282: ARE YOU KIDDING?! Karen Read: The Defense Came Out Swinging!

This week in the Karen Read trial, the defense came out swinging. It was a full-on battle of the experts as both sides clashed over science, strategy, and credibility. But the real showstopper? The blue paint experiment heard round the world. From dramatic cross-examinations to explosive new claims, tensions are rising—and the stakes have never been higher. Buckle up, because this recap breaks down everything you missed in one of the most chaotic weeks yet. 🔎Join Our True Crime Club & Get Exclusive Content & Perks 🔎Join The Club: https://www.patreon.com/annieelise🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to EXTRA deep dive episodes every week on Apple!https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/serialously-with-annie-elise/id1519456164Follow Annie on Socials 📸🩷Instagram: @ _annieelise💜TikTok: @_annieelise🗞️ Substack: @annieelise💙Facebook: @10tolifeShop Annie’s Closet & Must-Haves! 👗Poshmark: https://posh.mk/Tdbki6Ae0RbShopMY: https://shopmy.us/annieeliseAmazon: https://www.amazon.com/shop/10tolife?ref_=cm_sw_r_apin_aipsfshop_BKN1ZMCMEZHACVFQ2R75&language=en_USDisclaimer ‣ Some links may be affiliate links, they do not cost you anything, but I make a small percentage from the sale. Thank you so much for watching and supporting me.🎙️ Follow the podcast for FREE on all podcast platforms! Apple:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/serialously-with-annie-elise/id1519456164Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/6HdheEH8WeMTHoe5da34qUAll Other Platforms: https://audioboom.com/channels/5100770-serialously-with-annie-eliseGet Involved or Recommend the Case 💬About Annie: https://annieelise.com/For Business Inquiries: [email protected].*Sources used to collect this information include various public news sites, interviews, court documents, FB groups dedicated to the case, and various news channel segments. When quoting statements made by others, they are strictly alleged until confirmed otherwise. Please remember my videos are my independent opinion and to always do your own research.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:23Annie Elise?

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• 2:07Annie Elise?

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• 2:37Annie Elise?

  Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serial Sleep.

• 3:06Annie Elise?

  Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Serial Sleep. With me, Annie Elise, and we've got the Karen Reed trial recap. Now, a lot has gone down this week. I'm sure that if you follow the trial, you've been seeing social media clips just popping up left and right because, I mean, the true circus that is the trial, it's, it's something like I've never seen before, truly. So, let me backtrack a little bit, and Elena is of course going to join again, and she's going to recap everything because she just, she does, she has a way of doing it in such like, a magical seamless way to where it's like, understandable, digestible. She doesn't leave out any detail. So, I don't have to worry about you guys like

• 3:49Annie Elise?

  coming for me like you did last week where, well, you didn't even talk about how he changed the timeline. Like, I know, I thought that was implied. I'm sorry, I forgot. So, Elena will be joining us and breaking down this week, but some of the big highlights of the week definitely were with like, Blue Man Group Smurf Guy. This guy did this full-on reenactment of the alleged car crash between Karen Reed and John O'Keefe. And when I tell you,

• 4:16Annie Elise?

  I was not only laughing through it, and not in a disrespectful way as to whatever happened to John O'Keefe, but more in like a, the audacity, the nerve, like, this makes no sense. And if you didn't see it, I highly encourage you to Google it, but like I said, it's been popping up all over social media. But basically, this guy who identifies himself as an expert in accident reconstruction, in data, all of these things, he puts together this mock version of the accident, the collision. And let me just say, this expert, he ends up saying that he got paid somewhere near like 400 grand for his participation in this.

• 4:55Annie Elise?

  He got like a free Lexus to use during this reenactment. And this reenactment was so unbelievable because he didn't even reenact what the Commonwealth is accusing Karen of doing. They're accusing Karen of reversing at such a high speed of almost like 30 miles per hour to where then he, she reverses and clips John, and he then goes flying so many feet into the yard, and that's what then hits the back of his head, incapacitates him, and then he, of course, as we know, doesn't live. And they have such egregious allegations and accusations against her. So you would think, okay, great, you're gonna get this expert in to do this reenactment.

• 5:39Annie Elise?

  You have the same vehicle that she was driving, you're on the road, all these things. This guy even cosplayed as John O'Keefe in such a freaking weirdo, crazy twist, like, and I get it. He was trying to set the stage, he was trying to like, paint a picture, but he dressed up as John O'Keefe, got the same Lexus, but then did not even reenact what they are accusing Karen of doing. Instead, the Lexus in his reenactment...

