Watch the full coverage of the live stream on The Emily D Baker YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/live/QZlJIBMCSsM
Day 11 of the Karen Read Retrial happened on May 7, 2025. It feels like Deja Vu for Emily because it is her birthday and last year she was covering Day 6 of the first Karen Read trial! The Prosecution's case said it would take 3 weeks and half to present their case and they are more than halfway through, but several key witnesses, such as Former Trooper Michael Proctor, have not yet been called.
Trooper Connor Keefe took the stand and displayed physical evidence, including pieces of tail light and a shoe, was shown to the jury. There was an issue with the evidence bag containing tail light pieces being marked as "two pieces" when there were actually three. Defense Attorney David Yanetti had an effective Cross Examination and Keefe tried to distance himself from Former Trooper Proctor or even say that he does good work. Yanetti pointed out that Keefe is a junior detective, and he was the only person who attended John O'Keefe's autopsy. It is usually the Lead Investigator that attends the autopsy and the fact that his partner, Trooper Bukhenik, didn't attend either is also strange. The fact that a fallen officer, John O'Keefe, was not treated with respect is baffling.
Jessica Hyde, the Digital Forensics Examiner, took the stand to take about the Cellebrite data of Jen McCabe and John O'Keefe's phone. She talked about the various tools she used to decipher the information and her opinion on the "Hos long to die in cold" Google Search began at 6:23:49am because that is when Apple Suggested Term gave her, "How long does it take to digest food." After that, is when other variations of search happens like "how long ti die in cikd" at 6:23:51am, 6:23:57am, 6:24:18am, & 6:24:47am. Hyde also explained that a browser tab cannot be deleted and that Jen McCabe didn't manually delete any calls from her log. The phone has a limitation that it only stores 200 calls records and from Jan 29 to February 1st, when her phone was imaged, she must have made over 200 calls because the older calls were being erased from the phone in order to store new incoming calls. This is believable because we've heard her make 5 calls in 10 mins when the FBI unexpectedly showed up at her house for questing. Another notable instance is that Jessica Hyde noted in her report that John's phone interaction is at 12:20am but Ian Whiffin's report showed that the phone was locked with a button at 12:32am. In Jessica Hyde's testimony indicated that John O'Keefe's phone did not appear to have been secured in a Faraday bag or placed in airplane mode, as evidenced by the fact that SMS messages and ring notifications were still being received on the phone. This raised concerns about whether the phone was properly handled and secured by law enforcement, as new information could potentially still be added to the device.
Special Prosecutor Hank Brennan played a clip from ID Docuseries, April 30, 2024, where Karen Read says, "Jen McCabe- It's me or her. Either I'm going down, Jen, or you are!” The implications of these statements and how the jury might interpret them are considered. The Prosecution can infer that Karen is using Jen as a scapegoat and with more videos he will use at his disposal, make it to where she has no choice to take the stand to clarify her statements.
The Prosecution is presenting a stronger case in this retrial compared to the previous trial. However, concerns are raised about upcoming testimonies, such as the accident reconstructionist and medical experts.
RESOURCES
Day 6 of the first Karen Read Trial -