Karen Read trial live updates: First defense witnesses include plow driver, dog bite expert

Testimony in the trial of Karen Read, a Mansfield woman charged in the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend, John O’Keefe, resumed Friday morning.

This story will be updated throughout the day with the latest testimony.

3:25 p.m. Prosecutor questions defense expert’s credentials

On cross-examination, prosecutor Adam Lally asked Richard Green if he had read the reports written by digital forensics experts Jessica Hyde and Ian Whiffin, who both disagreed with his assessment that Jennifer McCabe searched “hos long to die in cold” at 2:27 a.m.

“I absolutely understand that, sir,” Green said.

Lally asked if Green had any certifications for Cellebrite, the software used to extract cellphone data, and he said he did not but he had attended “hundreds of training events” for Cellebrite and other similar programs.

Green said he had reached out to Cellebrite’s technical support while investigating the case and that the person he spoke to had “elevated” his questions. Lally asked if Green had been referred to Whiffin’s team, and he said he was not; Lally further asked if a member of Whiffin’s tem had reached out to him, but he had never called them back.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Green said.

Lally next asked about the location data from O’Keefe’s phone, which Green said could not have been accurate within a 3 foot radius, because GPS data typically is not that accurate.

He also said Read’s cellphone did not have any cached location data, which is usually stored for a few weeks.

Lally turned back to McCabe’s cellphone, and asked Green about the “deleted” data entries. Green said that while the user could not delete the entries from the database, they could delete their browser history, and that would affect what was stored in the database.

Lally asked about a suggested Google search for “how long to digest food” that showed up in McCabe’s browser data at 6:23 a.m. Green admitted that he had previously, in an earlier affidavit, believed this was something that McCabe had searched and not an automatic suggestion, but he had since learned that this was incorrect.

“You’ve done subsequent testing and that shows that you were wrong?” Lally asked, and Green agreed.

Green’s testimony next turned to the Apple Health and location data from O’Keefe’s cellphone. Lally asked about Green’s earlier statement that step counts have been shown to be 98% accurate, and asked if it was possible other movement or driving in a car could have been registered as steps.

Green said he had done testing with iPhones, bringing one with him in a car and testing different types of movement, and did not see anything registered as steps that was not.

When Lally asked about the location data from Waze with three different time stamps, Green said he did not know what that information revealed but only thought it was important to bring to the case.

“I’ve not decoded Waze, it’s not something that has been done, but I think we need to consider the 3 minute offset as it applies to the significance of the Apple Health data and the Waze GPS,” he said.

Finally, Green said his analysis of the data could have differed from Whiffin’s because of the existence of two versions of Cellebrite, one of which has been more recently updated than the other. He said he had used the other version of the program and gotten different results.

“Currently, Cellebrite is providing examiners, law enforcement and people worldwide with two different versions with two different results,” he said.

Green was allowed to step down from the witness stand and Judge Beverly Cannone dismissed the court for the weekend at about 3:18 p.m.

2:47 p.m. update: Defense expert says data shows 2:27 a.m. Google search for “hos long to die in cold”

When court resumed at about 1:55 p.m., the defense called Richard Green to the stand.

Green is the owner of United States Forensics, a digital investigation company based in Michigan. He said he testified as an expert in his first case in 1996 and started the company in 2006.

The defense team reached out to Green in September 2022 and asked him to examine data from Karen Read’s, John O’Keefe’s and Jennifer McCabe’s cellphones.

The first data discussed was the location and health data from O’Keefe’s cellphone. Green said the location data showed O’Keefe arrived at 34 Fairview Road 12:24 a.m. and 28 seconds.

Defense attorney David Yannetti asked Green if at any point the location data was accurate within 3 feet, and he said there was no data that had that degree of accuracy.

For the Apple Health data, Green said studies have shown the step data recorded has a degree of accuracy of about 98%.

He said the data on O’Keefe’s cellphone showed him traveling 87.74 meters and 80 steps between 12:21 a.m. and 10 seconds and 12:24 a.m. and 22 seconds, and three floors of stairs between 12:21 a.m. and 14 seconds and 12:24 and 37 seconds. He said the data does not say whether the floors are up or down.

He said the steps and floors could have happened at any time within these time periods, and were not necessarily spread equally throughout them. He noted that the time period for the health data ended after the recorded arrival time at 34 Fairview Road.

