← Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Crash Expert Torches Prosecution Theory as Defense Rests | Karen Read Trial Day 31
00:19:55
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- [00:00]
Ashley Banfield
Foreign. Hey, everyone, I'm Ashley Banfield, and this is Drop dead Serious. It was day 31 in the second degree murder trial of Karen Reed, trial number two, and man, oh, man, Homestretch is an understatement. This morning, the courtroom picked right up where it left off, with defense crash expert Andrew Rentschler back on the stand. And it was a big day. The cross examination got heated, my friends. Hot. Like hot hot. And the defense rested their case, too. See what I mean by home stretch? I was not kidding. We have a lot to talk about, so let's get right into it. The jury was barely in their seats before the objections just started flying. Defense attorney Alan Jackson opened the day by asking his crash expert about a PowerPoint presentation that he made, one that outlined his analysis of what really happen to Boston police officer John o' Keefe. Alan Jackson tried to explain that the the point of Rentschler's investigation was to evaluate John o' Keefe's injuries and to test the prosecution's theory that Karen Reed's Alexis struck John O' Keefe. But special prosecutor Hank Brennan was not having it. He objected again and again to how the questions were being worded, and Judge Beverly Kanoni sided with him over and over again. In fact, within minutes, the courtroom was at sidebar. And when they came back, the witness, Andrew Rentschler did something kind of weird like, I've never seen this. He decided to take a moment right in front of the jury to wish his son A happy 10th birthday. I know it was odd, and let me just say this. The judge was not impressed, did not love it. But moving on, the expert walked the jury through his review of John o' Keefe's injuries, and what he found did not match with the prosecution's theory at all. He said John O' Keefe didn't have any lacerations on his arm, just 36 small, superficial scrapes. And that may not sound like a big deal, but rentschler.com told the jury it matters a lot. Scrapes aren't the same as cuts. And more importantly, there was no sign of any broken bones, no fractures, and no major trauma in John o' Keefe's arm. And then he turned to John Okeeffe's sweatshirt. According to the forensics report from a lab called Aperture, that's the firm that the state used, there were only nine holes in the right sleeve of John o' Keefe's sweatshirt. If John was scraped by the taillight like the prosecution claims, Mr. Rentschler said the injuries did not show it. He said, quote, if those abrasions came from the tail light, you'd need to see 36 separate points of contact, and they'd have to line up with the sweatshirt damage, but they do not. Then he took it a step further. Rentschler told the jury that he conducted his own crash test using an SUV just like Karen Reed's, and also a dummy designed to replicate the weight and the size of John O' Keefe. He said he ran the test at 29 mph, and when the dummy was hit squarely in the center of the body, what experts call center of mass, that result was significant. The dummy was launched backward in a straight line behind the vehicle, and the SUV suffered major rear end damage, way more than we saw on Karen's Lexus. So then came the big question from Ellen Jackson. Quote, did you form an opinion about whether John Okeefe's right arm could have fractured the tail light and caused the scrapes that we see in the autopsy? And Andrew Rentschler responded, quote, my opinion is that it is not consistent. If he had been hit that way at that speed, you'd expect broken bones, at the very least, fractures in the hand, probably the forearm, too. And as for the tail light fragments, Rentschler told the jury they couldn't have landed where they did if John o' Keefe was hit the way that prosecutors suggest. He explained it like this. Quote, if the taillight brakes and flies forward and John's body is moving diagonally in a different direction, he can't get to where he ends up before the glass hits the ground. In other words, the timelines and the physics just don't measure up. Those dummy tests that the defense Expert ran at 24 mph and then also at 29 mph also showed major leg damage, broken bones, trauma, bruising. But John o' Keefe had no injuries of the sort. No breaks, no bruises, just that one small scrape about a half centimeter wide. Rentschler said, quote, a vehicle at that speed doesn't leave a scratch. It causes real damage. And then he was asked about the idea that John o' Keefe might have just been sideswiped, maybe caught by the SUV's taillight on the arm and spun around and launched backward into the snow. Rentschler said, quote, it would not be possible. Our testing proves that. The research proves that. I've seen no evidence in this case, none that supports that theory, end quote. And then came the big question. Was there anything in the biomechanical evidence that supports the prosecution's version of events, that Karen Reed hit John o' Keefe and that the taillight and scrapes and the final position in the yard all line up. And Rentschler's answer was simple, Absolutely not. He also took aim at the state's crash report, specifically a 1979 article cited by Aperture that claimed head injuries were the most common result of pedestrian crashes. And this was interesting. Rentschler told the jury, quote, that is not accurate. The first modern SUV wasn't even made until 1984. This is a 46 year old