The Karen Learn homicide trial protection crew has rested their case after a day of three witnesses who stated that the fundamental science of sufferer John O’Keefe’s accidents and the harm to Learn’s SUV had been inconsistent with a pedestrian strike, no matter different proof.
First up was a health worker who maintained {that a} automobile strike of any circumstance would carry vital bruising, which O’Keefe’s physique didn’t present.
“If a vehicle hits you … and it’s going any speed at all, any significant speed, it’s going to cause bruising … and one of the things that struck me is a distinct lack of bruising,” Dr. Frank Sheridan testified on Monday. He added that he additionally didn’t see any accidents to O’Keefe’s legs, one other widespread check in pedestrian-vehicle strikes. “The absence of these, I believe, is important.”
The Dublin, Eire-born doctor served because the chief health worker for San Bernardino County in California from 1991 by way of 2017. Throughout his profession, he estimated, he has carried out between 12,000 and 13,000 autopsies in his profession as a forensic pathologist.
Subsequent got here forensic crash reconstructionists from the Pennsylvania-based consulting agency ARCCA. Additionally they stated that neither O’Keefe’s accidents nor harm to Learn’s automobile indicated a automobile strike.
Learn, 44, faces expenses of second-degree homicide, motorized vehicle manslaughter and leaving the scene of a collision inflicting the loss of life of John O’Keefe, her boyfriend and a 16-year Boston Police officer when he died at age 46 within the early morning hours of Jan. 29, 2022.
Prosecutors have argued that taillight items discovered on the snowy scene of O’Keefe’s loss of life on the entrance garden of 34 Fairview Highway in Canton, heavy consuming the night earlier than, and a demonstrated historical past of jealousy and unrest within the relationship between Learn and O’Keefe factors to her guilt. Prosecutor Adam Lally argues the Mansfield monetary analyst and Bentley College lecturer purposely struck him together with her automobile as she dropped him off at that home someday after midnight.
Shifting ahead
“Jurors, that is the evidence in this case after all these weeks,” Decide Beverly Cannone stated on the finish of the trial day. “The lawyers and I still have work to do for tomorrow. But tomorrow morning, we’ll have closing arguments from counsel. They’ll have an hour apiece to argue their case to you. I’ll instruct you in the law and then 12 of you will begin your deliberations sometime tomorrow.”
It is a creating story.
