May 1, 2024 • 45 mins
Karen Read, 43, of Mansfield, is accused of second-degree murder and other charges. The prosecution says she hit her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe, with her vehicle outside of a home in Canton during a snowstorm on Jan. 29, 2022, following a night of drinking. She has pleaded not guilty.
Guest Bio and Links:
Joshua Schiffer is an attorney providing legal services covering Criminal Defense, Personal Injury. Listeners can learn more about Joshua Schiffer at his website: https://chancoschiffer.com/
In this episode of Zone 7, Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum, sits down with defense attorney, Joshua Schiffer to discuss the latest on the Karen Read trial. Together, they dissect the mysterious death of Officer John O'Keefe, featuring detailed discussions on the legal, interpersonal, and investigative angles that make this case a puzzler for law enforcement and the community of Canton, Massachusetts.
Show Notes:
- [0:00] Welcome back to Zone 7 with Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum
- [0:30] Sheryl welcomes back defense attourney, Joshual Schiffer to the show
- [0:45] Joshua gives a background of the Karen Read and Joshual O’Keefe case
- [3:00] Details of the incident night
- [7:00] The puzzling cause of death
- [14:30] Examination of legal implications and potential defenses in the case
- [26:00] The Feds, the local police and many unanswered questions
- [32:00] Community reaction and media coverage
- [44:30] “The death car, as the newspapers called it, didn't stop. It came out of the gathering darkness, wavered tragically for a moment, and then disappeared around the next bend.” -F.S.F
- Thanks for listening to another episode! If you’re loving the show and want to help grow the show, please head over to Itunes and leave a rating and review!
---
Sheryl “Mac” McCollum is an Emmy Award winning CSI, a writer for CrimeOnLine, Forensic and Crime Scene Expert for Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, and a CSI for a metro Atlanta Police Department. She is the co-author of the textbook., Cold Case: Pathways to Justice. Sheryl is also the founder and director of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute, a collaboration between universities and colleges that brings researchers, practitioners, students and the criminal justice community together to advance techniques in solving cold cases and assist families and law enforcement with solvability factors for unsolved homicides, missing persons, and kidnapping cases.
Social Links:
- Email: coldcase2004@gmail.com
- Twitter: @ColdCaseTips
- Facebook: @sheryl.mccollum
Instagram: @officialzone7podcast
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
All right, y'all. So look, it was four twenty three am.
Snow was falling heavily. John O'Keefe's niece called a lady
by the name of Jennifer McKay and told her that
Karen Reid was quote distraught because o'keeif had not come
(00:30):
home and was not answering his cell phone. Joshua Schiffer,
defense attorney extraordinaire. He's been here several times. He's part
of my Zone seven. He ought to be part of yours.
So we are not gonna hesitate tonight at all because
we are gonna, well, we're gonna try our best, y'all
(00:52):
to run through this Karen Reid case. Give everybody just
a brief rundown in case they have missed this case
some much where what happened.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
So the nutshell is that there's this relationship between Karen
and John o'keeth and she is a successful, beautiful financial executive.
He is a handsome police officer. You know. They live
in this suburb. Campton, Massachusetts, is just outside Boston to
(01:24):
the south and just a little bit to the west.
It's a commuter town. Longest hops all the towns up
there have been around for one hundreds of years, so
these are really ingrained, long developed towns with a good
mix of people.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
And this whole thing started January twenty ninth, twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Correct, yes, and well started, that's the incident day. And
when it starts, there's questions about that, because, oh, that's a.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Good point, honey.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
You're getting into these interpersonal relationships, so of course there's
going to be allegations about how strong the relationship was,
whether they were at each other's throats, are deeply in love,
or a mix of both. And we know that a
lot of these tumultuous relationships, you see a lot of calm,
peaceful love punctuated by moments of extraordinary passion which leads
(02:17):
to violence.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
We see that a lot in these domestic violence cases,
where everything can be going great, but whatever the triggering
event is changes everything. The whole world turns upside down
and the sweetest people in the world become vicious killers.
It's part of that emotional reaction that's at the hardest
only violent crimes. So we've got this lovely couple and
(02:41):
they're basically out and about partying. It's the New Year's time.
They've got snow on the ground. It's the winter, it's
post Christmas. Everybody's living it up, and so they're out
and about at this bar and they're going to go home.
But then around the time that they packing up and
(03:01):
going home midnightish, it turns out that John o'keef is
going to go over to this family friends, and she, Karen,
is going to drive him there. And that's the last
thing that everybody kind of agrees on, is that John
O'Keefe and Karen Reid, we're going to drive over to
this family that they know, and that John's going to
(03:25):
get dropped off and continue party. And the house that
they're being dropped off at is another law enforcement house
where two sisters and two husbands are having a party.
And that's really where everything goes questionable. According to the defense,
(03:45):
john o'keef gets out of the car and goes into
the party, but according to the state, the state believes
that he never even went inside the party, and there's
big factual disputes about what happens when John O'Kean arrives
at this location with the only thing that we know
is he dies and he is found in this driveway
(04:09):
right to the side of it in a snow bank,
and it's the next morning. I don't know if anybody
can really say what happened. And that's the real problem
with this prosecute. What we know is that a well regarded,
heroic police officer is dead, and that's awful. And we
(04:31):
know that he died under circumstances that are tragic and
not of his own choosing. This is obviously a death
that was not planned. It was an accidental, wasn't intentional,
I don't know. But we have a dead police officer
at the house of some other police officers. We have
a girlfriend who has not been her best defender, has
(04:55):
said things that would cause any normal person to really
scratch their head, and it doesn't make sense. But then
all that's overlaid into the wildness that is this Boston community.
And I'm telling you people, this is as old America
as you get. This community is deeply, deeply established, and
(05:17):
there is more cynicism in this case facing law enforcement
than I can remember in any other law enforcement related
kriminal case kind of ever. I've never seen an accused
cop killer be cheered on her way to court and
charl this is just wild.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
It is wild. And let's talk about some of the
circumstances surrounding this case. You do not want your significant
other to die under suspicious circumstances when they have got
voicemails and text messages from you saying you can't stand him,
(05:58):
you could just killing and et cetera.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah, there is some inter relationship dynamics here that they
clearly never expected anyone to look into. And the problem
when you get into any of these super private one
on one conversations is we're deaf, dub and blind to
how that conversation exists in the universe. We get that snapshot,
(06:24):
but it's text on page and the emotion is lacking
on that and that allows it to be used both
correctly and wrongfully by people with an agenda. And I
think that agenda pushing is at the heart of a
lot of this story. And you see law enforcement protecting themselves,
(06:46):
You see law enforcement acting in what a way is
that they're trying to keep their heads high and do
everything right and keep the integrity of the system. But
at the same time, there's so many unexplained issues and
there's very legitimate defense questions that the law enforcement community
is gonna be focused on and picked apart. And unfortunately,
(07:08):
law enforcement's made of humans, and while most of them
are just absolutely the finest people in the world, sometimes
you find mistakes and sometimes things weren't done right. And
I think we're gonna deal with a lot of those
kind of allegations and how an imperfect investigation fits into
a prosecution, because everybody will tell you that there could
(07:31):
have been more investigation, especially with the cause of death.
And for people that are just tuning in and catching
up on this, the cause of death in this case
is a head scratcher because Officer O'Keeffe's body is found
outside in the snow where lots of people ostensibly went
(07:53):
past it. But the physical injuries are going to be
a huge focus, and lucky enough to have shared with
us some of the photographs. There's a very very visceral
one of this arm with these vertical parallel scratches, and
a lot of people, myself included, question how those kind
(08:15):
of injuries could have flowed from the death circumstances the
state has put at the center of their case, which
is that Officer O'Keefe was backed into and run over,
And meanwhile, the defense has put forward this theory that
Officer O'Keefe actually was in the house. There's a big
(08:38):
difference of opinion there. Did he ever get in the
house or did he not get in the house. And
there are allegations that these injuries were caused I guess
by a dog. But Cheryl, you've seen enough dog bite
those are my dog bites to.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
You, it looks like a dog with one too.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah, it just doesn't even make so I've think, yeah, up.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
And here's the thing. There should have been multiple people
to see that when your life is messy, our case
is going to be messy. Here's one text message that
they have recovered that talks about there was some type
of romantic entanglement that a friend who was present at
(09:25):
the bar where John and Karen were they were all together.