• 6:08Annie Elise?

  reverses at like 2 miles per hour or whatever it is. He has blue paint that he has painted on the taillight, her taillight that was then later smashed or smashed at the time, whatever you believe. And he positions his body in a way, and if you're watching the video version of this, I'm gonna kind of just do the demonstration, but if you're listening to the audio version of this, hopefully I'm explaining it well enough to where you can visualize it. But he basically stands in a way behind the car with his arm kind of at this 90 degree angle, just perfectly bent. Then the Lexus starts reversing into him with the painted taillight, bright blue, royal blue paint, and he like bounces off the taillight, does a full pirouette spin, and then kind

• 6:52Annie Elise?

  of is like, aha, there you have it, see? And he shows his arm and he shows that the paint transfer from the taillight goes onto his arm in the same location as where we have seen those lacerations on John O'Keefe's arm. Some believe they're scrapes, some believe they're dog bites, whatever you believe them to be. He basically is illustrating, look, my impact with the car, then the transfer of the paint is in that exact same location as where the lacerations were on John O'Keefe's arm. Which, okay, but first of all, that's because you were positioned in a very specific way and held your arm in a very specific way so that the taillight paint would transfer on that part of your arm.

• 7:37Annie Elise?

  Also, the Lexus was only reversing at like 1 or 2 miles per hour when you're alleging that it was at, you know, 30, 20 times that, whatever the math would be. Then also, you're not the same height and build as John O'Keefe. You do this spin out, but you're saying he flew all the way to the flagpole? Like, nothing of it made any sense whatsoever, and it was comical to watch because it was like you're doing a finger painting project. And it's like, you're paying this guy 400 grand to do a reenactment to bolster your case, but he's not even reenacting what you're accusing her of doing? It just, it made absolutely no sense, and the demonstration itself truly was laughable.

• 8:21Annie Elise?

  I get what they were trying to do, but it did not land, especially because... It's just like, how do you know he was standing in that position? How do you know that that's where he was? How do you know his arm was bent? And he's like, on the stand, he was like, well, we don't know. This is what we're calculating. This is what we're theorizing. And it's like, okay, well, I could theorize all the long day then for my reenactment. I'll get a German shepherd off the street, say, hey, German shepherd, let me have you attack this person right here, but only having them extend their arm. So that's the only place you can attack. And then let me show that demonstration. It's like, are we cherry picking what we want to show here? It just, it was crazy. And again, Elena will explain it far better than I probably am, but it was one of the biggest takeaways this week.

• 9:06Annie Elise?

  We also know, right after that expert took the stand, the Commonwealth rested their case. And that means they're done presenting their evidence, they're done presenting their case. They will, of course, do cross examination on the defense's witnesses, but they had rested their case. So now the defense is up and they started their case two day. They started it right now. It's going down as we speak. Somebody who a lot of the chat is calling data daddy is on the stand. And I'm just, sorry, it's just people come up with the funniest names, like crash daddies for the Arco reconstruction experts. Now data daddy for this guy who's talking about all of the data and the triggering event in the car.

• 9:49Annie Elise?

  And I mean, it's just this case, again, it's so polarizing and people are involved for a multitude of reasons. But anyway, so the defense has officially now begun their case and they're expected to present their case anywhere from a week and a half to two weeks. So it seems like within the next couple of weeks, it's fair to assume we will then be going to verdict watch. So as I said, their first expert was up and data daddy, he's like talking about the triggering events, which Elena will go into in more detail. And they're putting on their case. Now they still are saying no comment when it comes to if they're going to call Michael Proctor as a witness, Brian Albert, Brian Higgins, they haven't definitively said yes or no either way.

• 10:33Annie Elise?

  I don't know if that's because they truly are undecided, or if it's because they don't want to give the Commonwealth the jump of knowing that they're not calling them. They're like, they don't want to give away their strategy, right? So, we will see what happens, but as I said in my recap last week, I wouldn't be surprised if they don't call Michael Proctor, because right now, they've already been able to enter in so much of the shadiness of Michael Proctor. The fact that he was fired, the fact that he was the lead investigator, and he's like disgraced now. His horrific text messages where he called Karen a "see you next Tuesday", and made fun of her body, where he texted how he didn't come across any nude photos yet. They've already entered that in.

• 11:13Annie Elise?