Green said iPhones use three different clocks, and app developers can use any of the three to record and display time. He showed a particular artifact from the cellphone data for the Waze navigation app, which showed two clocks with almost the same time and one that was three minutes ahead.

He next turned to data from McCabe’s cellphone. He said he found a Google search for “hos long to die in cold” at 2:27 a.m. in the data from her phone, which was marked as deleted.

He said this was the last entry in the phone’s database for the Safari browser tab.

“That would’ve happened at or before Jan. 29, 2022 at 2:27:40 a.m.,” Green said. “By how this particular phone operates with that exact operating system and comparing it to other data on that phone and the way it presented itself, it’s all consistent with that search happening at or before that time.”

He said he found “a lot” of other deleted artifacts in the data from McCabe’s cellphone from the morning of Jan. 29. He said he found one artifact indicating there was a phone call made to a contact labeled “Uncle Brian A.”

Green showed a call log from McCabe’s phone that showed a number of calls before 8:50 a.m. and after 8:59 a.m., and he said the earlier calls were marked as deleted but the later calls were not.

“Those would’ve been user deleted,” he said.

1 p.m. update: Prosecution questions reliability of expert analysis of injuries

Prosecutor Adam Lally began his cross-examination by asking Dr. Marie Russell when the last time she worked in a coroner’s office was, and she said it was 1995.

Russell said the first time she spoke to anyone about the case was on May 17, when she read an article in the Boston Globe about it and reached out to a district attorney she knew in Los Angeles, who put her in touch with Read’s defense team. She communicated with them through email and they sent her the relevant files, after which she offered her opinion.

Lally said that during voir dire earlier this week, when asked what materials she had reviewed for the case, she had not listed an affidavit from Dr. Frank Sheridan, a pathologist hired by the defense, a report from University of California Davis or bite history records from the town of Canton, but she did mention them in her testimony Friday.

Russell said she had not known about those files when she was asked on Tuesday and learned about and reviewed them since. She said the defense had most likely provided them to her originally, but because of technical difficulties with her computer, she had not seen them.

Lally asked how long Russell had had a subscription to the Boston Globe, and she said she couldn’t remember, but it had been either a six month or 12 month subscription. Lally asked if she had said Tuesday that it was an 18 month subscription, and she said she didn’t remember saying that.

“That was the first time you had seen anything about [the case]?” Lally asked, referring to the article Russell read on May 17.

“The first time I paid attention to anything, yes,” she said.

Lally asked why Russell had not written a report about her opinion, and she said she had not been asked to.

Lally then asked if Russell was familiar with a 2008 report by the National Academy of Science saying that forensic odontology, the study of bite marks, was unreliable. She said she had not read the report but had heard some parts of the field were no longer considered reliable.

“There are certain aspects of bite marks that have been deemed not reliable,” she said. “That, I believe, has to do with saying that this particular person or animal inflicted this particular bite, but that’s very specific.”

Lally asked Russell about one of the publications she authored about injuries sustained from dog bites, which included descriptions of types of injuries sustained in over 700 dog bite cases seen at emergency rooms. She said the paper had a “skewed population” because not all dog bites come to the emergency room.

“Is it normal in an animal attack for injuries to occur just on one side of an arm and nowhere else on a person’s body?” Lally asked.

“It can be, yes,” she said.

She confirmed that there was nothing else anywhere on O’Keefe’s body that was consistent with an animal attack.

Lally asked if she could determine anything else about the injuries, such as what the animal or breed of dog was, where and when the injuries were sustained and if they happened inside or outside a house. She said she knew the injuries happened within minutes to hours of O’Keefe’s death, but that was all she could definitively say.

She confirmed that she had not examined O’Keefe, only seen photographs.

Lally asked if she knew that a lab at UC Davis had found no canine DNA on swabs taken from O’Keefe’s arm. She said she understood that there was clothing in between, and he asked if she knew that the swabs were taken from his clothing. She said she did not know the clothing was sent to UC Davis.

She said that while she had reviewed a report about Nicole and Brian Albert’s dog Chloe attacking another dog, there was no record of Chloe attacking a human when there was no dog present. She said the injuries from that incident did not look like O’Keefe’s injuries.

Lally asked if she could definitively say that the injuries could only have come from an animal attack, and not a blunt force impact.

“I’ve seen thousands of people with injuries to their skin, from blunt, from sharp, from all different mechanisms,” she said. “Those injuries did not look like blunt force injuries.”

“That’s based on photographs and other materials you began reviewing on May 17?” Lally asked.