Now that's messy in my world. I'm now real interested
in Joshua's world. Oh that don't mean anything. But here's
the deal. That's what I'm saying. It's messy. As soon
as I am forced to look right, Joshua was over
(09:45):
here looking left. He's saying, look, grown people have grown
folk stuff going on. But to me, I'm seeing motive and.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
It's absolutely there because we've seen these personal dynamics, and
then you add a little bit of liquor on top
of it, and all kinds of stuff could have been happening.
Because you've got these really closely involved people and law enforcement.
It's a community. They're either in the cop universe or
you're not. And that's because of how important law enforcement
(10:17):
work is to defining you as a.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Person, especially in Boston.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, and Boston, man, you've got this tradition of law
enforcement that goes back a couple of hundred years. It
is a family affair, it is multi generational. How important
being a public servant is. And that's also what begins
part of this circus on the outside what a lot
of people would never just believe because these kind of
(10:46):
people don't necessarily exist in your community. There's this whole
universe of chatter on the outside of the media, and
it's kind of like your nosy neighbor or your angry
subdivision person who writes the nasty blog. There's this gentleman
named Aiden Kearney who for over a decade in Massachusetts
(11:08):
has been known as Turtle Boy and has won this
kind of cottage industry tabloid and I don't want to
beat up on him, because he has provided a lot
of interesting perspective, and I respect freedom of speech, and
I really do appreciate how he's uncovered some horrific corruption,
(11:31):
some bad stuff. But no one's gonna say he's a
nice guy. No one's gonna say that his tactics are
comforting or appropriate to share or a good exemp because
he's sent some downright awful things and he's treated some
people in some absolutely unindefense up unconscionable ways. Well, now
(11:56):
that Turner boy's been out there for a while and
he's picked on many local leaders throughout Massachusetts. There's another
gentleman who is the son of a somewhat prominent lawyer,
a do gooder, his mom Wendy. But there's this guy
named Grant Ellis who is a citizen journalist that has
(12:19):
become very involved in this case. And between the two
of them, I've never seen a local population wound up
quite like this. And now we have a battle outside
the court where they've actually had to start appearing to
create a First Amendment buffer zone. This is the courthouse
(12:41):
where Sacho and Vanzetti were tried. By the way, this
is a historic setting. And so we've now got this
First Amendment battle going on on the outside where every
time Karen Reid or Ken Mellow or anybody else associated
with the case shows up to court, it is a
mob scene like nothing I've ever encounter. I'm talking verbal
(13:03):
bombs that are just offensive.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
I agree, I've never seen anything like it.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
People being verbally harassed, both members of the mainstream press
as well as this citizen press corps out there. It
is unbelievable, so much so that one of the famous,
you know, real firebrand First Amendment lawyers, Mark Randaza, has
been brought in to fight about this First Amendment zone.
(13:29):
And you see the videos every day that this case
is in court. You're going to be shared all kinds
of stuff on social media. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
So I'm going to mention a couple of things and
that I want to get your take solely as a
defense attorney, like, how would you attack this. One of
the things that's come out is a voicemail where John
is talking that he wants to end the relationship. In
we have a voicemail from Karen on John's phone where
(14:07):
she says, John, if and hate you, but she don't say,
and calls him a pervert and then accuses him of
having an affair. Now to me, those are going to
be hard things to explain in a courtroom.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
But but when you're explaining your you're losing. But that's
because when you're explaining, people are having to pay attention.
And if it is, it depends on I guess how
they're going to try to be handled. You can excuse
those kind of statements or you can embrace them. And
(14:43):
I know that my tongue has occasionally outrun my feelings
and brain and common sense that I hate you, gotta
own you, and I hear it be ugly. But I
also feel that the idea she would murder him is
a big jump, and I really wonder. I think the
(15:07):
defense is going to be predicated a lot on how
aggressive the state is with presenting the idea that she
was out to kill him at this moment in the
means that she did, which remember there were not talking about,
you know, a big plan, There is not this this
(15:28):
this malicious intent on the front end. I believe the
state's going to go with a heat of the moment, passion,
angry fight during the drive, but you never know. And
the defense has a lot of options with coming back
on some of these written documents the state's going to
use to leverage the mens rea or intent that Karen
(15:50):
Reid had to actually kill her long term boyfriend who
was a police officer. That's a big ask right there.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
That's really a great point. And to your point, I'm
just going to piggybag. His niece and nephew lived with
the two of them, and they told law enforcement they
fight all the time. But again to your point, how
many fights have they had? Thirty fifty seventy five and
she never killed him?
Speaker 2 (16:18):
And you and I have talked about this before. Now.
My relationship since my daytime life is just conflict and
all I do is conflict professionally. I like zero conflict
in my personal life and I avoid conflict. Other families
are different, and it doesn't mean that their love is
less authentic or that they're not a real cut. No,
(16:41):
they are just as married and happy as anybody else.
But their manifestation and expression that love it's not the
way that I do. Some of my dear friends fight
like cats and dogs, and it's almost like their love
is built on their recovery and Elliot that's what works
for them. Man, I don't have all the answers. If
(17:02):
that's what works, that's what works. And for all we know,
they're going to be able to paint the O'Keefe Reid
relationship as being very passionate and using passionate as a
as a as an analog for violent. There can be
(17:23):
these relationships where there's enormous volatility. That doesn't mean they
want to kill each other. And I think families and
jurors are going to understand that if the state relies
too strongly on some of these emails and messages written
(17:43):
with a lot of passion and fury and anger, but
that's because they were written and they disappeared into the ether.
They weren't real. They weren't authentic as I want to
say this and then follow up, No, they were momentary expressions.
If the state says this is the proof, look, she
wanted to kill she wanted man, that's over reliance and
(18:07):
a jerk and easily go are you kidding me? If
you are going to hang and convict me based on
everything I've ever texted, Wow, that's a terrible idea.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Some of us are in trouble hunting I'm not.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Telling you you don't want to be judged on everything
we've texted in our in our you know, heat of passion,
that is, that's a terrible idea.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
The prosecution is probably going to put to the jury
at some point. Why not call Brian Albert whose house
it was, to see if Okeeth was there, passed out
on the couch. Why not call his partner? Why not
call nine one one? If she's claiming that John was
attacked inside that home, that a fight broke out and
(18:52):
then he was attacked by a dog. To me, that's
even more of a reason that you Albert and demand
to know whether or not John's there. But she doesn't
do that.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Karen's response isn't one of a loving, caring person the
way that it is in my family or a lot
of other families. But again, you've got their individual dynamic.
They may have treated each other rather poorly in their relationship.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
We don't know, and not doing what you and I
would do certainly does not make her a criminal.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
When we start expecting people to do something certain in
response to a crime or a criminal issue, we're playing
with fire. You can't effectively predict how someone is going
to react, you can analyze and say, oh, that reaction
falls within what I feel would be normal. But the
moment you start predicting what someone should or should not
(19:54):
have done and starting to say, oh, they are guilty
because they didn't do do this, that's dangerous. It invites
cynicism from a jury, and it really gets us far
away from certainty and knowing what actually happened. And I
(20:15):
think there's a big threshold issue here where if the
defense can continue focusing on what whether o'keef even got
into the house or not, if they can keep that
as a giant, so teeric question in the front of
every juror's mind and they spend the rest of d
(20:36):
all arguing about the cause and motive of death and
death if you can't answer whether he even went inside
the house, I think that weighs strongly for the defense,
because you've got to have at least some physical pathways
and processing where he's going to end up. That's logical,
and I don't know if the state can do that
(20:58):
effectively with the limited evidence they have now, because remember
there's a lot for people that are tuning in. There's
this idea of the damages to the vehicle, and the
state's version of the incident involves John o'keef getting hit
and run over by this vehicle and that is the
(21:19):
cause of death, and they have an expert that's going
to testify that the injuries were blunt force trauma like
being hit by a vehicle. There's a lot of gross
pictures and all kinds of nasty stuff, but we're not
seeing a substantial amount of body damage on the vehicle.