  So, the jury already would have this, these preconceived notions of who Michael Proctor is, right? Which is great for the defense. If they call him, it's almost as though you allow a door to open, to where maybe he can somehow elicit a little bit of sympathy, or explain away his actions just enough to where the jury doesn't have such a horrible picture of him. So, it depends what their strategy is. Is it too risky to bring him in? Maybe, I've heard that they also are going to bring in some of the people that Michael Proctor had text messaged, and like, have them read the text messages, similar to how they had Bukkeneck read Higgins' text messages with Karen. So, we'll see how all of that goes.

• 11:57Annie Elise?

  But, they haven't announced formally, at least as of this recording, if they will call any of them as witnesses. We know that we will see the ARCA experts. We, I'm sure, will see a few of the people who were involved in the investigation, that the state hadn't already called. But, it's going to be interesting to see where this goes, because we already had done, of course, some of those mass polls of where everybody's sitting. And, I think the highest percentage that we ever got of the public thinking Karen Reed is guilty was about 10%, give or take. And, now, that was when the Commonwealth was putting their best foot forward, putting on their case.

• 12:39Annie Elise?

  So, now that the defense is coming in, and they're putting on their case, will it look like they're grasping at straws? And will that percentage increase? Or will that percentage decrease? Because they're now hearing so much more about it that had not been yet entered in through the Commonwealth. It'll be interesting to see and I'm curious still where you guys sit with all of this. So I don't know if this week changed any of your opinions or if you are still undecided. I have been saying for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks, and I'm going to say it one more time, but I have changed my mind a little bit. I've been saying for weeks that I am in my third bucket, which I say, I don't know what happened at 34 Fairview, but I believe that there is too much reasonable doubt to convict

• 13:24Annie Elise?

  Karen Reed. I also with that will just add on kind of like a caveat to that. I don't think she has, should have ever been charged with murder too. In no world on any planet should that charge have happened, in my opinion. Manslaughter, if they truly thought she hit him by accident, I understand that. But anyway, I've been in the bucket of, I think there is way too much reasonable doubt to convict her for months now, you could call it. I'm now starting to teeter a little bit more towards, I don't want to say framed, although I guess that would be the root of it, but I'll just say not guilty. Because it's very difficult for me, and I've been upfront with this from day one, it's

• 14:08Annie Elise?

  very difficult for me to jump full stop to a 20 person conspiracy, all sorts of collusion, all sorts of cover up, things like that. It's just, it happens, I know it happens, but it's difficult for me objectively to just like rationalize that and think that that is possible. But the more and more I'm seeing certain things come out and the experts that the Commonwealth is bringing in and looking at the data and looking at what we know, which maybe the jury doesn't know about the basement floors being redone, jackhammering cement out of the basement, the Colin Alber and the history there, the injuries don't add up, people's stories have

• 14:51Annie Elise?

  changed, there has been so much destruction and cover up with cell phones being disposed of the day after they were told that they needed to not destroy their phones. There's been basement floors being redone a year after they had already done them. There's been a house being sold under market value, the dog being rehomed, so many things to where I'm like. It's hard for me, yeah, to believe a conspiracy happened, but what else would you call this? What else is going on? It would just be a laundry list of coincidences if it's not something bigger. So I'm not full stop, full bore in that camp yet, but I would say I'm somewhere in between 100% too much reasonable doubt to convict, but also now

• 15:34Annie Elise?

  teetering more to just like not, not even, it's not even the reasonable doubt of why you shouldn't convict her. It's because she's not guilty. So I'll keep you updated too, as my opinion shifts and moves while the defense is putting their case on, because I'm trying to be as objective as I possibly can, just like a juror would be, and hear everything and make my, come to my own conclusions. So my opinion could very well change Monday. It could change Wednesday. I don't know. And I have no problem being transparent and letting you know where my opinion sits as it moves around. So that's where I'm at. But anyway, this was a freaking really long intro to the recap. So I'm going to shut up now. I'm going to pass it over to Elena and she's going to break down everything that went down this week and then I will come back over here with you.

• 16:17Annie Elise?

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• 17:31Speaker 04

  Hey Annie, great to see you again. Now, we finally started the sixth week of the retrial on Tuesday, after that long five-day break. The prosecution called their 38th and final witness, Dr. Judson Welch. He's like the prosecution's grand finale, if you will. Now, like Shannon Burgess from last week, Welch also works for the accident reconstruction firm Aperture. Now, maybe after everything came out about Burgess's credentials, or "lack thereof," should we say, people might be skeptical of anyone from Aperture, but it does seem to me that Welch is actually qualified. You know, he has his PhD, it's in biomedical engineering from USC. And on direct examination, Dr. Welch testified about three main topics.