“Yes. I’m an ER doctor. I need to make a diagnosis quickly when I see something,” Russell said. “I’m trained to do that. That’s my specialty.”

Before Russell ended her testimony, defense attorney Alan Jackson asked her about the 2008 report on forensic odontology, and she repeated that she understood the report to have been specifically about the unreliability of matching a bite mark to a specific person or animal.

Jackson also pointed out that the UC Davis lab had found pig DNA in the samples sent to them, but Russell said she had not drawn any conclusions from this finding.

He asked her why she believed the injuries from the incident where Chloe the German shepherd attacked another dog did not resemble O’Keefe’s, and she said there were a variety of wound patterns that can be found in animal attacks.

“Animals, and dogs in particular, can inflict a wide variety of injuries on the skin,” she said. “It depends a lot on the thickness of the skin, the movement between the victim and the animal, and also the power of the animal and the training of the animal.”

Court was dismissed for a lunch recess just before 1 p.m.

12:24 p.m. update: Expert witness says injuries on O’Keefe’s arm were consistent with animal attack

The next witness to testify was Dr. Marie Russell, a recently retired emergency room physician and forensic pathologist who lives in California. Before her medical training, Russell was an officer for the Malden, Massachusetts Police Department from 1977 to 1984.

During voir dire earlier this week, Russell said she had come forward to the defense in May after reading news reports about the trial, and told them she believed John O’Keefe’s injuries were consistent with a dog attack.

While prosecutors argued Russell should not be allowed to testify because the defense did not provide timely information about her testimony in discovery, Judge Beverly Cannone allowed her to testify on her opinion as it related to the potential dog attack. However, Cannone said Russell would not be allowed to testify on police procedure or her opinion on what the injuries were inconsistent with.

Russell said over the course of her career, she has published at least two journal articles relating to dog bites and has treated patients with animal bites on at least 500 occasions, although she said it could be double that number.

“I have a very strong interest in wounds in general and I have a strong interest in dog bites in particular,” she said.

Russell said she reviewed photos of O’Keefe’s body from the hospital, autopsy reports and photos, grand jury testimony by the pathologist who performed the autopsy, an affidavit from a forensic pathologist hired by the defense and dog bite records from the town of Canton, a toxicology report and neuropathology report to come to a conclusion about the injuries to O’Keefe’s arm.

“I believe these injuries were sustained by an animal, possibly a large dog, because of the pattern of the injuries,” she said.

She said the injuries included parallel cuts and smaller, round “punctate” wounds, which could have been caused by the upper and lower teeth of a dog.

Defense attorney Alan Jackson asked if the injuries could still be consistent with a dog bite even though there were only injuries to the outside, or back, of O’Keefe’s arm, indicating the dog did not have its mouth around the entire arm, and Russell said this was possible.

“When an animal inflicts an injury, the type of injury depends in part on the actual type of contact and how much force is applied by that animal, in addition to any movement between the animal and the victim,” Russell said.

11:43 a.m. update: First defense witness says he did not see O’Keefe’s body while plowing Fairview Road

The first witness called by the defense was Brian Loughran, a Canton resident who was driving a plow on the night of John O’Keefe’s death.

Loughran said he grew up in Canton and knew the Albert family. He said he went to school with Chris Albert and worked for the family’s pizza shop delivering pizzas in his twenties.

Loughran, who works for the town of Canton in the Water and Sewer Department, was driving a truck equipped with a plow during the blizzard. His truck, which he said was outfitted with many pieces it was not originally manufactured with, was nicknamed the “Frankentruck.”

Loughran said the seat in the truck is raised so he has a field of vision about 5 feet to both the driver’s and passenger’s side out of the windshield and the lights on the truck provide an “enormous” amount of light.

“It’s almost driving with a spotlight,” he said.

During the blizzard from Jan. 28 to 29, 2022, Loughran was driving a plow route that consisted of Cedarcrest Road from Kings Road to Chapman Street. A map of his route was projected in the courtroom to illustrate his testimony.

Loughran said when he first plowed Cedarcrest, Fairview Road was on his left and he did not initially turn onto it to avoid pushing snow across the road and blocking it. He drove to the end of Cedarcrest, which ends in a cul-de-sac, and plowed the cul-de-sac before coming back up the street and turning right onto Fairview Road.

He said he was familiar with the Alberts’ home at 34 Fairview Road. He said his headlights were bright enough that he could see almost the entire front lawn at about 2:45 a.m.

