Karen Read‘s second trial in connection with the death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, continues on Tuesday in Dedham’s Norfolk Superior Court before Judge Beverly Cannone.
On Monday, the jury heard from a digital forensics expert hired by the prosecution to examine data in Read’s SUV.
People to know:
Robert Alessi, lawyer for ReadHank Brennan, special prosecutor for the Norfolk district attorney’s officeShanon Burgess, digital forensics examiner at Aperture
3:34 p.m. – State police scientist describes testing of drinking glass
Christina Halney, the supervisor of the trace unit at the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab, was the next witness to testify for the prosecution.
On direct examination from Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally, Hanley explained her role at the lab and the process for testing specific materials. In the Read case, Hanley conducted a physical match analysis for several pieces of glass recovered both at 34 Fairview Road and from the bumper of Read’s SUV.
Hanley said six pieces of glass recovered from the road fit mechanically with a glass cup also found in the area. Pieces of glass from the bumper did not fit with the cup, she said.
Cannone called the lawyers up to sidebar to discuss scheduling with Hanley’s testimony still going. After the sidebar, Cannone sent the jury home for the day.
3:01 p.m. – Burgess questioned about CV submitted in Texas court case
On recross, Alessi introduced into evidence two filings in a Texas federal court case in which Burgess was designated as an expert witness.
A Curriculum Vitae, or CV, submitted there in 2023 indicated Burgess was set to earn a Bachelor of General Science in mathematics and business administration at the University of Alabama – Birmingham in 2024. The CV Burgess submitted in the Read case indicates he is currently pursuing the degree.
The 2023 filing indicated an expected graduation date of 2024, Burgess explained. Burgess said he did not submit the document himself.
“You know how to write ‘currently pursuing’ on your CV, correct?” Alessi asked, noting that the university does not offer a Bachelor of General Sciences in mathematics and business administration. Burgess said the initials stood for Bachelor of General Studies.
Alessi concluded his questioning after Burgess admitted a filing misstating his education was submitted in the federal court case.
On further re-direct from Brennan, Burgess said “work, family and life” got in the way of completing the degree.
With Burgess off the stand, Brennan played three clips of interviews given by Read. In the first, an interview with Gretchen Voss, Read describes making a three-point turn after driving past Fairview Road on the morning of O’Keefe’s death.
The next two clips were from the docuseries “A Body in the Snow.” In the first, Read describes a voicemail she left for O’Keefe where, in her words, “you can clearly hear me pull into John’s garage” at 12:41 a.m.
In the final clip, Read says “John and I argued the morning of the 28th,” adding she believes he died “right around 12:25, 12:30″ on the early morning of the following day, Jan. 29, 2022.
2:27 p.m. – Burgess reaffirms clock variance
Brennan’s re-direct questioning resumed after the lunch break, with Burgess talking jurors through several key parts of his presentation.
Burgess explained that the running clock and infotainment system in Read’s SUV were used to create the timestamps for each techstream event. His conclusion to a “reasonable degree of scientific certainty” was that the Lexus clock was behind the clock in O’Keefe’s phone by between 21 and 29 seconds.
Applying that variance to the techstream “backing maneuver” shows it ended between 12:32 a.m. and four seconds and 12:32 a.m. and 12 seconds. The last user interaction on O’Keefe’s phone was at 12:32 a.m. and nine seconds, Burgess confirmed.
But those times don’t necessarily reflect when the event ended, only when the car stopped recording data.
Brennan concluded his questioning there. Cannone called the lawyers to sidebar, but Read and Alan Jackson, one of the lawyers on her defense team, remained at the defense table.
12:50 p.m. – Burgess explains differing methodology
Much of Brennan’s re-direct focused on Burgess’ analysis in comparison to that of a defense expert, Matthew DiSogra.
DiSogra’s methodology was “not actually a valid way to sync clocks” because he did not use a “shared event” to line the two times up, Burgess explained.
By using the three-point turn event in Read’s SUV data in comparison to the location data on O’Keefe’s phone, Burgess explained, he was able to synchronize the clocks “closer in time to the event of interest.”
DiSogra’s report was displayed on TVs inside the courtroom during the questioning.
“Overall, these numbers can be misleading because they’re based on inaccurate adjustments,” Burgess said.
Brennan moved his questioning back to Burgess’ presentation, prompting an objection from Alessi about the scope of the inquiry. Cannone called the lawyers to sidebar.
With the sidebar continuing, Cannone sent the jury out for lunch.
12:20 p.m. – Defense expert’s report ‘misleading’
On re-direct, Brennan sought to re-establish Burgess’ credentials and specifically his education, which was a major focus of Alessi’s cross-examination on Monday. He said he had never misrepresented his education when testifying in other courts and that he did not need a bachelor’s degree to be an expert in his field.
Brennan also asked a series of questions aimed at clearing up a misunderstanding in Burgess’ initial protocol between “bits” and “bytes” — two different file sizes. Burgess said he supplemented his protocol a week later to clear up the mistake, without first reviewing a defense expert’s report, as Alessi suggested.
Burgess said his job was to “assist the jury” and he was never asked to conceal any information in this case.
He also took credit for first identifying that there was information missing from the initial data extraction from Read’s SUV. Burgess said he could not have accurately timestamped events in this case without that information.
Burgess offered a more detailed explanation for why he opted against using the call logs as a point of comparison between the Lexus clock and the clock on O’Keefe’s phone. He explained the calls between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. on the morning of Jan. 29, 2022 happened while the car was powered off and only added to the car’s call log when Read’s phone connected to it.