• 18:16Speaker 04

  The first had to do with data that he recovered from Karen's SUV. He said that the "event data recorder," or what we might know as the "black box," it didn't show any collision on the night of the incident. But he said that that doesn't actually mean that the car didn't hit John, because the "black box" generally only records collisions between two cars, not a car and a pedestrian. He also testified to a specific trigger event on that car around 12:32 a.m. During this event, he determined that Karen's car went forward 34 feet, and then accelerated as it backed up 53 feet. And at the end of that 10-second maneuver, he said the car was at 74% throttle and moving at at least 23 miles an hour.

• 19:01Speaker 04

  Now, using the clock syncing analysis done by Shannon Burgess, Dr. Welch then calculated the time of this back-up maneuver, to be between 12:32 a.m. and 4 seconds, and 12:32 a.m. and 12 seconds, which he says is within the window when John's phone was last used. Now, I did find this area of Dr. Welch's testimony to be credible, but it's also worth noting that a good part of his conclusions rely on that analysis from Burgess. So if you don't believe what Burgess said last week about syncing clocks, we might have a sort of snowball effect and we have to start questioning some of Welch's conclusions.

• 19:38Speaker 04

  Then Dr. Welcher's second main area of testimony takes us back to that Ring camera video that shows Karen pulling out of John's driveway to look for him at around 5:00 a.m. on the morning of the incident. That's the video that shows her bumping John's car with her right taillight. And of course, it's the defense's position that that's when she broke the taillight, not five hours earlier when allegedly crashing into John. But Dr. Welcher disagreed. He testified about the great lengths he went through to analyze that Ring camera video, and that included tracking the cars frame by frame, enhancing the video, and using this like laser grid type system. It was a lot. And in the end, he said that while John's car and Karen's car did make contact, quote,

• 20:23Speaker 04

  "That impact did not break or crack that taillight." About John's car, he said, quote, "So sure, it knocked the snow off, but it wasn't sufficient to cause damage to his vehicle." And furthermore, he said that he saw nothing in the snow after Karen's car left the driveway. And finally, Welcher gave his opinion about how John's injuries were caused. And to do this, Welcher purchased a Lexus identical to Karen's, and he put himself quite literally in John's shoes. Now Welcher is a similar height and weight to John, so he decided to play the role of John in this series of reenactments. And to really drive home the point, he also tracked down copies of the same shirt, jeans,

• 21:06Speaker 04

  hoodie, hat, and sneakers that John was wearing on the night of his death. And I get that as a scientist, Welcher wants to recreate that scene as closely as possible, but I think cosplaying as a dead man, a potential murder victim, I don't know, it was a little odd. Maybe that's just me. Now, in this reenactment, Welcher smeared some blue paint on the right taillight of his model Lexus, and then allowed it to drive into his body at around two miles per hour. And he showed that if the car hits him at this particular angle, his body sort of spins out, I think, and he called it a pirouette. And Matilde ends up hitting his right arm right around where John had those cuts.

• 21:47Speaker 04

  And he also testified that the Lexus bumper would line up with the scrape to John's knee, and the rear spoiler would line up with the cut to John's right eye. Now, the obvious issue here is, well, you just said the car was going at 23 miles per hour, but you did your reenactment at 2 miles per hour. So how accurate could that really be? Now, he did clarify and said that pedestrian injuries can be really difficult to model. So he said he wasn't trying to exactly replicate the accident, and just show one possible way that the injuries could have occurred. Then, when asked if colliding with John's arm would produce enough force to break Karen's taillight, Welter said that it would, as long as the car was moving at at least 8 miles an hour.

• 22:32Speaker 04

  Welter also showed videos of dropping a test dummy backwards to show how John's head could have hit the ground. And he testified that skull fractures can happen from heights as low as 40 inches, and John was much taller at about 73 inches. Welter also went on to explain the difference between a regular head-on collision and a glancing or sideswipe-type collision, where the body is actually struck at an angle. And he said that in these sideswipe collisions, the pedestrians will often move, or take a step, or do something to regain their balance, which can cause the bodies to ultimately be found further away from the collision than you might expect. Then, when he was asked if it's uncommon for a sideswipe victim to not have any injuries to the lower body,

• 23:16Speaker 04

  Welter said, quote, "No, it's not uncommon. You could definitely have this type of impact and not have anything beyond, say, red marks in lower extremities," end quote. Now, based on all this, Welter concluded that Karen did hit John with her car. But after several sidebars and arguments from the lawyers, he was forced to change his position and say that the damage to the Lexus is consistent with hitting John, and that John's injuries are consistent with being hit by the Lexus. But he's not allowed to explicitly say that Karen hit John with her car.