“My attention is focused to the front of me and then to the sides,” Loughran said. “I’m making sure there are no animals, no pedestrians, and making sure no one’s coming out of their driveways not expecting to see me.”

He said when he passed the house he saw nothing on the front lawn. He got to the end of Fairview Road and did a three-point turn, coming back down the street to return to Cedarcrest, and still did not see anything.

“Did you see a body?” defense attorney David Yannetti asked.

“No,” Loughran said.

Loughran said he repeated the route, arriving back at Fairview Road between 3:15 and 3:30 a.m. He said at that time, he saw a Ford Edge parked in front of the Alberts’ house, but did not see anything on the front lawn.

“The Alberts never had cars that were parked out front,” he said. “It just stuck out as weird.”

The town policy was that during a snow emergency, cars were not supposed to be parked on the road. Plow drivers were meant to call their supervisor if there was a vehicle parked on the street, and the police would either contact the owner to move it or have it towed.

However, Loughran said he did not do this, and instead went around the car.

“I was being courteous to the Albert family,” he said.

When he came back down the street after turning around at the end, the car had not moved, he said. He was not able to see as much of the yard at this time because the car blocked his view.

Loughran said he returned to Fairview Road at about 5:30 a.m. and was only able to go as far as Carriage Lane because first responders at 34 Fairview had blocked off the road.

Loughran said he was approached by an investigator named Paul, who had been employed by the defense, on Feb. 15, 2022, but was not approached by State Police investigators Trooper Michael Proctor and Sgt. Yuriy Bukhenik until 2023.

Prosecutor Adam Lally began his cross-examination of Loughran by asking about the typical procedure of plowing. Loughran explained he begins by plowing the center of the road using a technique called “windrow right,” meaning the snow is pushed to the right side of the road so it does not obstruct cars.

Loughran said when he met with the defense investigator, they met at a skating rink. Lally asked if he initially told the investigator the car he saw was a “small SUV,” rather than a Ford Edge, but Loughran said this was not correct.

He said he told the investigator that it was a Ford Edge and then the investigator took him out to the parking lot and showed him a Ford Edge to confirm it was what he saw. When Lally asked, he said he knew the difference between a Ford Edge and a Jeep Cherokee because of the shape of the taillights.

Loughran said he is colorblind so he did not know the color of the vehicle, but he knew it was lighter in color.

Lally asked Loughran where he told the investigator he saw the car, and he said it was about 3 feet to the left of where the front door was, in front of the flagpole. Lally asked if he had told the investigator that the car was “in front of where the body was found,” and he said yes.

He said he knew where the body was found from news reports.

Lally next turned to Loughran’s interview with police in May 2023. He asked if Loughran had initially told them he began plowing between 11 p.m. and 12 a.m., seen the car at 1:30 or 2 a.m., and seen police cruisers blocking off Fairview Road at 3 or 3:30 a.m., as indicated in Proctor and Bukhenik’s report.

Loughran repeatedly said this was incorrect, and that he didn’t begin plowing until about 2:30 a.m.

Lally asked if it was possible he had seen a black Lexus SUV in front of 34 Fairview Road at about 5 a.m., and he said he had not.

In response to Lally’s questioning, Loughran admitted that he had hit a basketball hoop on Tippycart Road while plowing that morning, and called the incident in to his supervisor, although he did not remember what time that had happened. Lally asked if he hadn’t seen the basketball hoop, but Loughran said he had tried to go around it and misjudged the distance.

“You’re sure about all the times you went down Fairview Road?” Lally asked.

“Yes,” Loughran said.

“And you have no idea what time you went on Tippycart and struck the basketball hoop?” Lally asked.

“I don’t recall exactly what time I hit that net,” Loughran said.

On redirect questioning, Yannetti’s only questions were about Lally’s suggestion that Loughran had seen a black SUV.

“At any point that night while you were plowing, did you see a black Lexus in front of 34 Fairview?” he said.

“No,” Loughran said.

Before Loughran was allowed to step down, Lally again questioned Loughran’s timeline. He pointed out that Loughran had said he had come back to Fairview Road three hours after seeing the car, but that would be inconsistent with his stated time of 5:30 a.m.

Loughran said he was always monitoring Fairview Road because it was considered a main road and needed to be kept clear for emergency access.

He stepped down at about 11:35 a.m.

10:45 a.m. update: Judge denies defense request for immediate “not guilty” verdict

Before calling any witnesses, defense attorney Alan Jackson made a motion for the court to find Karen Read not guilty, saying no reasonable jury would ever find her guilty.

