Commonwealth v. Read — Trial Archive
Person Shanon Burgess Trial 2Shanon Burgess is a digital forensics expert retained by the prosecution who testified about recovering previously missed data from Karen Read’s Lexus infotainment SD card, establishing vehicle power timestamps and clock variance relative to John O’Keefe’s iPhone. ← All People
🔬 Expert Witness · Aperture LLC

Shanon Burgess

Trial 2
1,510 lines 6 proceedings
Courtroom still of Shanon Burgess.

About

Shanon Burgess, founder of Aperture LLC, was engaged by the Commonwealth as a digital forensics expert to conduct a supplemental examination of the Lexus LX 570's infotainment system. His analysis focused on an SD card overlooked in the initial extraction, from which he recovered vehicle power-on and power-off timestamps and calculated a 21-to-29-second clock variance between the Lexus's internal clock and O'Keefe's iPhone. Burgess also responded to what he characterized as a potentially misleading clock synchronization analysis by the defense's expert, offering his own methodology as a corrective. His testimony spanned two trial days and drew extensive cross-examination that probed his credentials, methodology, and the circumstances surrounding a mid-trial supplemental report.

Key Points

  • Burgess testified that the initial forensic examination of the Lexus infotainment system by Maggie Gaffney had missed data stored on an SD card within the infotainment module — data he later recovered and used to establish a series of vehicle power-on timestamps spanning from 12:12 a.m. through a 5:34 p.m. event coinciding with tow truck arrival.
  • On cross-examination, defense attorney Robert Alessi demonstrated that Burgess's October 2024 protocol — the foundational document challenging Gaffney's chip-off acquisition — contained a fundamental error: Burgess had confused megabits and megabytes, undermining the technical basis for his critique of the earlier forensic work. Burgess acknowledged the error after initially characterizing it as a misinterpretation.
  • Alessi confronted Burgess with materials from his company's LinkedIn profile, website biography, and a linked CV, all of which listed a Bachelor of Science degree that Burgess confirmed under oath he does not hold. Burgess's LinkedIn hyperlink to the Aperture website was disabled within 72 hours of the defense viewing it.
  • Alessi introduced a CV filed in a Texas federal court case bearing Burgess's name that listed a nonexistent 'Bachelor of General Science' degree without the 'currently pursuing' qualifier that appeared in CVs filed with the Massachusetts court — a distinction that formed the centerpiece of the recross examination on Day 19.
  • On redirect, prosecutors established that Burgess did not personally file the Texas CV and that it listed a 2024 expected graduation date when filed in 2023, offering context for the credential discrepancy Alessi had highlighted.

Trial Record (6)

Trial 2 Retrial Apr 22, 2025 – Jun 18, 2025 6 proceedings

Day 18

Direct Shanon Burgess Hank Brennan 5 highlights 335 lines spoken
Summary

Digital forensics expert Shanon Burgess testifies about recovering previously unacquired data from the Lexus infotainment SD card, identifying infotainment power on/off timestamps, and calculating clock variance between the Lexus and John O'Keefe's iPhone.

Highlights (5)
Quote

“So initial impressions were that data was missed from the initial download.”

Records Burgess's initial impression, which he later testified resulted from a capital-B/lowercase-b notation error and corrected through further review; it does not establish that Gaffney failed to recover available data from the three chips.

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Quote

“So at that point I concluded that the data that we were missing was most likely stored on this SD card.”

Identifies the overlooked SD card on the infotainment module as the source of critical missing timestamp data.

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Quote

“There was a claim of attempting to synchronize those two clocks that I believed was potentially misleading.”

Burgess said he viewed a clock-synchronization claim in a PowerPoint presentation as potentially misleading; he later identified that presentation as Mr. Dogra's, rather than a Whiffin report.

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Quote

“The clock variance is between 21 and 29 seconds.”

Quantifies Burgess's stated variance between the Lexus internal clock and O'Keefe's iPhone. Applied to the second TechStream event, the resulting range concerns the end of its 10-second capture window, not necessarily the entire backing event.

