Judge Karen Reed Murder rejects motion to block key defense experts
Judge Beverly Canone refused a motion to stop Karen Reed from giving testimony on Tuesday in defense At the time of her retrial On the murder charges of the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend, John O’Keefe.
There were dozens of text messages between experts and defense attorneys at the ARCCA Crush Reconstruction Company, and missed the deadline for discovery, Cannone said he understood the prosecutor’s complaints but controlled anyway.
“I fully understand the federal debate, the ambush set here,” she said. “However, the defendant’s right to a fair trial is of paramount importance to everything, and therefore we allow ARCCA witnesses to testify.
Tuesday marks a week since the statement began, but the expert report is not expected to be finalized until May 7, more than two weeks after the trial began. Special Counsel Hank Brennan called the inequality to the state, but Canon denied his allegations that experts would block testimony.
Karen Reed listened to his testimony during his recovery from the murder at Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, Massachusetts on April 29, 2025. (via Libby O’Neill/The Boston Herald, AP, pool)
ARCCA experts are expected to bolster defense claims that Read’s SUV did not clash with O’Keefe.
Reed escapes the scene as he is charged with murder, manslaughter, and plows him along with Lexus, takes off and allegedly dies in a snowstorm. She pleaded not guilty.
Her first trial ended last year with a ju judge stuck.
Karen Reed and John O’Keefe (Karen Reed)
Earlier that day, Jennifer McCabe was a friend of O’Keefe, who was with him the night he died. I was reading When she found him at 6am in the snow during the Nor Easter, she testified about her friendship with O’Keefe and the eve of his death. She is expected to return to the stands on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, testimony continued from Ian Whiffin, a digital forensics expert who looked at both O’Keefe and McCabe’s mobile phones.
Based on location data, O’Keefe could have been within 34 Fairview Road in the early hours of January 29, 2022, with digital forensics expert Ian Whiffin testifying under cross-examination by defense attorney Robert Alessi.
Karen Reed’s ambulance admission will be the flash point in the second exam.
Celebrite digital intelligence expert Ian Whiffin testifies under cross-examination by defense during Karen Reed’s murder requiem at Karen Reed Superior Court in Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, Massachusetts on April 29, 2025. (via Libby O’Neill/The Boston Herald, AP, pool)
However, considering many other factors, including Apple’s health data, the temperature of the phone battery, and the feature called “Doppler” related to Face ID activity, his expert opinion is that O’Keefe stopped near the flagpole on the front lawn and did not move between about 12:30am and 6am.
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In one important exchange, Alessi asked Whiffin about the graphics that the prosecutors included in his report on location data that had not been shown to the ju apprentice as part of their timeline going on Monday.
The radius of the potential location indicated that O’Keefe’s phone might have been inside the house on 34 Fairview Road the night he died.
Karen Reed says he poured extra shots into the cocktail before John O’Keefe’s death
Defense attorney Robert Alessi cross-examination of Celebrite digital intelligence expert Ian Whiffin during Karen Reed’s murder requiring April 29, 2025. (via Libby O’Neill/The Boston Herald, AP, pool)
“So, according to your report, John O’Keefe’s phone could be at home for the next few hours, right?” Alessi asked.
“Based on low-precision information, yes,” Whiffin said.
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The richer photos allowed him to narrow it down, he said separately.
Alessi also had issues with the Whiffin test, which was conducted in December with freezer and phones placed outdoors. This showed a sharper temperature drop than that recorded on O’Keefe’s phone on January 29, 2022.
Special Counsel Hank Brennan questioned Celebrite’s digital intelligence expert Ian Whiffin on April 28, 2025. (PAT greenhouse/AP, Boston Glove via pool)
Whiffin also testified to McCabe’s quest for the phrase “hos (sic) for a long time to die in the cold.” O’Keefe was found at 6:23am and then at 2:27am, as the defense claimed.
He held a demonstration in court showing how a mobile phone’s database file can give the wrong timestamp along with Google searches.
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Whiffin testified that the 2:27 timestamp was related to when McCabe opened a new tab in the internet browser on his phone. However, no searches were made at that time. Instead, the search was done in the same tab a few hours later. His testimony supported the prosecutor’s timeline.
The trial was expected to take six to eight weeks. Tuesday marked its first week since the start of the launch statement on April 22nd.
Whiffin defended the findings of his timestamp and changes to the Cellebrite software, noting that if he was wrong, other forensics would have found them and released the findings.
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He also pointed to a similar case in Europe, saying it was resolved in the same way, with the same browser tab time stamp inconsistencies.