He said the prosecution’s case rested on the testimony of Trooper Joe Paul, a crash reconstruction investigator who testified earlier this week. He said all of the counts against Read rested on whether her vehicle hit John O’Keefe, and Paul’s testimony was not enough to believe that.

“[Paul’s] theory, according to the commonwealth, is that John O’Keefe’s arm was struck, he was spun around in sort of a pirouette, projected 30 feet to the left, hit his head on a curb or the road in the intervening time, before coming to a final rest spot about 30 feet away,” Jackson said. “Everything in the commonwealth’s case, everything relies on that theory.”

He said other than the evidence presented by Paul, there was no medical or physical evidence to support the theory.

“The commonwealth’s own medical examiner does not believe this is a homicide,” he said. “She went on this morning to say in her expert opinion, the injuries are not classic pedestrian injuries and they are, every single one of them, consistent with a physical altercation.”

He said that he did not believe a rational or reasonable jury would ever believe the collision theory, and that Read should therefore be found not guilty.

Prosecutor Adam Lally argued the opposite, saying even if the jury did not believe Paul, there was plenty of other evidence to support the collision theory.

He listed the physical evidence at the scene, including O’Keefe’s sneaker and the broken drinking glass found near his body, the broken pieces of glass and the pieces of plastic which could be reconstructed to fit Read’s taillight, the DNA found on the taillight, witness testimony, Read’s statements to paramedics, GPS data from O’Keefe’s cellphone and from Read’s vehicle and other evidence.

“There’s more than sufficient evidence from a medical perspective, from a forensic perspective, from a witness perspective and from the investigation of this case,” Lally said.

Judge Beverly Cannone said she was satisfied that the commonwealth had “met its burden” and denied the defense’s request. The jury was called back into the courtroom and the defense called its first witness, Brian Loughran.

10:06 a.m. update: Prosecution rests its case

Prosecutor Adam Lally began his redirect questioning by asking Dr. Irini Scordi-Bello if John O’Keefe had any injuries to his knees, and she said he had a small abrasion on the side of his right knee.

He then asked about the defense’s theory that O’Keefe’s facial injuries were caused by being punched, and Scordi-Bello said it was one possibility, but that they could also have been caused by a fall or an impact with a blunt object.

“Would that impact injury to back of head also be consistent with striking frozen ground?” Lally asked.

“Could be, yes,” she said.

Lally then asked what defensive wounds Scordi-Bello would expect to see after a fight.

“I would expect to see, or I have seen multiple bruising to the posterior aspect of the forearm. I have seen cuts, lacerations, depending on how a person might be defending themselves, the position of their arms,” she said, adding that she had seen bruising to knuckles and broken fingers.

Finally, Lally asked her for her opinion on how the injuries were caused.

“A single impact with a fall could cause all the injuries that were seen in the brain and the skull,” she said.

Following the examination of Scordi-Bello, the prosecution rested its case just after 10 a.m.

9:59 a.m. update: Defense pushes theory of physical fight

Defense attorney Elizabeth Little began her cross-examination of Dr. Irini Scordi-Bello by asking her about the blunt impact injuries on John O’Keefe’s’ body. She asked if those blunt injuries could be caused by an object like a baseball bat or dumbbell, and Scordi-Bello agreed, then asked if it could be caused by “the claws of a German Shepherd.”

“Claws? Possibly,” Scordi-Bello said.

Little asked Scordi-Bello if O’Keefe had any injuries to the lower parts of his body, from the torso down, other than rib fractures caused by CPR, and she said he did not.

“Would you agree John O’Keefe’s injuries, or lack thereof, are inconsistent with having struck by a vehicle at 24 miles per hour?” Little asked.

“I would say it’s likely and unlikely at the same time, depending on the position of the body and the vehicle in question,” Scordi-Bello said.

Little further asked if Scordi-Bello agreed that the injuries to O’Keefe’s arm were inconsistent with being struck by a vehicle.

“I don’t know. I’m not a reconstruction expert. I’m not a biomechanics expert,” she answered. “I never personally inspected the car, so I can’t offer an opinion on that.”

Little asked about the injuries to O’Keefe’s face, as well as a laceration on his tongue, and whether they could be caused by being punched, which Scordi-Bello said was “a possibility.” She also said when asked that it was possible the laceration to the back of his head could have been caused by being dragged on the ground.