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Cross Shanon Burgess Robert Alessi 3 highlights 497 lines spoken
Summary

Defense attorney Alessi challenged Burgess's degree representations, capacity-conversion errors affecting three chips in his protocol, and the timing and basis of his mid-trial supplemental report.

Highlights (3)
Quote

“This would be the only one that I recall.”

Burgess said this was the only midtrial supplemental report he recalled in about 10 years; he explained that a March presentation prompted additional analysis.

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Day 19

Cross Shanon Burgess Robert Alessi 2 highlights 312 lines spoken
Summary

Defense attorney Alessi continues cross-examining digital forensics expert Shanon Burgess, challenging his timeline accuracy, methodology choices, and the significance of TechStream trigger events.

Highlights (2)
Quote

“That adjustment is the only adjustment that can be applied due to the data.”

Burgess concedes the three-point turn method is the only way to place the TechStream event after the phone lock, though he frames it as a data limitation rather than bias.

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Redirect Shanon Burgess Hank Brennan 5 highlights 305 lines spoken
Summary

Prosecution rehabilitates Burgess on redirect, addressing credential criticism and defending his clock synchronization methodology over defense expert Dogra's approach.

Highlights (5)
Quote

“No one. My job is to assist the jury. Assisting the jury means presenting all the information.”

Burgess asserts independence from prosecution influence, countering defense suggestions of bias.

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Quote

“So those timestamps are not coming from the vehicle. They're coming from Mrs. Read's iPhone — or the defendant's iPhone.”

Burgess distinguished early call rows recorded while the Lexus was off, which he said reflected iPhone-to-iPhone timestamps, from later powered-on infotainment-to-iPhone comparisons. He said the later times were accurate, agreed with a 5:00 a.m. calculation, but considered it temporally distant from the 12:30 period at issue.

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Quote

“GPS point 154 is a GPS point that occurs just before the three-point turn starts.”

Directly contradicts Dogra's use of GPS 154 as representing the end of the three-point turn, which was the foundation of one of Dogra's variance calculations.

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Quote

“That is 21 to 29 seconds.”

Burgess's final clock variance opinion, placing the adjusted Techstream backing event at 12:32:04-12:32:12 on O'Keefe's phone clock — overlapping with the 12:32:09 last user interaction.

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Quote

“So again, the Techstream event ends somewhere between 12:32:04 and 12:32:12. But that does not represent that the backing maneuver has ended — just the recorded data has ended.”

Places the 12:32:09 last user interaction within the adjusted 12:32:04-to-12:32:12 Techstream recorded-data-end range. Burgess said the end of that recording window did not determine when the backing maneuver ended.

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Recross Shanon Burgess Robert Alessi 2 highlights 52 lines spoken
Summary

Robert Alessi confronts Shanon Burgess with a federal court filing from a Texas case containing an incorrect CV line without the 'currently pursuing' qualifier; Burgess later said he neither submitted nor saw the document before it was filed.

Highlights (2)
Quote

“Sure. So that is an error. Clearly, BGS stands for bachelor of general studies, and that should have "with minor in mathematics and business administration."”

Burgess described the listed title as an error, explaining that BGS stands for Bachelor of General Studies and that the line should identify minors in mathematics and business administration.

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Quote

“Correct. Yes, it was.”

Burgess agreed that an incorrect statement about his educational background was filed in federal court after answering that he was not aware of such a filing; on re-redirect, he said he had neither submitted nor seen the document before filing.

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Redirect Shanon Burgess Hank Brennan 4 highlights 9 lines spoken
Summary

Hank Brennan conducted brief re-redirect establishing that Burgess did not personally file the Texas federal court CV and that it listed a 2024 expected graduation date when filed in 2023.

Highlights (4)
Quote

“As most people can probably relate, work, family, and life many times get in the way.”

Humanizes the incomplete degree — reframes it from credential fraud to relatable life circumstances

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Locations Touched By This Testimony

34 Fairview Road 1 proc Canton Police Department 1 proc