(21:41):
We're not seeing injuries that I feel are necessarily consistent
with a death by vehicle, which we've seen lots of times.
There's an enormous amount of academic material available to investigators
regarding body vehicle impact and it's not pretty, but you've
(22:03):
got to figure out how to answer some of these
empirical questions of how he actually died in order for
the state to move forward. And the defense has a
lot to pick on where it's not this destroyed rear end,
rear quarter of a vehicle. It's in reasonably that shape.
You've got some cracked glass, but that doesn't necessarily match
(22:25):
up to the injuries that the state is saying were
the cause of death. So we've got a whole lot
out there and again that's before we've even gotten into
whether he went into the house or not. And the
impeachment then comes in, because who are we asking all
these questions of. It's a bunch of law enforcement. It's
(22:47):
a bunch of people who we trust and we've trained
and we've empowered to be the good guy in our community.
And as anyone that does civil rights or criminal law
will tell you, cross examining the person in uniform that
we have been trained since birth to learn as the good,
safe person, that's hard coming out and trying to call
(23:12):
a cop a liar is virtually impossible unless you've really
got the receipts. So we've got to go through and
talk about how impeaching these officers who are kind of
also being accused of their own crime by the defense.
So think about that aspect. It's not just Karen Reid's
(23:33):
defense is I didn't do it. He went in and
was murdered. It's I didn't do it, he went in
was killed by a bunch of police officers.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
And here's the thing. Five seven am. We've got video.
We've got video of Reed pulling out of her driveway
and she comes so close to John's car, that it
looks like she hit it, so is that how the
tail light got so? Now again I can't go right,
(24:04):
I am forced to look left. And then they tell me, well,
there's no glass in the driveway. Well, could that be
explained to yes? Possibly, maybe it's in the tire. Maybe
it hadn't fallen out yet. Maybe it didn't fall out
till they got to the other house and she parked.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
And there's snow and snow plows and weather, and this
was not what I'd call a thorough investigation. I think
everybody would say they could have done a lot more.
And there will be sufficiency of investigation arguments made by
the defense extensively in this And remember, Ladi, we haven't
(24:44):
even gotten to yet another one of the acts in
this case, which is the underlying allegations of nefarious crookery
and corruption within law enforcement itself, because while all of
this investigation is going on, Karen Reid and her cohort
(25:05):
have now gone to the Feds, and there are personal
and professional relationships with federal prosecutors, and federal prosecutors have
been investigating the Boston area police departments since long before
I was born, and They're going to be investigating them
long after I'm dead. This is the world of Whitey Bulger.
(25:27):
This is the world of organized crime. The FEDS do
not have a handshake BackRub best friends relationship with local
law enforcement. And Karen Reads successfully brought information to the
attention of the US Attorney's office that there is a
substantive investigation into the police activities and the prosecutors involved
(25:52):
in this case. So it's a story within a story
within yet another story, all going on at.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
The same time, and none of it has a clear answer.
You've got the medical examiner saying, hey, John's injuries are
not indicative of somebody being in a fight. Well, that
may be true. Maybe his hands and knuckles weren't busted up,
maybe he didn't have defensive injuries, but he's got a
massive wound to the back of his head. Maybe he
(26:22):
was knocked out maybe the fight. Maybe he was incapable
of returning any punches.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
And I just keep going back to the fact that
the state story may have a lot of truth in it,
but it's not complete. It sure leaves me with so
many questions because I've seen that picture and that's not
getting just run over and she's driving off and I'd
like to see a lot more firmness on the cause
(26:53):
of death and that explanation, because those photos do not
make sense when it comes to the state's theory of
the case, and I would hope the state would have
a better theory of the case.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Do you think they are really going to hammer her
statements like at the scene firefighters hear her say over
and over, I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Oh. I think that that is at the heart of
the case. And from my knowledge and belief, they want
to make this as interpersonal as possible, make this into
a classic trope of angry, spiteful, mean woman in the
midst of a DV issue taking advantage of a guy
(27:37):
who had been drinking and was emotional and she was
dumping him off at a part. And I don't know
how they're going to emotionally couch the dispute they were
having that evening. But I think that the states kind
of box themselves into the story that they're sticking with,
which is that when he's out of the whatever is
(27:58):
happening there, And I don't know if they're going to
try to introduce a scuffle or an argument or what
they're going to try to do. But they need to
keep him from going inside the house. They need to
keep the cause of death being the vehicle. The moment
they start expanding possibilities of their story, they're giving the
(28:18):
defense why the big pathway to go on in there
and talk about why the state can't even tell you see,
And that's one of those damned if you do with
the state, and it's the difficulty of being a state prosecutor.
When you decide what happened, you have to go for it.
And if you've missed that target by a couple of
(28:40):
degrees on your trajectory, you didn't just miss violent man.
It's not horseshoes, it's not a haggering aate. You got
to nail it. So you can't have a successful state
prosecution of this case where you can't talk about whether
he made it inside or outside the house where there
wasn't a fight, but there might have been a no,
(29:01):
that's going to spoil this state story and feed into
an overarching defense, which is this entire system is corrupt,
This is all home cooked, This is a cover up.
And that's really the Karen Reid defense more than anything,
is that something bad happened, and she's the scapegoat. And
(29:22):
with the history of law enforcement in Massachusetts, there have
been some bad guys doing some bad stuff. And if
they needed to get rid of a cop for some
reason because of who knows, and we haven't talked about that,
what would the motivations be for Officer O'Keefe's murder by
(29:43):
these other people. Was it something as simple as a
personal slight that then turned into an argument that then
turned into a fight that turned into something far more
bombed than anybody intended. Or was this all a setup
and was he going to go say something, get somebody
in trouble, or betray these officers in some other way
(30:04):
because he knew some of these people very very well.
But there's one officer, a very highly trained boxer officer
that he didn't know very very well. And there's a
scuttle butt out there about what about the rumors we
don't even know about in our fish bowl of speculation
(30:24):
on the outside. What if there were other issues we
are just fully and completely blind to that were existing
in these relationships that would justify the violent murder of
John O'Keeffe and the framing of Karen Reid. And there's
a lot of people that believe, fully, full throatedly, Karen
(30:45):
Reid is being framed by these officers who wanted to
murder John O'Keefe. That is a standpoint that many people
believe is true.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
If this was a movie and you're not, we're just
sitting at home watching she went to the fence. If
that ain't enough for somebody in that police department to go,
wait a minute, what has she said? What has John
told her? You know, the pilot hop. Has he ratted
us all out? Well, now you're getting into some real motive.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Oh yeah, these careers, they're not just one person's life.
There's family involved. These people know each These are very
established communities. It's not like where I live. It's not
like what a lot of other people are familiar with it.
And for those who don't know, I know this because
I went to undergrad up in Massachusetts and have some
(31:44):
really good friends that are from so I've seen these communities.
And being a police officer, it's a huge deal, these
town jobs. That's something that people grow up and you
want to be the local police officer in your town.
But obviously there's some corruption and some greed and some
good stuff and some bad stuff that exists in any
(32:06):
law enforcement agency, and we just don't know all the details,
other than enough people are concerned that this has real lex,
that the idea of inside corruption, a cover up within
law enforcement, law enforcement, cheating, stealing, all that stuff. It's
real enough that there are people showing up protesting in trial.