article. It doesn't apply, end quote. And with that, the defense wrapped up its direct examination. When the jury returned from break, the prosecution took over. And yeah, things got heated fast. Special prosecutor Hank Brennan wasted no time challenging defense expert Andrew Rentschler's credibility. He said, quote, you have no idea where the point of impact was in this collision. Rentschler responded, nobody does. There's no evidence. Then Brennan began picking apart Rentschler's qualifications. He pointed out that it's been more than 20 years since Rentschler's studies were published and that they weren't even about car crashes. They were about wheelchairs and walkers. And a chapter in a book that he contributed to focused on smart tech for aging populations, not pedestrian accidents. Brennan demanded short yes or no answers from Rentschler, but Rentschler was not always playing along. And at one point, Rentschler laughed during an answer, and Brennan snapped back, is this funny? The defense objected, and Judge Kanoni said, Next question, Mr. Brennan. No more comments. But perhaps the strangest exchange of the day came when the prosecutor asked this expert about something seemingly small, a ham sandwich. The prosecutor pressed the defense expert on a lunch that he'd had with the defense team after his testimony in Karen Reed's first trial. Rentschler said he went to that lunch and had a ham sandwich. But what happened after that was an intense back and forth where the prosecutor was trying to suggest in front of this jury, this second trial jury, that the expert on the stand got real, real cozy with the defense at a lunch after his testimony in the first trial. Like, real, real cozy. And look, it wasn't very comfortable, but this expert kind of stuck by his guns, said, I ate the sandwich and I waited in the corner for a car ride and I left. And, you know, really honestly, instead of getting drama or scandal, he literally just told the jury, I went and I had a ham sandwich. The casualness of Rentschler's answer was so wildly mismatched with Brennan's intensity that it almost played like a scene from a dark comedy. Brennan kept pushing, trying to paint this lunch like it was some secret strategy session in Rentschler. It was just basically responding, dude, I ate a Sam. Dude, I ate a ham sandwich. Right? And finally, Brennan moved on. But look, that stuff's not lost in the jury. Like, you know, I guess, for what it's worth, the jury may have found it comedic, they may have found it annoying. They may have decided, I don't like this Brennan fella. They may have decided, I wonder what that lunch was about. It's just, you know, everybody can take it differently. It's why one guy's reasonable and the other guy's not. And your level of what's reasonable may be different than the guy beside you as what's reasonable. But who knows how they took it?
- [09:59]
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- [10:30]
Ashley Banfield
The prosecutor then brought up a test that was done by his own expert, Dr. Judson Welcher, a test where Welcher painted his arm blue and had an SUV like Karen's bump into him to simulate the crash. So the prosecutor asked this defense expert if he believed that the prosecution expert was trying to recreate the collision. And Rentschler said the test was meaningless to him because it didn't match the conditions of the actual event. And that's when the prosecutor got snippy. Quote, now that you've shared your opinions, can you get back to my question? And. Well, objection. Another warning from the judge. And another sidebar. And Brennan pushed the expert to admit that the prosecutor's expert never claimed to be replicating the exact conditions of the crash. And that without knowing the specifics of okeefes position or movement, there's no way to say for sure what happened. That's when the defense expert dropped this line. Quote, if you don't know that something occurred, how can you conclude that something actually concurred? It makes no sense. And the prosecutor jumped on that. So if an expert does a crash test but can't prove it matches the real collision, you Agree it wouldn't be reliable for the jury. And the defense objected. And another sidebar. But once they were back, Brennan asked if Rentschler even knew the angle of John Okeefe's arm when they ran their own defense tests. Rentschler's response was blunt. Quote, we have no information that he was even hit by the Lexus. And then the focus shifted to the taillight debris that was found at the scene. Brennan showed Rentschler a series of crime scene photos, pointing to the red plastic shards in the snow. Brennan asked, quote, when you were doing your ample study, did you look at this photo of this alleged taillight shard? And Rentschler said he was aware there was debris in the yard, but added, quote, if you can't prove the impact happened, then everything after that doesn't matter, does it? Because all that would be from something else. And then Brennan pulled up another photo, this one showing a second shard of red plastic lying in the snow. He asked, quote, did you consider this piece in your analysis? Rentschler didn't give a yes or no. Instead, he asked a question of his own. Quote, can you give me a precise distance? In other words, without knowing exactly where that shard was found in relation to John o' Keefe's body or the car or the rest of the scene, Rentschler said it would be meaningless to include it in a serious scientific analysis. And then came the moment that changed the energy in the room. Brennan