Watch the full coverage of the live stream on The Emily D Baker YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/live/Hi_HNpRVySA
Day 18 of the Karen Read Retrial happened on May 19, 2025. Shanon Burgess, a Digital Forensic Examiner from Aperture, is witness number 35. His testimony revolves around correlating the timing of events from Karen Read's Lexus vehicle data and John O'Keefe's phone location data.
Burgess provided detailed explanations of Lexus infotainment system data (Lexus clock and techstream data), key cycles, triggering events (like a three-point turn), and how this data was correlated with the data from John O'Keefe's iPhone. Time variances between the Lexus clock and the iPhone clock and the significance of these variances in relation to when O'Keefe's phone was locked.
Defense Attorney, Robert Alessi, strongly challenged Burgess's credibility during cross examination by highlighting discrepancies and potential misrepresentations in his CV (resume), Aperture website information, and LinkedIn profile concerning his educational background and degrees.
Questions were also raised about a report Burgess submitted on May 8th, at the request of the prosecution. Burgess stated he did it on his own initiative due to the report from the Defense's expert. It was thought that he did it at the request of the prosecutor but attributed the "per your request" statement to a copy-paste error.
Alessi further challenged Burgess's understanding of data storage (megabits vs. megabytes) and the completeness of data extractions from the vehicle's chips. This could significantly impact the jury's perception of Shanon's testimony and the prosecution's case. The errors and inconsistencies in his statements, reports, and qualifications raise serious questions about the reliability of his expert opinions. There's more cross examination to come on Day 19.
RESOURCES
What You Need to Know About the Retrial - https://youtu.be/89Jpa8vz1RQ
Karen Read Retrial Playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsbUyvZas7gKOJlfL__9F027hlETVU-vo
Karen Read Trial - 2024 - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsbUyvZas7gKUeCUzApgsEuQRXu5IXeTS