• 23:52Speaker 04

  Now if everything Welcher said is true, you have to admit this is pretty damning evidence against Karen. But she seemed less than impressed with his testimony. She said, quote, "He backed into himself at 2.2 or something miles per hour. So we tried to dress identically to John, but didn't do anything else to mimic what the Commonwealth is accusing me of," end quote. Now after direct examination, cross started up on Wednesday, the 28th. I've talked before about witnesses who are tough to watch on cross. Witnesses who just never want to give the other side an inch. Jen McCabe comes to mind, Yuri Bukinik is another one, but Dr. Welcher might just take the cake for most difficult cross. He and Alessi were going in circles, he would snap at Alessi.

• 24:36Speaker 04

  At one point, he refused to close his laptop during questioning, and he would respond in this kind of snotty, "I'm better than you" kind of way. It was a lot. Now, like I've said before, I don't necessarily think this means he's lying. And in fact, if you lean towards more the prosecution side, you actually might think it's a good thing that the witnesses are really resistant to the defense. But my gosh, is it difficult to listen to. And in my opinion, witnesses who are more willing to consider the other side's point of view, even if that means conceding some of their points, I think those witnesses come across as more forthcoming and trustworthy. I don't know if that's how the jury will see it, but that's my view. I think of Dr.

• 25:20Speaker 04

  Scorti Bello, Ian Whiffen to some extent, most people from the crime lab. Those, to me, were prosecution witnesses who, yes, they stood by their findings, but they were willing to admit, you know, the areas of ambiguity or other possibilities, at least to some extent. And I personally found them more credible than Jen, than Yuri, and definitely than Dr. Welcher. So after all that, what actually happened on cross? Well, first, Alessi took issue with Welcher's claim that he, quote, "doesn't have a dog in this fight," because it turns out that his firm was paid almost $400,000 by the prosecution for this testimony. And that sounds like a pretty expensive dog to me.

• 26:01Speaker 04

  Alessi then asked Welter to do some calculations to figure out how much force it would take to break or fracture a bone in John's hand. Now Alessi and Welter, they went back and forth for a long time about this, again, almost painful, but in the end, Welter admitted that if John's hand had hit a specific part of the car, like the exhaust pipe, the license plate cover, or even the corner of the taillight, he said that it's possible that enough force could be generated to fracture the hand. Alessi and Welter also argued if it were reasonable or possible for Karen's car to have either hit one of those parked cars at 34 Fairview, or have driven up the lawn during this alleged backup maneuver.

• 26:43Speaker 04

  And again, after a lot of squabbling, Welter eventually said it was possible, but he couldn't say for sure without knowing where the car started when doing that backup maneuver. Then the questioning turned to John's arm injuries. Welter again said that his blue paint experiments were done at a much slower speed than the car was actually moving. And he admitted that he doesn't know several variables that could be important, like the exact speed of the car at the time of the collision, John's exact position on the road, John's posture, and where John was relative to the car. Now, on the subject of John's position, Alessi did make a good point that I hadn't thought about until he brought it up. Welter said that John's body was found about seven feet into the yard at 34 Fairview,

• 27:28Speaker 04

  while Karen's car was obviously on the road. And the height difference between the road and the lawn, meaning, you know, the height of the curb that would separate the two, it's about four inches. And Welter didn't account for that when he did the injury reenactments because he was hit while he was still standing on the road flush with the car. Also, under Welter's theory, John's arm would have to maintain some contact with the moving car for some time to create those big cuts. But he admitted that he doesn't have enough information to figure out exactly how long that contact would be. Now, as for the injuries to John's head, Alessi took issue with Welch's direct testimony that head injuries are the most common injuries in pedestrian collisions.

• 28:10Speaker 04

  Apparently, the study that Welch used to make that claim was published 45 years ago in 1979.