asked, quote, who do you think put it there? Referring to the tail light shard in the picture. And Rentschler responded that he had no idea and he hadn't seen any evidence. And then Brennan asked, quote, do you have a theory that you want to share with us about planting evidence? Objection. Sustained. And special prosecutor Hank Brennan circled back with a few last questions. He asked if Rentschler could rule out the idea that John o' Keefe had stumbled, maybe tripped back backward, hit his head, perhaps? Brennan asked, quote, could a person get a foot caught on a curb, stagger backward, and then hit their head? Rentschler shrugged and said, quote, almost anything could happen. Someone could do somersaults, but there's no evidence of that. Brennan, quote, do you believe John o' Keefe did somersaults? Rentschler? No, I don't believe he was hit at all. End quote. And then came more questions about the evidence. Brennan asked about a piece of glass that was found in John o' Keefe's nose. Rentschler said he evaluated it and that it did not line up with an impact from a vehicle. Rentschler told the jury, quote, the shard can't come out, make a right hand turn, and then somehow embed itself on the left hand side of the nose during redirect. Karen's lawyer, Alan Jackson, followed up with a crucial detail about the plastic found in the yard. He asked, quote, were you aware that none of the plastic shown to you was found when John Okeefes body was first discovered or when the yard was first searched? Rentschler said yes, he knew that. Which brought the testimony back full circle. Back to the question the defense raised earlier. If Karen Reed's SUV caused those injuries and that debris came from her car, why wasn't any of it found in the first moments after John Okeefe's body was discovered? And Rentschler couldn't say when the debris showed up or how or who may have placed it there. But he was clear on one thing. If there was no collision, that plastic, the straw, the hat, the glass, none of it came from a crash. And with that, Andrew Rentschler got off the witness stand and the defense rested their case. So, yeah, when I said home stretch, I mean home stretch. And Judge Kanoni sent the jury home for the day. But of course, court was not over yet. Just because the jury's not there doesn't mean something's not going on the record. The prosecution told the court that they aren't planning to call any more witnesses. So guess what that means the prosecution's not going to actually hold a rebuttal case. And closing arguments are now scheduled for Friday of this week. And that's where we leave things. On day 31 of the Karen Reed trial. Tomorrow, the lawyers will return for what is called a charge conference. That's when they hash out the final instructions that the jury is going to hear before they begin deliberating. And it is dry as a bone, everybody. It's dry, dry, dry. However, it's super, super important because jury instructions can mean the difference between whether a jury understands what they're supposed to do or not. And I have seen cases collapse on jury instructions. Case in point, this particular case in trial number one, this jury got mixed up. They didn't know what to do. You know, the boxes were weird on the jury form. They weren't sure if they were supposed to check it and move on or not check it and not move on. And it actually caused what was a massive problem that went all the way to the Supreme Court. So, yeah, jury instructions are really, really important. So tomorrow, while very boring and dry will be really very important. That charge conference and those instructions critical. And there's still one big question hanging in the air. Will the jury get to see Andrew Renchler's PowerPoint? That was super debated, right. All throughout his testimony. The judge hasn't ruled on that yet, but both sides made their pitch before the court adjourned. So now we just wait. So now we wait. And the next time that jury is in the courtroom, it might just be for closing arguments. And after that, it's all about them. It's all about the jurors. So just step back for a minute. We haven't talked about Karen Reed for a while, but just think about what this is like for her. She's been sitting there the whole time, right, as these lawyers are going back and forth with the experts and the witnesses and the judges dealing with the objections. And Karen Reed, she's been sitting through it all. And now she could be days away from hearing what is in store for her for the rest of her life, right? For years, maybe decades in prison. Or maybe she walks out of this courtroom, back to her life, the, the life that, you know, the life she has now after all of this. Because it isn't the same as before John died, right? It's never going to be the same. Or could she be days away from another hung jury? And I don't know what would happen then, you know, that could bring untold possibilities. Could be another year or two. And the prosecution might say, I'll take a third round. I have covered cases before where there were three trials and it took three trials to convict the guy as a case in Canada, but it, it did work. The prosecutors got what they wanted, they got their conviction. So who knows? But, but imagine what Karen is thinking right now as she tries to go to sleep every night. And the inches that she is from the final decision on where she's going to be and what's going to happen to her. I'm Ashley Banfield. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, the truth isn't just serious, it's drop dead serious.