Latest news with #Frankentruck
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Yahoo
Karen Read murder trial: Defense lawyers rest their case
Lawyers for Karen Read rested their case Wednesday, nearly two weeks after they began mounting a defense that sought to undermine allegations that she drunkenly backed her SUV into her boyfriend, a Boston police officer, and left him for dead three years ago. The case, which prompted intense media coverage and allegations of law enforcement misconduct that led to the firing of the case's lead investigator, could be with the jury in Dedham, Massachusetts, by the end of the week. Read's sensational first trial ended nearly one year ago with a jury unable to reach a unanimous verdict on charges of second-degree murder and other crimes in connection with the Jan. 29, 2022, death of John O'Keefe. The defense did not call key figures central to the theory it laid out in those initial proceedings — that Read was the victim of a biased police investigation and a plot that sought to frame her for the killing — and opted instead for a series of experts whose testimony sought to dismantle the prosecution's evidence. What to know about Karen Read's murder retrial in the death of her police officer boyfriend, John O'Keefe Three things to know about the prosecution's case Defense team goes after cellphone data and a key witness prosecutors are relying on As retrial zeroed in on a possible murder weapon, an expert's credibility was challenged Family of Read's boyfriend says she put them 'through hell' but they're ready for second trial Messy investigation exposes problems with police work that public rarely sees, experts say Read's defense in the first trial How to watch the 'Dateline' episode 'The Night of the Nor'easter' Among them were three crash reconstruction specialists and two pathologists. Also called to the witness stand was a snowplow driver who offered what was perhaps the defense's most direct challenge to the case Norfolk County special prosecutor Hank Brennan had presented. Blizzardlike conditions descended on the Boston area on Jan. 29, and the driver, Brian Loughran, testified that before the snow grew heavy, he made multiple passes on the residential street in Canton where O'Keefe was found unresponsive. O'Keefe was discovered near a flagpole in the front yard of a now-retired Boston police sergeant, Brian Albert, shortly after 6 a.m. — a little over three hours after, Loughran said, he first passed the home in his plow, nicknamed 'Frankentruck' for what he described as its mismatch of parts. Loughran said he knew the Albert family — he used to deliver pizzas for Brian Albert's brother — and he testified that he could clearly see from his truck to Albert's front door. 'What was on the ground in the area of the flagpole?' defense attorney David Yanetti asked. 'Nothing,' Loughran responded. 'Did you see a 6-foot-1, 216-pound man lying on that lawn?' Yanetti asked. 'No,' Loughran said. After a night of drinking, O'Keefe was supposed to have gone to a gathering at Albert's home early Jan. 29. Brennan has said he never made it inside. Although prosecutors presented no direct evidence of the collision that they said mortally wounded O'Keefe, vehicle data presented at trial showed Read suddenly reversing her Lexus at 12:32 a.m. at 24 mph in front of Albert's home. An accident reconstruction expert called by Brennan testified that dozens of abrasions found on O'Keefe's right arm were consistent with injuries caused by the broken right taillight on Read's SUV. Read has said she dropped O'Keefe off outside Albert's home and watched him enter. Her lawyers have said he was most likely beaten at the gathering — perhaps because she had recently flirted with, then ghosted, a federal agent who was also at the event — before O'Keefe was bitten by Albert's German shepherd, dragged outside and left in the snow. (Albert and the agent, Brian Higgins, have denied playing roles in O'Keefe's death.) One of the defense witnesses, a former emergency room doctor and forensic pathologist who said she had seen hundreds of dog bites in her career, testified that the dozens of abrasions on O'Keefe's arm were not from a broken taillight but from a dog. The defense's final witness, a biomedical engineer who examined whether O'Keefe's injuries were the result of a collision, testified Wednesday that they were not. Experiments conducted for the case using crash test dummies showed that at speeds of 24 mph, there most likely would have been more damage to Read's car and to O'Keefe's arm, said the engineer, Andrew Rentschler. Absent from the witness stand were three people whose testimony played an outsized role in the first trial: Albert, Higgins and former Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Proctor. Proctor, who was fired after an internal investigation found that he sent derogatory texts about Read and shared confidential investigative details with non-law enforcement personnel, acknowledged during the first trial that he said 'unprofessional' things about Read. But he rejected the defense's claims that he led a biased investigation. The defense mentioned Proctor repeatedly during Read's retrial, with defense attorney Alan Jackson at one point asking his supervisor whether his conduct tainted their examination of O'Keefe's death. 'The investigation was done with honor and integrity, and the evidence pointed in one direction,' State Police Sgt. Yuri Bukhenik responded. This article was originally published on