(32:31):
Trial's going, it's live, and there are people that are
showing up and creating a huge circus outside this courthouse
every day. On both sides, you have people supporting law
enforcement and the state you have people supporting Karen Reed.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
One of the biggest things for me forensically is that
John's DNA was found on the broken tail light. I
don't like that an issue.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
But again, if you're whenever you're attacking a corrupt investigation
or a cover up, you get the luxury of questioning
all evidence. Uh. And I know that that you and
I having gone through so many investigations. Man, it's we've
we've heard every you know, cheap shot out there about
oh plan did I've heard it on coburger already with
(33:25):
the sheath, and we're gonna hear more about it because
there's only so many ways you can fight DNA. The
science is so well established mathematically that that is the
tissue sample that matches that tissue sample that means that
it's from the same person. That stuff is rock solid.
So the way that you attack these results is in
(33:47):
the evidence collection and preservation and how and why, And
again we get down to this broken tail light and
whether people believe that could have happened or if it's
a made up con excuse that fits close enough to
be the right cause of death. And that's where the
(34:07):
defense has really latched on, and they're gonna bluntly ask
the jury, do you think that that actually killed John o'keee?
Do you think that a low speed impact with a
tail light would have caused these injuries? And I can
see them pointing to the scratches, and the scratches are
kind of on the inside of the arm, And for
(34:28):
the life of me, I can't figure out a scenario
where being hit while being backed up into would cause
those kinds of injuries, even if he was bending down,
even if he was carrying something, even if he was
run over. Again, like, I don't even see them as
being drag injuries or something like that. They really are mysterious,
(34:52):
and I'd love a lot of inquiry into the physical
nature of those injuries from meta examiners and other expert witnesses.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
And it's not road rash. I mean, there's spaced out
and I even thought under the bumper, let's just say
it happened under the bumper where there icicles or something
that could have cut into him. Like it's an odd
pattern to me, It.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Really is, and it's wild of blood. I don't see
it being very clearly the result of a traditional beating
fight either. Oh no, yeah, fight cases, you get a
scattering of bruises and besides your usage cuts, what you're
gonna find on knuckles and elbows and knees. You know,
the injuries are all over. If you're going to beat
(35:39):
someone to death, you'd be surprised how violent you probably
need to be. There's very rarely the one or two
punches in their debt. No, you gotta pumble somebody. And
even with his blood alcohol content, and again we're going
to get into some interesting questions about what's in his blood,
what drugs and alcohol were press, what drugs and alcohol weren't,
(36:02):
How drunk were these people, And that of course brings
up to cover up, because hold on, what are a
bunch of badge carrying people doing that might not be
something they want to face an inquiry over. And that's
unfortunately the truth in law enforcement all the time is
there's always a want to make sure I'm not going
(36:23):
to get in trouble for doing my job, Like when
doctors do defensive medicine. Officers want to make sure that
if and when they're going to be subject to bringing
a case forward or face some sort of scrutiny, that
they did everything right. And sometimes people in law enforcement officers'
I alives don't do everything right. And there's plenty of
(36:44):
cases where that friend of the cop who wasn't a
cop and was making some mistakes threatened that cop safety
and well being by being present when another case occurred.
And who knows what was going on at this party.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Here's the deal. The defense says it's a cover up.
Prosecution says it's a murder for me. In order for
a cover up to happen on any case, you have
got to see that the police and the EMTs, and
the firefighters, and the medical examiners and the prosecutors, everybody's
(37:20):
got to be on the same page for that to
be pulled off. For the most part, that's difficult to do.
Those core people, those first responding, tight knit group, Yeah,
they can navigate and maybe throw some red herons out there,
maybe get people's story straight. But again down the road,
the lab results are going to be what they are.
(37:42):
If they say there's no K nine DNA, there's no
K nine DNA on his injury. If they say that
there's tail like glass embedded in his clothing, then it
is they don't have a dog in the fight. They
weren't there and they don't know these folks. However, another thing,
and Josh, I won't your opinion on this, because I
thought this was pretty powerful. Karen Reid made a statement
(38:05):
and I'm quoting verbatim. I tried to save his life.
I tried to save his life at six in the morning.
I was covered in his blood. I was the only
one trying to save his life.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
It doesn't line up. And you know, this is one
of my struggles with this kind of I think that
a lot of people are lying, and I think that
a lot of people are covering up the truth for
the reasons they need the truth covered up. And now
it's gotten disproportionate because the state's gotten involved and wants
(38:41):
to figure out what the answer is. And if I'm
Ken Mellow or if I'm one of the US attorneys,
I really want to get down to the bottom of
this because really there may be a broad neck that
needs to get thrown from this case. But they've got
to go to Karen read first, And I I feel
terrible because I it's so hard to tell. It's just
(39:05):
so hard to tell, because Karen Reid could be snowing
all of us from the beginning and have this deep,
you know, thorough plant. I just I don't necessarily see
that her story doesn't add up. The injuries don't add up.
I believe that I don't believe the running into him
(39:27):
story because I just don't believe the physical app Now.
It could be because it hasn't been presented to me
in a full and thorough way, and I could just
be missing the storytelling that the state is doing on
that angle right now. But right now, I do not
see how they can show his death was caused merely
by bumping into him, running him over, and then abandoning
(39:49):
him in the snow for what six hours is basically
what they're saying five hours, and in between there are
some really awful text searches. There's some stuff about how
long to take someone to die, there's some stuff that
just doesn't make sense. And that bodes poorly for the
state because what the state can't do is throw all
(40:13):
the facts out there and then throw a dead body
on top and say that's murder, because that's not the
recipe for a conviction. That's not the recipe for a prosecution.
Our system demands that the state put it together for us,
assemble the Lego project, and let us go Yes, that's
(40:33):
what it's supposed to be. Very clearly, that's what happened.
And my fear is that the state doesn't have enough firm, straightforward,
uncontrovertible evidence to put the story forward that the jury
can agree on.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Well, I'm going to say the same thing that I
said during Casey Anthony. If you do not know how
that baby died, we don't have murder. It's just that simple.
And I ain't spent one day in law school, but
it's just that simple. And at the time with Casey Anthony,
my four sisters all had a different opinion. One thought
(41:13):
the baby drowned, one thought that she got into drugs accidentally.
One thought mama did something to her with the chloroform
and the duct tape. The other one just thought it
was a horrible accident. Well, we don't have murder then,
And in this case, if you're telling me, he's got
these injuries, but it doesn't look like he's been in
a fight, It doesn't look like he was run over.
(41:34):
It looks like he hit his head somehow and froze
in the snow. You're building your reasonable doubt within your own.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Prosecution exactly because I don't think the state can say, oh,
he didn't just lose consciousness and die of exposure, as
awful as that is. And can there be crimes as yes,
But when you get grand on how statutes work, murders
(42:04):
murdered pretty tough, especially when you've got all of this
alcohol and all of the lack of specifics what actually
was happening, and Karen Reid's not gonna admit to anything more.
We don't have video of what exchanges took place there
in that driveway. We've got a house party full of
(42:26):
people with a lot to lose who woke up to
have a dead cop on their front yard. I'd kind
of understand if they were nervous about sharing what happened.
And they're all law enforcements, so they unfortunately know how
challenging it can be to be the subject of an
investigation and how unfair it can feel to be the
(42:47):
subject of an investigation, and they could have clammed up.
They could also have made bad choices about what to say,
how to say, who to say it too. And that's
a really important factor. No one knows how to defend
yourself against wrongful or rightful allegations more than law enforcement
because they deal with it every day. They're exposed to
(43:11):
people saying, oh, I didn't do it, I'm innocent, I'm innocent,
so they know how people react. And we've got a
layer that on top of it. And I feel that
there's so many questions that could be asked that there's
not answers to. Maybe the state can put them together
for trial. I would love a nice, firm, easy to
(43:32):
button up version with associated physical empirical evidence that is
acceptable and authentic. That would be great. It would also
mean a plea and no trial, because folks, we have
trials when good people can't agree. Trials answer the questions.