• 28:18Speaker 04

  And to give some context to where that falls in the history of car safety, that's actually well before seatbelts were even required by law. And according to Alessi, more modern studies show that now, with improved safety, injuries to the lower extremities are actually the most common injuries in pedestrian collisions, and we know John didn't have any of those. Then cross-examination continued into Thursday, after Judge Canoni ruled that the defense cannot question Dr. Welch about findings from Dr. Scorti Bello or Trooper Joseph Paul, even though Welch referenced both of those people in his PowerPoint presentation.

• 28:55Speaker 04

  Now, like I said, cross on Wednesday was hard to listen to. Cross on Thursday might have been even worse. We had a little informal survey going on in the livestream chat about the craziest cross-examinations of this trial. The choices I gave were Jen McCabe, Yuri Bukanik, Shannon Burgess, and Judge and Welch. And on Wednesday, Burgess had the most votes by far. But by the end of the day Thursday, almost everyone had changed their vote to Welch being, you know, the craziest, cringiest cross. At one point, even Alessi lost his cool, and he's usually very even-tempered. Alessi said something like, "Judge, he keeps saying I'm doing something with my hand. I'm not doing anything with my hand. Make him stop." It was, it was really bad, honestly. They sounded like two preteens arguing.

• 29:40Speaker 04

  And I say this as a fan of Alessi. It was really hard to watch on both sides, in my opinion.

• 29:47Speaker 04

  So anyway, what actually happened in the cross? Well, Welch admitted that the Ring camera that he analyzed at John's house in October of 2024 and used for his testing, that camera, he said, was different than the Ring camera that actually filmed the contact between Karen and John's car in January 2022. And Welch admitted that one camera was angled slightly more to the right than the other. But he argued that his laser grid system was able to account for that difference. But he also admitted that he didn't actually measure the difference specifically between the two cameras, nor did he even know the make and model of either camera to be able to really compare them.

• 30:27Speaker 04

  Alessia also asked about the hydraulic suspension system on Karen's Lexus, specifically the distance between the body of the car and the ground. Alessia argued that that distance can vary by as much as five inches on this particular model of Lexus. So he asked Welch what suspension height was used during the blue paint testing. And Welch didn't know and eventually admitted that he just assumed it was the same height it was when the car was with the police department. Now, after that painful cross-examination, the prosecution played a final interview clip from Karen's ID docu-series. I'm going to read the entire quote because I think it's important. This is essentially the final words that the prosecution is leaving with the jury before their closing statements. In the clip, Karen says, quote,

• 31:12Speaker 04

  "So I thought, could I run him over? Did he try to get me as I was leaving and I didn't know it? I've always got my music blasting. It's snowing, I've got the wipers going, the heater blasting. Did he come and hit the back of my car and I hit him in the knee and he was drunk and passed out and asphyxiated or something? And then when I hired David Yunetti, I asked him those questions. The night of January 29th, like, David, what if, I don't know, what if I ran over his foot? What if I clipped him in the knee and he passed out? Or went to care for himself and threw up and passed out? And David said, yeah, then you would have some element of culpability." End quote. Then after that clip, we got the all-important announcement that we were all waiting for.

• 31:56Speaker 04

  The Commonwealth has rested their case. After six long weeks, 38 witnesses, over 100 pieces of evidence, and who knows how many of those interview clips, the prosecution is done, except for their closing statement, of course, and if they bring back rebuttal witnesses. So what do we think of the prosecution's case overall? In my opinion, I don't think they did a great job of proving the second-degree murder charge. I think they have very little evidence that if a collision did occur, it was intentional. Now, they did try to introduce some motive by arguing that Karen could have been jealous, you know, showing those text messages of Karen asking John if he was seeing someone else. But overall, I think very little to show murder. And I do expect the jury to vote not guilty on murder.

• 32:42Speaker 04

  Then that other charge that's very rarely mentioned, that's the leaving the scene of a collision resulting in death charge. I also don't think that was very well proven, because to find her guilty of that, the jury would have to find that Karen knew John was injured or killed at the time of this collision, and knowingly chose not to help him. And I don't think we saw too much evidence of that. Again, if a collision did occur, I don't think there's much evidence that Karen knew about it at the time. Now, on the other hand, manslaughter, I think it's a totally different story. I know there's a large group of people who think that the prosecution has nothing, and they're expecting, you know, a quick not guilty verdict for manslaughter. And I actually don't agree.

