroom, they lying down and slowly dying.

John’s arm injuries could have been from the broken cocktail glass. They are most definitely NOT in any way related to a dog - I have seen far too many dog attack/mauling photos in my career and those injuries were not remotely akin to dog bites or even scratches. Also there was no canine DNA, although the defense would have you believe that either the lab is in on the coverup or they just didn’t get the right samples.

The defense in this case is very skilled, she is getting her money’s worth. It’s also a slimy immoral defense that reminds me why I quit the criminal law business altogether.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those of you who are following this trial so closely, why do you think it's gotten so much attention? What's so compelling about this case? My husband is from the area and I've been following the case casually and am just curious about why so many people feel so passionately for/against the defendant.

I still remember when I read about John’s death in the local news. I don’t know him or have any connection to him or anyone else in the case, but having once been a defense attorney I have more compassion than the average person for defendants who have ruined their lives in one incredibly stupid moment, especially moments under the influence.

I remember thinking how absolutely wrecked Karen Read must’ve felt realizing she killed the man she loved and especially a man who was parenting his orphaned niece and nephew to whom she had also grown close over multiple years involved with the family. My heart broke for her more than a little.

Then she launched this defense and the more I’ve seen of it and her, the more I am convinced she has a disordered personality and is largely irredeemable. It’s absolutely horrific what she’s doing to so many other people in an effort to avoid accountability for DUI manslaughter. And to watch her laugh and smile and clearly enjoying the limelight of the Read/Turtleboy cult followers- it’s so gross it literally turns my stomach.

I really, really hope she spends at least 20 years in state prison.

[Anonymous]

There is no "there" there with the CW's case. We are 17 (18?) days in, no manner of death, and Jen McCabe is brainwashing the minor children to commit purjery.

As a Norfolk County taxpayer, I am disgusted with the CW.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, fascinating. Care to share more about what shapes your opinion? Can you point to specific evidence?

Any good summaries?

Was nobody in and out of the house from the time he was allegedly hit?

What about all the deleted texts, disposed phones?

Scrapped up knuckles on the nephew?

The wounds on Okeefe’s arm?

What shapes my opinion:

Lifelong fascination with an following true crime.

Decades of experience in the criminal justice system, including much of that time in smaller cities and towns and thus extensive familiarity with the bumbling mistakes of small town cops in collection of evidence, etc.

Having handled over a thousand DUI cases - sadly - and hundreds of domestic violence cases as a criminal lawyer, and hundreds more as a DV advocate before that.

More than five decades as a keen observer of the human condition.

More to the specifics you asked:

There were no scraped knuckles on the nephew just days after O’Keefe died - social media pictures show him with undamaged hands in multiple photos. Defense presented a photo from a month later which depicts him with scraped knuckles and he explained how it happened in his testimony. The throwing of that young man under a bus is particularly sickening to me.

Scrapes on John’s arm are consistent with contact with glass, sharp plastic or metal as in from the underside of a vehicle. A broken cocktail glass and broken taillight pieces were found by his body.

I suspect that there was stuff on Brian Albert’s and Brian Higgins’s phones that they didn’t want the world to see - but I don’t believe those things had anything whatsoever to do with the death of John O’Keefe. It will be heartbreaking if their missteps get Karen Read acquitted for killing a decent man who was raising his orphaned niece and nephew.

Yes, people were in and out of the house after the time John O’Keefe was struck and laying on the edge of the lawn. I’m surprised by the people who express shock that nobody would have seen him laying there - anyone who is familiar with suburbs on the south coast, the limited lighting in most such neighborhoods, and the fact that on the night in question it was very dark because of snowy cloud cover - how often are you looking in the darkest corners at the edge of someone’s yard as you pull away on a dark snowy night with poor driving conditions? Never, I’m sure. People are thinking about that aspect as Monday morning quarterbacks.

Listen, I’ve met some really really really dumb cops in my time. Never have I met one dumb enough to dump a body on his own front lawn and cross his fingers and hope that a frantic still drunk girlfriend will show up at the crack of dawn hollering about how she must’ve hit him. It’s really a ludicrous defense theory if you think about it dispassionately.

The thing is, people are not dispassionate about cops - they never have been, but since the George Floyd reckoning, some people are ever more suspicious and inflamed. Massachusetts has had her fair share of cop corruption cases so many are quick to believe it. But the notion that all the people the defense is alleging are in on a conspiracy could actually be and keep it quiet- it really is laughable, or would be if this trial wasn’t putting the O’Keefe family and so many other innocent people through life changing hell.

I’m interested to see what the FBI report says. The FBI is not always right, to begin with. One of the biggest scandals and corruption cases in Massachusetts history involved the Boston FBI and their handling of Whitey Bulger, who they basically allowed to murder multiple people while he was an informant for them.