At the heart of their jury function is to determine
(43:54):
what the facts are. That is the purpose of a jury.
To listen to the evidence, to hear from the witnesses,
examine the physical items they can hold, and then they
will determine what the facts are and apply the law.
That is the ultimate purpose of that jury. It's the
(44:15):
best system we have. And I don't envy the arguments
in having to consider and analyze the evidence they're going
to face this week because an officer's debt and no
one is going to be telling the jury that full.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Truth, y'all. I'm going to end Zone seven the way
that I always do with a quote. The death car,
as the newspapers called it, didn't stop. It came out
of the gathering darkness, wavered tragically for a moment, and
then disappear around the next bend. F Scott Fitzgerald, The
(44:53):
Great Gatsby, Chapter seven. I'm Cheryl McCollum, and this is
Zone
Speaker 2 (45:01):
The tape recas that deta
All right, y'all. So look, it was four twenty three am.
Snow was falling heavily. John O'Keefe's niece called a lady
by the name of Jennifer McKay and told her that
Karen Reid was quote distraught because o'keeif had not come
(00:30):
home and was not answering his cell phone. Joshua Schiffer,
defense attorney extraordinaire. He's been here several times. He's part
of my Zone seven. He ought to be part of yours.
So we are not gonna hesitate tonight at all because
we are gonna, well, we're gonna try our best, y'all
(00:52):
to run through this Karen Reid case. Give everybody just
a brief rundown in case they have missed this case
some much where what happened.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
So the nutshell is that there's this relationship between Karen
and John o'keeth and she is a successful, beautiful financial executive.
He is a handsome police officer. You know. They live
in this suburb. Campton, Massachusetts, is just outside Boston to
(01:24):
the south and just a little bit to the west.
It's a commuter town. Longest hops all the towns up
there have been around for one hundreds of years, so
these are really ingrained, long developed towns with a good
mix of people.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
And this whole thing started January twenty ninth, twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Correct, yes, and well started, that's the incident day. And
when it starts, there's questions about that, because, oh, that's a.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Good point, honey.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
You're getting into these interpersonal relationships, so of course there's
going to be allegations about how strong the relationship was,
whether they were at each other's throats, are deeply in love,
or a mix of both. And we know that a
lot of these tumultuous relationships, you see a lot of calm,
peaceful love punctuated by moments of extraordinary passion which leads
(02:17):
to violence.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
We see that a lot in these domestic violence cases,
where everything can be going great, but whatever the triggering
event is changes everything. The whole world turns upside down
and the sweetest people in the world become vicious killers.
It's part of that emotional reaction that's at the hardest
only violent crimes. So we've got this lovely couple and
(02:41):
they're basically out and about partying. It's the New Year's time.
They've got snow on the ground. It's the winter, it's
post Christmas. Everybody's living it up, and so they're out
and about at this bar and they're going to go home.
But then around the time that they packing up and
(03:01):
going home midnightish, it turns out that John o'keef is
going to go over to this family friends, and she, Karen,
is going to drive him there. And that's the last
thing that everybody kind of agrees on, is that John
O'Keefe and Karen Reid, we're going to drive over to
this family that they know, and that John's going to
(03:25):
get dropped off and continue party. And the house that
they're being dropped off at is another law enforcement house
where two sisters and two husbands are having a party.
And that's really where everything goes questionable. According to the defense,
(03:45):
john o'keef gets out of the car and goes into
the party, but according to the state, the state believes
that he never even went inside the party, and there's
big factual disputes about what happens when John O'Kean arrives
at this location with the only thing that we know
is he dies and he is found in this driveway
(04:09):
right to the side of it in a snow bank,
and it's the next morning. I don't know if anybody
can really say what happened. And that's the real problem
with this prosecute. What we know is that a well regarded,
heroic police officer is dead, and that's awful. And we
(04:31):
know that he died under circumstances that are tragic and
not of his own choosing. This is obviously a death
that was not planned. It was an accidental, wasn't intentional,
I don't know. But we have a dead police officer
at the house of some other police officers. We have
a girlfriend who has not been her best defender, has
(04:55):
said things that would cause any normal person to really
scratch their head, and it doesn't make sense. But then
all that's overlaid into the wildness that is this Boston community.
And I'm telling you people, this is as old America
as you get. This community is deeply, deeply established, and
(05:17):
there is more cynicism in this case facing law enforcement
than I can remember in any other law enforcement related
kriminal case kind of ever. I've never seen an accused
cop killer be cheered on her way to court and
charl this is just wild.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
It is wild. And let's talk about some of the
circumstances surrounding this case. You do not want your significant
other to die under suspicious circumstances when they have got
voicemails and text messages from you saying you can't stand him,
(05:58):
you could just killing and et cetera.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah, there is some inter relationship dynamics here that they
clearly never expected anyone to look into. And the problem
when you get into any of these super private one
on one conversations is we're deaf, dub and blind to
how that conversation exists in the universe. We get that snapshot,
(06:24):
but it's text on page and the emotion is lacking
on that and that allows it to be used both
correctly and wrongfully by people with an agenda. And I
think that agenda pushing is at the heart of a
lot of this story. And you see law enforcement protecting themselves,
(06:46):
You see law enforcement acting in what a way is
that they're trying to keep their heads high and do
everything right and keep the integrity of the system. But
at the same time, there's so many unexplained issues and
there's very legitimate defense questions that the law enforcement community
is gonna be focused on and picked apart. And unfortunately,
(07:08):
law enforcement's made of humans, and while most of them
are just absolutely the finest people in the world, sometimes
you find mistakes and sometimes things weren't done right. And
I think we're gonna deal with a lot of those
kind of allegations and how an imperfect investigation fits into
a prosecution, because everybody will tell you that there could
(07:31):
have been more investigation, especially with the cause of death.
And for people that are just tuning in and catching
up on this, the cause of death in this case
is a head scratcher because Officer O'Keeffe's body is found
outside in the snow where lots of people ostensibly went
(07:53):
past it. But the physical injuries are going to be
a huge focus, and lucky enough to have shared with
us some of the photographs. There's a very very visceral
one of this arm with these vertical parallel scratches, and
a lot of people, myself included, question how those kind
(08:15):
of injuries could have flowed from the death circumstances the
state has put at the center of their case, which
is that Officer O'Keefe was backed into and run over,
And meanwhile, the defense has put forward this theory that
Officer O'Keefe actually was in the house. There's a big
(08:38):
difference of opinion there. Did he ever get in the
house or did he not get in the house. And
there are allegations that these injuries were caused I guess
by a dog. But Cheryl, you've seen enough dog bite
those are my dog bites to.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
You, it looks like a dog with one too.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah, it just doesn't even make so I've think, yeah, up.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
And here's the thing. There should have been multiple people
to see that when your life is messy, our case
is going to be messy. Here's one text message that
they have recovered that talks about there was some type
of romantic entanglement that a friend who was present at
(09:25):
the bar where John and Karen were they were all together.
Now that's messy in my world. I'm now real interested
in Joshua's world. Oh that don't mean anything. But here's
the deal. That's what I'm saying. It's messy. As soon
as I am forced to look right, Joshua was over
(09:45):
here looking left. He's saying, look, grown people have grown
folk stuff going on. But to me, I'm seeing motive and.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
It's absolutely there because we've seen these personal dynamics, and
then you add a little bit of liquor on top
of it, and all kinds of stuff could have been happening.
Because you've got these really closely involved people and law enforcement.