• 33:25Speaker 04

  I might be in the minority here, but I do think the prosecution has presented a decent case for manslaughter. Now, I'm not saying that I personally believe she did it, or that the jury should find her guilty. I don't think that at all, actually. But what I'm saying is that I think there's a case here, and I think it could go either way, guilty or not guilty. But I certainly don't think that the deliberation will be quick or a landslide. I think the jury's gonna have a lot to consider here, and I think it's gonna come down to these fine details. How they weigh the credibility of Aperture versus Arca, how they weigh, say, that taillight evidence against the sketchiness of Proctor, how they weigh an investigative statement, like, "Could I have hit him?", how do you weigh that against a declarative statement,

• 34:08Speaker 04

  like, "I hit him, I hit him, I hit him"? I think all of those things are gonna come into play, and I think it's gonna be close. Then the defense officially kicked off their case on Friday, the 30th. And they opened with a motion outside of the jury's presence for a required finding of not guilty on the charges of second-degree murder and leaving the scene of a collision resulting in death. And they mentioned some of the same elements that I just talked about, particularly that the Commonwealth didn't seem to show any intent from Karen's part to cause John's death. Now, saying a required finding of not guilty does sound pretty dramatic, but it's actually pretty common for defenses to do, especially in these high-stakes murder cases, and they do it after the prosecution rests, and they do it also knowing that it'll probably be

• 34:53Speaker 04

  denied, but it keeps the door open for an appeal later down the road. Now, of course, this was denied, but it was pretty cool to hear Alan Jackson argue why the charges should be dropped, because it was kind of like a preview to the points that we can expect to hear during the defense's case and closing arguments. After the motion was denied, the defense called their very first witness, Matthew DeSogra, who works for the accident reconstruction firm, Delta V. Now, just like Shannon Burgess and Judge John Welcher, DeSogra is primarily being called for the purpose of establishing when Karen's car did that backup maneuver, and how that time compares to when John's phone was last used. And the defense was clever about this. They didn't have DeSogra really do any of his

• 35:37Speaker 04

  own testing or measurements or anything, but they actually had him review reports from Burgess and Welcher and point out some holes in them. And I say that's clever because this way, they don't have to actually show that DeSogra's measurements or methods or analysis are any better than Aperture's, because he's using their own data. He's taking the prosecution's own reports and saying, "Here's what your experts didn't get right about them." Now, to really boil down DeSogra's testimony, he took data from both of Burgess's two reports, as well as Welcher's slides, and he compared or displayed every possible scenario that they came up with. Now, what do I mean by "every possible scenario"? Well, Aperture did the clock syncing between

• 36:20Speaker 04

  the Lexus and John's phone in two different ways. They did it by looking at phone call logs and also data from a three-point turn. And then there's also this issue of the time difference between pushing the button to start the car and when the infotainment center in the car actually powers up. And there's some debate over what that delay is and how it should be accounted for when syncing the two clocks. So basically, what DeSogra did was list out every possible combination of clock syncing values that you could possibly get from either doing the phone call log method or the three-point turn method, and then either considering or not considering this key-on delay.

• 37:03Speaker 04

  And by doing that, DeSogra ends up with 30 possible values for the time difference between these two clocks. And he argued that basically all of the 30 are equally valid. There's no scientific reason to think that one or some of these 30 are any more likely to have occurred than any others. Now, assuming that John's phone was last used at 12:32 a.m. and 9 seconds, it turns out that 25 of these 30 possible values would mean that John's phone was last used after Karen's backup maneuver. Two of the possible values would mean that John's phone was last used at the same time as Karen's backup maneuver.

• 37:44Speaker 04

  And only three of the 30 possible values, 10%, would mean that John's phone was last used before Karen's backup maneuver. Now, remember, this is based off Aperture's own data. The prosecution's own reports show that 25 of the 30 possible values would mean that John's phone continued to be used after Karen's car backed up. And the last point on Direct is that DeSogra said that there was no evidence of Karen's car being in any sort of collision on the night of the incident. No evidence on the airbag control module, and no evidence in the tech stream data. Now, I do want to say, throughout my recaps, I've tried to steer clear of commenting on the judge too much.

• 38:26Speaker 04

  But even I've got to say, she was not making it easy for the defense here. There were like 25, maybe even 30 objections that were sustained just during the first direct examination. And sometimes an objection would come and be sustained before Jackson could really even get his question out. And then on Cross, we definitely got to see a different side of Brennan from the prosecution. Remember, Brennan spent most of his career as a defense attorney, so Cross is probably where he has the most experience. And we definitely got to see his feisty side, shall we say. He first got DeSogra to admit that he's not saying that Karen's car never got into a collision on the night of the incident.