I’m curious to see their report on John and the allegations he wasn’t hit by a car. John didn’t have the classic impact injuries of being hit full on by a vehicle, but his injuries are consistent with having been knocked down and hitting his head hard on the ground which caused fracturing, black eyes, brain bleed leading to death with complication of hypothermia. His injuries apart from the arm are not dissimilar to how Bob Saget died from hitting his head likely on a table or the marble floor of his hotel bathroom, they lying down and slowly dying.

John’s arm injuries could have been from the broken cocktail glass. They are most definitely NOT in any way related to a dog - I have seen far too many dog attack/mauling photos in my career and those injuries were not remotely akin to dog bites or even scratches. Also there was no canine DNA, although the defense would have you believe that either the lab is in on the coverup or they just didn’t get the right samples.

The defense in this case is very skilled, she is getting her money’s worth. It’s also a slimy immoral defense that reminds me why I quit the criminal law business altogether.

I grew up in Mansfield and Norton and have family in the area who I visited often. In 58 years, I've never heard of "the south coast."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, fascinating. Care to share more about what shapes your opinion? Can you point to specific evidence?

Any good summaries?

Was nobody in and out of the house from the time he was allegedly hit?

What about all the deleted texts, disposed phones?

Scrapped up knuckles on the nephew?

The wounds on Okeefe’s arm?

What shapes my opinion:

Lifelong fascination with an following true crime.

Decades of experience in the criminal justice system, including much of that time in smaller cities and towns and thus extensive familiarity with the bumbling mistakes of small town cops in collection of evidence, etc.

Having handled over a thousand DUI cases - sadly - and hundreds of domestic violence cases as a criminal lawyer, and hundreds more as a DV advocate before that.

More than five decades as a keen observer of the human condition.

More to the specifics you asked:

There were no scraped knuckles on the nephew just days after O’Keefe died - social media pictures show him with undamaged hands in multiple photos. Defense presented a photo from a month later which depicts him with scraped knuckles and he explained how it happened in his testimony. The throwing of that young man under a bus is particularly sickening to me.

Scrapes on John’s arm are consistent with contact with glass, sharp plastic or metal as in from the underside of a vehicle. A broken cocktail glass and broken taillight pieces were found by his body.

I suspect that there was stuff on Brian Albert’s and Brian Higgins’s phones that they didn’t want the world to see - but I don’t believe those things had anything whatsoever to do with the death of John O’Keefe. It will be heartbreaking if their missteps get Karen Read acquitted for killing a decent man who was raising his orphaned niece and nephew.

Yes, people were in and out of the house after the time John O’Keefe was struck and laying on the edge of the lawn. I’m surprised by the people who express shock that nobody would have seen him laying there - anyone who is familiar with suburbs on the south coast, the limited lighting in most such neighborhoods, and the fact that on the night in question it was very dark because of snowy cloud cover - how often are you looking in the darkest corners at the edge of someone’s yard as you pull away on a dark snowy night with poor driving conditions? Never, I’m sure. People are thinking about that aspect as Monday morning quarterbacks.

Listen, I’ve met some really really really dumb cops in my time. Never have I met one dumb enough to dump a body on his own front lawn and cross his fingers and hope that a frantic still drunk girlfriend will show up at the crack of dawn hollering about how she must’ve hit him. It’s really a ludicrous defense theory if you think about it dispassionately.

The thing is, people are not dispassionate about cops - they never have been, but since the George Floyd reckoning, some people are ever more suspicious and inflamed. Massachusetts has had her fair share of cop corruption cases so many are quick to believe it. But the notion that all the people the defense is alleging are in on a conspiracy could actually be and keep it quiet- it really is laughable, or would be if this trial wasn’t putting the O’Keefe family and so many other innocent people through life changing hell.

I’m interested to see what the FBI report says. The FBI is not always right, to begin with. One of the biggest scandals and corruption cases in Massachusetts history involved the Boston FBI and their handling of Whitey Bulger, who they basically allowed to murder multiple people while he was an informant for them.

I’m curious to see their report on John and the allegations he wasn’t hit by a car. John didn’t have the classic impact injuries of being hit full on by a vehicle, but his injuries are consistent with having been knocked down and hitting his head hard on the ground which caused fracturing, black eyes, brain bleed leading to death with complication of hypothermia. His injuries apart from the arm are not dissimilar to how Bob Saget died from hitting his head likely on a table or the marble floor of his hotel bathroom, they lying down and slowly dying.

John’s arm injuries could have been from the broken cocktail glass. They are most definitely NOT in any way related to a dog - I have seen far too many dog attack/mauling photos in my career and those injuries were not remotely akin to dog bites or even scratches. Also there was no canine DNA, although the defense would have you believe that either the lab is in on the coverup or they just didn’t get the right samples.

The defense in this case is very skilled, she is getting her money’s worth. It’s also a slimy immoral defense that reminds me why I quit the criminal law business altogether.

I grew up in Mansfield and Norton and have family in the area who I visited often. In 58 years, I've never heard of "the south coast."

Canton is definitely not south coast. South Coast is like, Dartmouth, New Bedford, Fall River area.