It's a community. They're either in the cop universe or
you're not. And that's because of how important law enforcement
(10:17):
work is to defining you as a.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Person, especially in Boston.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, and Boston, man, you've got this tradition of law
enforcement that goes back a couple of hundred years. It
is a family affair, it is multi generational. How important
being a public servant is. And that's also what begins
part of this circus on the outside what a lot
of people would never just believe because these kind of
(10:46):
people don't necessarily exist in your community. There's this whole
universe of chatter on the outside of the media, and
it's kind of like your nosy neighbor or your angry
subdivision person who writes the nasty blog. There's this gentleman
named Aiden Kearney who for over a decade in Massachusetts
(11:08):
has been known as Turtle Boy and has won this
kind of cottage industry tabloid and I don't want to
beat up on him, because he has provided a lot
of interesting perspective, and I respect freedom of speech, and
I really do appreciate how he's uncovered some horrific corruption,
(11:31):
some bad stuff. But no one's gonna say he's a
nice guy. No one's gonna say that his tactics are
comforting or appropriate to share or a good exemp because
he's sent some downright awful things and he's treated some
people in some absolutely unindefense up unconscionable ways. Well, now
(11:56):
that Turner boy's been out there for a while and
he's picked on many local leaders throughout Massachusetts. There's another
gentleman who is the son of a somewhat prominent lawyer,
a do gooder, his mom Wendy. But there's this guy
named Grant Ellis who is a citizen journalist that has
(12:19):
become very involved in this case. And between the two
of them, I've never seen a local population wound up
quite like this. And now we have a battle outside
the court where they've actually had to start appearing to
create a First Amendment buffer zone. This is the courthouse
(12:41):
where Sacho and Vanzetti were tried. By the way, this
is a historic setting. And so we've now got this
First Amendment battle going on on the outside where every
time Karen Reid or Ken Mellow or anybody else associated
with the case shows up to court, it is a
mob scene like nothing I've ever encounter. I'm talking verbal
(13:03):
bombs that are just offensive.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
I agree, I've never seen anything like it.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
People being verbally harassed, both members of the mainstream press
as well as this citizen press corps out there. It
is unbelievable, so much so that one of the famous,
you know, real firebrand First Amendment lawyers, Mark Randaza, has
been brought in to fight about this First Amendment zone.
(13:29):
And you see the videos every day that this case
is in court. You're going to be shared all kinds
of stuff on social media. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
So I'm going to mention a couple of things and
that I want to get your take solely as a
defense attorney, like, how would you attack this. One of
the things that's come out is a voicemail where John
is talking that he wants to end the relationship. In
we have a voicemail from Karen on John's phone where
(14:07):
she says, John, if and hate you, but she don't say,
and calls him a pervert and then accuses him of
having an affair. Now to me, those are going to
be hard things to explain in a courtroom.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
But but when you're explaining your you're losing. But that's
because when you're explaining, people are having to pay attention.
And if it is, it depends on I guess how
they're going to try to be handled. You can excuse
those kind of statements or you can embrace them. And
(14:43):
I know that my tongue has occasionally outrun my feelings
and brain and common sense that I hate you, gotta
own you, and I hear it be ugly. But I
also feel that the idea she would murder him is
a big jump, and I really wonder. I think the
(15:07):
defense is going to be predicated a lot on how
aggressive the state is with presenting the idea that she
was out to kill him at this moment in the
means that she did, which remember there were not talking about,
you know, a big plan, There is not this this
(15:28):
this malicious intent on the front end. I believe the
state's going to go with a heat of the moment, passion,
angry fight during the drive, but you never know. And
the defense has a lot of options with coming back
on some of these written documents the state's going to
use to leverage the mens rea or intent that Karen
(15:50):
Reid had to actually kill her long term boyfriend who
was a police officer. That's a big ask right there.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
That's really a great point. And to your point, I'm
just going to piggybag. His niece and nephew lived with
the two of them, and they told law enforcement they
fight all the time. But again to your point, how
many fights have they had? Thirty fifty seventy five and
she never killed him?
Speaker 2 (16:18):
And you and I have talked about this before. Now.
My relationship since my daytime life is just conflict and
all I do is conflict professionally. I like zero conflict
in my personal life and I avoid conflict. Other families
are different, and it doesn't mean that their love is
less authentic or that they're not a real cut. No,
(16:41):
they are just as married and happy as anybody else.
But their manifestation and expression that love it's not the
way that I do. Some of my dear friends fight
like cats and dogs, and it's almost like their love
is built on their recovery and Elliot that's what works
for them. Man, I don't have all the answers. If
(17:02):
that's what works, that's what works. And for all we know,
they're going to be able to paint the O'Keefe Reid
relationship as being very passionate and using passionate as a
as a as an analog for violent. There can be
(17:23):
these relationships where there's enormous volatility. That doesn't mean they
want to kill each other. And I think families and
jurors are going to understand that if the state relies
too strongly on some of these emails and messages written
(17:43):
with a lot of passion and fury and anger, but
that's because they were written and they disappeared into the ether.
They weren't real. They weren't authentic as I want to
say this and then follow up, No, they were momentary expressions.
If the state says this is the proof, look, she
wanted to kill she wanted man, that's over reliance and
(18:07):
a jerk and easily go are you kidding me? If
you are going to hang and convict me based on
everything I've ever texted, Wow, that's a terrible idea.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Some of us are in trouble hunting I'm not.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Telling you you don't want to be judged on everything
we've texted in our in our you know, heat of passion,
that is, that's a terrible idea.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
The prosecution is probably going to put to the jury
at some point. Why not call Brian Albert whose house
it was, to see if Okeeth was there, passed out
on the couch. Why not call his partner? Why not
call nine one one? If she's claiming that John was
attacked inside that home, that a fight broke out and
(18:52):
then he was attacked by a dog. To me, that's
even more of a reason that you Albert and demand
to know whether or not John's there. But she doesn't
do that.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Karen's response isn't one of a loving, caring person the
way that it is in my family or a lot
of other families. But again, you've got their individual dynamic.
They may have treated each other rather poorly in their relationship.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
We don't know, and not doing what you and I
would do certainly does not make her a criminal.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
When we start expecting people to do something certain in
response to a crime or a criminal issue, we're playing
with fire. You can't effectively predict how someone is going
to react, you can analyze and say, oh, that reaction
falls within what I feel would be normal. But the
moment you start predicting what someone should or should not
(19:54):
have done and starting to say, oh, they are guilty
because they didn't do do this, that's dangerous. It invites
cynicism from a jury, and it really gets us far
away from certainty and knowing what actually happened. And I
(20:15):
think there's a big threshold issue here where if the
defense can continue focusing on what whether o'keef even got
into the house or not, if they can keep that
as a giant, so teeric question in the front of
every juror's mind and they spend the rest of d
(20:36):
all arguing about the cause and motive of death and
death if you can't answer whether he even went inside
the house, I think that weighs strongly for the defense,
because you've got to have at least some physical pathways
and processing where he's going to end up. That's logical,
and I don't know if the state can do that
(20:58):
effectively with the limited evidence they have now, because remember
there's a lot for people that are tuning in. There's
this idea of the damages to the vehicle, and the
state's version of the incident involves John o'keef getting hit
and run over by this vehicle and that is the
(21:19):
cause of death, and they have an expert that's going
to testify that the injuries were blunt force trauma like
being hit by a vehicle. There's a lot of gross
pictures and all kinds of nasty stuff, but we're not
seeing a substantial amount of body damage on the vehicle.
(21:41):
We're not seeing injuries that I feel are necessarily consistent
with a death by vehicle, which we've seen lots of times.
There's an enormous amount of academic material available to investigators
regarding body vehicle impact and it's not pretty, but you've
(22:03):
got to figure out how to answer some of these
empirical questions of how he actually died in order for
the state to move forward. And the defense has a
lot to pick on where it's not this destroyed rear end,
rear quarter of a vehicle. It's in reasonably that shape.