• 39:08Speaker 04

  He's just saying that none of the tech stream data events were triggered by a collision. And DeSogra also admitted that he's not an expert in mobile forensics, nor did he conduct any independent testing in this case. We know he just analyzed and critiques reports from others. And then Brennan takes DeSogra down several paths about different assumptions that he might have made when doing the analysis. Like, for example, what if he incorrectly assumed that some of the phone call logs used for the syncing were between the Lexus call system and an iPhone instead of between just two iPhones? And the conclusion here is that yes, if there were incorrect assumptions made, or if there were errors in the data set,

• 39:51Speaker 04

  the data set that was made by the prosecution's experts, by the way, then yes, then some of the 30 variance values should be excluded from that list of possibilities. But it doesn't change the overall conclusion that the vast majority of these possible clock sync values do show John's phone being used after the backup maneuver. Now, despite what the prosecution established during cross, I do want to point something out about DeSogra that I think could make his testimony go far in the minds of the jury. Something that's completely separate from credibility, separate from how many degrees someone has, all that stuff. And that's understandability. Now, I think that compared to Welch and Burgess, DeSogra's testimony was much more digestible to a non-expert,

• 40:36Speaker 04

  to a regular person on the jury. His slides were cleaner, his answers were shorter and more straightforward. And I do think the defense had a good way of asking questions in a way that, you know, there was a line of logic to follow. And I think that understandability, digestibility, things like that, those are really powerful tools in a case that's this complicated. I think even if you lean towards the prosecution, even if you don't like what DeSogra has to say, if he can say it in a way that makes sense, that's clean, that's straightforward, I think that can go far. Then at the end of the day, we heard brief arguments from the lawyers outside of the jury's presence about whether Michael Proctor's friend should be called as a witness

• 41:21Speaker 04

  so that the defense can introduce into evidence those text messages that Proctor sent to his friends about the case without actually calling Proctor himself. But we don't know the judge's ruling on this issue quite yet. Now, the defense is set to continue first thing on Monday morning. And remember, the defense is only expected for their case to last about a week or two. And that's actually not uncommon. It doesn't mean that the defense doesn't have a strong case. For example, Casey Anthony's team only had about six days of testimony for the defense compared to 18 days during the prosecution, and we know how that worked out. Not to say that Casey and Karen are the same in any way, but just drives home the point that a long case doesn't necessarily mean a good one. But anyway, all of this means that we're quickly approaching the end,

• 42:07Speaker 04

  but there's still a lot of questions to be answered. Like, will the judge allow him these text messages from Proctor's friend? And if not, will the defense be forced to call Proctor himself? What about Brian Higgins? Brian Albert? Still a lot to come, and I can't wait to see you guys next week to break it all down. Thanks, Annie.

• 42:24Annie Elise?

  Guys, I just love when Elena joins because she is so well spoken and she just breaks it down like so clearly, right? So, that's where we're at this week. Next week is going to continue with the defense putting on their case. We will see what other witnesses they call. And let me know what you guys think. Let me know in the Spotify section on Q and A, or in the Apple section, in the review section, or on YouTube in the comments. Alright guys, I'll be back with you next week, and I have a brand new deep dive coming for you Monday. It's a wild one. It's a name that I never thought I was going to be uttering again, but here I am, I'm talking about it. And when I just say, the audacity of this woman, it is, I don't even want to say unhinged or unbalanced, it is like, I don't know,

• 43:10Annie Elise?

  diabolical, but in a whole sense of unhinged. And that makes no sense, right? It's like an unhinged diabolical sandwich, but that is who I believe this woman to be. So, we are going to be back talking about her in a very big way on Monday. Stay tuned for that. Alright guys, thank you so much for tuning in, and until the next one, be nice, don't kill people, don't use any blue paint during your reenactment. And I don't know, don't go to waterfall club. Definitely don't do that. Just stay away from all of them as err on the side of caution. Alright guys, bye.

• 44:13Speaker 05

  Having lots of choices sounds like it would be great. Who doesn't want more flavors of ice cream? It turns out, the answer is us. Too many choices can make us anxious, overwhelmed. I'm Shankar Vedantam, host of the Hidden Brain Podcast and YouTube channel. Each week, Hidden Brain brings you fascinating, science-backed insights about human behavior. So the next time you have to choose, choose Hidden Brain on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or hiddenbrain.org.

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