Karen Read’s defense concluded with expert witness Dr. Andrew Rentschler testifying that Boston cop John O’Keefe’s injuries were inconsistent with being struck by Read’s SUV. The defense saved their strongest witness for last, as experts told Fox News Digital, bringing in Rentschler to try to debunk the prosecution’s claims about how O’Keefe died. Jurors have the day off Thursday and will begin deliberations after receiving instructions from the judge and listening to closing arguments Friday.
Read, 45, is accused of hitting O’Keefe, 46, with her 2021 Lexus LX 570 SUV on January 29, 2022, and leaving him to die on the ground with a skull fracture during a blizzard. The final defense witness, Rentschler, spent two days on the stand explaining how he came to the conclusion that O’Keefe’s injuries were inconsistent with a vehicle strike on a pedestrian. He testified, “I do not believe that injury is consistent with being struck by an SUV at approximately 24 miles an hour.”
O’Keefe had no broken bones on his right arm, only superficial abrasions, Rentschler testified. Based on testing at ARCCA, a crash reconstruction firm, he said that the arm should have sustained more serious damage. Rentschler said he did not believe Read’s SUV could have struck O’Keefe based on his injuries and ARCCA testing, although he was questioned extensively by the prosecutor, Hank Brennan, who called into question the thoroughness of his testing and forced him to concede that he had not taken into account shattered pieces of taillight on the ground near O’Keefe and embedded in his clothes.
Legal analysts note that the case could boil down to a so-called battle of the experts. Rentschler was a solid choice to close the case, as he methodically explained why the prosecution’s theory of an SUV-pedestrian strike didn’t hold up. This could have prompted Brennan to “wave the white flag” rather than call Dr. Judson Welcher back to the stand for rebuttal. Welcher had drawn the opposite conclusion, testifying that in his opinion, Read’s SUV clipped O’Keefe with a glancing blow, knocking him off-balance before he fell and cracked his skull.
Jack Lu, a retired Massachusetts judge and Boston College law professor, emphasized that having Rentschler go last was both a standard strategy and a good one. However, he pointed out that both Rentschler and Welcher were part of a profit-based consulting industry, and their testing at times came across as absurd, such as using a disembodied arm to simulate an impact versus an expert getting hit at low speed by a Lexus. The trial continues as the jury returns Friday for jury instructions and closing arguments.