NBC News
11-06-2025
- NBC News
Karen Read murder trial: Defense lawyers rest their case
Lawyers for Karen Read rested their case Wednesday, nearly two weeks after they began mounting a defense that sought to undermine allegations that she drunkenly backed her SUV into her boyfriend, a Boston police officer, and left him for dead three years ago. The case, which prompted intense media coverage and allegations of law enforcement misconduct that led to the firing of the case's lead investigator, could be with the jury by the end of the week. The development comes nearly one year after Read's sensational first trial ended with a jury unable to reach a unanimous verdict on charges of second-degree murder and other crimes in connection with the Jan. 29, 2022, death of John O'Keefe. The defense did not call key figures central to the theory they laid out in those initial proceedings — that Read was the victim of a biased police investigation and a plot that sought to frame her for the killing — and opted instead for a series of experts whose testimony sought to dismantle the prosecution's evidence. Among them were three crash reconstruction specialists and two pathologists. Also called to the witness stand was a snow plow driver who offered what was perhaps the defense's most direct challenge to the case that Norfolk County special prosecutor Hank Brennan had presented. Blizzard-like conditions descended on the Boston area on Jan. 29, and the driver, Brian Loughran, testified that before the snow grew heavy he made multiple passes on the residential street in Canton where O'Keefe was found unresponsive. The officer was discovered near a flagpole in the front yard of a now-retired Boston police sergeant, Brian Albert, shortly after 6 a.m. — a little over three hours after Loughran said he first passed the home in his plow, nicknamed 'Frankentruck' for what Loughran described as its mismatch of parts. Loughran said he knew the Albert family — he used to deliver pizzas for Brian Albert's brother — and he testified that he could clearly see from his truck to Albert's front door. 'What was on the ground in the area of the flagpole?' asked defense attorney David Yanetti. 'Nothing,' Loughran responded. 'Did you see a six-foot-one, 216-pound man lying on that lawn,' Yanetti said. 'No,' Loughran said. After a night of drinking, O'Keefe was supposed to have gone to a gathering at Albert's home in the early morning hours of Jan. 29. Brennan has said he never made it inside. Although prosecutors presented no direct evidence of the collision that they said left O'Keefe mortally wounded, vehicle data presented at trial showed Read suddenly reversing her Lexus at 12:32 a.m. at 24 mph in front of Albert's home. An accident reconstruction expert called by Brennan testified that dozens of abrasions found on O'Keefe's right arm were consistent with injuries caused by the broken right tail light on Read's SUV. Read has said she dropped O'Keefe off outside Albert's home and watched him enter. Her lawyers have said he was likely beaten while at the gathering — perhaps because she had recently flirted with, then ghosted, a federal agent who was also at the event — before O'Keefe was bitten by Albert's German shepherd, dragged outside and left in the snow. (Albert and the agent, Brian Higgins, have denied playing a role in O'Keefe's death.) One of the defense witnesses, a former emergency room doctor and forensic pathologist who said she had seen hundreds of dog bites in her career, testified that the dozens of abrasions found on O'Keefe's arm were not from a broken tail light but a dog. The defense's final witness, a biomedical engineer who examined whether O'Keefe's injuries were the result of a collision, testified Wednesday that they were not. Experiments conducted for the case using crash test dummies showed that at speeds of 24 mph, there likely would have been more damage to Read's car and to O'Keefe's arm, said the engineer, Andrew Rentschler. Absent from the witness stand were three people whose testimony played an outsized role in the first trial: Albert, Higgins and former Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Proctor. Proctor, who was fired after an internal investigation found that he sent derogatory texts about Read and shared confidential investigative details with non-law enforcement personnel, acknowledged during the first trial that he said 'unprofessional' things about Read. But he rejected the defense's claims that he led a biased investigation. The defense mentioned Proctor repeatedly during Read's retrial, with defense attorney Alan Jackson at one point asking the former trooper's supervisor if his conduct tainted their examination of O'Keefe's death. 'The investigation was done with honor and integrity and the evidence pointed in one direction,' Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Yuri Bukhenik responded.