As a result, the one and two-second offsets can be misleading as they are a comparison between the clocks in O’Keefe and Read’s phones. Burgess said he felt the conclusions reached by a defense expert were inaccurate.
The expert, Matthew DiSogra, concluded there is “always interaction with the O’Keefe phone after the end” of the techstream event.
Burgess said that conclusion was “potentially misleading to the jury” because it was using incorrect adjustments. Alessi objected and moved to strike the comment, but Cannone allowed it in. Read could be seen shaking her head.
11:39 a.m. – ‘Black box’ in Read’s SUV doesn’t indicate collision
After a morning recess, Alessi asked a series of questions about the “trigger” events in Read’s Lexus. Burgess admitted he didn’t review the raw data for any of the events and was not aware of how many such events occurred in an 8-month period.
The “trigger” events do not necessarily mean there was a conclusion, Burgess said, acknowledging that there were many things that could cause such an event.
Burgess said the basis for using the word collision in his report came from Massachusetts State Police crash reports.
Alessi noted that “none of the information in that black box indicates there was a collision” on Jan. 29, 2022. Burgess said the black box did “not by itself.”
10:41 a.m. – ‘Isn’t what you did a classic example of confirmation bias?’
In Burgess’ May 8 report, he explains he opted against using the call logs in Read’s car and on O’Keefe’s phone because the data in the car was measured five hours after the alleged collision.
Instead, he used the “approximate time of the three-point turn” event in the SUV’s data as an anchor.
Alessi suggested that it was a “classic example of confirmation bias,” but Burgess defended his conduct, saying that it was the “only time adjustment in that range that can be applied.”
He further attempted to undermine Burgess’ conclusions by suggesting the “shortcoming in [his] analysis” was that it “ignores the additional user activity on John O’Keefe’s device after the lock event,” like taking steps.
Alessi also pointed out that Burgess’ May 8 report includes “no discussion” of a three-second offset between the car’s ignition turning on and the infotainment system powering on.
As the cross-examination went on, jurors could be seen taking notes in their court-provided notebooks. One flipped back to a prior page in the notebook, appearing to cross-reference recent notes against notes from a different day.
10:22 a.m. – Burgess questioned about conclusions of defense expert
Alessi had Burgess review a report prepared by a defense expert, who works as the director of engineering at Delta’s Event Data Recorders Lab. The expert, Matthew DiSogra, attempted to calculate the clock variance between O’Keefe’s iPhone and Read’s Lexus.
DiSogra’s report shows there are “no circumstances” where the techstream event on the Lexus occurs after O’Keefe’s iPhone. But Burgess said his calculations were inaccurate.
Burgess has said DiSogra’s conclusions are what prompted him to submit a new report in the middle of the trial that further clarifies the difference between the two clocks.
“I issued the secondary, supplemental report based on that presentation,” he said.
Alessi pointed out that it was only after Burgess reviewed the reports of DiSogra and two prosecution experts: Ian Whiffin and Judson Welcher, that he decided to issue a new report. The report was dated May 8.
Burgess emphasized he “did not depart” from his initial report and only clarified his conclusions.
9:48 a.m. – Alessi questions clock variance
Alessi noted that Burgess initially sought to compare the time in the Lexus and the time on O’Keefe’s phone with the timestamps of phone calls on both. Doing so, he found offsets of one, two, eight, 16 and 21 seconds.
Burgess “failed to apply this variance” to the infotainment time on the Lexus associated with the “backing maneuver” techstream event, Alessi noted. When Burgess asked if he could explain, Alessi moved on to a different line of questioning.
Alessi asked a series of questions about the report prepared by Burgess’ colleague at Aperture, Judson Welcher. Welcher identified the timing of the techstream event as between 12:31 a.m. and 38 seconds and 12:31 a.m. and 43 seconds.
Burgess emphasized that Welcher’s report was using the “unadjusted” clock in the Lexus.
Alessi compared those times to the timeline prepared by another prosecution expert, Ian Whiffin. Whiffin’s report found O’Keefe’s phone was locked with the lock button at 12:32 a.m. and nine seconds after the trigger event identified by the Lexus.
Alessi noted that user interaction came after the initial timestamp identified for the teachstream event. Burgess said that was correct.
“That event lock … occurs 20 seconds after the techstream event, correct?” Alessi asked. Burgess agreed that it was the time on the unadjusted clock.
9:28 a.m. – Burgess pressed on timeline
Alessi resumed his cross-examination with a line of questioning about the timeline Burgess presented during his direct examination.
He moved meticulously through each of the five timestamps Burgess presented, asking him to confirm they were accurate “down to the second,” emphasizing each word.
But, Alessi said, “in point of fact, none of the five timelines that we just reviewed are accurate at all.”
“All of the relevant events in the timeline you describe actually occurred on Jan. 29, 2022 not Jan. 30, 2022. Do you know that?”
Burgess said the events took place on Jan. 30 and apologized if he “misspoke” during his direct examination. But each of the events he described, like Read’s car being towed from her parents’ home in Dighton, did take place on Jan. 29, 2022, the same day as O’Keefe’s death.
9:12 a.m. – Trial resumes
As she does each morning, Cannone asked the jury if they had been able to follow her instructions about discussing the case and avoiding media coverage.
Each juror said they had.
Read more: Recap of trial day 18
Read, 45, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of O’Keefe, who was found outside the home of a fellow Boston police officer on Jan. 29, 2022.
Norfolk County prosecutors say Read struck O’Keefe with her SUV while driving intoxicated. Read’s attorneys say her car never struck O’Keefe and that others are to blame for his death.