You've got some cracked glass, but that doesn't necessarily match
(22:25):
up to the injuries that the state is saying were
the cause of death. So we've got a whole lot
out there and again that's before we've even gotten into
whether he went into the house or not. And the
impeachment then comes in, because who are we asking all
these questions of. It's a bunch of law enforcement. It's
(22:47):
a bunch of people who we trust and we've trained
and we've empowered to be the good guy in our community.
And as anyone that does civil rights or criminal law
will tell you, cross examining the person in uniform that
we have been trained since birth to learn as the good,
safe person, that's hard coming out and trying to call
(23:12):
a cop a liar is virtually impossible unless you've really
got the receipts. So we've got to go through and
talk about how impeaching these officers who are kind of
also being accused of their own crime by the defense.
So think about that aspect. It's not just Karen Reid's
(23:33):
defense is I didn't do it. He went in and
was murdered. It's I didn't do it, he went in
was killed by a bunch of police officers.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
And here's the thing. Five seven am. We've got video.
We've got video of Reed pulling out of her driveway
and she comes so close to John's car, that it
looks like she hit it, so is that how the
tail light got so? Now again I can't go right,
(24:04):
I am forced to look left. And then they tell me, well,
there's no glass in the driveway. Well, could that be
explained to yes? Possibly, maybe it's in the tire. Maybe
it hadn't fallen out yet. Maybe it didn't fall out
till they got to the other house and she parked.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
And there's snow and snow plows and weather, and this
was not what I'd call a thorough investigation. I think
everybody would say they could have done a lot more.
And there will be sufficiency of investigation arguments made by
the defense extensively in this And remember, Ladi, we haven't
(24:44):
even gotten to yet another one of the acts in
this case, which is the underlying allegations of nefarious crookery
and corruption within law enforcement itself, because while all of
this investigation is going on, Karen Reid and her cohort
(25:05):
have now gone to the Feds, and there are personal
and professional relationships with federal prosecutors, and federal prosecutors have
been investigating the Boston area police departments since long before
I was born, and They're going to be investigating them
long after I'm dead. This is the world of Whitey Bulger.
(25:27):
This is the world of organized crime. The FEDS do
not have a handshake BackRub best friends relationship with local
law enforcement. And Karen Reads successfully brought information to the
attention of the US Attorney's office that there is a
substantive investigation into the police activities and the prosecutors involved
(25:52):
in this case. So it's a story within a story
within yet another story, all going on at.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
The same time, and none of it has a clear answer.
You've got the medical examiner saying, hey, John's injuries are
not indicative of somebody being in a fight. Well, that
may be true. Maybe his hands and knuckles weren't busted up,
maybe he didn't have defensive injuries, but he's got a
massive wound to the back of his head. Maybe he
(26:22):
was knocked out maybe the fight. Maybe he was incapable
of returning any punches.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
And I just keep going back to the fact that
the state story may have a lot of truth in it,
but it's not complete. It sure leaves me with so
many questions because I've seen that picture and that's not
getting just run over and she's driving off and I'd
like to see a lot more firmness on the cause
(26:53):
of death and that explanation, because those photos do not
make sense when it comes to the state's theory of
the case, and I would hope the state would have
a better theory of the case.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Do you think they are really going to hammer her
statements like at the scene firefighters hear her say over
and over, I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Oh. I think that that is at the heart of
the case. And from my knowledge and belief, they want
to make this as interpersonal as possible, make this into
a classic trope of angry, spiteful, mean woman in the
midst of a DV issue taking advantage of a guy
(27:37):
who had been drinking and was emotional and she was
dumping him off at a part. And I don't know
how they're going to emotionally couch the dispute they were
having that evening. But I think that the states kind
of box themselves into the story that they're sticking with,
which is that when he's out of the whatever is
(27:58):
happening there, And I don't know if they're going to
try to introduce a scuffle or an argument or what
they're going to try to do. But they need to
keep him from going inside the house. They need to
keep the cause of death being the vehicle. The moment
they start expanding possibilities of their story, they're giving the
(28:18):
defense why the big pathway to go on in there
and talk about why the state can't even tell you see,
And that's one of those damned if you do with
the state, and it's the difficulty of being a state prosecutor.
When you decide what happened, you have to go for it.
And if you've missed that target by a couple of
(28:40):
degrees on your trajectory, you didn't just miss violent man.
It's not horseshoes, it's not a haggering aate. You got
to nail it. So you can't have a successful state
prosecution of this case where you can't talk about whether
he made it inside or outside the house where there
wasn't a fight, but there might have been a no,
(29:01):
that's going to spoil this state story and feed into
an overarching defense, which is this entire system is corrupt,
This is all home cooked, This is a cover up.
And that's really the Karen Reid defense more than anything,
is that something bad happened, and she's the scapegoat. And
(29:22):
with the history of law enforcement in Massachusetts, there have
been some bad guys doing some bad stuff. And if
they needed to get rid of a cop for some
reason because of who knows, and we haven't talked about that,
what would the motivations be for Officer O'Keefe's murder by
(29:43):
these other people. Was it something as simple as a
personal slight that then turned into an argument that then
turned into a fight that turned into something far more
bombed than anybody intended. Or was this all a setup
and was he going to go say something, get somebody
in trouble, or betray these officers in some other way
(30:04):
because he knew some of these people very very well.
But there's one officer, a very highly trained boxer officer
that he didn't know very very well. And there's a
scuttle butt out there about what about the rumors we
don't even know about in our fish bowl of speculation
(30:24):
on the outside. What if there were other issues we
are just fully and completely blind to that were existing
in these relationships that would justify the violent murder of
John O'Keeffe and the framing of Karen Reid. And there's
a lot of people that believe, fully, full throatedly, Karen
(30:45):
Reid is being framed by these officers who wanted to
murder John O'Keefe. That is a standpoint that many people
believe is true.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
If this was a movie and you're not, we're just
sitting at home watching she went to the fence. If
that ain't enough for somebody in that police department to go,
wait a minute, what has she said? What has John
told her? You know, the pilot hop. Has he ratted
us all out? Well, now you're getting into some real motive.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Oh yeah, these careers, they're not just one person's life.
There's family involved. These people know each These are very
established communities. It's not like where I live. It's not
like what a lot of other people are familiar with it.
And for those who don't know, I know this because
I went to undergrad up in Massachusetts and have some
(31:44):
really good friends that are from so I've seen these communities.
And being a police officer, it's a huge deal, these
town jobs. That's something that people grow up and you
want to be the local police officer in your town.
But obviously there's some corruption and some greed and some
good stuff and some bad stuff that exists in any
(32:06):
law enforcement agency, and we just don't know all the details,
other than enough people are concerned that this has real lex,
that the idea of inside corruption, a cover up within
law enforcement, law enforcement, cheating, stealing, all that stuff. It's
real enough that there are people showing up protesting in trial.
(32:31):
Trial's going, it's live, and there are people that are
showing up and creating a huge circus outside this courthouse
every day. On both sides, you have people supporting law
enforcement and the state you have people supporting Karen Reed.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
One of the biggest things for me forensically is that
John's DNA was found on the broken tail light. I
don't like that an issue.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
But again, if you're whenever you're attacking a corrupt investigation
or a cover up, you get the luxury of questioning
all evidence. Uh. And I know that that you and
I having gone through so many investigations. Man, it's we've
we've heard every you know, cheap shot out there about
oh plan did I've heard it on coburger already with
(33:25):
the sheath, and we're gonna hear more about it because
there's only so many ways you can fight DNA. The
science is so well established mathematically that that is the
tissue sample that matches that tissue sample that means that
it's from the same person. That stuff is rock solid.
So the way that you attack these results is in
(33:47):
the evidence collection and preservation and how and why, And
again we get down to this broken tail light and
whether people believe that could have happened or if it's
a made up con excuse that fits close enough to
be the right cause of death. And that's where the
(34:07):
defense has really latched on, and they're gonna bluntly ask
the jury, do you think that that actually killed John o'keee?