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Plow driver testifies he saw no body in snow during crucial hours in Karen Read murder trial
Karen Read's defense team is looking to build on momentum yesterday from a surprise police witness who testified that her taillight was less damaged when he helped seize it with a warrant than it appears in photos taken after it arrived at the Canton Police Department, where authorities first towed it. Read's defense called Brian "Lucky" Loughran, a Department of Public Works employee, to the witness stand Wednesday morning. He testified that he passed by 34 Fairview Road, the home of Brian Albert, where John O'Keefe was found dead in the snow, multiple times between 2:40 a.m. and around 6 a.m. Prosecutors allege Read hit her boyfriend outside and drove off, leaving him to die amid blizzard conditions. Loughran said he had good visibility despite the blizzard conditions due to multiple lights on the plow truck and a high seat. Asked if he saw a body in the snow, he said no -- but he added that he did see a Ford Edge SUV parked outside the address on a later pass around 3:30 a.m. Karen Read's Silence In Murder Trial Raises Stakes For Defense He said it stood out to him because he was from the area and knew the Albert family -- and he had to maneuver around the vehicle as he cleared the road. Read On The Fox News App "For as long as I can remember, they have never parked a vehicle in front of their house," Loughran testified. "They've always had enough ample parking in the driveway." Special prosecutor Hank Brennan asked Loughran during cross-examination about purported threats from an online blogger and inconsistencies in his timeline. Karen Read Judge Blocks Sandra Birchmore Mentions; Expert Says Cases Should Be Wake-up Call For Police Loughran said he never felt threatened by the blogger and denied having a bad memory when Brennan confronted him with multiple statements that offered different times for when the river passed by Fairview Road. Then Brennan played police dashcam video taken outside 34 Fairview that showed the heavy snowfall and the distance between the house there and Cedarcrest Road, where a plow truck drove by multiple times in the background. Loughran agreed that some of the passes were him in the plow, dubbed "Frankentruck," but said he couldn't be sure at other moments. Follow The Fox True Crime Team On X The taillight fragments were not found at the crime scene until later, too, and her defense's implication is that they could have been planted there. Wednesday marks the 27th day of Read's retrial on murder and other charges in the January 2022 death of O'Keefe, her then-boyfriend, a Boston police officer, and an uncle who had taken in the orphaned children of his late sister and brother-in-law. She denies hitting him with her 2021 Lexus SUV and leaving the scene, where he died with head trauma and signs of hypothermia. The defense says no collision happened and something or someone else caused his injuries. On Tuesday, Dighton Police Sgt. Nicholas Barros testified that when he arrived at Read's parents' house to help state police confiscate the vehicle, fewer pieces of taillight were missing from the cracked taillight. He said that a photo of Read's SUV taken at the Canton Police Department's sallyport – a secure garage – did "absolutely not" show the taillight in the same condition it was in when he saw it in the driveway. Barros surprised the courtroom when he testified for the commonwealth during Read's first trial, which ended with a deadlocked jury last year. This time, he was a defense witness. Karen Read's Suv Reached '74% Throttle' Moments Before John O'keefe's Final Movements, Crash Expert Testifies "He was a devastating witness who has the [district attorney's] case on life support," said Mark Bederow, a New York City-based defense attorney who is closely following the case. He said special prosecutor Hank Brennan conducted an "excellent" cross-examination, showing Barros and the jury images of Read's taillight taken over the course of the day, before police took her SUV, but defense attorney Alan Jackson performed equally well in redirect questioning. Sign Up To Get The True Crime Newsletter "The sum total is that Barros is 100% unequivocal: the taillight he saw on January 29 was not anywhere near as destroyed as when the [Massachusetts State Police] had it," he said. GET REAL-TIME UPDATES DIRECTLY ON THE True Crime Hub Grace Edwards, a Massachusetts defense attorney who is also following the case, called Barros' testimony a "bombshell" and said the surprise in trial 1 was "a clear Brady violation" – referring to a rule that prosecutors must share exculpatory evidence with the defense. "The fact that a police officer drove to the Omni Hotel to meet with the defense team of a defendant on trial for murder clearly indicates he wanted to tell his story," she told Fox News Digital. Dr. Judson Welcher, an expert for the prosecution, explained to jurors how he found that O'Keefe appeared to have been struck in the arm by the back corner of Read's SUV before he fell to the ground and fractured the back of his skull. Christina Hanley, an analyst with the state police's crime lab, testified that investigators recovered plastic fragments from O'Keefe's clothing that were a match with the broken taillight or something made of the same material. Read could face life in prison if convicted of the top charge, second-degree article source: Plow driver testifies he saw no body in snow during crucial hours in Karen Read murder trial