Little next asked about the scratches to O’Keefe’s arm, which Scordi-Bello described as “discrete,” or separate injuries, rather than “all meshed together.”

She asked if the medical examiner agreed the injuries were inconsistent with “having been struck by a smooth rear taillight at 24 miles per hour,” but the prosecution objected to the question and the judge sustained the objection.

Scordi-Bello had previously testified that “contusions,” or bruises, on the backs of O’Keefe’s hands were consistent with attempts to insert an IV line. Little pointed out that hospital records showed IVs had been inserted on O’Keefe’s shins and later, at the hospital, through a catheter. She asked if the bruises were consistent with defensive wounds, and Scordi-Bello said it was possible.

Scordi-Bello had also testified that she had not seen evidence O’Keefe was in a physical altercation because his fingernails were not damaged and there were no fractures in his hands. Little asked if those were “the only observable signs of a fight,” and asked if the laceration and “egg” over O’Keefe’s eye, abrasions on his nose, laceration on his tongue and bruising on his hands were consistent with injuries from a fight, but the judge again sustained an objection to the question from the prosecution.

Before ending her cross-examination, Little finally asked about redness near O’Keefe’s ribcage that could be seen in photos of his body, and Scordi-Bello said it was caused by lividity, or pooling blood after death, and was not caused by an injury.

9:34 a.m. update: O’Keefe did not have the “classic” injuries from a pedestrian collision, doctor says

Dr. Irini Scordi-Bello of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said Friday morning that she is always provided with a police report when her office accepts a case.

Often, if the autopsy combined with the initial police report do not provide enough information to determine a manner of death, she will reach out to the agency investigating the death to see if any more information has turned up surrounding the circumstances.

“When an event is unwitnessed, we usually reach out to the investigating agency and ask them whether they have any more information than they did on the day the autopsy was done,” she said. “Investigations sometimes take some time, so in the days and the weeks following the autopsy I reached out and asked if there was any more information than what I was originally presented with. Was there any video from the surrounding areas? Did anybody come forward to say they actually witnessed whatever happened?”

She said in this case, there was no new information provided that could clearly determine whether his death was an accident or a homicide, so she could not certify a manner of death.

She said she spoke with Trooper Michael Proctor about the autopsy and when asked if she had felt pressured to make a determination of the manner of death, she said she had not and would not have done so even if she had.

“I am responsible for what goes on the death certificate and unless I have enough information, clear and convincing evidence, I cannot determine a manner,” she said.

Photographs of O’Keefe’s body were projected in the courtroom and Scordi-Bello used a laser pointer to show certain injuries on his body that she did or did not believe contributed to the cause of death. Most of the smaller injuries, including abrasions and bruises on his arms, hands and face, did not contribute to his death, she said.

Prosecutor Adam Lally asked if O’Keefe’s injuries were consistent with a fall or with being struck by a vehicle and falling to the ground, Scordi-Bello said it was possible. She had the same answer when he asked if the injuries to his arm were consistent with scratches from a piece of glass, plastic, or metal.

However, when he asked if the injuries were consistent with other pedestrian collisions she had seen, she said, “They’re not the classic pedestrian injuries we observe, no.”

She said injuries in pedestrian collisions depend on a number of factors, including whether the pedestrian is moving, the speed of the car, whether the brakes were applied and the size and shape of the vehicle.

She said often, she will see injuries to the lower extremities of the body, as the person is struck by the car’s bumper; however, in this case, the vehicle was much larger and higher, she said.

After asking Scordi-Bello again about the cause of death, which she said was blunt force impact to the head and hypothermia, the prosecution said they had no further questions for her.

9:06 a.m. update: Medical examiner continues testimony about autopsy

Testimony resumed just after 9 a.m., with Dr. Irini Scordi-Bello of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner returning to the stand.

On Thursday, the jury heard from two medical examiners who described O’Keefe’s injuries, saying he died from blunt force trauma to the head that incapacitated him, followed by hypothermia.

Read, 44, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of O’Keefe, who was found cold to the touch and unresponsive on Jan. 29, 2022, outside of a home in Canton.

Norfolk County prosecutors say Read struck O’Keefe with her SUV while driving intoxicated. Read’s attorney, David Yannetti, said during the trial’s opening statements that her car never struck O’Keefe and that others are to blame for his death.

The trial is taking place in Dedham’s Norfolk County Superior Court.

• Read more: Everyone you need to know to understand the Karen Read trial