Do you think that a low speed impact with a
tail light would have caused these injuries? And I can
see them pointing to the scratches, and the scratches are
kind of on the inside of the arm, And for
(34:28):
the life of me, I can't figure out a scenario
where being hit while being backed up into would cause
those kinds of injuries, even if he was bending down,
even if he was carrying something, even if he was
run over. Again, like, I don't even see them as
being drag injuries or something like that. They really are mysterious,
(34:52):
and I'd love a lot of inquiry into the physical
nature of those injuries from meta examiners and other expert witnesses.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
And it's not road rash. I mean, there's spaced out
and I even thought under the bumper, let's just say
it happened under the bumper where there icicles or something
that could have cut into him. Like it's an odd
pattern to me, It.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Really is, and it's wild of blood. I don't see
it being very clearly the result of a traditional beating
fight either. Oh no, yeah, fight cases, you get a
scattering of bruises and besides your usage cuts, what you're
gonna find on knuckles and elbows and knees. You know,
the injuries are all over. If you're going to beat
(35:39):
someone to death, you'd be surprised how violent you probably
need to be. There's very rarely the one or two
punches in their debt. No, you gotta pumble somebody. And
even with his blood alcohol content, and again we're going
to get into some interesting questions about what's in his blood,
what drugs and alcohol were press, what drugs and alcohol weren't,
(36:02):
How drunk were these people, And that of course brings
up to cover up, because hold on, what are a
bunch of badge carrying people doing that might not be
something they want to face an inquiry over. And that's
unfortunately the truth in law enforcement all the time is
there's always a want to make sure I'm not going
(36:23):
to get in trouble for doing my job, Like when
doctors do defensive medicine. Officers want to make sure that
if and when they're going to be subject to bringing
a case forward or face some sort of scrutiny, that
they did everything right. And sometimes people in law enforcement officers'
I alives don't do everything right. And there's plenty of
(36:44):
cases where that friend of the cop who wasn't a
cop and was making some mistakes threatened that cop safety
and well being by being present when another case occurred.
And who knows what was going on at this party.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Here's the deal. The defense says it's a cover up.
Prosecution says it's a murder for me. In order for
a cover up to happen on any case, you have
got to see that the police and the EMTs, and
the firefighters, and the medical examiners and the prosecutors, everybody's
(37:20):
got to be on the same page for that to
be pulled off. For the most part, that's difficult to do.
Those core people, those first responding, tight knit group, Yeah,
they can navigate and maybe throw some red herons out there,
maybe get people's story straight. But again down the road,
the lab results are going to be what they are.
(37:42):
If they say there's no K nine DNA, there's no
K nine DNA on his injury. If they say that
there's tail like glass embedded in his clothing, then it
is they don't have a dog in the fight. They
weren't there and they don't know these folks. However, another thing,
and Josh, I won't your opinion on this, because I
thought this was pretty powerful. Karen Reid made a statement
(38:05):
and I'm quoting verbatim. I tried to save his life.
I tried to save his life at six in the morning.
I was covered in his blood. I was the only
one trying to save his life.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
It doesn't line up. And you know, this is one
of my struggles with this kind of I think that
a lot of people are lying, and I think that
a lot of people are covering up the truth for
the reasons they need the truth covered up. And now
it's gotten disproportionate because the state's gotten involved and wants
(38:41):
to figure out what the answer is. And if I'm
Ken Mellow or if I'm one of the US attorneys,
I really want to get down to the bottom of
this because really there may be a broad neck that
needs to get thrown from this case. But they've got
to go to Karen read first, And I I feel
terrible because I it's so hard to tell. It's just
(39:05):
so hard to tell, because Karen Reid could be snowing
all of us from the beginning and have this deep,
you know, thorough plant. I just I don't necessarily see
that her story doesn't add up. The injuries don't add up.
I believe that I don't believe the running into him
(39:27):
story because I just don't believe the physical app Now.
It could be because it hasn't been presented to me
in a full and thorough way, and I could just
be missing the storytelling that the state is doing on
that angle right now. But right now, I do not
see how they can show his death was caused merely
by bumping into him, running him over, and then abandoning
(39:49):
him in the snow for what six hours is basically
what they're saying five hours, and in between there are
some really awful text searches. There's some stuff about how
long to take someone to die, there's some stuff that
just doesn't make sense. And that bodes poorly for the
state because what the state can't do is throw all
(40:13):
the facts out there and then throw a dead body
on top and say that's murder, because that's not the
recipe for a conviction. That's not the recipe for a prosecution.
Our system demands that the state put it together for us,
assemble the Lego project, and let us go Yes, that's
(40:33):
what it's supposed to be. Very clearly, that's what happened.
And my fear is that the state doesn't have enough firm, straightforward,
uncontrovertible evidence to put the story forward that the jury
can agree on.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Well, I'm going to say the same thing that I
said during Casey Anthony. If you do not know how
that baby died, we don't have murder. It's just that simple.
And I ain't spent one day in law school, but
it's just that simple. And at the time with Casey Anthony,
my four sisters all had a different opinion. One thought
(41:13):
the baby drowned, one thought that she got into drugs accidentally.
One thought mama did something to her with the chloroform
and the duct tape. The other one just thought it
was a horrible accident. Well, we don't have murder then,
And in this case, if you're telling me, he's got
these injuries, but it doesn't look like he's been in
a fight, It doesn't look like he was run over.
(41:34):
It looks like he hit his head somehow and froze
in the snow. You're building your reasonable doubt within your own.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Prosecution exactly because I don't think the state can say, oh,
he didn't just lose consciousness and die of exposure, as
awful as that is. And can there be crimes as yes,
But when you get grand on how statutes work, murders
(42:04):
murdered pretty tough, especially when you've got all of this
alcohol and all of the lack of specifics what actually
was happening, and Karen Reid's not gonna admit to anything more.
We don't have video of what exchanges took place there
in that driveway. We've got a house party full of
(42:26):
people with a lot to lose who woke up to
have a dead cop on their front yard. I'd kind
of understand if they were nervous about sharing what happened.
And they're all law enforcements, so they unfortunately know how
challenging it can be to be the subject of an
investigation and how unfair it can feel to be the
(42:47):
subject of an investigation, and they could have clammed up.
They could also have made bad choices about what to say,
how to say, who to say it too. And that's
a really important factor. No one knows how to defend
yourself against wrongful or rightful allegations more than law enforcement
because they deal with it every day. They're exposed to
(43:11):
people saying, oh, I didn't do it, I'm innocent, I'm innocent,
so they know how people react. And we've got a
layer that on top of it. And I feel that
there's so many questions that could be asked that there's
not answers to. Maybe the state can put them together
for trial. I would love a nice, firm, easy to
(43:32):
button up version with associated physical empirical evidence that is
acceptable and authentic. That would be great. It would also
mean a plea and no trial, because folks, we have
trials when good people can't agree. Trials answer the questions.
At the heart of their jury function is to determine
(43:54):
what the facts are. That is the purpose of a jury.
To listen to the evidence, to hear from the witnesses,
examine the physical items they can hold, and then they
will determine what the facts are and apply the law.
That is the ultimate purpose of that jury. It's the
(44:15):
best system we have. And I don't envy the arguments
in having to consider and analyze the evidence they're going
to face this week because an officer's debt and no
one is going to be telling the jury that full.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Truth, y'all. I'm going to end Zone seven the way
that I always do with a quote. The death car,
as the newspapers called it, didn't stop. It came out
of the gathering darkness, wavered tragically for a moment, and
then disappear around the next bend. F Scott Fitzgerald, The
(44:53):
Great Gatsby, Chapter seven. I'm Cheryl McCollum, and this is
Zone
Speaker 2 (45:01):
The tape recas that deta
Host
Sheryl McCollum
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.